poetic thoughts on death and sheep

Another presentation for class. Sorry about the footnotes; they probably don't make much sense, but I'm too lazy to take them out.

LYCIDAS: THE UNTOLD TRUE STORY

As a fellow at Christ’s College Cambridge, Edward King was a likable fellow and close friends with John Milton. He enjoyed poetry and wrote a few Latin poems himself, although their quality wasn’t particularly high. At the age of 25, he was preparing to enter the ministry, but his career suddenly came to a tragic end. On a trip to Ireland to visit his parents in 1637, King’s ship struck a rock, and the young man fell into the sea and drowned. The following year, a collection of elegies was released in King’s honor. Milton’s contribution, Lycidas, quickly became one of the more popular poems in the compilation. However, the poem also had its detractors. Samuel Johnson, while lauding Milton’s talents elsewhere, expressed near contempt for the poem. “In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is no art, for there is nothing new,” he complains.[1] But I think Johnson is missing the point. Lycidas offers more than a superficial perspective on death, and so I would like to look at Johnson’s criticisms and see how they measure up to the actual poem.

The Basic Plot

Lycidas begins with overtones of Vergil and other classical writers, written as a pastoral elegy. Rural life, simplicity, and grief combine, as the narrator expresses his sorrow at the death of his friend Lycidas, a common name used in ancient Greek pastorals. But Milton also goes beyond Greek myth and incorporates both English legends and Christian allegory into the poem, with references to Druids, Mona, and Camus. The first stanza mourns Lycidas’ death, “dead ere his prime” and the poet vows to remember him, refusing to let him “float upon his watery bier / Unwept.” He then requests that the Muses to help him remember Lycidas, as he himself wants to be remembered. Recollections of friendship follow, with Milton describing their work together as shepherds: “For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, / Fed the same flock, by fountain, shad, and rill; / Together both, ere the high lawns appeared / Under the opening eyelids of the Morn.” But suddenly Lycidas is gone and the fields feel empty without him, as the “wild thyme and the gadding vines o’ergrown, / And all their echoes, mourn.” Where was everybody when Lycidas fell, the mourner wonders; but even if we were there, could we have done anything? In fact, the poet argues, when it comes right down to it, what is the point of anything? Together, Lycidas and the poet had sought Fame, together they had chose “to scorn delights and live laborious days.” But then “comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, / And slits the thin-spun life.” All their planning, all their work comes to nothing in the face of death. Suddenly Phoebus the sun-god appears, arguing that fame is not a “plant that grows on mortal soil” but is immortal. And Lycidas’ example, his pure effort as a shepherd, quickly becomes the means of comparison. He will live on, the poet argues, as the model that other shepherds should follow, for at present these false leaders “rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread” while “the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed”, devoured by wolves as the inattentive shepherds sing “their lean and fleshy songs / grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.” But God will not be mocked, asserts the poet, for his avenging angel, “that two-handed engine at the door / Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.” This brief commentary on ecclesiastical abuse then gives way to the earlier pastoral tone, as the poet calls for “bells and flowerets of a thousand hues…to strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.” Of course, the poet recognizes the impossibility of such a request, because Lycidas’ body remains “under the whelming tide” and so he calls upon the heavenly host: “Look homeward, Angel now, and melt with ruth: / And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.” Sorrow now turns into joy, as the poem takes a decidedly Christian turn: “For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead…but mounted high, / through the dear might of Him that walked the waves.” We need not mourn anymore; for Lycidas has gone on “in the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love” The poem ends by reverting to the third person, as the poet is referred to as an “uncouth Swain” who, after singing this elegy, returns to the fields, ready to continue his work.

Problems? Samuel Johnson had ‘em

So that’s the basic narrative of the poem. And, as I mentioned earlier, the poem quickly rose to the top of the poetry charts. But not everyone was as impressed with the poem as the general populace. Samuel Johnson was probably the most vehement detractor of Milton’s elegy, and gave a number of criticisms in his “Life of Milton.”

