“101 Things to Do Before You Die”

“It’s better to regret something you have done, rather than to regret something you should have done but didn’t. Living is the middle bit between life and death, it’s what you do in the middle that counts.” – Richard Horn

1. Write a Best-seller
2. Swim with dolphins, whales and sharks
3. Win an Award, Trophy or Prize
4. Catch a Fish With Your Bare Hands
5. Make a Discovery
6. Throw a House Party When Your Parents Are Out
7. Be Part of a Threesome
8. Realize Your Childhood Dream
9. Learn That Instrument (V: 1988-, JMS ; G: 2001-, DL)
10. Leave Your Mark in Graffiti
11. Storm Chase a Tornado
12. Get a Piece of Art into an Exhibition
13. Meet Someone with Your Own Name
14. Ride the World’s Biggest Rollercoasters (2010/05/22 Discovery Land)
15. Stage Dive or Crowd Surf
16. Get into the Guinness Book of World Records
17. Own a Pointless Collection
18. Study the Kama Sutra and Put Theory into Practice
19. Master Poker and Win Big in a Casino
20. Get Backstage and Get Off with a Rock God
21. Be a Human Guine Pig
22. Go Up in a Hot Air Balloon
23. Get Arrested
24. See a Space Shuttle Launch
25. Capture the Moment in an Award-winning Photograph
26. Bungee Jump
27. See an Erupting Volcano
28. Sky Dive
29. Meet Your Idol (2004, SY)
30. Stay in the Best Suite in a Five Start Hotel
31. Experience Weightlessness
32. See the Aurora Borealis
33. Get to Score a Hole in One
34. Design Your Own Cocktail
35. Play a Part in Your Favorite TV Show
36. Visit Every Country (or Continent)
37. Make Fire Without Matches
38. See These Animals in the Wild (Panda, Rhino, Hippo, Grizzly Bear, Elephant, Hummingbird, Giraffe, Koala, Manatee, Gorilla, Lion, Monkey, Penguin, Kangaroo, Tiger, Crocodile, Orangutan, Eagle, Polar Bear, Coelacanth…)
39. Go to the Dogs
40. Get a Free Upgrade on a Plane
41. Be Friends With your Ex
42. Hit Your Targets
43. Throw a Dart into a Map and Travel to Where it Lands
44. Attend a Film Premiere
45. Do a Runner From a Fancy Restaurant
46. Scuba Dive
47. Milk a Cow
48. Be Present When Your Country Wins the World Cup
49. See Both Solar and Lunar Eclipses (L: ?JMS; S: 1996JMS, 2009DL)
50. Write Your Name Over a Star on the Walk of Fame
51. Learn Another Language (E: 1989- ; J: 2003- ; K: 2003- )
52. Read the Greatest Books Ever Written
53. Complete a Coast to Coast Road Trip Across America
54. Make at Least One Huge Purchase You Can’t Afford (2009DL)
55. Score the Winning Goal/Try/Basket
56. Gatecrash a Fancy Party
57. See the All-time Greatest Films
58. Live in the Place You Love (2001- DL)
59. Leave a Job You Hate (2008- DL)
60. Take Part in a Police Line-up
61. Get Away with the Perfect Practical Joke or Hoax
62. Join the Mile High Club
63. Make the Front Page of a National Newspaper
64. Drive a Car at Top Speed 
65. Shout “Drinks Are on Me!” in a Pub or a Bar
66. Be Part of a Flash Mob
67. Visit (Colosseum, Rome; Uluru, Australia; Much Picchu, Peru; The Pyramids at Giza, Egypt; Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro; Sydney Harbor, Australia; Taj Mahal, Delhi; Great Barrier Reef, Australia; Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco; GRAND Canyon, Arizona; Angkor Wat, Cambodia; The Great Wall of China [2007]…)
68. Save Someone’s Life
69. In Various Languages, Learn to say Hello, Goodbye, Please and Thank You; Order Beer; Swear; Insults… (E; J; K)
70. Invent a Word That Makes it into the Dictionary
71. Have Adventurous Sex
72. Have Enough Money to Do All the Things on This List
73. Stand on the International Date Line
74. Learn to Fly a Plane
75. Get a Tattoo and/or Piercing
76. Invent Something
77. Learn Astronomy and Read the Night Sky
78. Drink a Vintage Wine
79. Answer a Personal Ad
80. Spend Christmas on the Beach
81. Get Barred From a Pub or Bar
82. Build Your Own House
83. Skinny Dip at Midnight
84. Sell All Your Junk on eBay and Make a Profit
85. Visit the World’s Tallest Buildings
86. Run a Marathon
87. Conquer Your Fear
88. Get Married Unusually
89. Throw Away the Instant Noodles
90. Join the 16-Mile High Club
91. Create a Cult Website
92. Own an Original Work of Art
93. Complete the Monopoly Board Pub Crawl
94. Get Something Named After You
95. Get Revenge
96. Be an Extra in a Film
97. Live Out of a Van
98. Go on a Demonstration
99. Confess
100. Reach 100 Years of Age
101. Continue Your Gene Pool

Notes:

Red: Accomplished
Green: Cannot be accomplished

Plato: Love vs Marriage

One day, Plato asked his teacher Socrates, "What is love? How can I find it?" Socrates answered, "There is a vast wheat field in front. Walk forward without turning back, and pick only one stalk. If you find the most magnificent stalk, then you have found love." Plato walked forward, and before long, he returned with empty hands, having picked nothing. His teacher asked, "Why did you not pick any stalk?" Plato answered, "Because I could only pick once, and yet I could not turn back. I did find the most magnificent stalk, but did not know if there were any better ones ahead, so I did not pick it. As I walked further, the stalks that I saw were not as good as the earlier one, so I did not pick any in the end. His teacher then said, "And that is love."

 

*        *        *

 

Another day, Plato asked his teacher, "What is marriage? How can I find it?" His teacher answered, "There is a thriving forest in front. Walk forward without turning back, and chop down only one tree. If you find the tallest tree, then you have found marriage." Plato walked forward, and before long, he returned with a tree. The tree was not thriving, and it was not tall either. It was an ordinary tree. His teacher asked, "Why did you chop down such an ordinary tree?" Plato answered, "Because of my previous experience. I walked halfway through the forest, but returned with empty hands. This time, I saw this tree, and I felt that it was not bad, so I chopped it down and brought it back. I did not want to miss the opportunity." His teacher then said, "And that is marriage."

Taken from Atwood’s “Blind Assassin”

I must admit I have a daydream about you.

One evening there will be a knock at the door and it will be you. You’ll be dressed in black, you’ll be toting one of those little rucksacks they all have now instead of handbags. It will be raining, as it is this evening, but you won’t have an umbrella, you’d scorn umbrellas; the young like their heads to be whipped about by the elements, they find if bracing. You’ll stand on the porch, in a haze of damp light; your glossy dark hair will be sodden, your black outfit will be soaked, the drops of rain will glitter on your face and clothes like sequins.

