Ramblings through 'Kubla Kahn'

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

This is the poem "Kubla Khan" in case any of you are interested. I remembered that Sexson had set us a challenge to see if we could find the romance within the poem itself. To begin with, it may be easiest to note that only once within the 55 or so lines is a form of the word romance actually used: "that deep romantic chasm." That being said I will try in the next few paragraphs to at least pull together a semblance of an answer to the question of what makes "Kubla Khan" a romance. Not to say that my answer is the definitive solution, or that I have come in any sense close to what the true meaning or "answer" to such a query might be, but I will make my own stunted attempt and leave the judgement of its worth to my readers.

Let us begin then with the beginning. "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea". The very start of the poem brings us to a magical land far away, a world of the faerie where anything is possible. It is, perhaps, the same world that Gawain traversed in his search for the Green Knight and that Conn-eda wandered through with his pony companion. But this Kubla Khan character is new, a Kingly figure, perhaps a fisher king. Whatever his origins he has ordered the construction of a "stately pleasure-dome." From the lines that follow in the second stanza, the reader can almost see a paradise, a world that had not fallen into sin at the choices of Adam and Eve.

It is a beautiful place to be sure, a land, as it were, in perpetual spring. Yet perhaps the most interesting aspect of this landscape comes in the third line of the poem with the "sacred river" Alph. What to say about the river? To begin with let us start with the most obvious reference to the Alpha, the first letter of the alphabet in Greek and perhaps a reference to the very foundations of life in a place where "forests [are as] ancient as the hills". Yet it also echoes words from the Bible with a God that is both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end," for the river travels from the land of plenty into a world that can only be described as barren and dark "a sunless sea" reflecting the chaotic void at the beginning of the bible before God spoke the world into creation.

As the play continues Kubla constructs his utopia, and the perfection of it is described for us in the next several lines. Finally, we arrive to what I consider to be the "meat of the matter" that is to say the third stanza, for not only is it here that we, for the first and last time, hear the word romantic: "That deep romantic chasm" we are told, and for the life of me I could not decipher what the poet could have been talking about. He had, after all, just finished recounting to us the splendor of the court of Kubla Kahn. Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I came to think that this chasm referred to the river Alph itself, for we know already that it is sacred from the first stanza. The "holy" aspect in the third stanza would seem to strengthen this case. It is also interesting that the poet uses the term enchanting, a word that seems to denote the presence of magic. Within the next few words we are told of a woman and her "demon-lover" and the remainder of the stanza up to the point that begins "Five miles" seems to describe almost a playful aspect of the river, jumping up in a fountain. Yet soon the river makes its way down to the caves and to a "lifeless ocean." I will only argue here that the river seems to have made a full course, from the beginning of its life to the frivolity and happiness of youth, to the long meanderings of age, and finally to the vast halls of death to which we all must go in the end.

At this point then, it would seem that the river is nothing more than a representation of each of our paths along the road of mortality. Yet, that does not make it romantic For, as Dr. Sexson has pointed out to me on several occasions, there can be no death in a romance, only apparent death, which I will eventually argue is nothing more than a path that the hero must take on a road to metamorphosis in order to achieve his ultimate goals. But I digress. We must look then for something deeper, and perhaps it is hinted at in the next stanza where a "miracle of rare device, a sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice" is put before us. In my own opinion this seems to reflect the very duality of the concept of life and death that we have been dancing around throughout the entire semester. That is to say, we can see from the image that Coleridge places before us at once a world of both light and dark, heat and cold, happiness and sadness, demons and lovers, the beginning and the end.

Without going into too much depth, for I do not wish to spoil any points that I may find particularly useful for my final paper, I will say only that I believe that the poem "Kubla Khan" is romantic because it contains within itself the quintessential dualities that must exist in order for a romance to function. There must always be opposites weaving in and out of each other, supporting one another in the enormous web of life that breeds such stories. In Coleridge's poem we have it all.

