I WOULD PREFER NOT TO…

I WOULD PREFER NOT TO…
or the real personality of Bartleby the Scrivener

88_88Back in my office, just after Bartleby’s death, an idea suddenly surfaced in my mind. I had gone through his desk, I had meticulously observed his behavior, but I had never tried to turn on his computer. As one of my clerks, he had his own professional computer. I had no particular hope or expectations. I did not imagine I would find anything interesting since I had never seen him using any electronic machine and I could not remember him using his computer. Yet, my curiosity was piqued and this computer was standing just next to me, in an outrageously tempting way. After all, it was my computer, Bartleby was my employee and it was completely legitimate for me to know how he used his work tools. Therefore, without any feeling of guiltiness I opened his laptop. I was stricken by the aspect of his desktop wallpaper : no image, nothing… only one icon, an internet browser. Not knowing exactly what else I could do, I clicked unthinkingly on the only icon. I was automatically directed on Facebook.
Oh shock ! Not only had Bartleby a Facebook profile but he seemed to have also a social life, photos, and even friends ! I was not surprised though by his profile’s picture : a dark grey brick wall. He did not seem to appear on any photo. However, his Facebook’s “wall” was covered with a mass of messages from friends : Lena writing that she had spent a wonderful night chatting with him, Chris praising his sense of humor, Tobias thanking him for his friendliness, or Cécile describing how charming their conversation had been the previous night. (I have taken here the liberty to rephrase the different notes, given that the quality of the language was not always very good and the tone mostly informal – probably some young foreigners). These people were obviously not only Americans. How could Bartleby - a speechless, sad, and dull young man - be so different on internet? He seemed to be another person : the doctor Jekyll of the Mr. Hyde we already knew. Who would have imagined that this man spent his nights on internet conversing with people from all around the world, when he could not even pronounce a word in the daytime? And then I suddenly realized that his perpetual reveries, his “luny” appearance (as would say Ginger Nuts), his nonchalant attitude, his eyesight problems could result from his intensive use of the web, from his real – though numerical – life. Suddenly I felt very sad for this young man.
But as I discovered later, the reality was very different. His comments on Facebook taught me indeed the real reasons for his behavior :

______Bartleby is glad he has been fired from his shitty work.
______Bartleby has decided to reconvert has a scrivener.
______Bartleby has just tried amphetamines : he is so that excited he cannot stop writing and working all day.
______Hell, these pills have a very long effect !
______Bartleby is now part of the society of the joyful junky drunk scriveners.
______Bartleby feels stone tonight : he has definitely given up amphetamines and prefers marijuana.
______Bartleby has bought 5kilos of Marijuana and wants to share with friends.
______Bartleby has nearly been caught red-handed on Sunday by his boss while he was organizing a weed-party with friends.
______Bartleby hates his crappy work and is going to stop every activity except smoking
______Bob Marley’s fan club has invited Bartleby to the “weed, tea and spi/ace cookies”
______Bartleby intends to hassle everybody at work (in particular his stupid weak boss), refusing to work, move or speak
______Bartleby wants to be the worst parasite and free-rider on earth.
______Bartleby seems to be quite successful in his attempts to reach the aforesaid goal to become the worst nuisance
______Bartleby is in trouble now : hopes that they also have drug and internet in jail.

In Fact Bartleby was just a junky and a squatter who deserved what happened to him. He died in prison because he had not his drug dose.
And to think that I had even offered him to live in my house…

""After"" version ... revised essay.

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

1913 Ezra Pound

____Have you ever heard anything about the political involvement of a comma? Did you know that a simple punctuation mark in a poem could be interested in politics ? In this paper, I will try to prove that such a thing is possible, focusing on one particular element of Pound’s poem. Line two is pivotal for the understanding of the poem, and in particular the fateful comma splitting the noun phrase “wet, black bough”. In such a short poem, every little element (punctuation or unusual syntax) takes an uncommon importance and can change the whole sense of the text. In this very case, the comma is like a small wet, a primary element which gives birth to different interpretations, to different meanings. The goal will be here to show that the presence of this comma can confer a political meaning to Pound’s poem: In a Station of the Metro.