You’ll knock. I’ll hear you, I’ll shuffle down the hallway, I’ll open the door. My heart will jump and flutter; I’ll peer at you, then recognize you: my cherished, my last remaining with. I’ll think to myself that I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful, but I won’t say so; I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve gone scatty. Then I’ll welcome you, I’ll hold out my arms to you, I’ll kiss you on the cheek, sparsely, because it would be unseemly to let myself go. I’ll cry a few tears, but only a few, because the eyes of the elderly are arid.

I’ll invite you in. You’ll enter. I wouldn’t recommend it to a young girl, crossing the threshold of a place like mine, with a person like me inside it — an old woman, an older woman, living alone in a fossilized cottage, with hair like burning spiderwebs and a weedy garden full of God knows what. There’s a whiff of brimstone about such creatures: you may even be a little frightened of me. But you’ll also be a little reckless, like all the women in our family, and so you will come in anyway. Grandmother, you will say; and through that one word I will no longer be disowned.

I’ll sit you down at my table, among the wooden spoons and the twig wreaths, and the candle which is never lit. You’ll be shivering, I’ll give you a towel, I’ll wrap you in a blanket, I’ll make you some cocoa.

Then I’ll tell you a story. I’ll tell you this story: the story of how you came to be here, sitting in my kitchen, listening to the story I’ve been telling you. If by some miracle that were to happen, there would be no need for this jumbled mound of paper.

What is it that I’ll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which isn’t yours to bestow. Only a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me. Don’t prettyfy me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish you be a decorated skull.

But I leave myself in your hands. What choice do I have? By the time you read this last page, that — if anywhere — is the only place I will be.

(Margaret Atwood, Blind Assasin)

 

Greatest Books

10/29/2009

1984, George Orwell (2009)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The, Mark Twain (2002)
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro
Animal Farm, George Orwell (2004)
Art of War, The Sun Tzu
Asterix and Golden Sickle, R. Goscinny / A. Uderzo
Atomised, Michel Houellebecq
BFG, The, Roal Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Bonfire of the Vanities, The, Tom Wolfe
Brighton Rock, Grahm Greene
Buddha of Suburbia, The, Hanif Kureishi
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Catcher in the Rye, The, J. D. Salinger
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
Christmas Carol, A, Charles Dickens (2004)
Complete Works of Shakespeare, The William Shakespeare (2005-2008)
Complete Fairy Tales, The Brothers Grimm (2008- )
Crash, J. G. Ballard
Crow Road, The, Iain Banks
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The, Mark Haddon
Danny, the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (1998)
Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell
Dubliners, James Joyce
Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind
End of the Affair, The, Graham Greene
Explaining Death to the Dog, Susan Perabo
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (2003)
George’s Marvelous Medicine, Roald Dahl
Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Grapes of Wrath, The, John Steinbeck
Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The, Douglas Adams
Hobbit, The, J. R. R. Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
Hotel New Hampshire, The, John Irving
Kes (A Kestrel for a Knave), Barry Hines
Le Grand Meaulnes, Alain Fournier
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The, C. S. Leis
Lord of the Flies, William Golding (2004)
Magic Porridge Pot, The, Anon
Master and Margarita, The, Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdle
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Mr Tickle, Roger Hargreaves
Name of the Rose, The, Umberto Eco
New York Trilogy, The, Paul Auster
No Logo, Naomi Klein
Not Fade Away, Jim Dodge
Odyssey, The – Illiad, The, Homer (2005)
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
Old Man and the Sea, The, Ernest Hemingway (2003)
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene
Picture of Dorian Gray, The, Oscar Wwilde
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Possession, A. S. Byatt
Prayer for Owen Meany, A, John Irving
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, The, Robert Tressell
Sarah, J. T. Leroy
Secret History, The, Donna Tartt
Stupid White Men, Michael Moore
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Ulysses, James Joyce (2005)
Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
Van, The, Roddy Doyle
Very Hungry Caterpillar, The, Eric Carle
Wasp Factory, The, Iain Banks
Waterland, Graham Swift
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
Wind in the Willows, The, Kenneth Grahame (2002)
Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne
Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin
World According to Garp, The, John Irving
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

Notes:

Accomplished

Accomplishing

What is politics?

“Politics, for me, is everything that involves who gets to do what to whom…It’s not just elections and what people say they are–little labels they put on themselves… Politics really has to do with how people order their societies; to whom power is ascribed, who is considered to have power. A lot of power is ascription. People have power because we think they have power, and that’s all politics is. And politics also has to do with what kind of conversations you have with people, and what you feel free to say to xomeone, what you don’g feel free to say.”  –Margaret Atwood

 

P.S.,

label 1: “副主考” “监考”…

label 2: 红vs蓝校徽…

希腊哲学史(3)

三、亚里士多德后―衰弱期：强烈的主观主义；缺少创造性

 

（一）斯多亚学派（Stoics）在物理和伦理上是不彻底的犬儒学派；发明了世界主义（cosmopolitanism）的观念（宇宙是统一的，自同一上帝而来，为一个定律所支配，而形成一个整然的体系；人在根本性质、理性是共有的）

１．重倡赫的物理学（认为火是最始种类），因袭犬儒学派的观念
２．创始者塞浦路斯（Cyprus）的芝诺（Zeno）
３．一伦理的体系，以逻辑学为方法的理论，以物理学为立足的根据
　（１）逻辑学：一切知识都经由感觉而进入于心
　（２）物理学：a.宇宙决不许有例外的绝对的定律所支配，“顺自然之性而生活”；
b.人的根本性质便是理性
“没有一件不具形体而存在”；“实在”存于由感觉而认知的物质之中；上帝是绝对的理性；个人决不能有真正的意志自由；世界程序是周而复始的，人的灵魂是圣火的一部，由上帝而入于人

（３）伦理学：
a.人须遵从广义的自然之性，其行为适合狭意的自然之性，即，既遵从宇宙定律又要适合他的本性――理性；所谓德，就是顺从理性的生活－＞绝欲主义

b.善和恶决没有程度的差异
c.智慧是最高的德，是众德之源。由根本的德――智慧而产出四种主要的德：明达、勇敢、自制、正直

 

（二）伊壁鸠鲁（Epicurus）学派

１．物理学：纯机械哲学；恢复德的原子论，一切东西都是原子和虚空构成的

２．伦理学：剽窃昔勒尼学派的主张，认为快乐是道德的基础
（１）快乐约不同于昔勒尼学派的主张，只是暂时的肉体上或心理上的快乐

（２）精神上和心理上的快乐重要于肉体的快乐；肉体是没有记忆和先见的

（３）消极的概念；炫耀的悲观主义
（４）快乐不在欲望的满足，应缩减欲望

 

（三）怀疑学派（Sceptics）
怀疑主义（scepticism）指怀疑或否定知识之可能的学说；它是周期发现的，在智者运动时代，当高尔吉说纵使有什么东西存在，也是不可知的，这便是怀疑主义的精神之直接表现；近代最出名的怀疑主义者是休谟

