The Blind Poet and the Blind Reader

Greek Homeric Greek and Early Greek Poetry
1

My bedtime reading this past week has been Helen Keller’s “The Story of My Life”. This is described as being her autobiography, though that’s a little misleading, since she wrote this when she was 23 (1903), and it is strictly about her youth up to her first two years at Radcliffe College.

Near the end, she dedicates a chapter to books and her history of reading - “how much I have depended on books not only for pleasure and for the wisdom they bring to all who read, but also for that knowledge which comes to others through their eyes and their ears”.

Her love affair with books began in earnest as a little girl with “Little Lord Fauntleroy”, which was followed up with the likes of “Greek Heroes”, La Fontaine’s “Fables”, Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare”, “Little Women”, etc. Fast forward to her college preparatory years, when she learned French, German, Latin and Greek.

I was struck, and thought some of you might be too, by her appreciation of the Iliad, by her comparison (in a striking piece of prose) to the Aeneid, and by her unromanticized account of the drudgery of grammars and dictionaries and of secondary literature! (Several aspects of this passage reminded me of Joel’s recent account about reading the Odyssey while on his vacation.)

My mind opened naturally and joyously to a conception of antiquity. Greece, ancient Greece, exercised a mysterious fascination over me. In my fancy the pagan gods and goddesses still walked on earth and talked face to face with men, and in my heart I secretly built shrines to those I loved best. I knew and loved the whole tribe of nymphs and heros and demigods - no, not quite all, for the tyranny and greed of Medea and Jason were too monstrous to be forgiven, and I used to wonder why the gods permitted them to do wrong and then punished them for their wickedness. And the mystery is still unsolved. I often wonder how God can dumbness keep While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time.

It was the Iliad that made Greece my paradise. I was familiar with the story of Troy before I read it in the original, and consequently I had little difficulty in making the words surrender their treasures after I had passed the borderland of grammar. Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart. Would that the host of those who make the great works of the poets odious by their analysis, impositions and laborious comments might learn this simple truth! It is not necessary that one should be able to define every word and give it its principle parts and its grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine poem. I know my learned professors have found greater riches in the Iliad than I shall ever find; but I am not avaricious. I am content that others should be wiser than I. But with all their wide and comprehensive knowledge, they cannot measure their enjoyment of that splendid epic, nor can I. When I read the finest passages of the Iliad, I am conscious of a soul-sense that lifts me above the narrow, cramping circumstances of my life. My physical limitations are forgotten - my world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of the heavens are mine!

My admiration of the Aeneid is not so great, but it is none the less real. I read it as much as possible without the help of notes or dictionary, and I always like to translate the episodes that please me especially. The word-painting of Virgil is wonderful sometimes; but his gods and men move through the scenes of passion and strife and pity and love like the graceful figures in an Elizabethan mask, whereas in the Iliad they give three leaps and go on singing. Virgil is serene and lovely like a marble Apollo in the moonlight; Homer is a beautiful, animated youth in the full sunlight with the wind in his hair.

How easy it is to fly on paper wings! From “Greek Heroes” to the Iliad was no day’s journey, nor was it altogether pleasant. One could have traveled round the world many times while I trudged my weary way through the labyrinthine mazes of grammars and dictionaries, or fell into those dreadful pitfalls called examinations, set by schools and colleges for the confusion of those who seek after knowledge. I suppose this sort of Pilgrim’s Progress was justified by the end; but it seemed interminable to me, in spite of the pleasant surprises that met me now and then at a turn in the road.

2

Thank you for sharing that, Randy. I particularly appreciate this thought:

3

I’m not sure what Latin and Greek resources she would have had in Braille. Some of it must have been transcribed on demand for her? One advantage she would have had is that the two alphabets are the same in Braille.

But the description sounds a little too poetic to take entirely seriously, I think.

4

As superficially attractive as these warm words might be, you will not be surprised that it is a position that I have little sympathy with. Whilst a love for the subject is perhaps something that we can all endorse, it is no substitute for rigorous argument and analysis. Keller’s preference for the Iliad over the Aeneid reflects more a 19th century prejudice than “a responsive heart”. In fact a sensitive reader will find that Homer and Virgil are complementary in their rivalry. Keller rushes to judge and rank rather than understand. A common 19th century approach shared by many today.

I always advocate reading commentaries and secondary literature. It seems to me the only way in which one’s own ideas can be developed and challenged. They of course have to be treated with care and scepticism. Her advice is pernicious and unhelpful.