____To give more strength to our analysis, we have first to be sure that this comma is not here by coincidence, otherwise it would be of no interest to study this particular point. Ezra Pound wrote several versions of this poem. This final version is the result of a compression of a fourteen-line initial poem. The goal for the poet is to create the richest imagery concentrated in only two lines. One can easily assume that these two lines are the result of an intense stylistic work : every letter has its own utility.
____What is more, in this sixteen-words poem, punctuation marks are disposed in a constant decreasing manner : after the eight first word, then after four words and finally after two words. The size of the punctuation marks stresses even more this visual decrescendo [; , .] : the semi-column is visually the biggest punctuation mark with two elements, the comma is then smaller than a semi-column but bigger than the final point. It strengthens the impression of “apparition”. The poem itself is like a striking “apparition” in its format : only two lines with numerous decrescendos. Quickness is stressed : an apparition is in essence brief and intense. Everything in the exterior shape of the poem seems to be created to emphasize this promptness. The comma on the second line is consequently a deliberate message of the author.

____On a grammatical point of view, the comma (line 2) entails two different readings of the word “wet” : a noun or an adjective. Considering the fact that the comma separates the noun phrase “petals on a wet” from the rest of the text leads us to interpret “wet” as a noun. Wet, synonymous with moisture[1], is a necessary element to the emergence of life, to the “apparition” of life. Moisture (that is to say water and warmth combined) is pivotal to enable life, to enable the development of living beings : it is one of the characteristics of an environment where life can appear. Wet as vector of a new life, of fertility. But wet seems in the same time uncomfortable, even disgusting (it engenders decomposition). Keeping in mind these two faces of the “wet”, how does it affect the meaning of the poem ?
____The phrase “petals on a wet” echoes the very similar formulation on the first line : “faces in the crowd”. A Parallel can be easily drawn between both phrases : the faces are like petals, the crowd is the wet. If wet is understood as an element of heaviness, inertia and decomposition, then the crowd is a large melting pot where the “faces” lose their identity, their independence. The crowd is synonymous with the decomposition of the individual, of the subject, in a bigger and undetermined body : a moisture, a smell of human sweat, that swallows up the symbol of beauty and softness, the petals. In other words, the crowd is overwhelming, it absorbs and digests the individual.
____However the wet considered as a vector of fertility brings a new freshness to the crowd. The crowd can also be the place from which the individual emerges and takes his independence. Faces appear in the infinite ocean of the crowd, the crowd is no more an anonymous body. One can read a more political meaning, the typical sociological and political issue of the beginning of the 20th century: the strength and the dangers of the crowd.
From the dampness appears life, and as a consequence the art. The artist transcends the repelling organic face of life to create a work of art (this poem is itself a kind of small mould : small and simple organism emerging from a wet environment but vector of a more complex meaning and beauty). And at the same time, from masses, from the crowd can emerge something more aesthetics, graceful. Faces are compared with petals, the crowd becoming a pointillist work of art, composed with individuals who, all together, design a new body, a common sense of beauty. This interpretation is, besides, in line with Pound’s political ideas[2] : his attraction for fascism and Mussolini’s political regime -- fascism being obsessed by the control of the crowd and the power it confers.

____On the other hand, “wet” can be considered as an adjective. But the ambiguity in the different meanings stays intact. As a matter of fact, the analogy between the “crowd” and the “bough” is very clear, stressed by the rhyme in [au]. But the interpretation of the image of the branch is not as obvious.
____“black bough”, the sounds are dull, the balance is perfect : two monosyllabic words finishing the sentence with an impression of austerity, of military strictness : the branch is black, color of death, and the contrast with the softness and the spring colors of the “petals” is strong. “Petals” is the first word of the line, “bough” is the last : both words are physically opposed inside the poem. The petals are opposed to the black branch as the faces are opposed to the crowd : the image of the crowd asphyxiating the individual subject.
____Yet this contrast is also a ferment for hope and beauty. The softness of the petals can only appear in opposition to the harshness of the bough. The work of art needs contrasts. The branch is not only “black”, the branch is also “wet”. And from a symbol of death, the branch is changed in a symbol of life : it is the support of life. The wetness stands for the water, pivotal element for the apparition of life. The branch is a severe but necessary element for the creation of life and beauty, an essential support ; as the crowd is necessary for the individual to be able to impose his own identity. The crowd is an indispensable background enabling the individual to be a real individual. It is also a frame symbol of order : the final strictness of the rhythm and sounds (in the two last words) suggests the idea of a guideline, a new order. The crowd uncontrollable and frightful can be structured and transfigured.

