VV{11} April

[Terrance]

One of the major themes, perhaps the most important theme in
Chaucer, is that Art is deception. I like what jbor has said
in the past about Pynchon's "retraction" in GR. His is an
excellent postmodern take on the "applied author's"
"betrayal" and the fragmentation of the text. The retraction
that Chaucer writes is traditional, Chaucer of course,
retracts his work because art, literature, even the
subversive, fragmented literature of a Great poet, is
nothing in the grand scheme of things, in the great chain of
being, in the glories   creations of God and the Grace,
Salvation that none may have but through Him.

In any event, a hot April for our friend Benny. All sorts of
themes from 
Pynchon's early works in here, particularly *Small Rain*

http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/gp/gp-add.html

Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veine in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr;
Whan Zephyrus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye
That slepen all the night with open yë&emdash;
So priketh hem in hir corages&emdash;
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seeken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, couth in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martyr for to seeke
That hem hath holpen whan that they were
seke.



1         Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
1            When April with its sweet-smelling showers
2         The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
2            Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
3         And bathed every veyne in swich licour
3   And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
4         Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
4            By whose power the flour is engendered;
5         Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
5            When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,
6         Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
6            In every holt and heath, has breathed life into
7         The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
7            The tender crops, and the young sun
8         Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
8            Has run its half course in Aries,
9         And smale foweles maken melodye,
9            And small fowls make melody,
10         That slepen al the nyght with open ye
10            Those that sleep all the night with open eyes
11         (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
11            (So Nature incites them in their hearts),
12         Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
12            Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
13         And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
13  And professional pilgrims (long) to seek foreign shores,
14         To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
14  To (go to) distant shrines, known in various lands;
15         And specially from every shires ende
15            And specially from every shire's end
16         Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
16            Of England to Canterbury they travel,
17         The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
17            To seek the holy blessed martyr,
18         That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
18 Who helped them when they were sick.

>From the Riverside Chaucer:

Because the solar year has just begun with the vernal
equinox. The sun has passed through the second half of the
Zodiacal sign Aries (the Ram); the time is thus late April.

http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/gp/gp-add.html

Some notes on The Wasteland by TS Eliot

The driving force of all life is procreation and re-birth.  
For mankind, vegetation, the animal kingdom, the survival
of   the species  is the dominant factor and only the
fittest  survive.  For  millennia, different races have
believed that the fertility of the land depended on the 
sexual potency of their ruler or favor of their gods. 
Pagan,  Roman, Greek and other gods have been invented who
were believed to  control the fertility of the land, such
as  Ceres, the Roman goddess  of agriculture, on which the
survival of their populations has   been believed to
have depended. Various superstitions and religions have
further developed and become significant factors in the
lives of billions of the world's population.  The Waste Land
takes these themes and portrays a dead land that lacks the
fertility and sexual potency needed to sustain and progress
life. A land void of what is needed for re-birth. The 
life-giving elements: Earth, Air,   Fire, Water. Earth
is sterile; Air is turned to "brown fog"; Fire  burns; Water
drowns. The sexual  imageries are unproductive: sex is  
present as a lustful functional device but lacking of the
necessary  fertility. Superstitions are turned to by the
society in search of the answer in the form of Tarot cards
and religion is a constant thread as  evidenced by 
the recurring Biblical references and themes. 
In The  Burial of the Dead we see that he gives
us an image of the Earth as  sterile, instead of being the
foundation of vegetation. It is only a repository for the 
dead. Earth is the first of the natural elements. 
These opening lines echo the "April", "root",
"Lilac/flower",  and "rain/shower"  imagery of the opening
lines of the GP of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  
These lines are reflecting the image of   life and death. 
Rain usually
nurtures and strengthens plants and sustains them, but here
we see that life even with water is slowly dying and wasting
away. He later goes on to say that the trees will give no
shelter and the crickets, no relief.  This line comes from
Ecclesiastics 12:5-7: "Also when they shall be  afraid of
that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the
almond tree shall   flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a
burden, and desire shall fail:   because man goeth to his
long home, and the mourners go about the streets. 
Or forever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl 
be broken, or the   pitcher be broken at the fountain, or 
the wheel broken at the cistern. 
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the
spirit shall   return unto God who gave it." 
When he says "I will show you fear in a handful of dust", he
again gives us the image of birth   because in the Christian
belief, God made Adam out of the dust of the  ground. A Game
of Chess comes from Thomas Middleton's A Game at   Chesse, a
controversial Elizabethan play depicting war between  
England and Spain with England as the white pieces and Spain
as the  black. In this poem though, the players end in
stalemate.  As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king So rudely
forced; yet there the nightingale Philomel 
is the character raped by Tereus and
who had her tongue cut out so that she couldn't tell. She 
was turned into a nightingale. These few lines represent
sexuality withour fertility, and how the earth is so wasted
that it can't  produce life anymore. 
The Fire Sermon A key feature of Bramanical
philosophy was the  worship of fire as  part of the Vedic
rituals. Fire in  that sense was used as cleansing. 
In this use it is cleansing  the world of all immoral
things.  
Fire was the voice of the god Agni personified by man, 
water personified by woman.
In Death By Water, water here doesn't
give life, it takes life away. Short, resolute
and uncompromising. Water is the third  of  the four natural
elements.  In the Christian belief water is used for
baptizing.  This process is like dying in water, and being
resurrected into a new life. In the next chapter this same
thing does the divine voice here, thunder,  repeating Da!
Da! Da! that is, restrain yourselves, give, sympathize. 
One should practice this same triad:  
self-restraint, giving, sympathy." Thunder brings
the promise of rain but fails to provide it. Thunder
represents Air, the fourth  of the four natural elements.