Thanks for posting Randy as it raises many interesting questions. Does anyone else detect the influence of Oscar Wilde in this piece? ‘“In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer”.

5

I think the point of her book is to inspire others to overcome their shortcomings, be they physical or otherwise. That, I believe is done better in lyrical prose rather than bland argumentation.
EDIT: Seneca, I just saw your post and although it doesn’t change my reaction to Keller’s words, I do agree with you that reading secondary literature enhances one’s appreciation.

6

Aetos wrote,

RandyGibbons wrote: ↑
Wed Sep 11, 2019 5:54 am
Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart.

Thanks, Aetos. One minor but important correction: Helen Keller wrote, not Randy Gibbons!

7

I feel sorry for picking on the poor blind girl now.

8

I knew I should have corrected that.

9

I feel sorry for picking on the poor blind girl now.

Blind and deaf. Take a little time to think about that.

10

I feel sorry for picking on the poor blind girl now.
Blind and deaf. Take a little time to think about that.

I think the personal story of great courage shown in the face of what to me would have been insuperable obstacles should not insulate the opinions offered as beyond criticism.

There are too many on these boards including some who should know better who decry the use of commentaries. We don’t need shroud waving, however respectable it’s origins in ancient rhetoric, to bolster that position.

11

I think you might be referring to my Odyssey read-through, and my aside there that “language errors are self-correcting and commentary errors are self-perpetuating”? It was a true statement; though I wouldn’t decry commentaries, if you mean ‘decry’ as in coinage. I’ve used them frequently enough.

Aides like commentaries and lexicons are very useful, and among other things they can allow someone without fluent Greek to approach any text. But if you want to level up and be able to read without such aides, you’ll have to work brutally hard.

Anyway, pick something longer than a few pages that you haven’t read before. Start an “ironman” thread, no lexicon, no commentaries. I’ll go through it with you, at least. Maybe others will join. You can tell me what you’ve discovered about the enjoyability or usefulness of the experience afterwards.

12

No I wasn’t thinking of either you or your comment.

I would make a distinction between commentaries aimed at scholars or university students and concentrate on literary or historical issues ( such as the Green and Yellow Cambridge) and those which concentrate on linguistic help (those that were once school editions). The former seem to me indispensable to aid understanding the latter can be useful but have to be treated with care in terms of their scholarship.

As you have said before your aims are different from mine and I can respect your position. My training and inclination always sends me to secondary literature for clarification and help. How people have understood a text in the past is part of its meaning for me. However fluent one’s Greek one can always learn from others.

I certainly agree with you that being able to read any text one looks at requires hard work.

13

My understanding is that Keller is saying something subtler. I don’t necessarily detect hostility towards the (first kind of) commentaries you mention.

That is: “Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart” corresponds with “It is not necessary that one should be able to define every word and give it its principle parts and its grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine poem,” and therefore “Would that the host of those who make the great works of the poets odious by their analysis, impositions and laborious comments might learn this simple truth!” She isn’t talking about maximising one’s literary appreciation but just getting by, understanding and thus getting a feel for the beauty of the text, which, she maintains, is accessible with less-than-perfect philological knowledge and in spite of leaving philological problems unheeded as you read (hence why there’s really no need for linguistic commentaries and aides). Then she acknowledges that philological (let alone literary) knowledge is a boon to further understanding, as exemplified by her teachers: “I know my learned professors have found greater riches in the Iliad than I shall ever find; but I am not avaricious.” She has no need for that level of philological knowledge to get ample pleasure from her reading.

I don’t think she was disavowing literary studies.

Of course as someone who loves philology as much as (maybe more than) literature I’m the first to abjure.

14

Commentaries and other secondary literature can be invaluable (except when they’re not). Reading the text for enjoyment with minimal attention to such resources is also invaluable. Keller’s comments reminded me of the joie de vivre we should all have in our love of the languages and their literature. It’s a both/and, et…et, και…και, cum…tum… (okay, I’ll stop now).

15

Regarding the specific beef Seneca has, I read her the way you do, Callisper, but let’s also see this (no pun intended) in perspective. Setting aside her handicaps for the moment, she’s writing this in her third year of college. She is no more excited about professional philology than I was as a junior or than any junior in college I know today. Her undergraduate experience is typical. She finds most of the professors dull, with the exception of her Shakespeare teacher, whom she lauds for making literature come alive (she doesn’t describe how). She is often overwhelmed by the necessity of taking four, five, six courses simultaneously and of having to cram for exams, and she questions the value of what one can learn under those circumstances (“But college is not the universal Athens I thought it was.”). Like many college students, she can be opinionated (ask my poor parents!), and her opinions, if dissected too severely, aren’t always consistent.

