[lit-ideas] Re: Glory
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 19:53:58 EST
This is my second attempt at a reply to L. K. Helm's point. I have not
checked any reply to my previous, so any comment will so far
influence me _at this point_
Back to his questions.
I'll go straight to the questions, skipping, as he would not like to do, the
passage -- that's what most students do, skip what the tutor wants them to
read!
>1) of what value is glory, whether military, literary or political?
Do you mean _to me_. At this _time_? In between the previous and this reply
(and I admit the previous was written under 'duress', if that's the word, as
there were quite a few noises around the house), ... I was having a look at
the Loeb I received today, Aristotle's Rhetoric.
At one point he makes the observation, 'youth (or age') is never a cause --
anger and desire are'. He wants to dismiss as 'accidental' things like "He
reacted like he did because he is young" and have instead the _real_ causes
listed: "He acted like he did out of anger", "He acted like he did out of
desire".
I would like to disagree with Aristotle, perhaps when it comes to _glory_.
Aristotle for example would say, 'Don't call a man happy until he is dead --
and even afterwards'. His point is that _pheme_ (fame, or the glory to a
name) goes _beyond_ the grave, so one cannot tell _anywhen_ a man 'happy'.
So I would relativise your question. I can only speak for myself. And at
this moment, glory has no _real_ value. But then I wear the trousers. J. L.
Austin used to say that the word 'real' (in collocations like "real glory") is
the _word_ that wears the trousers, in that it's usually vacuous, 'real', not
'glory'. But if glory were so important, why do we say in Spanish -- and Latin
-- vanagloria? vainglory. Is the implicature that _all_ glory is vain, or
just _some_?
>2) Why do some of us seek it?
I see your point about Achilles. In his case, the blame was on his father.
He made a rather vain person out of Achilles. This is discussed by Bowra and
others (Kitto). Granted, Bowra and Kitto were perhaps too Oxonian and perhaps
gay to count (!), but they meant to say that Achilles's father ditto instilled
on Achilles's brain ("Be the best" -- aristos -- cognate with 'arete') was
quite a bit of a burden on the shoulder of Achilles (or any other white men, I
would think -- cfr. Atlas). So, even in your example, it was perhaps
Achilles's father who sought glory, and the son just followed _suit_. The
predicament is not vacuous. For Aristotle (Eth. Nich.), virtue is not genetic,
but
habitual; so it's because Achilles had the father he had that he acted like he
did. One problem with this theory is that, to me, the tutor in Achilles's case
was this centaur, never the father -- and what can a centaur _know_ about
*glory*?
>3) Does Shelley in Ozymandias have a point?
From what I remember, you're talking about his man of the East who build
etc. Reminds me of something I read about the Anglo-Saxons. Here you have the
Romans building beautiful Bath in beautiful Somerset. Then they leave. Then
come
the Anglo-Saxons and burn the city to ground, and prefer to sleep on the
meadows. So all the Roman glory was vain to the Saxons, and just as well. Ditto
for Ozymandias.
>4) and was Achilles right to make the choice that he did?
I'll re-read that, but I stand to my idea that he did at least one _wrong_
choice: to lend his armour to Patroclus. It was _wrong_ (and unethical) to try
to mislead your enemy into the fact that it was Achilles (for there was his
armour) who was approaching Troy. Although everything is said to be possible
and permissible in war and love, I'm not so sure. Other than that, Achilles
had not much of a choice. He was basically a "warrior" (but that's a trick of
a word to describe someone in _peace time_; 'soldier' would be better, in
spite of its etymology) and so to die for his 'country' -- or rather to atone
(if that's the word) for the shame on Menelaus for his wife having flirted
with
a foreigner was pretty much all he _could_ do. He could not sing, he
couldn't read, he couldn't dance. Etc. He didn't have a _troop_ and the
Myrmidons
were originally _ants_.
Cheers
JL Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
(My motto is "Spes et Gloria" (Hope and Glory), too).
----
"Achilles knew before he ever joined the fleet heading for Troy that if he
went, he would almost certainly die there. His mother Thetis, according to
legend tried to hide him away amongst some girls. But clever Odysseus
found him, and convinced him that the Greeks couldn't win unless he fought
for them. Only he could defeat Hector. He knew he would live to a ripe
old age and have a happy life if he stayed in Phthia, but if he went to
Troy, he would be covered in so much glory and fame that his name would
never be forgotten. He decided to go. A short glorious life in war was to
him preferable to a long life of peace.
Achilles revisits this decision in Troy after Agamemnon gave him a very bad
time. He would like the glory but there was no glory in being humiliated by
Agamemnon so he rounded up his Myrmidons and prepared to sail back to
Phthia. But the usual suspects come after him once again and urge him to
stay. They know they can't win against Troy unless he fights for them.
Agamemnon won't apologize for insulting Achilles, but he does try to bribe
him. That doesn't help and might anger Achilles further if he had not
already lost all respect for Agamemnon. But the arguments cause him to
decided to stay and wait until the Trojans threaten his ship and then he
will fight. He sends Patrocles out in his armor to scare the Trojans away
from his ship because he isn't quite ready to fight them. But then Hector
makes the mistake of killing Patrocles and that changes everything as far as
Achilles is concerned; so there are extenuating circumstances. It isn't
just glory, but Glory is extremely important.
The Iliad is said by Homer to be about the "rage of Achilles." But it is
also about Achilles choice to seek glory rather than a long life. I recall
poets, novelists and playwrights who made similar decisions. Perhaps with
them it wasn't described so baldly, but they clearly sought fame and glory
and what they felt they needed to do to achieve it shortened their lives.
There is a whole host of writers who felt they couldn't write decently
unless they were high. That was a common belief, and many ended up ruining
their health or just killing themselves (which is much easier, I understand,
if one is in an alcoholic stupor).
Perhaps no poet was so devoted to poetry and to alcohol as Dylan Thomas.
The alcohol-as-a-tool theory breaks down if the writer becomes an alcoholic
and can no longer help it. The need soon outweighs the tool. Dylan Thomas
was clearly out of control when he visited America shortly before his death.
Another poet, John Berryman, tried to recover from Alcoholism but couldn't
manage it - and wasn't sure he really wanted to, at least not permanently.
Another complication has to do with a writer's feeling that his life is
essentially over if he discovers that he can no longer write well. There
is some medical justification for the idea that we can will ourselves to
death if we try hard enough - or perhaps just not try hard enough to keep on
living.
Another group pulls the plug when they decide they can't write well enough
to achieve their ambitions. Did Sylvia Plath make that decision? And what
about Hart Crane?
We may or may not be able to include those who go insane. Robert Lowell was
I believe manic-depressive. Delmore Schwartz was, if memory serves me,
paranoid, but they were both extremely ambitious. They both wanted literary
glory.
We can expand this subject and include presidents who set up libraries in
their names and worry about their legacies. They want their legacies to be
glorious.
Questions,
1) of what value is glory, whether military, literary or political?
2) Why do some of us seek it?
3) Does Shelley in Ozymandias have a point?
4) and was Achilles right to make the choice that he did?
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