In the end, it is the narrator's journey into this other world, this land of magic and faerie, his desire to find something deeper, that leads him to what he has written. There he finds all manner of dualities, these coexisting opposites that bring about his verse. He has made his quest. And yet that quest continues further into the land of the dead, where Alph meets the lifeless ocean. The narrator does not die, however, but rather sees for the first time the intricacies of a far subtler world than he imagined. He returns from his journey a man changed into something other than what he was. He has "drunk the milk of Paradise" and returned from those far lands to tell his story to the world. Here then we have all five aspects of the romance for within the narrator's return is a sense of the happy ending. He has already seen Paradise and knows that he may one day return there. As he tells his tale to the reader, however, he is transformed into an otherworldly being for he has, in a sense, found the nugget of his own immortality within the mortal flesh of his being. Thus, even his return to this world is much like that of the King in "The King and the Corpse" for both are here only so long as their allotted time to humanity remains. Then the narrator will, it can be assumed, return to paradise.

I sincerely hope that my ramblings have not been too confusing at any point during this entire blog. If so I apologize in advance. The more I wrote about this subject, the deeper I wanted to go, and I think that is dangerous before my final paper. I will say in parting that if there was anything at all helpful or enlightening to any one of you that read this, then I will consider my attempts a success.

A Kind of Adventure

It's interesting that not twenty minutes after class today, I was asked if I would like to go to an "art talk." Since non of you will really understand what that means to me personally, let me just say that I've never really been much of what you would call an "art person." It's not that I despise the stuff. I simply have never taken the time to really connect with the part of my brain that can find more interest in works of art than a simple acceptance of the skill that it takes to produce a piece. Thus, in spite of its less than adventurous tone, I found myself faced with the prospect of either opening the door and letting my anima in. To my surprise, not only was the acceptance and embracing of this surprising event worthwhile, but it gave me a somewhat different perspective on what we have been discussing in class throughout the semester.
The talk was given by an an artist who, within the first couple minutes of her talk, claimed to be enthralled by a romanticized view of nature. The use of the "R" word had my ears perking up quickly, and I found myself drawn deeply into a topic that had seemed, at first, a painful experience that I would have to endure. She spent much of the rest of the presentation talking about her artwork itself, and I was very surprised and pleased to learn that much of what she dealt with was erosive in nature, that is to say a descent, if I may be so bold as to put words in her mouth. I found myself looking at each image that she showed as a kind of pictorial representation of our own studies in literature. From shadows and reflections, to natural formations that were themselves eroded, each picture reminded me more and more of our class.
There is not much more for me to add to that. I found the topic enlightening and refreshing and will now probably return for more.

The Journey of Gawain

After finishing the three tales of Sir Gawain in The King and the Corpse, I thought that I would share some thoughts about my own interaction with the text. I realize it’s been more than a week since I last posted so hopefully anyone who thought that my posts were worth reading have not migrated to greener pastures. Either way here goes.

For those of you who don’t know, the tale of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is rather simple, at least on the surface, and elaborates on a challenge set forth by a strange green man to the men of Arthur’s castle. The challenge is that whoever is brave enough should step forward and, with the axe that the Green Knight holds, strike the large man one blow. The stipulation is that the next New Year the man should find the knight at the Green Chapel and receive one blow in kind. Gawain takes up the contest in order to protect the honor of his lord and delivers a blow that knocks the head from the Green Knight’s shoulders. Problem solved right? Wrong! The giant then picks up his head, gore dripping from the wound (I imagine he blew the larger debris and germs off as well, because who wants to reattach their head to their body  only to get an infection from some unseen piece of detritus.) The allotted year passes and Gawain goes in search of the Knight. Nearly dead, he prays to God and Mary for a safe place to stay the night on Christmas Eve and lo and behold a castle appears. Being the trusting man that he is, Gawain enters the castle and is greeted as a great lord. He learns that the Green Chapel is not far from his current location and agrees to stay the remainder of the time before his appointment with the Lord and Lady of the realm. The next three days involve a wager set between Bertilak and Gawain that the former will go out and hunt and whatever he catches he will bring to Gawain whiled the latter remains at rest within the castle. Gawain agrees and the first two days go by smoothly, each with one more kiss from the Lady to Gawain which the knight promptly bestows upon the Lord. It is on the third day that Gawain breaks his vow for the Lady, attempting to bestow upon Gawain a token that will somehow bind him to her, gives to Gawain a girdle of green cloth that protects the wearer from harm. Thus Gawain, withholds the belt from Bertilak and, though he is troubled by the deceit, goes on his way the next morning to the Green Chapel. There he is confronted by the Green Knight who, after two feinted swings, the first of which makes Gawain flinch and the second to test his resolve to remain still despite impending death, makes only a small cut in the other man’s throat. It is after this trial that the Green giant is revealed to be no other than Bertilak himself, and the man also reveals that Gawain has been tested for the last three days, failing only slightly in that he took the belt from the mistress of the castle. In the end, however, Gawain is permitted to go on his way and chooses to wear the belt as a sign of his newfound knowledge the rest of his days.