The first problem Johnson mentions is the poem’s formal irregularity, noting that “the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing.” And at first glance, this seems like a fair criticism. After all, Milton does not employ a regular rhyme scheme, and even leaves ten lines completely unrhymed;[2] the length of his verses also appears erratic. But the uneven rhythm of the poem was no accident; like many modern poems, Lycidas “was written smooth and rewritten rough; which [at the time] was treason.”[3] But Milton knew what he was doing; this tension within the poem serves to heighten the anguish and the disorder caused by the death of Lycidas. The repetition of keys words in the early part of the poem (like “once more” in line 1, “death” in line 8, and “Lycidas” throughout) continue to highlight the poet’s distraught emotions. But by the end of the poem, the poet’s attitude changes, and he begins to use to a more regular scheme. Even the repeated words feel calmer; “pure” and “sacred” mark a new sense of understanding within the poet.[4] The final verse is actually quite normal, with its simple rhyme scheme—abababcc—and its return to a calm pastoral setting.

Johnson’s second criticism regards the poem’s artistic qualities. Johnson had long hated the pastoral form, suggesting that it is “easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting: whatever images it can supply are long ago exhausted; and its inherent improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the mind.” But even in using these ancient conventions, Milton gives an entirely new twist to them. Yes, we still find shepherds, flowers, the invocations of Muses, among other pastoral basics, but Milton takes these elements and subverts them, and in a sense, shows these conventions to be incomplete by themselves. Like a musical composition, Milton expands the narrow constraints of his theme, constantly modulating and resolving it. Lycidas begins with a full-fledged embrace of the pastoral form, but by the fourth stanza, we begin to see how the ancient conceptions of death and the purpose of life are unsatisfying.[5] Where were the Nymphs? Can they make sense of Lycidas’ untimely death? If death can creep up so quickly, what is the point of living morally? The pagan pastoral could not answer these questions. Most of the pastoral elegies before the time of Milton spoke of loss and grief without the benefit of a consolation, no progression from lament to triumph. The end is the tomb, the last word is death.[6] But the pastoral vehicle that Milton uses offers the poet a unique opportunity to compare the Christian view of mourning with that of the pagans. The nature imagery also serves another purpose. The use of a common form forces the reader to see the universality of the problems that the poet faces. We all see Nature, we all recognize the classical images that Milton uses. But this world that we all observe suddenly changes in the face of death. Instead of growth, we see death. Instead of maturity, we see decay.[7] By using the pastoral elegy, Milton forces his reader to question death, life, and our proper response to both.

This brings us to Johnson’s third criticism: that of the poem’s lack of an emotional edge. By using these traditional and universal images, any sense of real and personal grief becomes nullified. “He who thus grieves will excite no sympathy,” Johnson argues. “He who thus praises will confer no honor.” To a certain extent, this problem is answered by the response to Johnson’s second objection. With the pastoral form, Milton makes the grief universal, rather than simply an individual sorrow. The poem is a vehicle, intended to express a greater distress, and Milton’s personal grief after King’s death served to highlight this bigger problem.[8] The depersonalization of the grief, by removing the particulars, focuses the subject of the poem[9] as Milton attempts to transcend these very personal questions to solve the bigger issues involved with King’s death.[10] But Johnson’s problem with the poem’s emotional deficiency may be better answered by moving on to his fourth objection.

Not only does Johnson think the pastoral conventions are out-of-date, but he also believes that the combination of the ancient imagery with Christian is nothing short of heretical. “With these trifling fictions are mingled the most awful and sacred truths, such as ought never to be polluted with such irreverent combinations.” The answers to Johnson’s previous objections partially solve his difficulty here, but in order to fully understand what Milton is doing here, we need to look a little deeper at some of the themes that Milton explores.

Plundering the Egyptians: Milton’s Use of the Pastoral Elegy within a Christian Framework

Lycidas can be arranged into five parts; we have an introduction, a conclusion, and then three movements, which are “practically equal in length and precisely parallel in pattern.”[11] The introduction begins, as we already noted, with clear pastoral overtones. But here the reality of Lycidas’ death changes the expected character of the poem. Usually, the subject matter of the earlier pastoral poetry had been largely hypothetical, but Milton almost immediately apologizes for his rough handling of this event. He is forced, by virtue of the reality of King’s death, to write this poem, to “disturb your season due”, plucking the unripe fruit, just as Lycidas himself was plucked from this earth before his time. But Milton himself is unripe: a young seemingly unskilled poet who now has the task of memorializing his friend.

