"Sir Gowain and the Green Knight" by Anonymous; translated by Marie Borroff

"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is an old-English epic poem. The version that I read was included in an old edition of the "Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. 1," translated by Marie Borroff. It is beautifully written, clever and sexy, and among some of the most fun I have had reading epic poems.

Sir Gawain is one of the Arthurian knights. He is also Arthur's cousin, who claimes that he had nothing to show for himself other than his relations to the great king. On a New Year's Eve, a mysterious knight attired all in green to match his complexion shows up at the party in Arthur's court and challenges the attendees to a particular game. Gawain accepted the challenge to protect Arthur, and thus began the adventure of bravery, seduction, and honor.

This I think is a good poem to start with for those who may be reluctant to read epic poems. It is short and thoroughly entertaining. The humor mixed with a dash of eroticism keep things pretty exciting. I know of some high schools that teach "The Illiad" in English classes, and I think this is a much better choice. Why bore the kids to death with tales of war and gore? They get enough of that from TV and games.

Essays!

I read some really interesting essays this month. There isn't much to say about them except that they are brilliant.

1. "The Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope, written in verse. Pope discusses different kinds of critics and criticism with a lot of humor. It is funny and insightful, and the message still current despite the age of the work. As always I have a harder time reading poetry than prose, but it didn't take long to get used to. The work itself is also not very long. Trust me it is a joy to read.

2. "The Uncanny" by Sigmund Freud. After reading the introductory guide to Freud a while back, I planned to start reading his works and came across this one. It discusses what it is about works of art that we find uncanny, combining literary studies with psychology. Parts of it are thoughtful and intriguing, parts of it redundant. But it is also a lot of fun to read.

3. "The Philosophy of Composition" by Edgar Allan Poe. This is an essay about writing which is included in a book called "Great Writers on the Art of Fiction" (James Daley, ed.). Poe talks about the importance of structures in writing, and how he puts together his famous poem, "The Raven." I recommend reading the essay, read the poem, then reread the essay.

4. Numerous essays from "Shakespeare After All." This is my new favorite book, written by Majorie Garber, who is an English professor and a Queer theorist. This book is a collection of essays based on every single one of Shakespeare canonized plays. I have read a few of these essays and they really are wonderful. Highly recommended.

"The Aeneid" of Virgil

Keeping up with the classics, I finally managed to read "The Aeneid" by Virgil, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, who is my favorite Greek translator for no particular reason; I just happened to have read his translation of "The Odyssey," thought it was fine, and continued to choose his works over others' ever since. I found a copy of this at Powell's for a dollar and thought it was one of the best finds, bought it right away, and let it gather dust in my room for months before finally motivating myself to read it.

I enjoy reading the epics to a certain degree. With every work that I have read so far--"The Odyssey," "The Metamorphoses," "Inferno," and "Paradise Lost"--there are parts that I find absolutely magnificent, and parts that I find terribly dreadful. Usually the latter are violent scenes of war and/or torture. Mind you, I am not easily bothered by violence; I just happened to find these scenes--which must have delighted ancient readers' minds, or other wise there wouldn't have been so many of them--to be such a bore. I don't remember there being so many of them in "The Odyssey," but there certainly are plenty in Virgil's work. These scenes are endless, extending over chapters, seemingly very similar. Somebody is mentioned; we learn a bit about their appearance, background, and mettles, then we watch them get killed in various ways. At one point somebody is mentioned having their brain dripping down their face--yeah, I did not need that.

"The Aeneid" tells the story of Aeneas, a half-god Trojan warrior, as he journeys home after the end of the Trojan War. His is in no way nearly as interesting as that of Homer's account of Odysseus' journey. His side having lost in the war, Aeneas and his family flee from Troy. Subsequently he loses his father Anchises and his wife Creusa. Guided by his mother Venus, he and his son Ascanius (or Iulus) find themselves in Carthage, where he meets Queen Dido, who was charmed by Cupid to fall in love with Aeneas as a part of Venus' plan to keep Aeneas safe in Carthage. She commits suicide after he leaves her. Later he is to find Italy, where a war breaks out over King Latinus' decision to give his daughter to Aeneas, upsetting King Turnus who also wants Lavinia's hand. All this madness is, as usual, stirred by the disagreement between the gods--Jupiter, Juno, and Venus.