This is the story, in quite a hurried fashion, as told by Zimmer. The man does an excellent job of not only passing on the tale but then unburying many of the secrets that lay beneath. I had not thought, for example, that the Green Knight was death incarnate, but the knowledge now makes since. It is also interesting to note that, though this may be true, there is another, more obvious guise that the transformed Bertilak assumes, that of the well named Green Man. The Green Man in Celtic lore was a fertility god. He was of the Otherworld, and thus only interacted with people on the most menial of bases, only coming forth from his evergreen kingdom when men or women needed to learn a lesson. What Zimmer does not add to the axe in the tale is that the man also held a bundle of holly, important in that it is the only plant native to England that grows green in the depths of winter. Zimmer does state later that he sees a union between life and death in the marriage of the Lady of the Castle to her husband Death. Yet I would take the metaphor one step further and say that the Green Knight himself is a unification of both the aspects of life and death. He is, in other words, what Gawain may seem to become at the end of the poem (though we will come to that shortly). Thus it is the wielder of death, the carrier of the axe who is also, in many ways the one who offers life in the depths of winter, apparent death in its physical manifestation.

As Gawain sets out, we come across another form of apparent death, for to all eyes that witness the departure, even to Gawain himself, the brave knight is going to his death. He made the wager with the demon specter and so must go to pay his due, and the only outcome that can be seen by the party is that he will never return from his quest. Thus Gawain has essentially become the walking dead, a figure whose last days are numbered. As Gawain journeys into the wilderness, he is assailed by the world around him, caught in the storms of the wide world which he must overcome in order to make his final destination. Yet, near death, the flame of his life nearly spent in a quest that has lead him across the vast landscapes of England to no avail, Gawain finds himself in a dark forest and prays for deliverance if only for the night that he might worship Christ on the eve of the Lord’s Mass (Christ-mass). Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a castle looms before him. No doubt weary and not thinking straight, Gawain enters the castle with little regard as to from where it might have come. 

It is here that Zimmer makes the second error in his abridgements from the tale, for when Gawain passes into the realm of Bertilak, he is instantly stripped of his armor. As a knight, this is much the same as stripping the man of his identity. The images of death are all about us now. Gawain has, as in the later story of his journey into another castle, crossed into the land of the dead (though at one time it would have been Otherworld, the land of the faeries, but that is a topic for another argument and blog altogether). Here he makes a final descent and loses his very identity, an occurrence that greatly interests Northrop Frye who sees the loss or stripping of identity as one of the tell-tale signs of a fall or descent from a higher plane of existence to a lower one. Thus, Gawain, though he may not yet know it, is charged with literally finding himself again, with rediscovering who and what he is.

Here enters, then, the Lady of the Castle, charged, in no small part, with seducing Gawain, with testing the virtues to which he so adamantly clings. Despite all of her efforts, Gawain remains faithful to his lord, his duty, and, perhaps most importantly, to his host. Yet, he is not completely immovable, and when the Lady offers him a token that could perhaps save his life, the young man takes hold of it, sensing, no doubt, an opportunity to thwart death and return from his once seemingly final quest. The belt, as we learn, is nothing more than a final rouse to tempt the doomed man, a spider web dangling above a cavernous pit that offers to pull the doomed man to safety if he will but reach out and grab it. Bertilak, is none other than the Green Knight himself, and it was his test that the young knight fails. 