The first movement then begins with an invocation to a Muse; specifically, the “Sisters of the sacred well / That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring.” Here, Milton references the nine Muses, whose well is found on Mount Helicon in Greece, just below the altar of Zeus. Suddenly the poet is reminded of his own possible death; a “It could have been me” theme now asserts itself. More pastoral imagery pours forth, as Milton remembers their life together. Everything is alive within the pastoral model; sheep graze, the Satyrs dance, and everything appears normal within that setting. But then things begin to go wrong. The fields are now empty, the flowers are destroyed by frost and disease, all gone without warning, just like Lycidas. In fact, the poet thinks that Nature has turned upon his friend. The imagery of water becomes threatening as “the remorseless deep.” Utilizing the ancient poetic motif of fixing the blame on something, Milton asked the pastoral subject matter if Lycidas’ death is their fault. The Nymphs were not there. The Druids on their heights saw nothing. But the poet realizes that Nature is not at fault here. Just as Nature was not at fault when Orpheus, too, was snatched in his prime, that ancient symbol of the power of poetry. Orpheus could charm Nature, but that ability did not help him in the face of death, as “his gory visage down the stream was sent / Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore.” Lesbos was the home of the Aeolian school of lyrists, the birthplace of the poets Alcaeus and Sappho. The problem the poet now faces is the purpose of his craft. The familiar conventions, as epitomized in the pastoral form, are suddenly unfulfilling. Orpheus himself could not control Nature, which is the subject matter of pastoral poetry, and both he and Lycidas die young, swept away by violent waves. Nature is either dead or revolting, and the poet is at a loss: What should he do now? The intensity increases as the pastoral model suddenly become inappropriate for the subject matter. Should the poet just give up? Should the fame that he seeks be abandoned in favor of fleeting pleasures? But then Phoebus, the sun-god, appears and tells the poet to take his mind off earthly things; as a heavenly being himself, he instructs Milton that true fame cannot be judged in mortal terms, but in terms of its eternal quality. The poet’s frustration and grief can be solved by faith, he says, faith in the knowledge that his friend will live eternally.

The poet seems somewhat reassured and enters the second movement by a return to the pastoral form. He invokes another Muse, this time using another water-based image, the fountain of Arethuse. Here, Milton references the birthplace of Theocritus, the originator of pastoral poetry. Let’s go back to the beginning, he seems to say, let’s try this again. But Nature is still dead, still in rebellion, and so the traditional model again fails. The poet still tries to see who was to blame for Lycidas’ death, seeking the answer among a procession of mourners, including Neptune, Hippotades, Panope, and Camus. Was it the wind or the waves, he asks? Neither, the answer comes back, it was the fault of the ship, the ship built with “that fatal and perfidious bark, / Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark.” There is something deeper at work here, something else which caused this tragedy. And that problem becomes clear with the appearance of “the pilot of the Galilean Lake”: the poet’s clear vision of St. Peter. The fault lies with man, the apostle explains. Sin has corrupted the shepherds, and now the sheep starve. The shepherds have been called to be bishops and pastors, to watch and feed the flock, but now theses “blind mouths” do neither. Compared to the unripe Lycidas, these men are overripe, and “rot inwardly.” The Spirit of God does not dwell in them, for they are “swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw.” The now-shattered pastoral imagery cannot work when the images themselves are in rebellion, full of sin, spreading their “foul contagion” or devoured by “the grim Wolf with privy paw.” But like Phoebus, Peter offers a more eternal outlook: “But that two-handed engine at the door / stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.” Faith resolves experience, just as it did in the first movement. God will come and judge the rebellious church, and redeem that pastoral imagery.

