Simple Gifts

In history this month we read Booker T. Washington's famous "Atlanta Exposition Speech" and selections from his autobiography UP FROM SLAVERY to show the context. In reciprocity, then, the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar contextualizes Washington's words, and is in turn contextualized by them.

Dunbar's delightful poem, "The Cornstalk Fiddle," must warm the hearts  of country folk everywhere, with its recall of inventive genius in "making do" with what nature provides in order to share in the communal joys of life and love. One can almost feel the cool autumn evening and the excitement of potential love moving in time to the cornstalk fiddle, evoked by these homespun verses.

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George Orwell's 1984 is classic dystopian literature, but it is also psychologically astute and prescient concerning the totalitarian tendencies of the 20th century's ideologies. With the rise of 21st century Wokism currently in vogue, its message is a clarion call for the present, too. Let us beware of embracing rather than opposing the lies that are being forced upon us, lest we find ourselves, too, living in a world in which we must guard our very thoughts, lest they betray us. Hold fast to the truth, no matter the consequences!

Enjoy ... and be vigilant!

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Book 5 of Plato's Republic is devoted to two primary subjects, "family" life and a discussion of the nature of the rulers in our "good city" (the Kallipolis). Socrates is prevented from discussing the types of city and individual soul - of which there are 4 bad, wrong types and one good form - by the demand that he explain his comment he made in Book 4 about having women and children "in common" in the Kallipolis. About 2/3 of this book is taken up answering this question. In this discussion he makes the revolutionary proposals that 1) women should be able to act in any capacity within the city, even as guardians and rulers, and that therefore they must receive the same education and opportunities as the men. 2) That children should not know their biological parents and vice versa. All children are to be cared for and raised as the common children of everyone in the city. This proposal is meant to sever the "natural" ties of parenthood that cause them to favor their own over everyone else's, and thus to strengthen the unity of the city. As we saw earlier, Plato reasoned that property (what is one's own) causes division, and that therefore measures must be taken to prevent such division by holding all things "in common," a clear endorsement of early communistic practice. 3) Sexual couplings must be regulated by the state in such a way as to enhance the genetics of the "herd," the city's populace, so a system of rigged lottery must be introduced to sanction the fruitful sexual couplings, what he calls "marriages," of the best men with the best women, and discourage "promiscuity." Unfit children are to be disposed of, as was common with the Greeks in that age.

The next question is the obvious one, could such a society really come into existence? Provided, Socrates says, that we understand that practice never truly equals the perfection of theory, it can. And the way in which it could come into being is if PHILOSOPHERS ruled. The remainder of Book 5, then, is taken up with the beginning portrait of what true philosophers are like. In this discussion Plato's theory of the Forms, to be more clearly developed later, begins to show itself.

Following up on the apotheosis of Eliot's pre-conversion to Christianity in his epochal poem, THE WASTELAND, his post-conversion work strikes an entirely new tone. The Rt Reverend Lord Harries wrote this:

"T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” was the voice of a disillusioned generation and reflected a world in disarray. Then in 1928 Eliot announced to a startled world, and the disapproval of his contemporaries, that his general point of view could be described as ‘classicist in literature, royalist in politics and anglo-catholic in religion.’ The previous year he had been baptised behind closed doors in Finstock Church, near Oxford."

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-conversion-of-t-s-eliot

Like today, for a cultural thought-leader to announce a perspective that is Christian and/or conservative is to ostracize oneself from approval and acceptance by the cultural elite, especially the academic cultural elite, of which Eliot was an established member.

As such, his first major post-conversion poem, "Ash Wednesday," was both a departure and a rebirth of Eliot's poetic genius. I hope you love it, as I do!

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#poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #rhythmic #phonaesthetics #soundsymbolism #metre #prosaic #literarycomposition #poet #ambiguity #symbolism #irony #poeticdiction #muse #prosody #meter #metricalpatterns #rhymescheme #tseliot #eliot #ashwednesday

George Orwell's 1984 is classic dystopian literature, but it is also psychologically astute and prescient concerning the totalitarian tendencies of the 20th century's ideologies. With the rise of 21st century Wokism currently in vogue, its message is a clarion call for the present, too. Let us beware of embracing rather than opposing the lies that are being forced upon us, lest we find ourselves, too, living in a world in which we must guard our very thoughts, lest they betray us. Hold fast to the truth, no matter the consequences!