１． 皮浪（Pyrrho）
（１）要做一个对人不难，只要问自己三个问题：万物究竟是什么，是怎样造成的？我们和这些东西是怎样相关连着？我们对它们的态度应该怎样？

“大概”“也许”
（２）圣人对一切事物都无所取舍，是之谓“不动心（ataraxia）”；不要意念便是怀疑主义的原则

2．新学院（New
Academy）派－柏学院在阿尔克西劳（Arcesilaus）的领导下创立的：对亚学派的猛烈反对，称亚派为大独断家。

独断论（dogmatism），没有正当根据的断语
３．后怀疑学派

 

（四）新柏拉图学派（Neo-Platonists）：神秘的主观超入上帝之说，极端的主观主义

１．是基督时代的产品，但思想是反基督教的；奉柏的缺点为他的真谛，把它们与东方的惝恍迷离的梦的哲学结合起来；由阿摩尼阿斯”萨卡斯（Ammonius
Saccas）开创
２．先驱：犹太人斐洛（Philo）要把犹太神和希腊哲学冶为一炉；人的灵魂接于上帝，不是依由思想，而靠着一种神秘的内在的超乎思想之上的烛照和显示。上帝不能直接有所作为于世界，因为这个便要使他为物质所玷污，而致其无限变为有限，因此必有中间精灵做上帝的臣仆，替他创造了并治理这个世界。所以这些中中间精灵一齐都包含于Logos，即是支配世界的合理的思想之里，上帝对Logos，和Logos对世界的关系是一种递进的流出

＜―＞《奥义书》
３．普照罗提诺（Plotinus）（205－），萨卡斯的弟子；神秘主义者，玩弄诗歌和比喻

（１）从“一”首先流出（诗歌的比喻）来的叫做睿智（nous），即思想、心、理性；柏认为“绝对”的本质便是思想，而普认为思想是派生的

第二次流出的是世界魂，就是睿智的褪色的摹本，存于时间之外
从世界魂里面产出个别的灵魂，居住在这个世界上
（２）物质是杂多的根本万恶的原因
所以人生的目的只能和柏一样，逃出感觉的物质世界之外：
第一步是纯化，即把自己超拔于肉体和感官的束缚之外，包含一切日常行德

第二步是思想、理性和哲学
第三步灵魂矗思想而达科睿智的直观
最后在得意思忘形中超升而进入于“绝对的一”之里，与上帝合而为一

希腊哲学史(2)

二、成熟期：人在宇宙之中的位置如何

• 智者学派／诡辩（sophistry）学派：职业阶级；启明期

普罗泰戈拉（Protagoras）
１．“人为万物的权衡，存在者则见其为存在，无有者则见其为无有”

决无独立于个人主观之外的真理
２．受赫拉克利特的影响：恒定是幻象
３．知识是不可能的：(1)没有东西存在着　(2)即使存在，亦不可得而知之　(3)纵然可知，其知识也不可以互传

４．是实用主义，人为中心
（新教教义和民治主义，都可以为智者运动的主张的优点和缺点两方面的好例；唯理主义（rationalism）也有许多倾向带着智者学派的思想的特征）

• 苏格拉底(Socrates)

1．相信对于他的一切行为，总有一个无形中的声音指导他，他称之为他的护灵

2．讨论的时候总是先自承认对于所要讨论的问题一无所知，急于要听对方的理论

3．七十岁时被控三条罪状：辱没国神；僭立新神；蛊惑青年

一．认识论：知识都经由概念。以归纳法形容各种概念
二．伦理学说：
１．学说偏于伦理，与智者学派（首先提出人和人的义务等问题）同；以理性为知识的根据，即一切知识都是经由概念（concept）的知识，智者学派以知觉（perception）为基础

２．因为他自己是不被情感所操纵的，故认为人的行为都只受理性支配，却忘记了人的行为大部分乃是受制于情感――“灵魂的不合理的部分”

３．一个人有了知识便决不会再去为恶，一切罪恶都是出于愚昧。德是唯一，即是智慧。第一德是可教的，知识是德的唯一条件。把知识置于概念之上，知识遂从主观的仿佛复变为客观的实在了

自泰勒斯至此，思想进展经过三个阶段：１、绝对的信仰；２、破坏的怀疑的；３、信仰的恢复（根据概念、理性）

苏vs阿里斯托芬
苏：在思想上建立信仰
阿：恢复简单的信仰

多通神论者（theosophists）：最高的宗教的知识须由直观而得到，是超乎理性之上的东西

• 小苏格拉底学派（Semi-Socratic
  schools）：以德为人生唯一目的

一． 犬儒学派（Cynic
school）
安提斯泰尼（Antisthenes）建立，以舍弃和消极的超然态度为德；唯自己的直道是从，对于世俗的意见全不介意，卓然独立的人格
二． 昔勒尼学派（Cyrenaic
school）
亚里斯提波（Aristippus）建立；自利的快乐追求就是德（受罗泰戈拉和智者学派影响）
三． 麦加拉学派（Megaric
school）
欧几里德（Euclid）建立；德就是在于哲学的深思的生活，“存在”的知识之中；与巴门尼德一样，也认为只有一个绝对的“存在”，一切杂多，一切运动，都是虚幻；苏的根本概念是善，巴的是“存在”，欧合善和“存在”为一物

• 柏拉图（Plato）：历史上第一个创立了一个伟大的包罗一切的体系；在理论上是唯理主义者和理智主义者之王；是理想主义的始祖

三个时期：
１、少年时代：没有发展自己的体系，只是陈述苏的学说；词藻华美
２、游历生活时期（自苏死后）：添加了爱派的影响；中心原理是观念论；文词不如第一期华美，但思想深沉

２、成熟期（回归雅典）词华典雅、思想贯通
文体里一个最重要的因素――神话－＞思想自身的缺点
哲学：
（一） 辩证学说／观念论
概念非仅是心里的一个空想，而是有它自己的实在的东西，独立于心的外面

真理是一个人的观念和存在的事实两者的相符，即心里的思想确乎是存于心之外的某种东西的摹本

１． 观念都是实质，性质都是从实质而来；上帝是实质，世界则为非实质；“三位一体”中的“体”意谓本体，即实质的意思

２． 观念都是普遍的，又称为普遍相（universals）

３． 观念绝非物体，而是思想
４． 每个观念都是一个统一
５． 观念是不变不灭的
６． 观念是万物的基本素质
７． 每个观念都是它自己的那个阶级的绝对的完全

８． 观念是在时间和空间之外的
９． 观念是合理的，须由理性而认悟
人的经验有两种来源：感觉知觉；理性
亚氏说柏的观念论有三个来源：爱派－绝对的“存在”界；赫－变动界－＞感觉界；苏－概念说

体系是目的论的，以善的观念为顶点
辩证学是知识的皇冠，而知识是生命的皇冠
情绪的爱只是理性对于观念的盲目捉摸；灵魂的爱是理性之逐渐认识它自己

上帝之于宗教，一如观念之于哲学

（二） 物理学说／存在论
物理学说是关于现象和虛影，存于空间和时间之内而和观念相反的东西，这种东西有具形体的，也有无形体的，遂可分为两部分

１． 宇宙论
地是宇宙的中心
２． 灵魂说
（１）灵魂在柏的体系里是介乎观念界和感觉界之间
（２）人具三部灵魂
（３）回忆和转生说
观念的知识不能由感觉而得到（如数学的知识是内在于心的，非来于传授，变非得于经验）

