Some really clear thinking here in this thread.
I'm yet to delve into the world of Michel Houellebecq. He looks interesting and has come up recently.
When I was in my early 20's, I fell in love with a girl who was entirely transcendent, and entirely dysfunctional in every possible way. Love was not possible. And I wondered why could she not communicate me with me directly?
Jump forward many years and I went to Russia, and met many Russian women who showed me what love was and direct communication was possible and even necessary; they showed me that love is love.
Somehow in the west, love has been confused with sex. It is all about the nihlistic meat. We forget what a sexual religion Christianity was/is! So much guilt, repression and crazy ideas obsessing people in the west for so many centuries! And so now it seems to me that love has been "fucked" into this selfish over individuated meat space. But I also think this process has been going on for a very long time.
This is an excerpt from a thesis about John Wilmont's works (you may have seen the movie "Libertine" with Johnny Depp), he was pretty much the first person to write about sex in the english language way back in the 17th century.
http://www.ealasaid.com/fan/rochester/thesis.html
--
Rochester’s attack on artifice continues in "A Letter Fancied from Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country", but this time in a somewhat different manner. Here, he not only takes on the voice of a woman, but explains that women are born free and intelligent, but voluntarily chose to act foolishly. This differs from the belief generally prevalent in the period that women were naturally foolish and weak-willed. While the poem does express several opinions characteristic of the sexism of the age, the mourning over society women’s artifice and voluntary enslavement is not only suited to Rochester’s general hatred of hypocrisy, but holds a suggestion of protofeminism.
The poem opens with Artemisia considering the dangers of writing in verse (she is doing so by her friend Chloe’s command). First and foremost is the risk, regularly illustrated by "the men of wit"(l. 5) of attempting to write well, failing, and losing what little reputation for wit one possessed before:
How many bold adventurers for the bays,Proudly designing large returns of praise,Who durst that stormy, pathless world explore,Were soon dashed back, and wrecked on the dull shore,Broke of that little stock they had before! (ll. 6-11)
There is always the danger of extending oneself and, in failing, doing lasting damage to one’s reputation. Indeed, as she cautions herself, "whore is scarce a more reproachful name than poetess." However, she soon decides that the pleasure of doing something unwise is too great a temptation to resist, and carries on with the main part of her letter: a discussion of the follies of her fellow town-dwellers.
"She begins by mourning for "that lost thing, love" (l. 38), which has been horribly corrupted by "ill-bred customs" (l. 39), but soon passes on to the main theme, "what yet more a woman’s heart would vex" (l. 54), the folly of womankind:
Our silly sex! who, born like monarchs free, Turn gypsies for a meaner liberty,And hate restraint, though but from infamy.They call whatever is not common, nice,And deaf to nature’s rule, or love’s advice,Forsake the pleasure to pursue the vice. (56-61)
Rather than being pleased with their natural state, women forsake the liberty they are born with to pursue vice and "whatever is not common," lowering themselves in the process. Rather than appreciating their queen-like freedom, women "turn gypsies" in order to gain a different, but lesser, freedom. They disregard what is natural and even love itself to pursue "infamy" and "vice," they give up good things to pursue bad. Line 61 is a nod toward libertine philosophy: pleasure is presented as something to be pursued. In fact, the entire section can be read as a recommendation to a libertine lifestyle: the good things the women give up are freedom and what is natural and pleasurable. Artemisia is unclear about what she means by "vice," but her description of the things she disapproves of, such as artificiality, suggests that she means unnatural activities which are not prompted by reason or love."
I'm yet to delve into the world of Michel Houellebecq. He looks interesting and has come up recently.
When I was in my early 20's, I fell in love with a girl who was entirely transcendent, and entirely dysfunctional in every possible way. Love was not possible. And I wondered why could she not communicate me with me directly?
Jump forward many years and I went to Russia, and met many Russian women who showed me what love was and direct communication was possible and even necessary; they showed me that love is love.
Somehow in the west, love has been confused with sex. It is all about the nihlistic meat. We forget what a sexual religion Christianity was/is! So much guilt, repression and crazy ideas obsessing people in the west for so many centuries! And so now it seems to me that love has been "fucked" into this selfish over individuated meat space. But I also think this process has been going on for a very long time.
This is an excerpt from a thesis about John Wilmont's works (you may have seen the movie "Libertine" with Johnny Depp), he was pretty much the first person to write about sex in the english language way back in the 17th century.
http://www.ealasaid.com/fan/rochester/thesis.html
--
Rochester’s attack on artifice continues in "A Letter Fancied from Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country", but this time in a somewhat different manner. Here, he not only takes on the voice of a woman, but explains that women are born free and intelligent, but voluntarily chose to act foolishly. This differs from the belief generally prevalent in the period that women were naturally foolish and weak-willed. While the poem does express several opinions characteristic of the sexism of the age, the mourning over society women’s artifice and voluntary enslavement is not only suited to Rochester’s general hatred of hypocrisy, but holds a suggestion of protofeminism.
The poem opens with Artemisia considering the dangers of writing in verse (she is doing so by her friend Chloe’s command). First and foremost is the risk, regularly illustrated by "the men of wit"(l. 5) of attempting to write well, failing, and losing what little reputation for wit one possessed before:
How many bold adventurers for the bays,Proudly designing large returns of praise,Who durst that stormy, pathless world explore,Were soon dashed back, and wrecked on the dull shore,Broke of that little stock they had before! (ll. 6-11)
There is always the danger of extending oneself and, in failing, doing lasting damage to one’s reputation. Indeed, as she cautions herself, "whore is scarce a more reproachful name than poetess." However, she soon decides that the pleasure of doing something unwise is too great a temptation to resist, and carries on with the main part of her letter: a discussion of the follies of her fellow town-dwellers.
"She begins by mourning for "that lost thing, love" (l. 38), which has been horribly corrupted by "ill-bred customs" (l. 39), but soon passes on to the main theme, "what yet more a woman’s heart would vex" (l. 54), the folly of womankind:
Our silly sex! who, born like monarchs free, Turn gypsies for a meaner liberty,And hate restraint, though but from infamy.They call whatever is not common, nice,And deaf to nature’s rule, or love’s advice,Forsake the pleasure to pursue the vice. (56-61)
Rather than being pleased with their natural state, women forsake the liberty they are born with to pursue vice and "whatever is not common," lowering themselves in the process. Rather than appreciating their queen-like freedom, women "turn gypsies" in order to gain a different, but lesser, freedom. They disregard what is natural and even love itself to pursue "infamy" and "vice," they give up good things to pursue bad. Line 61 is a nod toward libertine philosophy: pleasure is presented as something to be pursued. In fact, the entire section can be read as a recommendation to a libertine lifestyle: the good things the women give up are freedom and what is natural and pleasurable. Artemisia is unclear about what she means by "vice," but her description of the things she disapproves of, such as artificiality, suggests that she means unnatural activities which are not prompted by reason or love."
