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Part 3,
conclusion
From the play, Mr.
Siegel went to two other surprising instances
showing the relation of joy and sadness,
liveliness and dreariness on the subject of
health. He read Juno's line about
Captain Boyle: "He wore out the health
insurance long ago" and related this to the
use of the word "health" in the beginning
lines of the poem "Endymion" by the 19th
century English poet John Keats. "The
relation of beauty to health interests
Aesthetic Realism very much," said Mr.
Siegel. "Sometimes words are used very
notably—this is one
example.” These lines of
"Endymion" are some of the most unabashedly
hopeful lines in English:
A thing
of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness
increases; it will never
Pass into
nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for
us, and a sleep
Full of sweet
dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on
every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to
bind us to the earth,
Spite of
despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures,…
Commented Mr. Siegel
"The feeling is that beauty is seen as the same
as health. The implication here is that
beauty composes things.” Of the line "A flowery
band to bind us to the earth," Mr. Siegel
explained, "Because beauty can be seen, we want
to stay on this earth. That goes
along with Aesthetic Realism, that the only good
sense in the world is aesthetics.
It's the only thing that takes the tragedy and
comedy of life, its ridiculousness and its
tearfulness [and composes them]”
Mr. Siegel concluded this class by reading
something seemingly so different, from Harriet
Martineau's book History of the Peace:
Being a History of England from 1816 1854,
saying it has sentences that should be
known. He read Miss Martineau's
account of the death of William Pitt at age
47, ”because it is a vivid dealing with the
most unliked subject in the world.
It is all preliminary to the matter to be seen
in O'Casey's play: the oneness of tragedy and
comedy." William Pitt, who was Prime
Minister of England, from 1783 to 1801, Mr.
Siegel explained, "had a very deep, difficult
time trying to discipline, imprison …and check
the people in England who were for the French
Revolution.” Harriet Martineau writes of
Pitt's response upon hearing of Napoleon's
victory at Austerlitz. Though Pitt was
wrong in how he saw Napoleon, I was moved by
what Mr. Siegel read, with such great feeling:
Pitt's statement as he heard the news about
Napoleon's victory: "'Roll up the map of
Europe,' said the heart broken statesman, in
the first moment of his anguish."
"That" Mr. Siegel said "is a poetic phrase of
disappointment." He explained:
"The uncertainties of the war and his ethical
misgiving" about some of the stands he took
politically, weakened Pitt. Miss
Martineau writes:
When
brought back to Putney, he could only sit
in his easy
chair, neither
reading, nor speaking, nor being spoken
to,
purely on account
of bodily weakness; and what a mass of
painful thoughts
was heaving within! He died, early in the
morning of the
next day.
"[Poetry],” Mr. Siegel
said in conclusion, “is always—sometimes
directly, sometimes indirectly—trying to present
the fact that the world when disappointing, the
world when jaunty and very much in motion and
alive, is that world, the world…. The
play of O'Casey says all reality should be seen,
and poetry has always said the only way to like
reality is to hope to see all of it.”
* * *
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