差不多发明确规了现信所谓必然的和或然的知识两者之间的区别（康德以这个区别为基础而开了哲学上绝大的发展）

男人－＞女人－＞兽畜
（三） 伦理学说
１．个人伦理
（１)哲理的德（根据理性）与常规的德（别的根源，如风俗习惯等）
（２)伦理学的主要问题：最高的目的的本质的知识
（３)四种基本的德（其中三个是和灵魂的三部分相当的，第四个是这三个的总和）：

理性的德是智慧、可朽灵魂其高尚的半个德是勇敢、其卑下的半个德为节制和自治，即情欲自己都肯听命于理性、第四个德是正义

（４）结婚的唯一目的是生子，一个男人的自然伴侣不是一个女人，而是一个别的男人

（５）不反对奴隶制
（６）对友对敌都要善（与基不同）
２．国家论
（１）国家所凭以行的第一个原理是理性，第二个是武力
（２）国家有三个阶级（这种分类是根据灵魂的三部分之区别的）：
理性－哲学者的治者＜―＞合理的灵魂
武力－军人＜―＞可朽的灵魂的高尚的部分
劳动－一般大众＜―＞情欲的灵魂
三个阶级合作无间－＞正义
（四）艺术的见解
(1) 对于美的对象的爱，不以自身而以哲学为归宿
(2) 否认艺术的创造，不过是一个摹本的摹本
(3) 艺术家不是本理性，而是凭灵感，是卑下的
(4) 艺术只不过是哲学的手段

总结：
1．“绝对”=理性=思想=概念=普遍相
2．成功的哲学必须满足两个条件：（1）它的“绝对”的说明须能显出那个“绝对”足以说明世界（2）不仅要能够说明这个世界，并且还须能说明它的自身

柏的体系破裂为二元论，物质与观念的对立

• 亚里士多德（Aristotle）

开办了学院，他的追随者后被称为逍遥学派（Peripatetics）
与柏的区别：
1．亚重事实，柏鄙视感觉界
2．痛恨以诗歌描写来代替合理说明，柏在思想发展里给神话和诗歌以很大的地位

3．文体对照。亚竭力摈除文词之藻饰与华彩，只着重意义、文字之所表达的真理

（一）论理学/逻辑
１．演绎和归纳
２．包括一切重要的思想定律、十大范畴、五种宾语、名词论、三段论法（三段论法没有论及假设的三段论法）
（二）形而上学/玄学
１．亚称《形而上学》为“第一哲学”
（1） 柏的观念不能够说明万物的生存
（2） 柏没有把观念对于万物的关系解释清楚
（3） 观念不能说明万物的运动
（4） 说明万物是怎样存在的是哲学的本务，柏仅假设又一个宇宙的无穷的万物，观念的存在

（5） 观念虽设为非感觉的，而实则仍然是感觉的
（6） “第三人”的论点
（7） 一种东西的根本质素是必须内在，而不能外在

２．柏所说的普遍相并非本质，本质必须是两者的综合，必须为特别体中之普遍相，只有个体是本质（亚的文字是矛盾的，但意思却不然）

３．亚氏四种原因（物质因、动力因、形式因、究竟因/目的因）－＞物质（特别体／潜能）和形式（普遍相／实效），二者不可分，相互流动，交相渗透的

柏的体系里仅包含两种（物质因和形式因），无动力因
形式因即物之概念，即柏所称物之观念，形式是论理的第一，而非时间次序上的第一

4． 世界里表现着一个蝉联的存在的阶梯，顶上的绝对无物质的形式，亚称之为上帝（包括形式的、究竟的和动力的三个原因），底下的是无形式的物质。这两个极端都是抽象的，没有一个是存在的，因为物质和形式是不可分的

（１）上帝是形式的形式，思想的思想，同时兼为他的思想的主体和客体，是自意识

（２）上帝不是人。
a.上帝是绝对的形式／普遍相，无个别体存乎其中，便决不能是一个个体；

b.形式没有物质是不能生存的，所以上帝不能生存
柏认为思想是实在的和客观的，其存在必和生存的东西一样
亚认为思想是绝对实在的，却不是生存的
（三）物理学／自然哲学
１．根本是目的论的；惯用“自然的”和“不自然的”，所谓自然的，就是达到它的目的都，其中形式战胜了物质

２．排斥空间是虚空无一物这个定义；空间：围绕的物体对于被围绕着的物体的制限

３．时间要素有二，即变化和意识。时间就是思想的连续
４．（１）存在的阶梯；反对进化论；世界是一连续的链索，是一个程序，但不是一时间的程序，而是一永劫的程序

（２）在存在阶梯里，最低的是无机物质，上面是有机物，有机物里面形式的原理真实化、确定化而成为物的内部的组织（即有机物的生命－灵魂）

（３）灵魂之于身体，一如形式之于物质；物质是不可知的，而形式是可知的

植物：营养的灵魂
动物：营养的灵魂、感觉的灵魂
人：营养的灵魂、感觉的灵魂、理性
在阶梯里：感觉－常识（common
sense），即一个感觉神经中枢－幻想力－记忆－回忆－理性（下为受动的理性，上为能动的理性），这些合而称之为灵魂

人的意识也有高下等级之分；
５．发明“有机物”的观念；有机物的一个根本特征就是它的目的在它自身之内

火的运动是向上的――放力的原理（a principle of
levitation），和引力（gravitation）相反
６．（１）否认灵魂换身转世之说，因为功能是随物体而毁灭的，唯有能动的理性（是来自上帝的）是不灭的、永劫的；

（２）否定了记忆的持续――在未来的生命里，今生的记忆便都消失
７．天上的物体不是四大原素构成的，而是一种第五原素，一种极高的精华――以太，所构成；唯有圆的运动才是完全的

８．vs斯宾寒（Herbert Spencer）
斯宾寒：进化是一个由混沌至确定，由散乱至密合，由简单至复杂的运动

亚：由物质到形式的运动
（四）伦理学－真谛为中庸（moderation）
１．个人
（１）最高的善的本质是：幸福，即道德的活动
（２）享乐的感觉是道德价值的效果
（３）知德和行德。上帝的生活是知德和行德之结合
（４）苏：凡人思想能正当，行为也必正当，否认人的选择为恶的权力

　　　亚：人有选择善和恶的权力
２．国家
（１）国家是形式，个人是物质
（２）六种范型：
由优――＞差
三种优：君主政体、贵族政体、平民政体
三种劣：专制政体、寡头政体、愚民政体
（五）美学／艺术论
艺术：１．～与道德：道德是关于行为，艺术是关于出产

