Joan Hambidge. Wallace Stevens en Northrop Frye

 

Die ikonografie van die verbeelding

 

I

In ‘n ander sleutel is die werk van Northrop Frye (1912 – 1991) ‘n Kanadese kritikus en teoretikus. Tekste, volgens hom, verbeeld nie die werklikheid of natuur nie, maar moet eerder benader word as argetipes.

 

 

Die invloed van sy werk op Harold Bloom is bekend. Bloom het vir maande lank met Frye se Anatomy of Criticism (1957) geloop voor hy begin het met sy studie The anxiety of influence (1973). Die hele kwessie van die precursor so beklemtoon.

Hy het klasgegee in Toronto en had ‘n ereprofessoraat aan Harvard. Ook geen doktorale studie voltooi nie, ofskoon elke studie in sigself benader kan word asof dit ‘n doktorsgraad is.

In Spiritus Mundi (1976) gebruik hy die konsep argetipes. Die heruitgawe is van Indiana University Press in 1983 en die subtitel is tersaaklik Essays on Literature, Myth, and Society.

Die invloed van sy werk kan in die romans van Margaret Atwood gesien word wanneer hy skryf oor die Kanadese identiteit wat gedefinieer kan word as ‘n vrees vir die natuur en die impak van die setlaarsgeskiedenis. Is dit dalk waarom daar dikwels afstandelikheid is?

‘n Reis deur Frans-Kanada was ‘n blik op distansie. ‘n Ervaring van mense wat on-spontaan en gedistansieerd is.

http://joanhambidge.blogspot.com/2013/03/om-alleen-te-reis-n-lacaniaanse.html  Besoek 21 Augustus 2024

II

Jonathan Hart se insigryke studie oor Frye word tipeer as ‘n teoretiese verbeelding. Hart, digter en Kanadees, gee ‘n besondere blik op hierdie teoretikus. Studies oor William Blake, T.S. Eliot, die Bybel en godsdiens én metaforiese konstruksies.

Jonathan Locke Hart is sy digtersnaam:

Dreams are unacknowledged

 

And, being nothing

Legislate nothing (5).

 

http://joanhambidge.blogspot.com/2013/01/jonathan-locke-hart-dreamwork-2010.html Besoek 22 Augustus 2024

 

Watter argetipes vind ons in Wallace Stevens via Frye?

 

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

 

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird’s cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow…
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep’s faded papier-mâché …
The sun was coming from outside.

That scrawny cry–It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

 

Winter, wind, sneeu, die son, voëls. En via Frye sal ons die volledige digkuns van Stevens moet betrek om hierdie gedig volledig te ontsluit. Veral hierdie gedig is relevant:

 

Peter Quince at the Clavier

 

I

Just as my fingers on these keys

Make music, so the self-same sounds

On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;

And thus it is that what I feel,

Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,

Is music. It is like the strain

Waked in the elders by Susanna;

Of a green evening, clear and warm,

She bathed in her still garden, while

The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb

In witching chords, and their thin blood

Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

 

 

II

In the green water, clear and warm,

Susanna lay.

She searched

The touch of springs,

And found

Concealed imaginings.

She sighed,

For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood

In the cool

Of spent emotions.

She felt, among the leaves,

The dew

Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass,

Still quavering.

The winds were like her maids,

On timid feet,

Fetching her woven scarves,

Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand

Muted the night.

She turned—

A cymbal crashed,

And roaring horns.

 

 

III

Soon, with a noise like tambourines,

Came her attendant Byzantines.

They wondered why Susanna cried

Against the elders by her side;

And as they whispered, the refrain

Was like a willow swept by rain.

Anon, their lamps’ uplifted flame

Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then, the simpering Byzantines

Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

 

 

IV

Beauty is momentary in the mind—

The fitful tracing of a portal;

But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body’s beauty lives.

So evenings die, in their green going,

A wave, interminably flowing.

So gardens die, their meek breath scenting

The cowl of winter, done repenting.

So maidens die, to the auroral

Celebration of a maiden’s choral.

Susanna’s music touched the bawdy strings

Of those white elders; but, escaping,

Left only Death’s ironic scraping.

Now, in its immortality, it plays

On the clear viol of her memory,

And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

 

(in Harmonium, 1923).

Die ewige verbond tussen lewe en dood. Digkuns en musiek. Met die verwysing na Sussana en die ouderlinge (ook:oudstes). Die Hebreeuse meisie wat afgeloer word deur die ouderlinge wat haar afdreig vir seks. Wanneer sy weier, word sy vervolg. Leuens uiteraard en uiteindelik word sy vrygespreek en vervolg vir hul oortreding. Vergelding in die ou-Testamentiese sin van die woord. Opgeteken Ou-Testamentiese  apokriewe teks Die Boek van Susanna. ‘n Aanvulling tot Die Boek Daniël.

Watter boom was dit? Die twee ouderlinge se leuens word uitgewys: twee verskillende bome …

Dat alles weer en weer herhaal word? Begeerte wat nie uitgespeel kan word nie? Die musiek is eweneens belangrik in hierdie gedig.

 

Just as my fingers on these keys

Make music, so the self-same sounds

On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;

 

Wat met musiekinstrumente konkreet verbeeld word.

Verskeie kunstenaars het al die gegewe van Sussanna verewig.

The body dies; the body’s beauty lives (soos Stevens tereg uitwys).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_and_the_Elders_in_art Besoek 21 Augustus 2024

Vir Artemisia Gentileschi se kunswerk:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Susanna_and_the_Elders_%281610%29%2C_Artemisia_Gentileschi.jpg/800px-Susanna_and_the_Elders_%281610%29%2C_Artemisia_Gentileschi.jpg  Besoek 21 Augustus 2024

 

Joan Hambidge

Kaapstad

22 Augustus 2024

 

Bronne:

Hart, Jonathan Locke. 1994. Northrop Frye : the theoretical imagination. Londen: Routledge.

Salusinszky, Imre. 1987. Criticism in Society : Interviews with Jacques Derrida, Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, Frank Kermode, Edward Said, Barbara Johnson, Frank Lentricchia and J. Hillis Miller. London: Methuen.

 

Fearful Symmetry

 

Hoe maak ons sin alweer vra jy

van ‘n moord in ‘n pakkamer wreed-

aardig ‘n jong meisie deur ‘n skoolmaat gemes

sy naam sal waarskynlik nooit bekend word weens die wet

dat minderjariges se identiteit beskerm moet word al het

‘n klasmaat gister nog saam op die skoolbanke gesit en leer

van die samehang tussen alles dalk al die matriekafskeid beplan

maar via Northrop Frye oor die ikonografie van die verbeelding

en die vrees vir dit wat van buite kan bedreig wonder ek tog hoe

hy sou reageer op ‘n dorpie in die Overberg waar almal mekaar se name ken

in ‘n dorp met ‘n spoorlyn en ‘n kerk en winkels en ‘n munisipaliteit en ‘n skool

dat alles subiet sonder ‘n omhaal van woorde almal in ellende sou dompel vir altyd verby

 

© Joan Hambidge

 

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