Yet, all is not lost for Gawain, as Zimmer notes, for he is eventually given the very belt that offers protection, a symbol of his journey through death into immortality. I am somewhat loathe to argue with a figure such as Zimmer, who no doubt has forgotten more than I will ever know on the subject about which now I type, yet I cannot help but see the belt as not an image of the gained immortality that Gawain first sought, but still as nothing more than the spider web. In other words, I would argue that the belt was nothing more than a gift from the Lady that would make Gawain forget the one thing that he was supposed to remember, his faith in God. Though this may be an uncomfortable subject for some, still I cannot help but see an indictment of any attempts to circumvent the natural order of things. Gawain, in leaving for the Green Chapel is given back his arms (on the inside of his shield by the way is the Virgin to whom he prayed for relief from his suffering before entering Bertilak’s castle. It is to this figure of womanly virtue and to her son that Gawain is supposed to look for comfort in a world of death, and, yet, his faith is marred by the addition of a green girdle that offers no more safety than the strand of web over a chasm. Gawain returns home, not with a mark of immortality, but with a brand that he will ever wear in shame, a reminder that his faith wavered in the face of utter annihilation.

As I write this, however, I am struck by the fact that the man’s faith did not go unanswered. He was saved from the very brink of death by an otherworldly power that he could not comprehend. Who is to say that this power was not in league with his faith? What then can we learn from Gawain, or what were the poets attempting to convey as they concocted such a story? Gawain passed through the fires of death into the very domain of the thing which he sought to avoid only to pass out again later, marked for all time as one who stood in contest with death and was rewarded for his bravery. There can be no doubt that he was transformed, utterly, as marked by the green belt later worn as a sash and reminder of his time within the halls of Life and Death.

In romance, at least, we can see the necessity for the hero to pass through perils that would destroy other men, to brave the deepest darkness in search of some truth that has eluded so many. It is only once he has finally emerged from all these trials, changed from what he once was, that the hero can take up his role and live, in the end happily ever after, but that is a story for the next blog.

The Necessity of "Apparent" Death

While reading the stories of "The Pagan Hero and the Christian Saint," I came across, to my very great surprise, the answers to the questions that I had been trying to comprehend for the last few weeks in class. Why was it necessary for men and women to "die" in romances? Why did the heroes and heroines of the stories have to fall from grace, become as if dead, in stories that are supposed to have happy endings? It is not enough to say that the perceived death spurs the plot along, for there are many other devices that the authors could use if they so desired. Pirates and witches, pits and marriage all provide ample material that could keep a plot going. It would not be very profound, true. But there is so much material that can be added to the story-arch of romance that the apparent death seems at first glance a peripheral thread much like the marriage or the pirates. In the hopes of finding an answer, I first looked at "Beren and Luthien" another of my blogs which anyone is welcome to read. As I wrote, I noticed the beauty of the sacrifice of Luthien's immortality so that she might be with Beren, and they could die together. I felt that the greatest part of the romance came when the two came together to live in the brief brilliance of mortality that made the gods envious. My analysis, in other words, was that the apparent death of Beren was postponed by Luthien's sacrifice, and through that Christ like action, to steal an idea from Frye, I saw the greatest form of Romance. It was my belief that the apparent death was merely another obstacle which the hero and heroine had to overcome in order to show their true love for one another.

To my shame, I must now admit that I was wrong, as Dr. Sexson has pointed out, but I was wrong in a way of which I could not have, at the moment, even imagined. In reading "The Pagan Hero and the Christian Saint," I came across what I now believe to be the true answer for the necessity of apparent death, and the poetry of that moment is magnificent. Zimmer states of pg 44 sating that "[destruction]--death--is but an outer mask of transformation into something better or something worse, higher or lower." He goes on to say that the "unconscious intuitive forces" that guide us through life "understand that death, the dolorous sundering, is a prelude to rebirth, transmutation and reunion... they know, namely, that there is no death" (45). In other words, what we see as death in these stories is nothing more than the caterpillar slipping into a cocoon to become a butterfly. For all apparent intents and purposes, the creature is dead, unable to move or eat, oblivious to the world around it, buried alive in a tomb if you will. It  is only once the caterpillar emerges from its long slumber as the beautiful butterfly (for fun see here any connections you wish to Psyche and the soul) that we understand that the death was necessary for the transformation.