２．～与自然活动：有机物产出它们自己的种类，艺术产出与自己迥然不同的东西

艺术种类有二：１．完成自然的功用　２．创造性新颖的东西（实在世界的摹本）

艺术是把自然观念化，在自然之中见出观念。所以诗比历史更为真实，更为哲学。历史的对象是暂时的，可灭的；艺术的对象是物体和事实之内里的本质，是不灭的

总结：
１．二元论：感觉和思想，物质和观念二外对立
２．发明了唯一的进化哲学，除黑格尔外，无与伦比

希腊哲学史(1)

一、苏格拉底前－发生期

• 伊奥尼亚学派（Ionics）：又称为物质说者（hylicist），都是唯物论者

（一）泰勒斯（Thales）：１．水为万物的本质
                       
２．地是一个平圆体，浮于水上
　　　　重要性在于提出问题，而不在给人以合理的解答
（二）阿那克西曼德（Anaximander）：第一个会画地图的人
１．一种绝对无形的不定物质为宇宙之本质
２．寒热两部的程序：寒者阴湿，变而为地，位于宇宙中心；热者凝成一个火罩，包围地面。地本液体，因受周围热的熏蒸，化气上升而密集于地之四周（初期希腊人是把空气和水气当为一物的）

３．关于生物原始和进化的学说
（三）阿那克西美尼（Anaximenes）
１．万物本质是气
２．两种相反的作用：稀化和凝集

• 毕达哥拉斯（Pythagoras）学派：数是宇宙的本质

１．承继了俄耳甫斯教派（Orphic
sect）的灵魂移植学，即轮回说
２．相信知识之追求是有裨于灵魂之解放的
３．不吃豆子
４．身体是灵魂的囚笼与坟墓，但人不能自杀以求解脱
５．平均、秩序和调和是宇宙的三大基调
６．已经知道了五种有规则立体中的三种；火是最小分子，是四面体的物质；宇宙是一个十二面体

７．地不是宇宙的中心，乃是环绕宇宙中心之火而旋转的；首先提出地为行星之一－－＞哥白尼（Copernicus）

• 爱利亚学派（Eleatics）：“存在（Being）”是宇宙的本质

（一）塞诺芬尼（Xenophanes）：
１．引起哲学和宗教之争的第一人；泛神论
２．痛骂荷马和赫西俄德；反对多神论；上帝是全眼全耳全思想（God is
all eye, all ear, all thought）
３．首先提出“万有是一（All is one）”
４．反对毕派的轮回说
（二）巴门尼德（Parmenides）：理想主义与唯物主义的公共始祖
１．发现了“存在”和“非存在（Not-Being）”的对立；非存在即变化（becoming）

２．感觉的世界不是实在的，是虚伪的，只不过是一种幻象
３．宇宙的本质是“存在（Being）”
４．无中不能生有；存在就是“有（isness）”，是不生不灭的
5．第一次分开了感觉和理性的区别
６．真理存于理性而不在感觉世界――理想主义的根本思想
７．把存在看为是物质，是球形的，有限的
（三）芝诺（Zeno）：
１．多与动不可能
２．亚氏称芝诺发明了辩证法（dialectic），即把错误的理论所含的矛盾显明出来，令其自己驳倒自己，借以发展真理的一种辩证方法
批评：
１．爱派根本主张：以多与动为特征的感觉的世界虽然存在，但是那表面的世界决非实在的“存在”

２．第一个一元的哲学，而事实上仍分裂为二元（因为他们谓“存在”之中决不含变化）

３．爱派vs基督教
爱派vs不可知说（agnosticism）
不：“绝对”是不可知的
爱：上帝仅乎是“有”而已，此外绝没有一点什么可说的；“上帝是爱、智、力”在他们看来是过高的说明

宗教进展：由抽象的多神教，进而为抽象的一神教（上帝是一，犹太教、印度教和回教属之），由此再进而成为具体的一神教（上帝是多而存于一，基督教属之）

• 赫拉克利特（Heracletus）（很傲慢，有许多话辛辣锐利很像叔本华）

１．火是宇宙的本质
２．只有“变化”，决无“存在”
３．每一物件都是一个矛盾的紧张的调和
４．睡眠便是半死
５．划出感觉和理性的区别，真理存在更改的认识之中

• 恩培多克勒（Empedocles）：调和巴门尼德与赫拉克利特的学说

１．原素说，恩称之为“万物之根（the roots of
all）”，有四种原素：水、气、火、地
２．物质无始无终，不创生亦不毁灭（与巴门尼德同）
３．生成变化是不可以否认的
假定万物之整体虽有始有终，然而其所由以组成的物质分子则是无创生变无毁灭（这也是阿那克萨戈拉和原子论学派的中心主张）

４．宇宙的两种根本程序：化合和分解
５．宣扬世界周期循环说，相信轮回说

• 原子论学派：留基伯（Leucippus）开创

１． 原子和空间／实体和虚空（plenum and
vacuum）＝爱派的“存在”和非存在
２． 以为重一点的东西比轻一点的在空中落得更快

（原子有重量之说伊壁鸠鲁学派所加入的）
３．宇宙的机械论的论理完成。机械论：欲以原因来说明一切事物
德谟克里特：１．世界决无理性这种东西，一切现象，一切变化，都是盲目的机械的原因所决定的

２．灵魂是圆滑的原子所构成，是一种特别精纯的火

• 阿那克萨戈拉（Anaxagoras）

１．宣传太阳是赤灼的石块，月亮是土造成的
２．否认存在可变为非存在（与恩及原子论一样），物质不能创生，亦不能毁灭

物质是无限可分的
３．原动力：睿智（nous），即心或理智。除此之外，其他方面都是唯物主义的

睿智和物质是并存的，睿智形成世界而不是创造世界
４． 地是一个平圆体浮游于大气之中（与阿那克西美尼同）

５． 第一个发现日月蚀真正原因的人
６． 知觉是由于种类不同的物质相接触而起
７． 发明了目的论的观念。目的论：相信上帝存在

８． 缺点：把物和心分开；二元论
　　　　　目的论结果仍成了变相的机械论

海子：诗是生命的倒刺

余杰

  

远在幼年，悲哀这倒刺就已扎入我心里。它扎在那儿一天，我便冷嘲热讽一天——这刺儿一经拔出，我也就一命呜呼了。
                                           ——齐克果