Enjoy ... and be vigilant!

If you'd like to support us, donate through Paypal at [email protected]

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured

https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords

https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com

#georgeorwell #animalfarm #classic #classicdystopianliterature #dystopianliterature #dystopianfiction #dystopian #literature #fiction #psychologicalliterature #psychological #psychology #totalitarian #totalitarianfiction #totalitarianliterature #20thcentury #20thcenturyliterature #woke #wokism #orwell

Book 5 of Plato's Republic is devoted to two primary subjects, "family" life and a discussion of the nature of the rulers in our "good city" (the Kallipolis). Socrates is prevented from discussing the types of city and individual soul - of which there are 4 bad, wrong types and one good form - by the demand that he explain his comment he made in Book 4 about having women and children "in common" in the Kallipolis. About 2/3 of this book is taken up answering this question. In this discussion he makes the revolutionary proposals that 1) women should be able to act in any capacity within the city, even as guardians and rulers, and that therefore they must receive the same education and opportunities as the men. 2) That children should not know their biological parents and vice versa. All children are to be cared for and raised as the common children of everyone in the city. This proposal is meant to sever the "natural" ties of parenthood that cause them to favor their own over everyone else's, and thus to strengthen the unity of the city. As we saw earlier, Plato reasoned that property (what is one's own) causes division, and that therefore measures must be taken to prevent such division by holding all things "in common," a clear endorsement of early communistic practice. 3) Sexual couplings must be regulated by the state in such a way as to enhance the genetics of the "herd," the city's populace, so a system of rigged lottery must be introduced to sanction the fruitful sexual couplings, what he calls "marriages," of the best men with the best women, and discourage "promiscuity." Unfit children are to be disposed of, as was common with the Greeks in that age.

The next question is the obvious one, could such a society really come into existence? Provided, Socrates says, that we understand that practice never truly equals the perfection of theory, it can. And the way in which it could come into being is if PHILOSOPHERS ruled. The remainder of Book 5, then, is taken up with the beginning portrait of what true philosophers are like. In this discussion Plato's theory of the Forms, to be more clearly developed later, begins to show itself.

Arguably the iconic poem of the twentieth century (published in 1922), and certainly Eliot's most well-known. It is also one of the most difficult poems in the English language, and will only reward those willing to study its difficulty. It is a poem filled with poetic, historical, mythological and various esoteric multi-cultural allusions, structures and content. It is the capstone of Eliot's pre-conversion poetry, displaying the emptiness of meaning in a world bereft of transcendence. If you end this poem with a dry mouth, a dry mind, and nothing but numbness, lack of emotion, you've captured Eliot's objective correlative, I think. The final words, "Shanti, shanti, shanti," the Sanskrit "peace," end the poem on a note, not of hope, but of resignation.

Let us just say that THE WASTELAND is most notable for its contrast with the hope, joy and life to be found in Eliot's post-conversion work!

#poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #rhythmic #phonaesthetics #soundsymbolism #metre #prosaic #literarycomposition #poet #ambiguity #symbolism #irony #poeticdiction #muse #prosody #meter #metricalpatterns #rhymescheme #thewasteland #shanti #peace #resignation  #tseliot #eliot

George Orwell's 1984 is classic dystopian literature, but it is also psychologically astute and prescient concerning the totalitarian tendencies of the 20th century's ideologies. With the rise of 21st century Wokism currently in vogue, its message is a clarion call for the present, too. Let us beware of embracing rather than opposing the lies that are being forced upon us, lest we find ourselves, too, living in a world in which we must guard our very thoughts, lest they betray us. Hold fast to the truth, no matter the consequences!

Enjoy ... and be vigilant!

If you'd like to support us, donate through Paypal at [email protected]

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured

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https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com

#georgeorwell #animalfarm #classic #classicdystopianliterature #dystopianliterature #dystopianfiction #dystopian #literature #fiction #psychologicalliterature #psychological #psychology #totalitarian #totalitarianfiction #totalitarianliterature #20thcentury #20thcenturyliterature #woke #wokism #orwell