As an epic, it is not as well structured as "The Odyssey," and the story that it tells does not really appeal to a large audience. The war scenes dominated the story. Some of its gems include Dido's suicide, the deaths of Nisus and Euryalus, and various accounts of the fall of Troy. These scenes call for a revisitation, but not so much the poem as a whole. Am I too harsh on Virgil? I don't think so. For the man who made me sit through hours of atrocious cruelties, I am very much being kind.

Milton's "Paradise Lost"

It seems that there is this widely misunderstood notion about art, that if it is good then you have to like it, and that if you don't like it then you are stupid. The statement can be reversed: if it's bad then you have to hate it, and if you like something bad then you are stupid; or, if you like something that is good then that means that you are smart. The truth, as I see it, is that art isn't only about intelligence; it is on some level but not all. What is unique about art is its ability to touch people, and there are many ways for you to be touched, moved, affected, or influenced. Art is for the heart, and I don't think there is any one thing that can touch every heart. I have read many great works of literature in my life that I do not like. I can see why they are good; I can sit and analyze and agonize over them, but that doesn't mean that, realizing their merits, I would have to like them. That's not what art is about. Meryl Steep is one of the greatest actors of all time, and she is disliked by Catharine Hepburn, another one of the greatest actors of all time. You get the idea.

The other day I had a meeting with one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, my professor. I shared with him my newfound affection for Milton--I recently read and fell completely in love with "Paradise Lost"; the pleasure I took from reading it was very rare, especially when I read epic poems. He told me that for him the experience of reading the text was painful, and he did not enjoy, despite admitting that he did like Milton in the abstract, and that the work was structurally interesting. I was surprised and impressed by his honesty. The truth is that up until that point I had to always convince myself that it was okay for me to dislike something that is supposedly "good" and have been revered by other scholars in my life and in history. I'm learning now to be honest; if I like something I like it; if I don't, it doesn't mean that I am foolish. If anybody thinks I am foolish then I will probably thing the same about them, because no work of art is meant to be like by everyone. I appreciate the "great" works that I have recently read (Proust's "Swann's Way," Nabokov's "Lolita," Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," to name a few) even though I didn't enjoy reading them.

Back to Milton, I thought "Paradise Lost" was a great work. It held my attention, and I liked the way the words rolled on my tongue. The story was intriguing, the characters well developed, and Milton a great dramatist. He doesn't change the story from the Bible--one of the work's great qualities--but merely dramatizing and enhancing it. I think your feeling about it may have to do with your attachment or detachment to Christianity; as for me, an ex-Catholic, currently somewhat agnostic, completely free from attachment to any organized religion, I fell in love with it completely.

A little rant about Flannery O'Connor

I had a conversation with my professor Susan yesterday. Somehow Flannery O'Connor came up, and she told me how O'Connor was a devout Catholic. I was utterly surprised. I didn't know anything about O'Connor, except that she was from the South. I read "Wise Blood" a while back and thought it was amazing in the way that it questioned religion while maintaining its spirituality. I even read it as semi-antichrist. Obviously I was way off.

But this is precisely why I don't really care for this kind of reading of literature. I believe that we should read a text with absolutely no consideration of the author's intention whatsoever. She might have had an idea for what she was trying to do, but as soon as the text gets out into the public, I can do whatever I want with it. Whenever people try to guess the writer's intention, I usually find their points invalid, and find that their reading is limited. Once you forget about the author, the possibility is endless.

As a writer I know that on some level my works are influenced by things that happen to me or things that happen around me. But I don't think people can tell exactly what kind of person I am and what I am trying to say by reading my work, nor do I want people to. If writers were worried about how they might be thought of by their readers, how dull would their works be?

Just a thought.

Susan also loaned me a copy of Charles Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs Du Mal" (translated by Richard Howard) which is absolutely gorgeous. I am completely enamored by it.

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Today I have been reading Octavia E. Butler's "Parable of the Sower" for my class. Usually I don't like science fiction, but this one is quite good. I'm enjoying it so far, which is always a good thing when you have to read something for a class. It feels nice to be reading while bathing in the sun. I'm beginning to enjoy this weather.