The third movement begins tentatively, as the poet calls for a return of the pastoral form: “Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past / that shrunk thy streams.” Again, Milton chooses a water-based Muse, this time the river god Alpheus, who chased Arethusa before Diana turned her into a stream. The two then united, flowing as one. Similarly, with the resurrection of Nature, the poet can now unite the pastoral images with their true referents. In contrast to the dead vegetation from before, the poet describes a catalogue of flowers, as Nature again mourns the loss of Lycidas. The effects of sin are still felt, as “the stormy Hebrides” swelled over the dead body of Lycidas. But the now-redeemed pastoral imagery helps during this time: “For so, to interpose a little ease / let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.” And slowly, but surely, Nature is transformed before our eyes. In contrast to the watching Druids of the first movement, we find a guardian Angel above us. Instead of dead Lycidas drifting to “visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world,” we see him “mounted high / through the dear might of Him that walked the waves.” And poetry itself becomes part of the resurrection process. The imagery is now infused with life, no longer the dead medium by which former poets attempted to speak.

The poem concludes with a change of voice. We discover that the uncouth Swain is the one speaking, as we are, in a sense, lifted out of and above the poet. In place of the brown leaves of despair, the poet takes up the blue mantle of hope, rising up “to fresh woods, and pastures new.”

Conclusion

Samuel Johnson’s problems with Lycidas are, in a sense, the product of his time. And at first glance, they are understandable. But my analysis of this poem only touches the surface of all the other things that are going on between the lines. Milton doesn’t ever think that the pastoral elegy is a perfect form all by itself; without the Christian understanding, its images become empty. And this is because of sin. Sin corrupts even the simplest rhymes that man can offer, and it is only through Christ that our words can be redeemed. The constant theme of water through the poem highlights this idea. Water killed Edward King, but it also saved him. Water offers no consolation through pagan imagery, but only through the appearance of those who conquered the waves do we find real assurance. By the poem’s end, the ebb and flow of poetic emotion finally find its rest in the knowledge that Lycidas is safe: “Now, Lycidas, the Shepherds weep no more; / Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, / In thy large recompense, and shalt be good / To all that wander in that perilous flood.”

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[1] http://ethnicity.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/milton.html.

[2] Variorum, 574.

[3] Variorum, 574.

[4] Variorum, 581.

[5] Variorum, 588.

[6] Variorum, 558.

[7] Variorum, 579.

[8] Variorum, 577.

[9]588.

[10]593.

[11] Variorum, 577.

another meditation on happiness

I'm currently writing a paper on Happiness, which is constructed as a series of meditations on the subject. The official title is "Happiness...Is Not a Fish You Can Catch: The Pursuit of Happiness in the Postmodern World." Most of these are based on recent lectures or books I read this term. As I write them, I'll probably post more. Enjoy my musings.

“There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness... is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase ‘the pursuit of happiness’ is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.”[1] I read this, but I am not yet convinced. The pursuit of happiness is supposed to make people…well, happy. Happy people aren’t stupid; they don’t go around intentionally causing problems, creating all the “ills and miseries” in the world. But then, I suppose that would depend on your definition of happiness. Is happiness a communal sentiment, something pursued for the sake of others; or is the goal more individualistic, so that what makes me happy might not make you happy? If we find our joy in others, in our “three strand cord” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12), then yes, we will do everything in our power to ensure their happiness. But if we believe, as Sartre suggested, that “Hell is other people”[2], if we think that we can only pass through Heaven’s happy gates alone, then happiness becomes a race, in which there can be few winners but many losers. As my piece of the pie becomes larger and more satisfying, yours becomes less so. “My good is my good and your good is yours”[3]—and so happiness exists as a competition. I win. You lose.

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[1] Malcolm Muggeridge, B.B.C. Broadcast, 5 October 1965, http://thinkexist.com/quotation/there_is_something_ ridiculous_ and_even_quite/295051.html, [accessed 17 April 2008].

[2] Jean Paul Sartre, No Exit, http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/hell/sart.html, [accessed 17 April 2008].

[3] C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters (Springdale, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House, 1984), 87.

i'm in a video kind of mood

This is cool. And they are not kidding when they tell you that headphones are required to watch it.

...and this was a cartoon for kids!!!

