ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

robinlandseadel at comcast.net robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Wed Mar 28 11:39:57 CDT 2007


There's a word that needs to be close by when reading Pynchon: Satire. 
That's the true foundation of his massive diatribes, so remember that his 
style of satire is extraordinarly inclusive, and that satire is, after all, a 
development out of the old Greek cynic philosophy/lifestyle:

         If Antisthenes was not the first Cynic by name, 
         then the origin of the appellation falls to 
         Diogenes of Sinope, an individual well known 
         for dog-like behavior. As such, the term may 
         have begun as an insult referring to Diogenes’ 
         style of life, especially his proclivity to perform 
         all of his activities in public. Shamelessness, 
         which allowed Diogenes to use any space for 
         any purpose, was primary in the invention of 
         “Diogenes the Dog.”

         The precise source of the term “Cynic” is, 
         however, less important than the wholehearted 
         appropriation of it. The first Cynics, beginning 
         most clearly with Diogenes of Sinope, embraced 
         their title: they barked at those who displeased 
         them, spurned Athenian etiquette, and lived from 
         nature. In other words, what may have originated 
         as a disparaging label became the designation of 
         a philosophical vocation.

         Within political philosophy, the Cynics can be seen 
         as originators of anarchism. Since humans are both 
         rational and able to be guided by nature, it follows 
         that humans have little need for legal codes or 
         political affiliations. Indeed, political associations at 
         times require one to be vicious for the sake of the 
         polis. Diogenes’ cosmopolitanism represents, then, 
         a first suggestion that human affiliation ought to be 
         to humanity rather than a single state.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cynics.htm

         Roman literature began as an imitation of the Greek 
         literary forms, from heroic epic and tragedy to the 
         epigram. It was only in satire that the Romans could 
         claim originality, since the Greeks never split satire 
         off into its own genre.

         Satire, as invented by the Romans had a tendency 
         from the beginning towards social criticism, but its 
         defining characteristic was that it was a medley, 
         like a modern revue.

         The Romans produced two types of satire. Menippean 
         satire was frequently a parody blending prose and verse.
         The first use of this was the Syrian Cynic philosopher 
         Menippus of Gadara (fl. 290 B.C.). Varro (116-27 B.C.) 
         brought it into Latin. The Apocolocyntosis 
         (Pumpkinification of Claudius), attributed to Seneca, 
         a parody of the deification of the drooling emperor, is 
         the only extant Menippean satire. We also have large 
         segments of the Epicurean satire/novel, Satyricon, by 
         Petronius. The second, and more important type of satire 
         was the verse satire in epic (dactylic hexameter) meter. 
         The founder of this Roman genre is Lucilius, of 
         whom we have only fragments. Horace, Persius, 
         and Juvenal followed, leaving us many complete 
         satires about the life, vice, and moral decay they 
         saw around them.

         Attacking the foolish, a component of ancient or 
         modern satire, is found in Athenian Old Comedy 
         whose sole extant representative is Aristophanes. 
         The Romans also borrowed attention-grabbing 
         techniques from the Cynic and Skeptic preachers. 
         Their extemporaneous sermons called diatribes 
         could be embellished with anecdotes, character 
         sketches, fables, obscene jokes, parodies of 
         serious poetry, and other elements also found in 
         Roman satire.

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/bb.htm

         A good example of this fact is Martianus Capella's 
         The Marriage of Philology and Mercury. All I really 
         ever knew about this text is that it was an important 
         compendium for later generations in the middle 
         ages. What a surprise to discover that it has a 
         self-parodic framework that undermines the whole 
         encyclopedic effort! Relihan reads this work not as 
         part of late antiquity's salvage operation on classical 
         culture, but as a critique of the very effort to 
         synthesize learning. He reads Fulgentius' Mythologies, 
         Ennodius's "Educational Address," and Boethius's 
         Consolation of Philosophy in a similar vein: not as 
         syntheses of Christian and pagan learning, but as 
         failed syntheses that use Menippean devices to 
         undermine in the name of Christian faith the very 
         project that they seem to propose. With Ennodius in 
         particular Relihan makes a convincing case from the 
         use of prose and verse for his view of this text as 
         Menippean.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1994/94.01.13.html

         We noted in passing that a number of historians 
         of Christian origins have concluded that other, 
         more or less important aspects of Paul’s ideas, 
         methods and life-style, may also have had links 
         of one kind or another with Cynic tradition.