____Through this poem lies a constant ambiguity, an uncertainty. It seems that this poem deals with the recurring topic of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century : the crowd, masses. With the growing of a strong working classes, masses seem at this period the greatest danger but also the most wonderful vector of power. This poem manages to stress this fundamental ambiguity. The individuals are either jeopardized by this threatening crowd, or protected by this vehicle for life. The imagery chosen to express this ambiguity is rich and confusing enough not to give a clear answer to this problem. The wet is either putrefaction or ferment of life ; the bough is either harshness, or a support for vitality and beauty. This uncertainty might explain the attraction of the author for the fascist ideal : a way to channel the strength of masses, avoiding its inherent inclination for destruction, and enabling the reign of the beauty of the order, to create new individuals inside the frame of the ideology ; like “petals on a wet, black bough”.

[1] Oxford English Dictionary, second edition.
[2] Encuclopaedia Britannica 2008, article « Ezra Pound », « Anti-American Broadcasts ».

First Draft, "Before picture"

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

1913 Ezra Pound

___Have you ever heard anything about the political involvement of a comma? Did you know that a simple punctuation mark in a poem could be interested in politics ? In this paper, I will try to prove that such a thing is possible, focusing on one particular element of Pound’s poem. Line two is pivotal for the understanding of the poem, and in particular the fateful comma splitting the noun phrase “wet, black bough”. In such a short poem, every little element (punctuation or unusual syntax) takes an uncommon importance and can change the whole sense of the text. In this very case, the comma is like a small wet, a primary element which gives birth to different interpretations, to different meanings. The goal will be here to show that the presence of this comma can confer a political meaning to Pound’s poem: In a Station of the Metro.

___But first, to give more strength to our analysis, we have to be sure that this comma is not here by coincidence, otherwise it would be of no interest to study this particular point. Ezra Pound wrote several versions of this poem. This final version is the result of a compression of a fourteen-line initial poem. The goal for the poet is to create the richest imagery concentrated in only two lines. One can easily assume that these two lines are the result of an intense stylistic work : every letter has its own utility. What is more, in this sixteen-words poem, punctuation marks are disposed in a constant decreasing manner : after the eight first word, then after four words and finally after two words. The size of the punctuation marks stresses this visual decrescendo [; , .]. The comma on the second line is consequently a deliberate message of the author.

___On a grammatical point of view, the comma (line 2) entails two different readings of the word “wet” : a noun or an adjective. Considering the fact that the comma separates the noun phrase “petals on a wet” from the rest of the text leads us to interpret “wet” as a noun. Wet, synonymous with moisture, is a necessary element to the emergence of life, to the “apparition” of life. A moisture is one of the smallest living element, creator of life, generating, from a simple structure, more complex beings. Wets can appear alone, in every kind of hostile environment. They seem in the same time disgusting (decomposition) and vector of a new life, of fertility. Keeping in mind these two faces of the “wet”, how does it affect the meaning of the poem ?
___The phrase “petals on a wet” echoes the very similar formulation on the first line : “faces in the crowd”. A Parallel can be easily drawn between both phrases : the faces are like petals, the crowd is a wet. If wet is understood as an element of decomposition, then the crowd is a large melting pot where the “faces” lose their identity, their independence. The crowd is synonymous with the decomposition of the individual, of the subject, in a bigger and disgusting body : a moisture that swallows up the symbol of beauty and softness, the petals. In other words, the crowd is overwhelming, it absorbs and digests the individual.
___But the wet considered as a vector of fertility brings a new freshness to the crowd. The crowd can also be the place from which the individual emerges and takes his independence. Faces appear in the infinite ocean of the crowd, the crowd is no more an anonymous body. One can read a more political meaning, the typical sociological and political issue of the beginning of the 20th century, the strength and the dangers of the crowd. From the wet appears the art, the artist transcends the moisture to create a work of art (this poem is itself a kind of small wet : small and simple but vector of a more complex meaning and beauty). And at the same time, from masses, from the crowd can emerge something more aesthetics, graceful. Faces are compared with petals, the crowd becoming a pointillist work of art, composed with individuals who, all together, design a new body, a common sense of beauty. This interpretation is, besides, in line with Pound’s political ideas[1] : his attraction for fascism and Mussolini’s political regime -- fascism being obsessed by the control of the crowd and the power it confers.