Right now, I'm doing some research for a paper about Mark Twain's view of Satan. He wrote several things from Satan's perspective, including excerpts from Satan's diary and "Letters from the Earth." One of the books I'm going to be looking at is his novella The Mysterious Stranger, in which Satan is the main character. So far, I haven't actually read the novella, but in the midst of my research, I found this video clip on Youtube. Needless to say, I am rather scarred by it. Now I'm wondering exactly what this The Mysterious Stranger is about...we shall see...

dance, sucka

Friends of mine...'nuff said.

under the sun: the contrast between meursault and solomon

I am graduating in three weeks. In three weeks, I will be walking towards Mr. Schlect as he calls my name, I will shake his hand as he gives me my diploma, and I will calmly return to my seat on the stage. And beyond that, I have no idea what my future holds. Actually, I don’t even know if I’ll even make it to graduation. As I exit NSA this very day, I could get hit by a sleek red sports car or a piano could fall from an apartment window, smearing me like strawberry jam on the sidewalk. I may have all these great plans, I might have sent out job applications and resumes, but in a very real sense, none of it matters. I don’t know if I’ll get the job, I don’t know if I’ll even make it back to my apartment this afternoon, I can’t predict anything, not even the next few seconds of my life.

But every person wants to know—and almost needs to know—that all our planning isn’t pointless, that what we seek to do hours, days, or even months from now has an ultimate purpose. Solomon himself acknowledges this need in every man; in Ecclesiastes 3:11, he writes, “God has set eternity in their hearts.” But apparently, figuring out eternity is pretty much no fun whatsoever, as Solomon understand when he writes, “I set my heart to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens; an evil task God has given to the sons of Adam, to afflict them” (Ecclesiastes 1:13). So for whatever reason, we want to figure this stuff out, to get to the bottom of the mystery that is life and the meaning to be found therein. And ultimately, we can only come to one conclusion: it is all, as Solomon puts it, “vapor and shepherding wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). The Christian knows this, the pagan knows this, the ancients knew this, and the modern man knows this. But what do we do now? If we agree that everything is just “vapor”, how do we approach life? How should we view death? A single glance at Ecclesiastes would suggest that Solomon is almost an unapologetic pessimist, a man who is very similar to the “hero” in Camus’ The Stranger.* They both see vanity and vexation beneath the intensity of the sun. But while their conclusions about life are much the same, the final responses of Meursault and Solomon are very different. Meursault feels nothing but oppressive deterministic heat; Solomon sees a piercing light, which may not always remove the obscurity but can often give a greater definition to the things he can see.

In The Stranger, Meursault’s existentialism envelops every comment he makes about life in general. As far as a job is concerned, all he can say is, “I worked hard.” He sees no future gain from his efforts in the office; the “stack of freight invoices” that were piled on his desk (24) are only another task that need to be done before he eats or visits a neighbor. Even when offered a promotion, Meursault remains apathetic. “’You’re young,’” his boss says, “’and it seems to me it’s the kind of life that would appeal to you.’ I said yes, but that it really was all the same to me. Then he asked me if I wasn’t interested in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another, and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all. He looked upset and told me that I never gave him a straight answer, that I had no ambition, and that that was disastrous in business…When I was a student I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered” (40).

Solomon would probably understand where Meursault is coming from. He also sees a general pointlessness to ambition; as he writes in Ecclesiastes 2, “I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself…I bought male and female slaves…I had more than any who precede me in Jerusalem…and I became great and increased more…my heart rejoiced because of all my labor….and I considered all my deeds that my hands had done and the labor that I had labored to achieve, and behold all was vapor and shepherding wind and there was no advantage under the sun” (Ecc. 2:4-11). Whatever joy one might get from their work, it will ultimately be short-lived because we have no guarantee that, firstly, it will last very long, and secondly, that it will be taken care of after we die. As far as Solomon was concerned, he could work all he wanted and get a whole bunch of stuff here, but if he died and it all went to some fool of a nephew who had no business sense…well, what’s the point in that? What’s the point of working towards some future goal if we have no assurance that said goal will stay intact? Both Meursault and Solomon come to the same conclusion: it ultimately doesn’t matter.