    １９８９年３月２６日，当外面的世界还很热闹时，一个相貌平凡的青年捧着厚厚的《圣经》躺在山海关冰冷的铁轨上。火车呼啸而来，作为物理意义上的生命在那一瞬间被碾得粉碎，渐起的鲜血，是书写在北中国大地上最后一行最崇高的诗句。这位叫海子的天才诗人，留给我们的却不仅仅是一具惨不忍睹的尸体。
    海子，原名查海生，１９６４年生于安徽省高河镇查湾，一个地地道道、完完全全的农家孩子。１９７７年，１５岁的海子以优异的成绩考入北京大学，在宁静的湖光塔影之间，他开始写诗，开始用诗歌来解答哈姆莱特那个古老而艰巨的命题：“活着，还是死去，这是一个问题。”在他的笔下，中国当代文学中第一次有了纯粹的诗歌。天才往往是以一种隐秘的方式诞生的。海子在粗糙的稿子上涂满潦草的诗句，在鸡毛满地飞的９０年代，当我们象拾起稻子一样拾起这些诗句的时候，我们将泪流满面地体验到“不是我不明白，这世界变化太快”，唯一不变的只是海子和海子的诗。像我这样一个悲观的人，完全有理由下这样的断言：海子是２０世纪中国最后一位诗人。
    如同梵高在画布上发现向日葵与生命的深沉联系一样，海子在诗歌中找到了麦子与生命的神秘联系。这位自称“乡村知识分子”的诗人，把南方那片黝黑的土地置换成一个魅力无穷的乌托邦。当代中国少有这样美丽的诗句，美丽得让人伤心的诗句：“泉水白白流淌／花朵为谁开放／是这样美丽负伤的麦子／吐着芳香／站在山岗上。”他的每一行抒情诗都有金刚石的质地，光芒闪烁却又无比坚硬，世界上没有比海子的诗歌更坚硬的东西了。至刚本来就蕴含了些许悲剧性在其中。海子便试图寻找点温柔的气息。我羡慕他有一个纯洁的妹妹：“芦花丛中／村庄是一只白色的船／我的妹妹叫芦花／我的妹妹很美丽。”我更羡慕他有一个成熟的姐姐：“姐姐，今夜我在德令哈，夜色笼罩／姐姐，我今夜只有戈壁／姐姐，今夜我不关心人类，我只想你。”实际上，海子比我们还一无所得。没有“妹妹”也没有“姐姐”的海子为我们创造出凉入骨髓的温馨，这正是流星般的８０年代令我尊重和向往的原因之一。我无法想象象海子这样的人活到９０年代将是怎样的结局。至少，８０年代，梦还是梦，美丽的还是美丽着。海子在８０年代最后一个春天到来之前死去，他断然拒绝了９０年代，他很明智。
    海子很喜欢兰波的诗句“生活在别处。”这句被米兰。昆德拉引用无数次的名言，早已成为人们日常谈话中故弄玄虚的口头禅。没有一个人能够像海子那样深刻地理解这句话的真正含义。想起古龙在《楚留香》中描述绝世英雄的心境：“你不顾一切地向上攀登，山路为生命的一部分。你超过一个又一个行人，到达绝顶时你却失去拥有过的一切。俯瞰山下，后来的人还没能爬上山腰。孤独是山峰给征服者唯一的礼物，这时你再想回头已经来不及了。”对于生活在山脚下的人们来说，海子生活在别处，对于生活在山顶的海子来说，人们生活在别处。“你从远方来，我到远方去”就是在这样“前不见古人，后不见来者”的茫茫大荒的心境中，海子创作着他最辉煌的“史诗”。海子就象陀斯妥也夫斯基笔下疯狂的赌徒，孤注一掷，把宝全部押给了“崇高”。难道“崇高”也能逃避么？海子在旗帜降下前的那一刻，挺身而出，拔出了他的剑，明晃晃的剑。“你说你孤独／就象很久以前／长星照耀十三个州府／的那种孤独／你在夜里哭着／像一只木头一样哭着／象花色的土散发着香气。”他痛斥日益猖獗的后现代主义者“都是背叛神的人”，然而，信神又能怎样呢？神对待海子就像他以前对待约伯那么残酷。海子走过的每一座桥都成为断桥，峰回路不转，“我走到了人类的尽头”当海子写下这样的诗句时，他已然选择了死亡。
    于是，刚刚用“大诗”为自己加冕的海子，却被“绝对”的诗歌逼着退位，海子忙忙碌碌设置好祭坛，他早就知道祭品只能是自己。在京郊昌平的一间宿舍里，他不分白天黑夜写诗，诗句就象黑暗里的烟头，闪烁，闪烁。然后熄灭。“我请求熄灭／生铁的光，爱人的光和阳光／我请求下雨／我请求／在夜里死去。”灵魂是如此沉重，脆弱的身体再也支撑不住它。此刻，幸与不信都毫无意义。耶酥在在受难中忍受着别人所加给他的痛苦，海子在同样深重的忧伤中忍受着自己所加给自己的痛苦。耶酥在底墒是孤独的，不仅没有人体会并分享他的痛苦，也没有人知道他的痛苦；只有上天和他自己才有这样的感受。就连耶酥也有忧伤得仿佛再也承受不住那种极痛的悲苦的时候：“我的灵魂悲苦得就要死了。”然而此时此刻，他的弟子们都睡着了。站在“太阳痛苦的芒”上的海子，漂浮在一座１０００万人口的巨型都市里，却找到了与当年旷野中的耶酥一模一样的感觉。他一遍一遍地翻《圣经》，《圣经》的字迹在泪水中模糊。
    因此便有了山海关的那一幕。庸碌如我辈，无法知道海子为什么选择山海关，为什么选择铁轨。海子的朋友、诗人西川这样地说：“诗人海子的死将成为我们这个时代的神话之一。随着岁月的流逝，我们将越来越清楚地看到，１９８９年３月２６日黄昏，我们失去了一位多么珍贵的朋友。失去了一位真正的朋友意味着失去一个伟大的灵感，失去一个回声。”我却觉得西川过于乐观了。有多少双“越来越清楚地看到”的眼睛呢？对于受难者来说，慈母般温暖的土地已不复存在；对于肉食者来说，没有诗的生存似乎更为轻松和幸福。即使在海子的母校，未名湖畔已换上了一批捧着《托福大全》的学子。海子理应死去，他不可能行走在这样的队伍里；海子永远是痛苦的，即使他用死亡来消解痛苦。
    海子以他的死肯定了诗。
    海子以他的死否定了诗。
　　――节选自《冰与火――――一个北大怪才的“抽屉文学”》

PS：昨晚又失眠了，收音机里介绍着海子…总是隐隐觉得在他身上有着与自己某些相似之处…

　　

