Jul

3

Nameless: Some Thoughts on Frost’s “The Gift Outright,” for July 4th

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The Gift Outright
Robert Frost

The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

Comment:

This is a strange poem, but then again, America is a strange place, even if everyone professes to understand it. The name “America” does not occur in the poem: “the land,” “ours,” “she” and the ambiguous-enough “the gift outright” all substitute. The last word of the poem is “become:” does America even exist yet?

A relation between existence and possession is posited. “The land” – again, not “America” – “was ours.” At a later point, “we were the land’s.” Possession, at the least, marks existence, even if it does not properly name what is: “our land,” “her people.” Reciprocal possession might be love, but note “before” – reciprocal possession starts with one claiming possession. This creates the problem of time: did anyone make a claim on us? Did we make prior claims?

On that latter question, we most certainly did: there are two distinct sets of colonies and traditions, Massachusetts and Virginia. Our claim to those plots was based on the English claim to us; do we want to say England loved us? Part of the poem seems to refute this idea. If love is reciprocal possession, then “Possessed by what we now no more possessed” seems to imply England had nothing like true love. But that’s a shallow, lazy way out given this: The deed of gift was many deeds of war. And Frost is well-aware of the significance of “life, liberty and property” to our heritage, the precursor of “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Possession seems to be the possibility of love by mid-poem, though. After all, “we” were “withholding” “something,” and we felt enervated. Possession is about strength; when we feel weak, we are experiencing the most base reaction. This is not love, not yet. This is only “salvation in surrender.” We are brought to the final of 5 sentences, which is itself 5 lines. “We” are “the gift outright,” it seems, but all the doubts the modern Left has about America are there: “vaguely realizing westward” implies we did not and do not know where we are going. “But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced, / Such as she was, such as she would become” implies that leaving the Old World came at enormous cost: can we ever progress, or are we forever marked by frontier crudity?

What is unsaid is vital: we have a name for the New World, and it is ours, all of ours. As many of us were slavers, that many more died to emancipate. The lack of the name is the will to sacrifice, and that is the authentic piety of love. We have surrendered to the land, it takes us where it will; there is a body/soul relation throughout the poem, and a comment on what spirit is in “unstoried,” “unenhanced.”

Jul

1

Links, 7/1/09

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Jun

30

Homeward Bound: In Houston

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for David Solis & Damien Gaffney

Sunlight scorched; almost immediately, shirt dripped with sweat and I retreated into a Starbucks. Inside, told this was dry heat, that humidity would arrive and make this that much worse. People-watched from the window for an hour or two. Lots of gorgeous women wearing loose-fitting clothes, seemingly unaffected by anything else. A few homeless people struggling to even walk properly. One parked himself in front of a trash can and dug through it; his expression turned to glee as he discovered a whole container of food there. I made myself watch, thinking what I had said at the Twitter conference: This is my country. This is not acceptable.

I walked around a bit more: 5 hours before Collegium would arrive, 6 before rehearsal. Went looking for my favorite brand of pens, the finer the tip (0.5 is just acceptable enough for me) the better. I don’t get them up North and I don’t feel like buying $25 worth of stuff from Amazon all the time. Ended up back at the hotel writing about Dickinson, having bought an inferior brand of pen.

Saw a woman drop off her son at the hotel, complaining the whole time about the traffic and worrying about how to get back. A bit too familiar: I love my parents, but my whole life any and every excuse to not do something was offered even while doing that something. Eventually this turned me into being scared of doing things myself while making bad excuses. A good friend has told me I “walk nervous,” and that’s true. – I wonder how Dickinson felt, almost never leaving home. -

After rehearsal, a few of us visited Rice University. Valhalla was neat: an attempt to create a dive bar atmosphere for geeks. Reminded me of Sugar Mom’s in Philadelphia, but without the artsy/trashy crowd (at least on this visit). Of significance was Duncan Hall, but I don’t want to get into the academic debates about schools of architecture. Rather, I’ll say this: the building is awesome. Rice’s campus was awesome. You felt like this school cared for learning, cared for its students, cared to stand for something. I realize that the middle statement is debatable – a quick contrast with my undergraduate years should suffice.