They also have a similar view on community. For Meursault, people were pretty much interchangeable; one person was no different than another. His feelings for Marie, for example, have no real importance in his life. Love was a meaningless word to him, and ultimately he would just as willingly marry another woman as he would Marie. He had no reason to settle down, to marry the woman who obviously cared for him, to raise a family. He was, in Solomon’s words, like a “man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed his eyes were not satisfied with riches [and he never asked,] ‘And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of joy?’ This too is vapor and it is a grievous task” (Ecc. 4:8). If working itself is pointless, then working for someone else, for their benefit or their security, is also pointless. Community living then becomes nothing more than each man for himself. The security to be found in a community, however nice it may be, doesn’t change the fact that ultimately every man is alone; woe can come upon the solitary man, just as woe can come upon a tight-knit family. And if you DO decide to settle down with someone, and make your “three strand cord”, WHO you choose doesn’t matter. Meursault could pick Marie or even Raymond’s mistress; but the end result would always be the same.

So work doesn’t matter, people don’t matter, and now we discover that oftentimes, the stupid bad guys DO win…which also doesn’t matter. Solomon looked around and saw “in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness” (Ecc. 3:16). “And then I looked again at all the acts of oppression that were being done under the sun. And behold: the ears of the oppressed and they had no one to comfort [them]: and on the other side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort [them]” (4:1). “Folly is set in many exalted place while rich men sit in humble places. I have seen slaves riding on horses and princes walking like slaves on the land” (10:6-7). So if the fool frequently finds himself in the winning position, what’s the point of picking sides? One seems to be just as good as another, which is exactly Meursault’s conclusion. Celeste may call Salamano’s treatment of his dog “’pitiful’, but really, who’s to say?” (26). “Raymond asked me didn’t I think it was disgusting and I said no” (27). Even Raymond’s desire to punish his mistress is an acceptable sentiment in Meursault’s mind, and he willingly agrees to help the pimp achieve his goal; “I tried my best to please Raymond because I didn’t have any reason not to please him” (31). In a world where nothing matters, you might as well just try to get along with people; if that means giving the fool, the tyrant, or the pimp the upper hand, so be it.

But these feelings of Meursault and Solomon are not just limited to this mortal coil. In fact, their overwhelming optimism about life spills over into their sentiments about death. “It is the same for all,” says Solomon, “There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean” (Ecc. 9:2). And Meursault echoes these sentiments. “Well, so I’m going to die,” he says on the eve of his execution. “Sooner than other people will, obviously. But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living – and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying…Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter” (108-109). And parallels only continue. Solomon says, “For there is no lasting memorial of the wise man, just like the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten” (Ecc. 2:17); and then Meursault replies, “Remembering Marie meant nothing to me…since I understood very well that people would forget me when I was dead” (110). Solomon observes, “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men…for the living know they will die...[and] their memory is forgotten. Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun” (9:5-6). And Meursault responds, “Throughout the whole absurd life I’d lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across the years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people’s deaths or a mother’s love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we’re all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him?…The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too” (115).

The postmodern would end the discussion here, probably with the admonition to do the best with what we’ve got. Like Meursault, the only happiness we can find in this world is when we finally surrender ourselves to the “gentle indifference of the world” (116). We may have our instances of happiness, our moments of joy, but those times only happen when we finally accept our lot in life and move on. As Meursault remembers, “Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about” (108). Life may be vapor, but there is no reason to hate it. Just deal with it, in whatever way you can.

But this is where we find the mentalities of Meursault and Solomon diverging. They may have come to the same general conclusion about life, but their responses are completely different. Meursault remains pessimistic, while Solomon becomes optimistic; Meursault accepts the absurdity, the complete incongruity of life, while Solomon delights in the fact that, while we may not understand our vaporous life, there is SOMEONE who has everything under control.

Perhaps a key way to see the difference between the existentialism of Meursault and Solomon’s own philosophy is in the word vapor. Vapor, for Solomon, does not mean “pointlessness” or “vanity”—in the sense that there is no rhyme or reason to what happens in the world. Solomon is more than willing to acknowledge that there is a point to life; but he is also ready to admit that, firstly we can’t always see this point, and secondly, even if we could see it, we can’t control what happens on the way to this point. Solomon first recognizes that even though God has set eternity in our hearts, “man will not find out the deeds that God has done from the beginning even to the end” (3:11). “Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover, and though the wise man should say, ‘I know,’ he cannot discover” (8:17). So man is unable to figure all this out, and since he can’t understand it, he cannot control it. But this doesn’t change the fact that there IS a point. And this is where the vapor comes in, the shepherding wind. We feel the wind, we know it’s there and it’s doing something, but we cannot see it or grab it, we cannot mold it or shape it—we can only observe the effects of the wind, either on ourselves or on other things. That is what life is like; just like the wind, it is going somewhere and doing something, but we cannot do anything to affect its course.