___On the other hand, “wet” can be considered as an adjective. But the ambiguity in the different meanings stays intact. As a matter of fact, the analogy between the “crowd” and the “bough” is very clear, stressed by the rhyme in [au]. But the interpretation of the image of the branch is not as obvious.
___“black bough”, the sounds are dull, the balance is perfect : two monosyllabic words finishing the sentence with an impression of austerity, of military strictness : the branch is black, color of death, and the contrast with the softness and the spring colors of the “petals” is strong. “Petals” is the first word of the line, “bough” is the last : both words are physically opposed inside the poem. The petals are opposed to the black branch as the faces are opposed to the crowd : the image of the crowd asphyxiating the individual subject.
___But this contrast is also a ferment for hope and beauty. The softness of the petals can only appear in opposition to the harshness of the bough. The work of art needs contrasts. The branch is not only “black”, the branch is also “wet”. And from a symbol of death, the branch is changed in a symbol of life : it is the support of life. The wetness stands for the water, pivotal element for the apparition of life. The branch is a severe but necessary element for the creation of life and beauty, an essential support ; as the crowd is necessary for the individual to be able to impose his own identity. The crowd is an indispensable background enabling the individual to be a real individual.

___Through this poem lies a constant ambiguity, an uncertainty. It seems that this poem deals with the recurring topic of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century : the crowd, masses. With the growing of a strong working classes, masses seem at this period the greatest danger but also the most wonderful vector of power. This poem manages to stress this fundamental ambiguity. The individuals are either jeopardized by this threatening crowd, or protected by this vehicle for life. The imagery chosen to express this ambiguity is rich and confusing enough not to give a clear answer to this problem. The wet is either putrefaction or ferment of life ; the bough is either harshness, or a support for vitality and beauty. This uncertainty might explain the attraction of the author for the fascist ideal : a way to channel the strength of masses, avoiding its inherent inclination for destruction, and enabling the reign of the beauty of the order, to create new individuals inside the frame of the ideology ; like “petals on a wet, black bough”.

[1] Encuclopaedia Britannica 2008, article « Ezra Pound », « Anti-American Broadcasts ».

It is Poetry, isn't it ?

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

EZRA POUND 1913

____Can these few words, these two lines without clear rhymes, without regular metrics, without even verbs, be considered as a poem ? Is it poetry ? As we will see, these fourteen words, apparently dry and austere, are richer and convey more symbolic than one could possibly imagine at first.
____“Apparition”, the first word, is a pivotal clue to understanding the poem. This poem is subtle and brief, passing as the flash of an apparition. As we will see, all the themes of the poem are conveyed by this noun : a sensitive dimension, a kind of religious dimension, a striking re-discovery of aesthetics, a thought about life and its origins.
____

____First, the poem in itself is an “apparition” : only two lines, forming on the paper a visual decrescendo (the first line is longer than the second). We are here in the register of quickness, of the passing instant. The visual result is a complete success, the reader is stricken by the format. There is a real research on the exterior design of the poem.
____The poet also plays with the readers’ senses. The apparition is total, it involves all the senses of the body. The sounds are particularly important. I understand this poem as the depiction of the brief moment, the few seconds between the opening of the doors of the train and its departure. The sounds tell us all these elements, they create the imagery, the atmosphere of the poem. The assonance in [i] (“The apparition of these black faces in the crowd;”) symbolizes the tinkling of the opening of the doors. The alliteration in [b] at the end (black bough), a dull and repetitive sound, seems to reproduce the sound of a train leaving its platform. The rhythm reinforces this impression. The first line, without any punctuation, without any pause, gives a feeling of hurry, like a perpetual stream that cannot be stopped: the flow of busy people flooding the Metro station, the “crowd”. With sound alone, the poet manages to recreate the environment surrounding him.
____Then, suddenly, with the sense of view, the poet seems to rediscover a new aesthetics, a beauty in all these movements. An “apparition” is, above everything, a visual effect. The poem is like a pointillist work of art, inspired by the pointillist movement and impressionism. The “crowd” is no more an anonymous mass of people, but a living body composed by “faces”; individual human beings emerge from the crowd through the eyes of the artist. The “faces” are compared with “petals”, like small color spots composing a broader picture on a “black” background. The contrast “black”/”petals” reinforces the apparition of the colors and the lightness, both embodied by the petals as a godly apparition, coming from the darkness of the everyday routine. The “apparition” enables the artist to find Art even in the most gloomy and dark place, to make beauty appear in the mundane. But the rediscovery is even more general : one can see in this poem a large rediscovery of life. The four words “Petals on a wet”, separated from the rest of the poem by the semi-column and the comma, are like a respiration in the poem, a moment of analysis for the artist, an instant when the time seems suspended between the arrival and the departure of the train. These words can be interpreted as the symbol of the emergence of life. The wet (read as a noun), the moisture, is the primary element (sometimes seen as disgusting but a vector of fertility), from which can emerge life. In this case, the most beautiful and delicate example of life : a “petal”, from moisture emerges beauty. Here there is a play on words : “wet” can be read as a noun or as an adjective if you consider the rest of the poem. As an adjective, wet reinforces the contrast between the frailty of the petals and the austerity of the station surrounding the scene. The “wet, black bough” can be understood as the railroad in the middle of the station. The imagery is rich : the faces are like flowers and the bough, the branch, can be either the crowd or the railroad, both transporting passing passengers in a way. Here again, the aim of the poem is to show that beauty can emerge from every kind of dark and dirty situation. Even in a very austere place you can feel the strength, the movement, the beauty and the ephemeral nature of life.
The sense of smell and touch can be found in the poem too (“wet”, “petals” of flowers) but these senses seem less important.