Writing stopped as going around with choir led to lots of neat buildings to behold: an alumni’s home with beautiful wood floors, and despite a lot of nice-looking stuff, a feeling of space and comfort. The church we sang the wedding in: awful acoustics but a Gothic look. Finally, Annunciation, with good acoustics and much beauty and no real comfort: we had a job to do.

In the airport, a reservist heading off to training soon. He had joined shortly after 9/11 because he wanted to serve. He wasn’t bitter about Army life: he talked about how he had seen many new places – Germany, Spain, England, France, etc. and loved them all. He spoke well of his time in Iraq. But he was clear about its limitations: he married a fellow soldier and they were divorced now. He had been in Houston visiting his child. We talked about Transformers, football, Star Trek and watched gorgeous women pass by.

Finally, on the plane, an evangelical professor trying to convince his circles to take the Great Books seriously. Again, no writing: the conversation began by talking about film. He was very excited about the books he was writing and the programs his school had set up. I heard a lot about Dante. At this point, I wasn’t a terribly patient listener, I must confess. There’s a certain “in Texas, everything is bigger” mentality that I both love and hate; like literary theory, it attempts to define things by genre, as opposed to seeing how individuals compose a whole. We didn’t debate, I was eager to hear about his approaches to texts, and I’m more than willing to recommend his work. I just need to be at Starbucks, with pens I like, slightly removed from the scorching heat.

Jun

29

Notes on Dickinson’s “I stepped from Plank to Plank” (875)

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“I stepped from Plank to Plank…” (875)
Emily Dickinson

I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch —
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.

Comment:

“Stepped” recalls the first word of Plato’s Republic (katabain, “I stepped down”) and the title of Xenophon’s autobiographical account, the Anabasis (”step up,” “ascend”). We don’t need to get into any detail about either work, though – the question is why horizontal motion here, as opposed to vertical motion. Is asking for life to stay roughly on the same course the most difficult thing? Is there some anxiety the speaker is trying to avoid?

“Slow” tells the movement of the body, “cautious” the hesitancy of the mind. Body and mind are united by means of a “way,” a path one must travel: perhaps this is a means, again. The “Stars” are most certainly only felt, not necessarily known. The Sea is most certainly known, and I think we know where the speaker’s gaze is directed. The avoiding of anxiety is itself anxiety, but we didn’t need a packed poem to tell us that.

“I stepped” parallels “I knew not;” not all “ways” are created equal. “Plank to Plank” forces the ambiguity of “but the next:” “plank” is not “blank,” it has content, implying harm to the speaker. “But the next” is closer to “blank,” but is itself hesitancy. “Would be my final inch” – why not “could?” “Could” would imply “can,” thus giving agency to the planks (which are capitalized anyway). “Would” implies will – are we getting an account here of where will must of necessity move? Not ascending, not descending, but straight across?

“This” gave me “that:” something alien to the speaker has been at work the whole time, even as that something is not an external object. “Gait” is not just one’s manner (body/mind unity), but from Old Norse gata, meaning “path.” “Precarious” is the word that stuns: the Latin is precarius, “obtained by entreaty.” Something uncertain is something prayed for.

Some call this “experience,” but this may not be experience. This is the unassisted, unreflective will, perhaps, and it is making the leap into the divine. Fine, but note that the divine itself has literally dealt with an ocean of chaos.

Jun

25

Housekeeping: Updating the Index Page

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I’m working on updating the Index page – your help is requested. If you’re playing around with it and notice broken links or misspellings or anything, let me know.

Also, let me know if there are posts you want to see featured on that page which I forgot about. You wouldn’t believe – even with categories and tags – how long it takes to update this page, and how many mistakes get made.

Thanks in advance.

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