But acknowledging that is not depressing for Solomon; rather, this is the cause for rejoicing and even confidence. In a world of uncertainty, it seems amazing to hear Solomon say the words “I know.” As Leithart* puts it, “Solomon didn’t need to discover foundational truths of undeniable certainty to be able to say, with confidence, ‘I know.’ Human knowledge is provisional, partial, limited, fragmented, error ridden, vaporous. And yet Solomon says, ‘I know’” (99). And what, exactly, does Solomon know? “I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him” (3:14). Solomon also knows that because God has things under control, we must respond appropriately. “I know,” he writes, “that there is nothing better for men than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; and also that every man may eat and drink and see good in all his labor. This is a gift of God” (3:12-13). The permanence that God offers is a gift. It’s a rather invisible gift, but that happens to be the nature of vapor. And even if you think you can make it out, it’s more like a fog, something that conceals more than it reveals. But this is still a gift, and we must rejoice in that gift. This gift is not something we simply take. A gift is given, it comes from the hand of God—all the wisdom and knowledge and joy in life that we find (2:24-26).

This is something that Meursault, and those like him, just cannot understand. They cannot understand trust, and they can go no further than recognizing the simple fact that “We are not in control.” There they stop, but Solomon moves on. Meursault says, “Life is vapor, BUT I’ll be happy anyhow”; Solomon says, “Life is vapor, THEREFORE I will rejoice.” Meursault says, “Under the sun, there is only oppression. I must accept this”; Solomon says, “Under the sun, there is evil. I must not accept this.” Meursault assumes, “There is only this world, and no other”; Solomon believes, “If justice does not occur in this life, it will take place in the next, for ‘God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man’” (3:17).

In many ways, Solomon sounds about as postmodern as Meursault; but ultimately he doesn’t affirm Meursault’s conclusions. As Leithart notes, “Solomon talks like a postmodern to emphasize that the world is built to force us to live by faith and not by sight” (165-166). We may not see, but we have faith. We may not understand, but we believe. And because we believe, we can rejoice. We can enjoy the fruits of our labor and love our lives; without that faith, such joy would be impossible, “for who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?” (2:25). Someone IS shepherding the wind, but it is not us. Someone IS offering security and confidence in the future, but the responsibility is not in our hands. And because we know this, we can plan our careers, we can fall in love, we can enjoy a swim in the ocean or a picnic on a sunny day, we can fly a kite on the invisible breeze. We may not know where all these things are leading us, but we can trust that God is directing them. As T.S. Eliot wrote, “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”

* Albert Camus, The Stranger, trans. Matthew Ward (New York: Albert A. Knopf, 1988).

Peter Leithart, Solomon Among the Postmoderns (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2008).

by way of introduction....

I am not really a blogger. I never really wanted to be one. But at the eve of my graduation, with my future lying ahead of me, and with me having absolutely no clue what is going to happen next, I thought that this new stage of life deserved a new medium for expressing my various moments of inspiration. Because I also hate calling my friends and telling them about my epiphanies. They will thank me for this kindness. Here, at least, you can either read what I have to say or not. If you can politely ignore it, I will remain ignorant, whereas if you hang up on me as I'm chatting on the phone, I will know right away. This is probably the safer route. I will at least still feel important.

a meditation on happiness...sort of

They never told us how. All they told us was that it was our inalienable right. They said we could chase it, pursue it, claim it for our own. But they never told us how. Or even why. I mean, why should we be happy? Why is that important? What is it about human nature that desires, that even requires this feeling of pleasure, this sensation of contentment? But they continued to insist: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was a truth self-evident, a right inalienable. So we were told. So we believed.