____So, with few words the poet subtly elevates a mundane situation, playing on sounds, colors, feelings, rhythm to convey an atmosphere, creating a new aesthetic where beauty and life can emerge from masses and darkness. The concision is compensated by a very rich imagery and a deep research on literary effects. This is definitely poetry.

My favorite poem by Robert Frost.

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.


My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.


He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.


The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

Beginning like a child rhyme, the images evoked are however very strong. Pell-mell : the road, the call of the wild, despair, suicide, life, curiosity, guiltiness, nature, darkness. The will to leave everything, to abandon life, to be in perfect harmony with nature even if the price is death.
A very powerful poem with color contrasts and a soft musicality. A real delight !

Design

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

________

Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?--

If design govern in a thing so small.

Robert Frost 1936

Two couples of images seem pivotal and recurring in Frost’s poem : light/darkness and death/life. Both couples are highly linked. The very interesting point in this poem is the way the poet manages to associate the virginal color with the concept of death. The key to understand Design is in the fact that traditional symbols or roles are reversed. As a consequence, I will focus my analysis on this perverse and strong link between white and death appearing through the extended metaphor of the image of a potion.

The first stanza of the poem takes the form of a magical recipe where the three ingredients are first described, then the process of the concoction and finally the incantation.

First, it is interesting to notice that “white” is the first rhyme at the beginning of the two stanzas and gives the way to seven feminine rhymes including the sound [ait]. It highlights the importance of the word “white”. This word appears then in each of the first three lines of the poem. But white has an uncommon role : it embodies abnormality, it represents death. The ambiguity of the white color is stressed from the beginning by the uncommon association of “a spider, fat” and “white”. The color of immaculate purity is associated to one of the most awful, frightening and cruel animal : the spider. On line two, the choice of the “white heal-all” is not a coincidence : choosing to present a medicinal plant usually blue -- very rare in its white form (and consequently abnormal) -- as the scene of the "moth's" death (a symbol of fragility), is a way to associate clearly white with deviation and with death. Death appears progressively through the successive lines of the poem. The reference on line three to “white rigid satin” made me think about the interior of a coffin, the only place I could imagine with a kind of starched satin.

From line four to six, the reference to death and evil is more direct: “death and blight” or “witches”. The author shows the cocktail, the result of the three white elements combined together : “assorted”, “mixed”, “ingredients of a witches’ broth”. The contradiction between the image of the witch (usually represented in black), preparing a white “broth”, is striking, showing the reversal of the values.

______To finish, lines seven and eight sound like an incantation, making evil emerge from whiteness. The sounds and the associations of words made me think about this idea of magic words : the rhythm and the association of sounds on line seven (snow-drop/spider and flower/froth) and the recurrence on both line of “like”. The ambiguity is here again omnipresent : each ingredient is associated with an element representing lightness, softness and virgin white (spider /snow , flower/froth , paper kite/dead wing) but the result is evil.

_____

______

The personification of the flower, the spider and the moth in the second stanza show that these “characters” did their action on purpose. Frost plays on traditional values, he reverses the traditional symbols, codes and orders to raise the issue of destiny and more generally of God, showing that even the color of God can be synonymous of evil : symbols have no real signification, they are only human inventions, superstitions. Evil, darkness, death appear from purity. There is no real purity as there is, maybe, no complete evil.

To be understood, this poem can be compared with the 17^th and 18^th century Vanitas Paintings : from the beauty and the purity emerge putrid and death, youth becomes oldness, into every apple worms finally bite. Darkness always raises from bright white. There is no absolute purity : the murderer can be as white as the innocent victim ; from the light can emerge abnormality. But what is abnormality ? If abnormality is being white, then it can also be purity. This poem is about relativity of things and humility : things are often more subtle than superstitions and beliefs.