A Summary of The Contexts of Poetry

Coleridge says, poetry “is an art… of representing, in words, external nature and human thoughts and affections, both relatively to human affections, by the production of as much immediate pleasure in parts, as in compatible with the largest sum of pleasure in the whole.” He is concerned, then, with the poem as a “beautiful” structure of words exhibiting a harmonious organization.
Poetry is beyond doubt an art of words; poet is a maker of objects composed of words, not simply the source of an unrestrained divined madness.
The poet is a craftsman faced with a problem, the intransigence of words. It is not surprising that the traditional image for the poet is the Greek god Hephaestus, the blacksmith. Language is not a perfect tool, by any means. The poet’s duty is to force language to reveal what is sometimes very nearly beyond its powers. Occasionally, perhaps very often, it will have to speak in a way not easy to follow.
Coleridge claimed that a poem gives pleasure, but the pleasure he described is intellectual satisfaction achieved through the intellectual apprehension of the beautiful as distinguished from the agreeable or disagreeable. Disagreeable scenes take place in art of the very highest order. For example, death is disagreeable, but it is the subject of much meditative verse. By the same token, agreeable things may not necessarily be beautiful.
Ballad—Poem as Public Utterance
Ballads are, as Sir Herbert Read has written, the most fundamental and authentic type of all poetry. Indeed the ballad is one of the oldest forms of English poetry.
Gordon Gerould in his The Ballad of Tradition, gives the definition that “A ballad is a folk song that tells a story with stress on the crucial situation, tells it by letting the action unfold itself in event and speech, and tells it objectively with little comment or intrusion of personal bias.”
“Sir Patrick Spens” is a typical ballad. It is clearly a folk song that tells a story.
Ballad refrains are often sheer nonsense or incantatory, while nonsense may have musical “meaning.” As in much music, repetition of the pattern builds up expectation, which makes even a slight variation seem immensely significant.
The term “epiphany” is theological, meaning sudden manifestation of the supernatural. The tendency of Wordsworth’s poems is to reach an “epiphanic” climax, in which both the speaker and reader experience a sudden illumination. This experience is seldom explained, but is instead communicated through the action itself and left in its immediacy for the reader to contemplate.
Keats’ conception of language is not that of Wordsworth. He is an elegant poet, primarily a maker rather than a “man speaking to men,” with his characteristic slow and stately cadence, his powerful rhythmic variation.
Sonnet: Poem as Artifice
Form of this sort is not a prison but a vehicle by means of which effects can be obtained.
The sonnet came into being in Italy sometime during the thirteenth century, the age of Dante Alighieri, and reached its greatest popularity there in the fourteenth century with Petrarch. It appeared and flowered in England in the sixteenth century.
The sixteenth-century sonneteers, influenced by the Italian tradition of Dante, Petrarch, and others, wrote almost invariably on the subject of love; and a certain number of set love situations began to appear. In Shakespeare we see a certain enlargement of the number of subjects for meditation: death and lasting fame, the poet’s own art, friendship, mutability—all interweaving with the love theme. Appearing after Shakespeare’s, the sonnets of John Donne are all religious in subject, but some of the love conventions remain. God is now the desperately sought beloved. The speaker casts himself in the feminine, passive role, however. From Donne on, the subject matter of the sonnet broadens considerably, and at the same time the sonnet ceases to be primarily meditative in tone. Milton is often declamatory; Meredith, detached and psychological as well as meditative.
There are two types of sonnet: the Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet and the Shakespearean sonnet.
The Italian has more various uses. It seems better adapted to the description of action with the octave setting the scene and leading up to the climax in the sestet.
The Shakespearean sonnet is simpler, less flexible, and more obvious in its possible uses than the Italian. Its greatest strength is its capacity to suggest an inevitable movement as if it were a logical argument toward a last witty couplet, which drives down the point of the whole poem.
Metaphysical Poetry: Argument into Drama
It is named by John Dryden. It has been looked upon as poetry in revolt against Petrarchanism, artifice, and outworn Elizabethan techniques; it is, however, primarily associated with Donne, and many of its characteristics are simply those of that very individualistic poet, developed and exploited throughout the rest of the seventeenth century.
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy dealing with first principles, the nature of being (ontology), or the structure of the universe (cosmology). Among the great metaphysical poems are Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Goethe’s Faust, poems with an encyclopedic cosmological interest. Such poems are bound to be long, to be concerned with creation and apocalypse, of the extremes of imaginative desire and repugnance, heaven and hell.
Several things strike us at once about Donne’s poetry: unashamed use of wide and often obscure learning, colloquial diction and rhythm, variety of stanzaic patter, intellectual wit, use of logical argument, and analytical detachment. Donne and metaphysicals draw imagery from all the branches of learning, from alchemy, geography, geom.etry, medicine, and medieval scholastic philosophy.
T. S. Eliot has described the metaphysical use of the conceit as “the elaboration… of a figure of speech to the farthest stage to which ingenuity can take it.” The conceit is a product of what we may call “wit.” But wit has had many meanings—some of them are preserved in “to wit,” “witnesss,” and “half-witted.” Today we usually mean by “witty” something amusing or funny. But as used to explain the source of the conceit “wit” refers to something that arises out of the intellect.
Metaphysical images are more abstract, therefore more interpretable. The metaphysicals wrote before Freud and Jung, even before Coleridge’s pronouncements. They were interested in psychological states, as all poets have been, but that was not their overwhelming interest. They sought less the private world than the generalized vision, and more dependent upon argument and logical structure.
Ode: Classic and Romantic
Three different kinds of poems were called odes
1. Pindaric odes: written by Pindar, who lived at Thebes in the fifth century B.C., have had perhaps the greatest influence on English poetry. Most of his best known odes were written to commemorate the victory of some competitor in the Pythian or Olympian Games. His odes were usually written in “triads” composed of two stanzas called “strophe” and “antistrophe” and followed by an “epode,” different in shape. This form was derived from Greek drama, but it was not until the romantics that the ode became dramatic in itself rather than declamatory.
2. Horatian Ode: the odes by the Latin poet, Horace. It is a relatively short poem usually written in quatrains, addressed to a friend, and containing moral or political reflections, commemorated largely by means of images and aphorisms. Andrew Marvell’s “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland” exemplifies the adoption of several of these characteristics.
3. Anacreon ode. It is exemplified best by some of Robert Herrick’s lyric poems. It is usually a short lyric on a light, often sensual subject. The poems attributed to Anacreon praise wine, women, and song.
All three kinds were accepted as odes by English renaissance taste, however, is demonstrated by Michael Drayton: “An ode is known to have been properly a Song…. They are (as the learned say) divers: Some transcendently loftie, and farre more high than the Epick (commonly called the Heroique Poem) witnesses those of the inimitable Pindarus, consecrated to the glorie and renowne of such as returned in triumph from Olympus, Elis, Isthmus, or the like. Others, among the Greeks are amorous, soft, and made for Chambers, as other from Theaters; as were Anacreon’s, the very Delicacies of the Grecian Erato…. Of a mixed kind were Horace’s.”
Poet is the muse’s priest. If the romantic poets associated inspiration with the power to express the self, the classical and neoclassical poets associated it with the power to affect the audience through a just representation of events.
For Coleridge art was the inner made outer. For Wordsworth it was the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” and the poet was not simply a vessel or mirror held up to nature but a fountain and a “man speaking to men.” In Wordsworth’s famous Preface, he regards actions described in poems as having for their purpose the expression of feeling. The feelings are not there to express the actions. Keats’ subjectivity expresses itself in his well-known remark, “O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts.”
Romantic poetry sought to assert the worth of unique individual experience, the reality of the subjective world. It took a position essentially anti-rationalistic insofar as rationalism suggests scientific method operating upon a soundless, scentless, colorless universe, “only the hurrying of matter, endlessly, meaninglessly,” as the twentieth-century philosopher A. N. Whitehead has described it.
