Johnr, What do you think of Campbell's interpretation of "The Wasteland?" Do you think this was Eliot's intent? I'm with Reader in that I haven't lived with the poem long enough to draw any conclusions.
The source book for the Wasteland was Jesse Weston's From Ritual to Romance (Dover books). JC's interpretation in view of Weston seems accurate.
The reproductive symbols are repeated there as well--another reappearance of ancient symbol with no context in the current tale unless we want to impose it.
Man always tries to eliminate his separateness, to re-identify with a universal orderliness which recapitulates in each system--cosmic, farm, hunt, social. The instrument of this separateness is the intellect which, since the Greeks, by definition prevents reunion.
Campbell's cosmic order has some 700 pages, pretty soon reader will have it separated into short phrases, each of which can generate further questions but no unity.
I'd always read this as referring to the war, but looking more closely, I understand Campbell's (and Weston's reading).
He builds images one upon another, beginning with the reference to Malory's "Mort d'Arthur", on into the epigraph with its reference to the ancient sybil. Part I opens with themes of the struggle of regeneration, heaps of broken images...flows onto the concluding images in V of the fisher king.
"Campbell's cosmic order has some 700 pages, pretty soon reader will have it separated into short phrases, each of which can generate further questions but no unity."
I can not become one with the swamp until I have slogged my way through it. Step by step, until I am swimming, mud covered, drinking and breathing it, reading and cutting and phrasing and re-attaching it, asking about it and asking it because I know no other way and because feeling another way is now behind and beyond me.
All help welcomed, accepted, requested, but for now all I know is that I have to understand Campbell intellectually before I can know him any other way.
More to come. I have been reading and underlining and phrasing and studying.
But, I mean no offense, and I can desist here if the posts have that affect.
All of which is a roundabout way of asking another question: What other way is there to unity?
Reader...if you get the concept of becoming one with the swamp, I think you get Campbell. You probably just won't know you've gotten it until you've slogged a bit further.
Nope. I've never been one with anything. I like the slogging though; the stress and strain, discomfort and pain, the sogging, seeping, osmiotic breath of it. It might become one with me, but never I with it.
Sometimes, Campbell appears to be splitting hairs. In his comparison of Freud and Jung in the final chapter he agrees with Jung's biological interpretation of dreams.
Freud sees dreams as reflecting a mass psyche. Jung seems them as biologically influenced, in the form of a collective unconscious. But really, these are one and the same. If dreams are related to a mass psyche, then that psyche would have had to be imprinted onto the brain. The persistence of these images would become part of an ancestral memory...which is exactly what Jung claimed. The ideas of the two seem to be synthesized in the writings of Frobenius that events of awe are impressed into the conscious and persist from generation to generation.
The disagreement I have with Campbell is that he seems a bit dismissive of non-Eastern religions. It is clear that these aren't part of his own belief system, but he doesn't quite do a satisfactory job of explaining away the persistence of say, Judaism, or thousands of years. Clearly, there are those who consider the teachings of Judaism to have some relevance to their lives. And I don't think that Judaism is in any danger of dying out.
Yes Campbell seems to like his infinite inward rather than outward, at least at that time. His journal Brahmin or Baksheesh (I think) describes it. The militancy of the western religions certainly supports such a choice.
Re: mud and questions: There is a certain pressure in such a group as this to respond, which must be repressed in the presence of multiple questions. A small discomfort, but one must also realize that if the questions are resolved by the author in the full volume of material, then finishing it before asking so many might be reasonable.
I would say the biggest question that comes up in reading Campbell, is whether inherited or ancestral memory exists. For myth to have any meaning or resonance in contemporary life, humans must have inherited knowledge (I'm not sure Freud or Jung can stand without it.)
Campbell recognizes this himself: "The question arises as to whether in the human species any of the codes of communication on this pre-or unconscious level are inherited."
I've believed there is something to this idea of inherited memory, but it's difficult to gauge how much of this is a result of observation and how much innate.
