February 13, 2005

• Literary Seduction

  
  

  It's the title of the book I'm currently reading, Literary Seduction.  I was wandering around the library the other day, looking for something "Valentinesish" to read.  I know I could have gone for the latest work of my favorite romance author, or a book of poetry, but this one caught my eye. 

  
  

  "I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart, and I love you too ..."  this line from the first of thousands of letters exchanged between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning is the beginning of a love affair that began with a good read between a still unknown poet of New Cross and an internationally celebrated poet.  In the myth that has developed around the couple's courtship by epistle, secret marriage and escape to Italy much of the focus is on their clandestine meetings, her mysterious illness and imprisonment in her bedroom, and the puzzling psychology of her father.  The thing that few have commented upon is the strangeness of their encounter.  Yet the most striking aspect of the tale of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett is not that she was ill or that her father was tyrannical, but that before he met Elizabeth Barrett, the celibate Robert Browing fell in love with her poems. 

  
  

  Words distilled to paper.  Words boiled down to the thick essence of a life and presented in a bottle of perfume that once unstoppered, overtakes the senses of the reader.  Words intended to seduce.  Elizabeth intended to seduce Robert, she included in her two-volume collection "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" a passage where a love-sick poet called Bertram reads to Lady Geraldine some contemporary poetry, and Browning, who was still obscure outside the tightest literary circles, is praised alonside poets of established stature and reputation. 

  
  

  "... a modern volume, -- Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl, Howitt's ballad verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie, --
  Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate' which if cut deep down the middle,
  Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity."          

  
  

  Given that all writing strives to ensnare the reader, it is remarkable how few are ensnared.  For as all writers know, writing must be alluring adn intoxicating or they have achieved nothing.  Whether writing a poem, a postcard, or a novel the writer's drive is to captivate the reader.  Roland Barthes says that no writing is without the love-me element.

  
  

  Beyond the love-me element there is what I belive to be the core of writing's appeal to the writer and that is the see-me element.  I wonder, have wondered aloud via this website more than once, just how much of me is revealed, seen, understood and appreciated by those who read.  Its a very narcissistic thing.  I'm holding up a magic mirror, writing in a way that I hope is accessible by which I mean that other people will identify with the writing and see themselves.  But the magic is when the mirror is held in a certain light and the reader is no longer looking into glass, but looking into me. 

  
  

  It's a frightening game.  And for many the conclusion is that the game isn't real.  How can my Internet friends (and I have several people I do consider friends who know me only through this window) be assured that what they know is real?  And for that matter, if all writing is designed to appeal and seduce, how is it that so many readers tend to be so unmoved by what they read?  Why are literary seductions so rare?

  
  

  I believe its because of the metaphor I employed above.  Writing isn't a perfect snapshot of a person's thoughts, feelings, and values it is a distillation.  And perhaps the strength of the brew makes it palatable only from a distance.  But I think there is a second reason that parallels the mystery of relationship in every arena.  You can only know as much as you are willing to be known.  You can only reveal to the extent that you trust. 

  
  

  I know people who have fallen in love through the writing they exchanged across the Internet.  Here in the Xanga community there are people who met, courted, and are now married because they saw something in each other's words.  There are others who found themselves deceived and betrayed by false images and faithless words. 

  
  

  For Valentine's Day this year, I celebrate my friends Jason and Maria.  I applaud the commitment of Morganna and Stephen.  I'm enchanted by their stories and others.  They are following in the line of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning.  And I will end this by quoting the most famous offspring of that marriage ...

  
  

  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
  My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
  For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
  I love thee to the level of everyday's
  Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
  I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
  I love thee purely as they turn from Praise.
  I love thee with the Passion put to use
  In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
  I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
  With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
  Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
  I shall but love thee better after death.

  
  

   

  • 11:17 am
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