Poets and Philosophy-3

                                           POEMS AND POETS

                      23.Poets and Philosophy-3

Two problems confront us .
1. Does any lofty thought become a 'philosophy'?
2. Since a poet speaks through many characters and voices, which of them can be taken as expressing the poet's own mind?

Consider the following scene from KING LEAR: IV.1

GLOUCESTER

                            ............. Full Oft 'tis seen,
                            Our means secure us and our mere defects
                            Prove our commodities.

EDGAR
                  
                           (aside) And worse I may yet be. The worst is not
                            So long as we can say, "This is the worst".

GLOUCESTER

                          I'  th'  last night's storm I such a fellow saw
                          Which made me think a man a worm.........
                          As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods.
                          They kill us for their sport.


Shakespeare has peppered this small space with at least three ideas,which  may claim to be 'philosophy'.

• having something ( being well to to) spoils us while not having it often turns out to be advantageous. ( Remember Thomas Gray said something similar: the poor lot of some not just 'circumscribed their growing virtues' but 'their crimes confined' )
• So long as we are sensible enough to say we are facing the worst, it is not the worst: it could be worse, for we have not seen the last yet.
• Man is no more significant than a worm. The gods just use us for their amusement, as schoolboys play around with flies, inflicting cruelty and killing them.

Do these become philosophies?

All these are based on experience of specific circumstances, but do  they remain valid across time and space? I think this should be a standard test of true philosophy- whether it is universal.

Refraining from doing bad- due to our inability - cannot be a virtue. I do not deal with  a person physically  abusing me because I am not physically strong enough - can I claim that I am a pacifist,and non-violent?

 It is only at the end of a life-time that one can say that one has seen the worst. As the Hindi poet Shakeel Badayuni wrote:

ive Hoga faisla Manzil ki Kismat Ka Khel

ie only on reaching the destination can one say what has been the destiny! So long as we have not seen the end, we cannot say what it is!

For another, Sahir Ludhianvi said: Dum hai gam nahi BhaKi TOH!

ie so long as one is alive, one need not give up hope totally.

As yet another, Majrooh Sultanpuri Said: Alta rahe toh Aadmi jo mil Jaaye Haar khazaana.

ie if a man keeps going, he will attain all goals.( how can he stop and say he has seen the worst?)

As for man being dealt with arbitrarily by the gods- this is the very stuff of Greek Tragedy and so can be considered some sort of philosophy. Thomas Hardy's novels also adopt such a view. Hardy wrote towards the end of Tess about "the President of the Immortals" having "ended his sport with Tess"- heart-wrenching words,really, but authentic Greek. Yes, it represents a basic point of view about life. But is it a sure guide to life for every one?

I am reminded of the controversy in early Management thought about the nature of man. One theory said that man inherently resented work and had to be forced.. Another said the opposite: that man liked  work as naturally as play, and had only to be suitably motivated ie rewarded. Then a third came along in different versions and compromised both. Now, of course management has become too technical and mechanical to bother about theories- so long as you can manipulate man, anything would do!  Abraham Maslow and his kind are an exception- man has to exceed himself, resulting in Self-Actualisation. Each of these can be taken as a 'philosophy' of management, but do they become philosophy of life?

I feel they are not universal enough.

So, it is difficult to say if any of these Shakespearean lines can be taken as philosophy- especially, his!

Now, take a poet like Tennyson. Starting as a Romantic ( but not of the Wordsworth type), he turned more conventional or got "institutionalised" later on. The most important influence in his life was  his friend Arthur Henry Hallam. Hallam affected Tennyson strangely- both when he lived,and after he died early,unexpectedly at just 22. He is reported to have  directly inspired the Romantic elements of Tennyson's early poetry . But after his death, which affected Tennyson profoundly, his poetry is said to have become somewhat sad or elegiac. What sort of philosophy do we expect from him?

I take these lines from 'Ulysses'.

TENNYSON:  Ulysses

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

We are all shaped by all that we have seen and absorbed in life. Yet, no matter how long and how varied that life has been, can any one claim he has seen all and 'known or understood' life? The untravelled and unseen part seems ever larger, and there  seems to be no border in sight! Life is a strange landscape!

How dull it is to pause,to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life!

.............you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

....................................Come,my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

.......

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive , to seek, to find, and not to yield.

What do we make of this?

In Tennyson's own Victorian Age, people had no doubts at all:

the poem reflected the spirit of the age- ever striving forward. However, our age is different: nothing should be simple,nothing straight! So, critics and scholars have read all sorts of meanings in to the poem, and given it varied interpretations.

 I distrust critics and academics.. I go by more substantial reason. There are two statements by Tennyson himself which merit attention:

1.In his Memoir, Tennyson said:

"Ulysses was written soon after Arthur Hallam's death, and gave my feeling about the need of going forward, and braving the struggle of life."

2.Once, speaking of In Memoriam  to James Knowles, the architect who built his house and who remained on good terms with him for twenty five years, Tennyson said:

"There is more about myself in 'Ulysses', which was written under the sense of loss and all that had gone by, but that still life must be fought out to the end."

This makes two things clear to us:

• this poem reflects largely Tennyson's own mind and convictions
• that we must struggle  and move forward in life , in spite of all losses and adversities.

The key to the whole structure is, in my view, found in this line:

"As tho' to breathe were life".

Life is not mere physical existence . You have to be up and moving, striving to ever new heights, reaching ever farther horizons,' to follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought'. We have rubbed shoulder with the gods; should we not  do some noble work of note, worthy of that association? Should we just rest,rust and fade away? Should we simply vegetate and die?

Shakespeare says in Hamlet:


"What  is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and  feed ?A beast,no more.
He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused."


I think the message is clear: do not rest on your laurels. Do not just retire, to be overtaken by senility, and succumb to death "which closes all". Age may weaken the body, but the heart and will are made strong,with which we have to seek newer fields, ever striving, never yielding. A loftier philosophy cannot be stated in plainer terms.

After his new house was completed, Tennyson was standing with Knowles and remarked to him that he (Knowles) would outlive him , and that the house would last five hundred years. Knowles replied that the English language would last longer. I would only add: this philosophy of Tennyson would last for ever,or it is no philosophy, and  this,no poem.


Note
There is one feature in the poem which particularly appeals to me  as a Hindu. This is the reference to his  blameless son Telemachus. Ulysses is about to go on a fresh voyage. He leaves the ruling to his  son, whom he loves and in whom he has the  confidence that he, centered on his common duties and by his prudence, will subdue the rugged people, and make them useful and good ( a task in which he himself probably failed, as hinted in the first few lines).He will also be tender, and pay proper adoration to the household gods!
Hindu dharma says that a householder should proceed to the forest at the appropriate time to pursue spiritual knowledge, when his son should take over the household obligations, including worshipping the household gods! I am so touched.