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 Pauls 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 prophets proclamation of the
(eschatological) kingdom of God began the Christian
religion than it does to imagine that a Cynic
philosophers 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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