Zimmer is specifically referring to Conn-eda, and goes on to make the same general connections to the Christian St. John. His main argument being that the two innocent individuals, devoid of any amount of evil, needed to experience death in order to become the truly perfect leaders that they were meant to be. Conn-eda must understand the dangers of the world, of treachery and betrayal, and be able to make hard decisions in order to be the powerful ruler he is destined to be. John must understand sin and all that it implies before he can truly absolve people of their own dark deeds.

While this is true of the two characters in the stories that Zimmer puts forth, in order to truly understand the necessity of apparent death in romance, I have tried to use the same logic for each of the stories that I have read so far for class. The hardest, perhaps, is the first, that is to say The Ephesian Tale does not have much apparent death except that the two lovers consider the other lost. My only argument for the power of death as transformation would be the somewhat farfetched idea that a separation of two lovers early in their union, before they can even consummate the marriage if I remember correctly, is to test their love for one another, to drive home the understanding that chastity and fidelity are important characteristics of the individual that will lead the two to a long and happy life. It thus transforms their love from a spark that may catch fire for a moment and burn bright, only to die as suddenly as it sprang up, to the fiery embers that burn slow and hot throughout their lives.

In Daphnis and Chloe, the apparent death comes when the children are left in the pastures to die. Eventually they are returned to their parents and live lives of splendor and grandeur that they could never have imagined. I would argue that the apparent death comes as necessary in this story because it gives the two a taste of the purity and innocence of the pastoral world that helps to define their lives, and their love, in the urban community of which they later find themselves a part. On another, side note, it is only after Daphnis has learned the art of love from the widow that he can truly be the lover he wishes for Chloe. Interestingly enough, the little death (see orgasm) comes only after sex, and could therefore be seen as a type of death from which Daphnis emerges wiser in the world. (Just a fun fact some of you might enjoy.)

In Callirhoe, I would argue, the apparent death is quite obvious, though the lesson that we are supposed to learn from it may not be. If we remember, however, the events that lead to Callirhoe's apparent death, the answer may come more easily than we originally anticipated. After all, it is Chaereas's anger at his new wife's apparent infidelity that causes a reaction, he kicks her so hard she seems to die, that leads to the burial and Chareas's subsequent trial. It is only after the rest of the story that we see the change the death has caused in Chaereas. Threatened by the King of Persia, Chaereas is ready to go to battle with the man, but listens to his newly returned wife Callirhoe and instead acts wisely, giving the King his possessions back and returning to Syracuse with his resurrected bride.

Lucius or The Ass is also difficult, mainly because we do not receive from the shortened version the lesson that The Golden Ass proffers at the end. In trying to remember the lesson, I believe that it is the concept of man falling from his lofty position into the form of an ass, for all intents and purposes dead to those around him, that teaches the man the error of his lecherous ways and puts him on a path toward divine understanding to which he would have been blind otherwise.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is perhaps the most like "The Pagan Hero" in that Haroun, dead through the state of dreams, learns the importance of both silence and storytelling, that both light and dark have their merits, much as Conn-eda learns the importance of both the kindness he holds throughout his life and the ability to kill in necessity, to be hard when the moment calls for it.

Interestingly enough it is only Abu Kasim who does not learn to change, and it is this inability to alter himself that leads to his ultimate destruction.

Thus, we come to the end of this long, and often rambling tale. I hope that the brief survey that I've just outlined goes in some way towards being helpful to anyone who, like myself, wondered at the importance of a death that wasn't even true to the larger narrative scheme of a romance. In the little while since I read "The Pagan Hero" my own perspective has been considerably altered. I now see death not as an obstacle to be overcome, a fiery hoop through which the hero must and does pass unscathed, but rather a fire that must singe and burn either hero or heroine or both in order to lead them to their ultimate goals, to make them the characters that they were born to be. They come through the fire singed and burned, altered beyond repair, but it is a repair that is unnecessary for in passing through the flames, they have burned away the fat so to speak. Scarred, yet somehow stronger for the experience, the moth emerges from its cocoon to the light of a new day, unfurls its wings and flies, seeing the world from a different perspective yet never forgetting its time as the caterpillar.

