The Golden Ass - Fairy Tales - Jack Zipes

After class Wednesday I was thinking about our discussion of The Golden Ass - how much of it was the basis of well-known fairy tales that we grew up with, or at least are familiar to us. I remembered a book I read for a Young Adult Literature class, "When Dreams Come True" by Jack Zipes. He writes, "The first appearance of a major literary fairy tale, Apuleuis's "Cupid and Psyche" was written in Latin in the second century. Moreover, it was included in the book "The Golden Ass," which dealt with metamorphoses, perhaps the key theme of the fairy tale up to the present...whereas many oral wonder tales had been concerned with the humanization of natural forces, the literary fairy tale beginning with "Cupid and Psyche" shifted the emphasis more towards the civilization of the protagonist who must learn to respect particular codes and laws to become accepted in society and/or united to reproduce and continue the progress of the world toward perfect happiness...Like "Cupid and Psyche" the early Latin fairy tales were largely focused towards males and on their acquisition of the perfect moral values and ethics that would serve them in their place of power in society." (pg 8-9)

Zipes explains, "the definition of both the wonder tales and the fairy tale which derives from it, depends on the manner in which a narrator/author arranges known functions of a tale, aesthetically and ideologically to induce wonder and then transmits the tale as a whole according to customary usage of a society in a given historical period."

At the time I read this book I had very little knowledge of classical foundations of literature, but I was interested in the place of women in literature, as characters, storytellers, and authors, so the following was of interest to me;

"The first stage for the literary fairy tale involved a kind of class and perhaps even gender appropriation. The voices of the nonliterate tellers were submerged, and since women in most cases were not allowed to be scribes, the tales were scripted according to male dictates or fantasies, even though they may have been told by women. Put crudely, one could say that the literary appropriation of the oral wonder tales served the hegemonic interests of males within the upper classes of particular communities and societies." (pg 7)

Zipes goes further qualifying his statement, saying that writing down the fairy tales also preserved some of the value system of those deprived of power. I suppose this is true to some extent, but we know that history recorded by the male victors leaves out at least half of the story, I'd venture to say that is true of literature as well.

Redefining "Symposia"

In an earlier blog, probably in February when we began reading "The Symposium," I wrote that the definition of a "symposia" was a drinking party. But while reading Eva Keul's "The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens" she writes although symposia literally means a drinking party, "the symposium was the most characteristic feature of Athenian sexual and social life...dedicated to a varying blend of eating, drinking, games of all sorts, philosophical discourse, and public sex with prostitutes, concubines, and other men, but never with wives...the symposia normally took place in the men's quarter's [homes were segregated for the males and females] of private houses...[this area] was entered through a vestibule which was directly accessible from the street[and] was usually the the largest and most luxurious part of the house...the symposium played a part in the sexual indoctrination of the young man. His contact with older prostitutes seemed to have served to liberate him from any vestige of awe of his mother and other female authority figures of his childhood, which he might still be carrying around from his early years in the women's quarters." A little different than just a few men getting together to drink and talk.

"Gimpel the Fool" by Isaac Bashevis Singer

I'm having a difficult time setting down "The Reign of the Phallus" so I can finish "The Golden Ass." Just a recommendation - anyone interested in women's history, women's studies, or how the past possesses the present for women - "Reign of the Phallus" is great! The MSU library didn't have a copy, but I was able to order it from Amazon for just a few dollars.

Today during class Dr. Sexson mentioned "Gimpel the Fool," and how it relates to Lucius, when he is unwittingly involved in the Festival of Laughter, the whole town knew what was going on, but Lucius was unaware, and is mortified when he learns he has been made a fool of; he had cried when he was on trial for the "murder" of the three men (who or which turned out to be bladders, or wine-skins). What I understand from notes/summaries about "Gimpel" is that although he seems to be a fool for what he believes or chooses not to believe, he understands that is how others see him and ignores them. He marries a women with one bastard son that the townspeople say is really her little brother, after their marriage she won't let him sleep with her, has another baby a few months later, and even though he catches her in bed with a man, she denies it. She has 6 more children, and on her deathbed confesses that none of them are his.
He knows the townspeople know all of this, he urinates into the dough of the bread he bakes for the village - but changes his mind after a dream where his wife tells him she is paying for her deceit. He leaves the village and becomes a storyteller and people outside his village treat him well. He begins to "spin yarns - improbable things that could never have happened" and children ask him to tell his stories.

A couple notes - "Gimpel" was written in Yiddish and has Jewish themes of the individual's search for faith and guidance in a cruel world...explored in parable form with details common to folktales. The character of Gimpel is an example of the "schlemiel" - a foolish, unlucky man, common to Jewish lore, whose follies are delineated in order to present a moral lesson. That connects to "The Golden Ass" which was written as a religious novel. Since I haven't finished it, I guess I'll see how Lucius's story is completed.