Of course we're stuck with a vocabulary which makes these phrases incoherent in the light of today's science. There seems to be no question today that humans perform instinctual acts--unlearned behavior. Campbell and his mentor believe that the basic premises of mythology are related in some way to these acts and I see no reason not to agree.
I will be bowing out of this site for a while because I am going to be stuying for the GRE. I have a few other projects that will demand a lot of time too. Should be able to come back in July. Thank you both for your insights, help and conversation regarding these wonderful books.
Johnr...do you think that this lack of vocabulary, the inability to articulate our innermost knowledge, is part of the cause of the sense of isolation and dischord in contemporary societies?
It seems to me that civilization has developed not in spite of, but because of man's sense of loss and his search for meaning.
Every western society has yearned for a return to something, whether it be the Father (Hebrew), the place before Time (de Santillana), the Eternal Return of Eliade, Jaynes' longing to return to the guidance of the Gods, even Studs Lonigan for the good old days. Each place, and there are so many more, is one without intellect where automatic choices are made and the living is easy.
The sense of loss is certainly there, but the only tool we have to describe it is inadequate since we cannot by definition concieve an intuition.
I'll pop in when I can but I'm in the woods without the internet for a while.
Okay. Studying is coming along nicely. My vocabulary has tripled (even if only for a couple weeks) and now I know a lot of formulas (formulae?)
I take the test on June 29 and then go on the family vacation from hell. I'll probably post during that week, but if not, then I'll definitely be back on July 7 to torture you all with more 'observations.'
22 comments:
Johnr, What do you think of Campbell's interpretation of "The Wasteland?" Do you think this was Eliot's intent? I'm with Reader in that I haven't lived with the poem long enough to draw any conclusions.
May 18, 2007 6:31 PM
The source book for the Wasteland was Jesse Weston's From Ritual to Romance (Dover books). JC's interpretation in view of Weston seems accurate.
The reproductive symbols are repeated there as well--another
reappearance of ancient symbol with no context in the current tale unless we want to impose it.
Man always tries to eliminate his separateness, to re-identify
with a universal orderliness which recapitulates in each system--cosmic, farm, hunt, social. The instrument of this separateness is the intellect which, since the Greeks, by definition prevents reunion.
Campbell's cosmic order has some 700 pages, pretty soon reader will have it separated into short phrases, each of which can generate further questions but no unity.
I'd always read this as referring to the war, but looking more closely, I understand Campbell's (and Weston's reading).
He builds images one upon another, beginning with the reference to Malory's "Mort d'Arthur", on into the epigraph with its reference to the ancient sybil. Part I opens with themes of the struggle of regeneration, heaps of broken images...flows onto the concluding images in V of the fisher king.
I need to put that Weston book on my list.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4090
Gutenburg is amazing. Do you know you can read "The Golden Bough" there too?
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3623
"Campbell's cosmic order has some 700 pages, pretty soon reader will have it separated into short phrases, each of which can generate further questions but no unity."
I can not become one with the swamp until I have slogged my way through it. Step by step, until I am swimming, mud covered, drinking and breathing it, reading and cutting and phrasing and re-attaching it, asking about it and asking it because I know no other way and because feeling another way is now behind and beyond me.
All help welcomed, accepted, requested, but for now all I know is that I have to understand Campbell intellectually before I can know him any other way.
More to come. I have been reading and underlining and phrasing and studying.
But, I mean no offense, and I can desist here if the posts have that affect.
All of which is a roundabout way of asking another question: What other way is there to unity?
Reader...if you get the concept of becoming one with the swamp, I think you get Campbell. You probably just won't know you've gotten it until you've slogged a bit further.
Nope. I've never been one with anything. I like the slogging though; the stress and strain, discomfort and pain, the sogging, seeping, osmiotic breath of it. It might become one with me, but never I with it.