A Possible Example of Romance

While contemplating what Dr. Sexson described as the apparent death and wondering how I could best understand the three other concepts of romance, I came across a rather strange example of what I thought would perfectly match the criteria that we have established to this point. That is not to say that it is the perfect romance by any stretch of the imagination, only that it meets the criteria for a romance and, as popular culture, provides a succinct example of the concepts we seem to be discussing in class. And so, without further ado, I offer for the reader's consideration Gladiator. This is the point where anyone who has not watched the film should either concede that they do not care about spoilers or go and watch the movie before reading the rest of the blog.

I will concede that on the surface, Gladiator does not seem to be a romance. After all, his wife and child are murdered, crucified by Roman legionnaires, however, if we look closer, I think that it becomes apparent that the movie, though masked by brutality and bloodshed, is in the end romantic.

Let us begin then with the first apparent death. Maximus, our hero, is introduced as a character of exceeding nobility, a man who has led the Romans to countless victories over their enemies. As the film opens, he is once again caught in a battle with men from Gaul. The battle goes as planned, and Maximus is soon reunited with his friend the Emperor. The plot proceeds rapidly now. The Emperor implores Maximus to take over for him after he dies because he fears the power that his son would have over the empire. Commodus, the son, learns of this, kills his father, and has Maximus taken out into the countryside where the once proud general is to be murdered. Maximus, of course, escapes without the knowledge of Commodus and races home to protect his family. There he finds the bodies crucified above the front gate of the villa. It is that this point that he falls into a fevered state from one of his wounds and is picked up by slavers who take him to be sold as a gladiator.

Death, then, comes in many forms for Maximus. He is presumed dead by Commodus. His wife and child are killed, and he soon falls from his lofty position to the lowest of slaves. He is no longer a man that others respect but one that they expect to die for their amusement. For all intents and purposes, the man that we knew at the beginning of the film is dead, replaced by a desperate warrior with only one thought on his mind: Revenge.

This brings us to the second of our requirements, the quest. It is at this point that Maximus attempts to work his way up the ladder so to speak. At first, he resigns himself to dying in the arena, to truly becoming what he no doubt feels inside. However, soon he learns that he can perhaps meet the Emperor, now Commodus, if he is impressive enough. What follows, and I am doing a poor job of explaining the plot here, are a series of battles and chess moves that eventually brings Maximus face to face with Commodus (our first revelation).

Each side then sets about plans to overthrow the other. Maximus and several of his friends attempt to escape, only to find that Commodus has found out their plan. Many of the men are murdered, though a few are left alive, including Maximus, to fight one final time in the arena. Commodus, seeking to gain the favor of the people, plans a fight for himself against Maximus and, using the froda that he constantly does throughout the movie, stabs the stronger man in the back before the match so that his stronger opponent is not able to use the full extent of his forza. In the end, though, Commodus is killed, ironically enough by the very hidden blade with which he sought to weaken Maximus.

Maximus dies as well, however, and the first few times that I saw this movie, I thought that part to be sad. However, our recent forays into the world of romance have shown me that this is, in fact, both the final revelation and the happy ending we have been seeking all along. Maximus is reunited with his family in Elysium, I did not say that the movie was wholly accurate, and strangely enough, there is a sense that the republic of Rome, once thought dead, is now revived and ready to take its place again.

 

In the end, I hope that I have shown a modern interpretation of a classic romance. Though on its surface Gladiator appears to be a sad movie where the main character dies, that appearance masks the more romantic view that the entire movie takes. We watch a man fall from grace, search for vengeance, gain  all that he has lost back, and, in the end live happily ever after with his wife and child. In the back ground, the country itself echoes the plight of the man. First it is great as a republic, then it falls into the hells of empire, before finally reemerging as the dreamed for republic again. And if that is not romance, I do not know what is.

Daphnis and Chloe

In the introduction to Greek Fiction, Helen Morales introduces us to a concept that, in my own original reading of Daphnis and Chloe, I had not understood or deemed as less noteworthy. She points out that the style of the "novel", if I may use her own word, suggests an education on love, an attemt to define it for those who have never known the embrace of love or to awaken memories within those who have already tasted its nectar.

