Literature of the Chthonic
Revolution:
Entry #1 of an ongoing Blog
Series
I’m a writer and
an English Lit student from way back, so when trying to think my way into a new
idea, I often create lists and clusters of authors whose work may fit with the theme.
I thought it would be interesting to start an ongoing series on the blog about
writers and literature that helps fill in bits and pieces of an evolving definition
of “chthonic” revolution.
So who’s first?
Despite a lot of authors who popped to mind, I kept coming back to Gerard
Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), English poet of the Victorian era and Jesuit
priest. For him the expression of god was in everything – shining through most
vividly in nature. Reading his poetry I came to the conclusion that his
personal vision of Christianity was of the mystical variety.
Although he is
famous for his praise of Nature in his poems, it isn’t that, or at least not
that alone, that makes me want to include him in my pantheon of Chthonic
writers—it is his language, the exquisite and exuberant music of his work which
conveys so much more that just the words themselves.
An example, from:
The
Windhover --
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn
Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level
underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps
smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My
heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the
mastery of the thing!
The
alliteration! The rhyming, chiming, echoing, driving and swooping cadences of
it! The poem doesn’t just tell you about the bird, doesn’t just describe the
bird … In the act of reading the poem, the reader becomes the bird.
Poet Denise
Levertov, in an amazing essay called, “Some Notes on Organic Form” (1965) states
that: “Form is never more than a revelation
of content”. The form of the poem, its sounds, cadences, shape, line-breaks,
are all part of the revelation of the subject matter. You can see from the
poem above that Hopkins is a great example of this. In fact, Levertov’s
thoughts were deeply influenced by Hopkins. Hopkins invented the word “Inscape” to
describe the inherent characteristics and qualities of an object (stones,
fences, people, shells, animals, angels) expressed in its form. But its
important to add that for Hopkins these forms are not static, they are in a
constant state of expression. The sunflower, the apple tree, you, me, the
windhover, the poem – we are all selving.
Here is a great
example of Inscape from Hopkin’s poem, As kingfishers catch fire --
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw
flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells,
each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its
name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I
came.
For Hopkins the ultimate drive of all life is this process of moving the inward outward - of bringing to form that which is our own unique pattern. And the poem has to catch not just the look of a thing but also that drive - the dynamic, ever-evolving manifestation of self.
So the connection to the Chthonic? ... more on that as we go! The blog is selving!
There are some
days when you just need to pick raspberries. Make bread. Nurse a baby mouse. Water
the garden. The raspberries come ripe and either you will go out into the
sunshine, breathe the air, bend over the canes – pick berry by berry – or the
fruit slips past sweet, melts, falls. Pears are like this too. And apples. Catch
them before they are gone, eaten, moldering into the ground.