Another in the line of
meditations/lamentations on the passing away of Delmore Schwartz. This was
written on the occasion of a memorial service at NYU in 1966. Here’s a good
line: “Young poets are ridiculous, and rare.” Whether it’s a valid observation
or not that they’re rare, they’re certainly ridiculous, especially in the
corporate autocracy we’ve allowed to flourish. Where young poets reject
servitude to profit to enlist in servitude to an art, they establish lives as
ridiculous paupers—unless they land a teaching position and then their lives
aren’t so spectacularly pointless. But the corporation never sees the point, in
fact is constitutionally unable to see it, which elicits its immediate
contempt, so through the application of its influence and power those teaching
positions are being systematically choked off. This matters because Schwartz
seems to have achieved a reputation as a kind of noteworthy failure. On one
hand there is the mental disintegration typical of poets of his generation (it’s
maybe an exaggeration, but B. lists them
in DS 153, for tomorrow, and we know that Lowell, whom he exempts, and himself,
eventually joined themselves to the list). So Schwartz might be a failure of
his own accord, but others see his failure having been imposed upon him by
America itself, who failed him by not providing the intellectual and cultural
environment that should have allowed a genius of his caliber to thrive. It didn’t,
because corporate values, so much in the ascendant in American culture, hold
the arts in contempt unless they somehow pay—only then are they celebrated in the
mainstream. (Be honest: Is J.K. Rowling, in general in the US, admired more for
the inventiveness of the Harry Potter series or for the fact that she’s the
first ever billionaire writer?) When Delmore Schwartz died, the literati in
power at the moment swelled in an anguished public lamentation, and of course
Berryman was one of the leaders of that groundswell with this series of Dream
Songs. The assessment of his life and career follows what became a standard
two-part narrative: Young, charming, talented genius wins early acclaim and
success (part one) then spirals into obscurity through mental illness and the
predations of demon rum (part the second). This is Berryman’s take all the way.
Somebody more recently (Catherine Fitzpatrick) is arguing that “important
sections of Schwartz's work succeed in creating a ‘poetry of failure’ which
mimes the collapse of the attempt to conjure beauty into existence with words.”
She claims that critical preoccupation with “strength” or “acclaim” cause
critics to miss the importance of Schwartz’s work, which thus calls “these
categories of critical judgment” into question. Maybe there’s something
circular about this reasoning, but I love the not-so-veiled judgment of
patriarchal values, where poets and critics—whom one presumes should know
better—adopt the values of patriarchy and the corporation (strength and
acclaim), integrating them into the critical discourse, which ultimately is
self-destructive. Except I would argue that they’re not deliberately destroying
themselves so much as unwittingly adopting the
language, attitudes and values of the corporation that very much wants them
destroyed. All it takes is a little bit of patriarchal corruption from a
handful of highly paid institutional star critics and we’re off. Berryman isn’t
necessarily exempt; we see some pretty patriarchal, sexist, racist, stuff from
him at times, and the historical norms of his moment don’t seem enough to let
him off the hook.
It’s an unusually chilly morning
for June 1st, with temperatures in the 50s, so I’m game for
something less sunny to kick off the heart-and-soul month of the summer, an
engagement with the poetry of failure. This is “Baudelaire” by Delmore
Schwartz.
This is as good an example of the
poetry of failure as one could possibly imagine! The narrator is shackled by
choice to an art, with “voices” having been cultivated that once started never
stop. This is the state of being that the artist hopes for, and it is hard-won,
through enormous concentration and effort. But because of the expectations of
cultural norms which don’t give the slightest damn for voices if they can’t be monetized, and which won’t monetize them, the poet is faced with an empty bank account
and the intrusion of courts into his life, which degrade him in all ways, both
societal and artistic The result is a threat to what might otherwise sustain
him: “Debts and inquietude persist and weaken me.” This is not a declaration of
strength at all; quite the opposite. He is “impotent,” “terrified,” “bored,” “paralyzed.”
The poem ends on a request for money, from a mother who in some ways loves and
is sympathetic to her son (he wouldn’t be able to write this letter otherwise),
but who also resides in the camp of societal, corporate, financial orthodoxy. “You
are always armed to stone me” he claims, an acknowledgement of her position
within a contemptuous orthodoxy.
Why the title? Charles Baudelaire
was the great, complex, profound French poet, and it would not be accurate to
reduce him too much, but there are two ways to connect him with Schwartz’s poem.
One is to note that “Baudelaire” invokes Satan, which the poet Baudelaire does
all the time. It’s not direct: He was not some Satan worshipper (I don’t
think). Satan and evil are metaphors for the discontents of modern society,
where the sustaining virtues of society have been drained out or co-opted by
modern life, and yes, the predations and demands of industrial capitalism. So
Baudelaire’s real demon is boredom (actually the more complex and more
sophisticated concept of ennui). Here’s
the perfect statement of it in Baudelaire’s “Spleen II” (scroll down for the
translation):
So it’s obvious that the title
for Schwartz’s “Baudelaire” is perfectly apt: He’s doing something similar to what
Baudelaire does in “Spleen II”, though Baudelaire is farther gone. The inscription
over Dante’s characterization of Hell is “Abandon Hope All Who Enter”, and
Baudelaire has very much abandoned hope in “Spleen II.” Schwartz is still
struggling. But they’re in essentially the same place, cast there by the
demands of their art, at the insistence of the culture that despises the thing
that they must value above all else because they’ve lost the ability to choose.
This is Modernity.
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