Perhaps it is not coicedence, then, that Daphnis and Chloe do not understand their attraction to one another and cannto express their affections beyond the shared kisses and embraces that lack the pure intimacy they so desire to both convey to the other and feel for themselves. They know that they are in love bur are incapable of expressing themselves, lacking the knowledge of the world that would allow them to move beyond simple contact. It is interesting to note that the two lovers, if they can truly be called that at this point of the story, take their cues from the animals around them. Often animals are seen as the most innocent of creatures, and it is the the time that Daphnis and Chloe spend with these creatures that makes them so ignorant of their own society and customs, that leaves them with a lack of understanding with regards to their feelings. Yet, the goats and sheep, almost in counterpoint to the innocence of the two humans' own innocence, exist with an internal knowledge and understanding of what to do and when to do it. They do not need a secret tutor leading them off into the woods for private instruction.

This leads us, then to a predicament, for we can see that Daphnis and Chloe are drawn together by some passion that they cannot comprehend, some natural desire that pushes them together. yet, this same deep-seated attraction seems to be parallel to, if not slightly overshadowed by a logical portion of the mind that needs both instruction and understanding in order to fully grasp the notions of the more primitive brain.

Longus, it would seem then, sought to show his audience that love is something both primeval and logical, based within the deepest roots of desire while still pertaining to the brain and all its powers of understanding. It is this that he is, perhaps, referring to when he states that he hopes the story will "bring back memories for those who have know love, and... give instruction to those who have not..." (Morales 137). Thus we can see passion burning away the cobwebs of a love grown cold and dark while those who are yet uninformed can begin to see the first blueprints of a design that is at once simple and immensely complicated.

Beren and Luthien

So in reading for one of my other classes, I came across a great romance that I thought I would share with the rest of you. As the title of this blog suggests, it's called "Beren and Luthien" and is a chapter in the book by J. R. R. Tolkien. The chapter itself is rather long, but I'll try to sum it up in a few sentences or so.

A man named Beren is wandering through an enchanted forest when he comes across Luthien. She is, of course, the most beautiful elf in the world. As such, he is instantly spell bound and can only pine after the woman after she vanishes into the trees. He spends the next few years wandering the forest in search of her until he finally sees her again and calls out to her. She turns to look at him and is, of course, at once spell bound by him as well. Of course they must go to her father and get his permission for the marriage. He, not wanting to lose his daughter to a human tells the man that he will give her hand in marriage if he will only bring a jewel from the crown of the evil demon king in the north. He, of course, expects the man to die in the quest and so feels confident in his agreement. Beren accepts the mission and sets off to accomplish this task. There are several adventures that ensue during which Beren and Luthien struggle through several hazards in order to accomplish their goal. I will not tell you the specific details as I might want to use part of this for my final romance, and I think each of you should pick up the book if only to read that chapter. Needless to say they succeed and eventually return the jewel to the king, though Beren is mortally wounded in the process. Perhaps the most romantic portion of the story comes, then, when Luthien travels to the land beyond the sea and receives a boon from the gods, so great is her grief. She may either choose to leave the world of men behind and live in the world of gods without any memory of her beloved, or she can give up her immortality and return with Beren to the land of men. She, of course, chooses the latter, and they are both given their lives back to live and die together as mortals.

This story was perhaps most memorable to me because of the end. I remembered Dr. Sexson mentioning the other day that romance always ends in death and I couldn't help but notice that perhaps the most romantic aspect of this particular story was an immortal elf giving up immortality, even eternal peace to live but a short time with her true love. It seems then that the greatest understanding of love comes as the flame burns brightest, but in its bright burning, it is burned up more quickly, and we are required to love all the more fiercely. I guess what I'm trying to say in a round about sort of way is that it is through our mortality that we can love and live as we do. In Troy, a not so fantastic movie, but one that was brought to mind by the puppet show on Friday, Brad Pitt explains that it is the gods who are jealous of men because it is our mortality that drives us to greatness, that spurs us into heroic acts that would never be considered before. Immortals last. They can hold grudges and maintain feuds for a millennium. Man loves because he does not know what breath will be his last or whether his next moments will give him the immortality that only song can bring.

Returning then to "Beren and Luthien,"  it is this same understanding of love as something special and bonding, uniquely through death, that creates a fantastic, and I would perhaps argue, perfect romance. The loves of both main characters for the other, leads each to their deaths, and, while those deaths are at one time postponed, still each chooses to give up much longer lives in exchange for the other, and there is true beauty in that choice.