Sometimes, Campbell appears to be splitting hairs. In his comparison of Freud and Jung in the final chapter he agrees with Jung's biological interpretation of dreams.
Freud sees dreams as reflecting a mass psyche. Jung seems them as biologically influenced, in the form of a collective unconscious. But really, these are one and the same. If dreams are related to a mass psyche, then that psyche would have had to be imprinted onto the brain. The persistence of these images would become part of an ancestral memory...which is exactly what Jung claimed. The ideas of the two seem to be synthesized in the writings of Frobenius that events of awe are impressed into the conscious and persist from generation to generation.
The disagreement I have with Campbell is that he seems a bit dismissive of non-Eastern religions. It is clear that these aren't part of his own belief system, but he doesn't quite do a satisfactory job of explaining away the persistence of say, Judaism, or thousands of years. Clearly, there are those who consider the teachings of Judaism to have some relevance to their lives. And I don't think that Judaism is in any danger of dying out.
Yes Campbell seems to like his infinite inward rather than outward, at least at that time. His journal Brahmin or Baksheesh (I think) describes it. The militancy of the western religions certainly supports such a choice.
Re: mud and questions: There is a certain pressure in such a group as this to respond, which must be repressed in the presence of multiple questions. A small discomfort, but one must also realize that if the questions are resolved by the author in the full volume of material, then finishing it before asking so many might be reasonable.
I would say the biggest question that comes up in reading Campbell, is whether inherited or ancestral memory exists. For myth to have any meaning or resonance in contemporary life, humans must have inherited knowledge (I'm not sure Freud or Jung can stand without it.)
Campbell recognizes this himself: "The question arises as to whether in the human species any of the codes of communication on this pre-or unconscious level are inherited."
I've believed there is something to this idea of inherited memory, but it's difficult to gauge how much of this is a result of observation and how much innate.
Love this site!
http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm
Aside from Sacred Texts, includes Shakespeare, Tolkien and the Tarot.
Inherited knowledge
Of course we're stuck with a vocabulary which makes these phrases incoherent in the light of today's science. There seems to be no question today that humans perform instinctual acts--unlearned behavior. Campbell and his mentor believe that the basic premises of mythology are related in some way to these acts and I see no reason not to agree.
I will be bowing out of this site for a while because I am going to be stuying for the GRE. I have a few other projects that will demand a lot of time too. Should be able to come back in July. Thank you both for your insights, help and conversation regarding these wonderful books.
I can be contacted at Reader5232@gmail.com.
Johnr...not to rehash the Mann, but he does say it well in Joseph..."Deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?"
Reader...Good luck...hope to talk to you soon.
Johnr...do you think that this lack of vocabulary, the inability to articulate our innermost knowledge, is part of the cause of the sense of isolation and dischord in contemporary societies?
It seems to me that civilization has developed not in spite of, but because of man's sense of loss and his search for meaning.
Every western society has yearned for a return to something, whether it be the Father (Hebrew), the place before Time (de Santillana), the Eternal Return of Eliade, Jaynes' longing to return to the guidance of the Gods, even Studs Lonigan for the good old days. Each place, and there are so many more, is one without intellect where automatic choices are made and the living is easy.
The sense of loss is certainly there, but the only tool we have to describe it is inadequate since we cannot by definition concieve an intuition.
I'll pop in when I can but I'm in the woods without the internet for a while.
Good luck to reader--what's a gre?
GRE is a standardized test used to predict success in Grad Studies.
Have fun in the woods, but keep an eye out for the boar!
Okay. Studying is coming along nicely. My vocabulary has tripled (even if only for a couple weeks) and now I know a lot of formulas (formulae?)
I take the test on June 29 and then go on the family vacation from hell. I'll probably post during that week, but if not, then I'll definitely be back on July 7 to torture you all with more 'observations.'
johnr - hope the woods were good to you
hoffman - nice haikus
puge - keep up the good fight against lifeline
Interesting to know.
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