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103832974

         My interpretation: Q1 (the bold) is what Biblical scholars 
         are putting as the very earliest writings of the followers 
         of Jesus of Nazareth. As can be seen from this collection,
         the original members of this following did not view Jesus 
         as a Christ or a Messiah, and definitely not as the 
         celestially begotten Son of God. These people saw Jesus 
         as a very wise teacher. A cynic/sage, teaching a morality 
         and practicality that suited the people of that day. Mr. Mack 
         puts Q1 in the mid 50's of the first century of the common 
         era, though at least some of the sayings had more than 
         likely been handed down directly from Jesus.

http://www.cygnus-study.com/pageq.html

         One reason that this scenario remains attractive 
         is that it seems more plausible, within the dominant 
         paradigm of imagining Christian origins, to imagine 
         that an apocalyptic prophet’s proclamation of the 
         (eschatological) kingdom of God began the Christian 
         religion than it does to imagine that a Cynic 
         philosopher’s tongue-in­cheek observations about 
         the kingdom of God could have started that same religion. 

http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/axismundi/2005/Mack_Review_Parrish.pdf

         David Morris:
         What Keith says here makes sense to me.  If there 
         is any "Christian"grace in AtD it's man's (not God's) 
         potential grace toward other men.Pynchon is much 
         more interested in the concept of Karma, where actions 
         have consequences, and, in paranoid fashion, everyone 
         is connected to everyone else in Karma's web.

         Keith:
         I really don't think Pynchon is offering up Christian grace 
         in AtD. That is not a Christian seal (arf) on the book cover. 
         IMO, the Eastern concept of grace (illumination or en-light-
         enment) is more in keeping with the themes (darkness/light, 
         invisible/visible, unconscious/conscious) of the novel than a 
         Judicial-Christian view. Or maybe even saying "Eastern" is 
         too limiting. There is a common structure underlying all the 
         slag piles - beyond any one cultural form. Carvill is right that 
         Pynchon is more universal than "American." More universal 
         than "Christian," too.

         John BAILE:
         Can't recall if this has been covered already, but the whole idea 
         of grace in AtD - isn't the Christian version of grace kind of a 
         get-out-of-jail-free card for the preterite?

Anyway, for those remaining considering the satiric potential of "Grace" within 
the Christian Context, consider the following example of "Christian Grace":

         It is because of Christ's death in our place that we 
         do not experience the wrath of God which we so 
         richly deserve. Jesus satisfied God's justice and 
         turned away God's wrath from us by bearing it 
         Himself on our behalf. Now God can extend mercy 
         to us without subverting His justice. Mercy and 
         justice meet together at the cross.

         When I was a boy growing up in East Texas, we 
         lived near some railroad tracks. In those days, 
         homeless men (whom we called hoboes) often 
         rode the rail cars from town to town. Occasionally, 
         one of those men would show up at our front door 
         and ask my mother for a meal. Without asking any 
         questions, Mother would go to the kitchen and 
         prepare a plate of food for him. She gave it freely, 
         without requiring any "work for food" on his part. 
         She didn't ask him to mow the grass, trim the 
         hedges, or wash the windows. She gave freely 
         without any consideration or conditions.

         Was my mother's kindness an act of grace? It 
         was certainly a gracious, benevolent act, but it 
         hardly qualified as an act of grace in the biblical 
         sense. We often define grace as God's unmerited 
         favor and set grace in opposition to works, as in 
         "We are saved by grace, not by works." If we hold 
         to the simple definition of unmerited favor, though, 
         my mother's gift of a plate of a food would qualify 
         as grace. The hobo did nothing to earn it. The 
         food was entirely unmerited on his part. So why 
         do I say that mother's kindness was not grace?
         
http://www.rts.edu/quarterly/fall98/grace.html

There is a great deal of satire in Against the Day wrapped around 
that ". . . .whole foreign phrase book just on what Republicans have to say."



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