The ode moved in the direction of the private, subjective, self-expressive meditation, with the poet himself at the center of the experience. As soon as subjectivity becomes a dominant poetic situation, a major theme among poets is how to escape the confines of the self and make a relationship to something other than the self. In the Lockean system the individual is surrounded by a prison of dead matter through which he finds it impossible to “speak.” He finds something real only insofar as it is subject to analysis and measurement. The ultimate imaginative act in such a world would be to weigh, classify, and catalogue. But man desires a living, answering object. In order to find such an object he must re-establish the qualities of the universe which Locke relegated to the subjective. Nature must be brought alive again. People must be recognized as significant consciousnesses whose experiences are real. They cannot be reduced to dots on a graph or items leading to some sociological generalization.
The sea boils and pigs have wings because in poetry all things are possible—if you are man enough. They are possible because in poetry the disparate elements are not combined in logic, which can join things only under certain categories and under the law of contradiction; they are combined in poetry rather as experience, and experience has decided to ignore logic, except perhaps as another field of experience. Experience means conflict, our natures being what they are, and conflict means drama.
Dramatic Monologue: Drama into Character
The purpose of dramatic monologue was still to express the inner life, which was no longer, however, the poet’s own. It was clearly that of a speaker not the poet.
In Wordsworth’s statement that the action of his poem is presented to express the feelings, not vice versa, we need only to substitute character for feelings.
The dramatic monologue is not really like any part of a play. Nor is it a play in itself. Drama exists in the monologue, but the soliloquy exists in the drama. The difference between soliloquy and monologue is excellently described in Robert Langbaum’s The Poetry of Experience in the following way: The soliloquist never tries to fool his audience, but is instead searching for the right attitude toward his situation. He seeks to render the situation objectively and is therefore freer to analyze himself and his position from the outside. The dramatic monologue’s “I” is absorbed in his experience and is not trying to reveal himself to anyone not even himself. That he does after all, reveal himself is incidental to some other purpose. In fact, he may even be attempting to conceal his nature. The essence of the dramatic monologue, then lies in the speaker’s relation to himself. In the dramatic monologue there is always something which the speaker does not necessarily mean to reveal.
Almost every dramatic monologue reveals something that the speaker does not really mean to reveal or does not even understand about himself. To reveal himself is not the speaker’s aim.
Essay, Epistle, and Satire: The Outer Edge of Poetry
The poet is judged ultimately not merely on the logical integrity of his poem or on the accuracy of its representation of real events. Instead he is judged in terms of the structural principles of poetry itself.
The direction of all great poetry is ultimately inward toward the creation of its own verbal universe, from which the poet freely comments upon the other universes which man has created around him.
There are two kinds of satire: the social and the expressive. Many verse satires are narratives. The neoclassic is social, the romantic personal.
Symbolist Lyric: The Inner Edge of Poetry
The inner edge of poetry is the symbolic aspect of the poem. Past that edge that poem can become, rather than more expansive, irresponsible and obscure if the poet indulges in a totally private imagery given meaning neither by tradition and convention nor by form and context.
Distinction between “symbolism” and “allegory”: a contrast between a “concrete” approach to symbols which begins with images of actual things and works outward to ideas and propositions, and an “abstract” approach which begins with the idea and then tries to find a concrete image to represent it.
Coleridge says: an allegory is but a translation of abstract notions into a picture-language, which is itself nothing but an abstraction from objects of the senses; the principal being more worthless even than its phantom proxy, both alike unsubstantial, and the former shapeless to boot. On the other hand a symbol… is characterized by translucence of the special in the individual, or of the general in the special, or of the universal in the general; above all by the translucence of the eternal through and in the temporal.
For Coleridge and several other romantic poets, allegory is a substitution of one known object for an abstract concept. Most eighteenth-century personification, eschewed by Wordsworth, can easily slide over to allegory. It is not a long step from a personification such as “bravery retired to his den” to an allegory in which, say, a lion represents bravery.
C. S. Lewis argues that allegory is a mode of expression but symbolism is a mod of thought.
Symbolist theory has two aspects:
1. The psychological. Coleridge, typically romantic, saw art as the inner made outer through the use of symbols to express the mind. Symbolist poetry has an intimate relation to modern psychology, particularly the theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Freud’s conception is nearer to romantic “allegory” than to symbolism. Jung’s analysis of the symbol provides a link between psychology and literary symbolism, while Freud’s provides a link between psychology and allegorical interpretation. Freud has greatly influence modern writers to use dream imagery, and he has influenced critics to interpret this writing as Freudian allegory.
2. The idea of the symbol containing its own meaning. In this aspect the poem is itself. Its meaning lies not in what it or its parts point to but in the relations among its parts.
In late nineteenth-century assertions that all art aspires to the condition of music, in many tenets of so-called “art for art’s sake.”
Years called Blake “the first writer of modern times to preach the indissoluble marriage of all great art with symbol.” In a good poem there is a symbolical aspect which we can never adequately allegorize away, no matter how much progress is made in psychology or the other sciences. Every great poem, for Yeats, has an element beyond interpretation. All true poems have it to some degree and cannot be “solved” by analysis.
T. S. Eliot observed that immature poets copy and mature ones steal.
The drama implies a completed world of created characters. Inquiries into such subjects as the girlhood of Shakespeare’s heroines, while amusing, have nothing to do with the heroines themselves, for they have no existence except in the plays themselves, in this sense a play seems to illustrate the symbolist conception of aesthetic self-containment or inwardness very clearly. The dramatic monologue makes the same point. The dramatic passage of time is itself symbolic of the whole life and being of the speaker.
A Theory: The Literary Cosmos
Ernst Cassirer says that the form of things in scientific concepts tends more and more to become mere formulae. These formulae are of a surprising simplicity. A single formula, like the Newtonian law of gravitation, seems to comprise and explain the whole structure of our material universe. It would seem as though reality were not only accessible to our scientific abstractions but exhaustible by them. But as soon as we approach the field of art this proves to be an illusion. For the aspects of things are innumerable, and they vary from one moment to another. Any attempt to comprehend them within a simple formula would be in vain.
We can know nothing beyond our symbolic systems—that apart from them there is no reality, that what distinguishes us from the beasts who live in a meaningless flux, is our ability to construct these systems. Reality is that which has meaning, and there is no reality without meaning.
The extremes of man’s imaginative powers mark the nadir and zenith of his literary universe. These extremes are often referred to as Heaven and Hell, but we can call them more generally as Northrop Frye does, the limits of desire and repugnance. Most literary reality exists between these two poles. And between them lies literary space and time. In this halfway world, space and time are seen as circular and cyclical, respectively. The archetype of human action in space is the quest, the archetype in time the passage through either the life of the individual or the community. in this world there are two areas and times. William Blake named them innocence and experience. The bible called innocence Eden, and we usually call experience the world of nature. Human life is seen archetypal as a descent from one to the other and a journey or quest for the new paradise made desirable by the knowledge gained in experience.

The dominant themes of literature, whether romantic, tragic, satiric and ironic, or comic, are associated roughly with, respectively, the world of innocence, the fall from innocence to experience, the world of experience, and the ascent from experience to a higher imaginative world.