Pyramus & Thisbe and ill-fated love

I know I'm backtracking a little looking at Pyramus & Thisbe, but I saw a production of "West Side Story" last evening, and had a different awareness than I had previously. The movie came out in 1961 when I was just a child, and I loved it for the music with little awareness of the love story - By the time the 1968 "Romeo and Juliet" Franco Zeffirelli film came out I had read Shakespeare's "original" as well as "Midsummer Night's Dream" with the Pyramus and Thisbe side story. What a perfect time for a 15 year old girl in love with a "bad boy" who had a motorcycle, parents who forbade contact with him, to really get immersed in the exciting, and rebellious love story- I even had a huge movie poster of "Romeo and Juliet" on my wall. By the time the 1998 "Romeo and Juliet" film was released, I had two teenage daughters, who loved the urban contemporary setting of the story compared to Shakespeare's original. So with a background of watching these other films, and Steiner's "conflict theory" still bouncing around in my brain, I viewed the story in a slightly different way. There was age and youth, society and the individual, and a twist of man vs woman. The story is about 2 gangs in NYC, the Jets (white youth) and Sharks (Puerto Rican youths). Tony, the white male, and Maria, the Puerto Rican female, fall in love - so that's the impossible love situation. But this time I really looked at Doc, the white drugstore owner that employs Tony and tries to get the Jets to stop the violence against the Puerto Ricans; you understand the words of age, wisdom and experience will not do any good. In "Antigone" I thought Creon was a pompous old man filled with hubris, and Antigone was right despite her youth, I felt Doc was able to recall youth and understand what disaster was likely to occur. But the gang members thought he was just an old man with no guts to do what they felt needed to be done - fight to reclaim their "area" from the Puerto Ricans. Society vs the individual occurred in two ways - the racism and prejudice felt by both the whites and Puerto Ricans vs the two people who were concerned with individual feelings and wanted to be together, and the authorities, the police trying to keep the status quo against the individual gang members. And finally in a patriarchal society, (especially Puerto Rican) the male youth feeling the necessity of fighting to claim territory, and the females understanding that the war between the gangs was male pride or some such nonsense. Since I'm awaiting the arrival of the book I ordered "The Reign of the Phallus" I thought the man vs woman part of the drama last night was especially meaningful. I enjoyed the premise of "Lysistrata" and feel women have more power than just the power of controlling sex: the fact that the play was written by Aristophanes, a male, just reinforced that part of patriarchy and phallocentricism is based on male fear of female power, especially sexual power. It just brought back to mind going down to a high school football field where my son was practicing and hearing the coach yelling at them to run harder, not like they were "carrying a purse." What a perfect way to motivate young males to be warrior-like - not like a female. While some thought Aristophanes might be considered an early feminist in fact, I think he was using "Lysistrata" as something of a joke, to shame the men into viewing what continuous war was doing to society - and what better method than to write strong females (who are, by the way, sly and deceitful)?

Just an interesting note: I went to IMDb to see what year the '90s "Romeo and Juliet" was released and found besides the '68 and '98 versions there were 34 "Romeo and Juliet" films produced starting in 1909 - and another 19 that had "R & J" in the title. That's quite a few originating with Pyramus and Thisbe, and who knows what came before that story?

The Golden Ass

I found a couple of good websites tonight for The Golden Ass; I haven't started reading the book yet, just finished the introduction. The best website has many links to art as well as modern works inspired by or relating to The Golden Ass. It also has links to selected passages from different translations alongside the Latin original. http://www.jnanam.net/golden-ass/
There are some great paintings on the site too. One bit of information was "the key to understanding the Golden Ass is to look at it as man's effort to find a true interpretation of his experience - the universal human struggle to discover a meaning behind...blind fortune's irrational, indiscriminate cruelty..." The translator of our Golden Ass, Robert Graves, tells us of the main religious principles that Apuleius was concerned with in his writing, and to remember above all, it is a religious novel. Another website has links to other Metamorphoses and analyzes each chapter of The Golden Ass: http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/language/a/goldenasscontent.htm

Metempsychosis

I was looking at a few websites for Metempsychosis and found a great one with a poem and music: http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Metempsychosis.html

Following is the poem "Metempsychosis" by Jane Hirshfield:

Some stories last many centuries,
others only a moment.
All alter over that lifetime like beach-glass,
grow distant and more beautiful with salt.

Yet even today, to look at a tree
and ask the story, Who are you? is to be transformed.

There is a stage in us where each being, each thing is a mirror.

Then the bees of self pour from the hive-door,
ravenous to enter the sweetness of flowering nettles and thistle.

Next comes the ringing a stone or violin or empty bucket
gives off-
the immeasurable's continuous singing,
before it goes back into story and feeling.

In Borneo, there are palm trees that walk on their high roots.
Slowly, with effort, they lift one leg then another.

I would like to join that stilted transmigration,
to feel my own skin vertical as theirs:
an ant-road, a highway for beetles.

I would like not minding, whatever travels my heart.
To follow it all the way into leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch,
and then keep walking unimaginably further.


As I was reading the poem I could picture Ovid in Imaginary Life as he laid on the ground, and was feeling part of the earth, ready to embrace the next step, his peacefulness and acceptance of the process. He didn't call to the Child as he was collecting food for them, he felt no need to have someone with him. I think the Child will return to Ovid is and understand.

It's much easier to end the day with these thoughts, rather than the tragedy of Trojan Women.

On NPR news 4/1/09 The past possesses the present

This morning on the news the broadcaster said, " In the middle east, where the past is always present..." and he proceeded to tell about in the 1930s during the Spanish civil war the right wing insurgents stole babies and young children from women in the leftist wing in order to indoctrinate the children in Franco's fascist ideas. One of the reasons for this was that the left-wing women had broken outside of their usual roles (becoming involved in things other than their families) and it was decided they shouldn't be allowed to raise children. The first thing I thought about was the Trojan Women, when Astyanax is taken from Andromache and he was killed to keep him from seeking revenge on the Greeks. The babies and children that were taken from their mothers in Spain were either put in orphanages or sent to live with a families that supported the regime. The mothers were often executed after their children were taken from them; the estimate is that 12,000 children were taken. Even after Franco died in 1975 the people did not want to rake up the past , and it wasn't until the last decade that this has come out in the open. A book, "The Lost Children of Francoism" (I think; I was driving and couldn't write everything down) goes into further detail about that time. Euripides was writing in protest of wars over 1500 years ago, and used the examples of how women and children were affected - and here we are centuries later still dealing with women and children as the bystanders, yet victims of war.