But what I find really remarkable and not typical is HER. First externally. She made it her goal to go to college and to ask no special favors in doing so. And with years of extraordinarily hard work, and with the indispensable support of her parents and friends and companion Anne Sullivan (played by Anne Bancroft, if you’ve seen the movie), she passed the same entrance exams to Radcliffe College as all the other girls (the one subject she always struggled with was math, but she passed that one too). There, she sat in the classroom as just one of the other girls. Of course she couldn’t see or hear the lecture; Anne sat alongside her and communicated (through finger spelling) what the professor was saying, and then Helen would rush home and write these out as notes. She took the typical Ivy League curriculum of the day, which included some Latin and Greek as well as other languages (in her case French and German, which she especially loved). She achieved her goal and became the first blind-deaf person in the US (and probably in the world) to earn a BA.

Internally. I was really interested in understanding how she experienced the world. In a word, I’d say with a zest and a vivacity, and particularly with a closeness to nature, that makes me feel, frankly, a little ashamed of myself. (She went on to become an outspoken, internationally known and traveled, supporter of unpopular causes. And I can assure Seneca that if he wants to debate her, she won’t play the shroud card and he will have his hands full! His only advantage will be that she is dead.)

And in particular I found it interesting to learn about the role books played in her life, from which she got such pleasure and through which, as she writes, came the knowledge “which comes to others through their eyes and their ears”. (My mother- and father-in-law were both deaf, both from poor immigrant Italian families, also remarkable people, and books played a similar role in my father-in-law’s life.) As I said, in chapter XXI of the autobiography she describes her experience with and opinions about various books, including the excerpt I quoted. I particularly like her emotional directness, a quality I think she saw and appreciated herself in the poetry of the Iliad. Granted she wrote this when she was twenty-three, but how many of us, even if we feel like her that when we read “the finest passages of the Iliad, [we are] conscious of a soul-sense that lifts [us] above the narrow, cramping circumstances of [our] life. [Our] physical limitations are forgotten [not that most of us have them] - [our] world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of the heavens are [ours]!”, - how many of us would be free enough with our feelings to say so?

I was especially struck with the language she used to compare her experiences with the Aeneid: “[Virgil’s] gods and men move through the scenes of passion and strife and pity and love like the graceful figures in an Elizabethan mask, whereas in the Iliad they give three leaps and go on singing.” “They give three leaps and go on singing” - I really love that!

16

“Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart” . Seneca and Callisper have their interpretations of this thought and on one level, I agree with Callisper. But I suspect this is a thought that I will always remember and Randy, I thank you again for posting it, because it brings home to me the message that the first requirement of poetry is to touch the listener’s heart. I will confess that over the years I’ve always preferred prose to poetry, because I love a good story. Having now read substantial portions of the Iliad and the Aeneid (actually 2nd time through) as well as the Metamorpheses, I realise that I can have the good story, enhanced by poetic artistry. I’ve been moved by Dido’s tragic tale, Daedalus losing his son, Hector’s farewell to Andromache, the wrath of Achilles, the inescapability of Agamemnon’s course of action, and although short, Sarpedon’s speech to name but a few instances.
I’m afraid I may never warm to pastoral verse, but I’m definitely hooked on epic poetry!
As an aside, I’m engaged in a bit of an experiment myself: I’ve never read any of these works in English or any other language except the original. When I’ve finished, I’ll look at translations.

17

Thanks, Aetos.

This may be going out on a limb, but as someone who has had to spend many of your waking hours in a high state of visual and aural alertness (as a pilot), would it be fair or correct to say you may be particularly sympathetic to what the deprivation of these senses must be like?

R

18

I’m not sure I’m more sympathetic than others, but I’ve had first hand experience with blind people who wanted desperately to experience flight and even knowing that they could not pass a physical, they still wanted to learn. My heart really went out to them. I feel especially blessed that I made to retirement age before my vision started to go. You can fly with prosthetic limbs, you can fly with any number of chronic ailments, but you cannot fly (safely) without near perfect vision (correctable to 20/20) and hearing (you must be able to hear a whisper from across the room). The standards are slightly lower (correctable to 20/40) for non-commercial operations (private pilots). This isn’t really the place for it and it’s too easy for me to go on, but perhaps through poetry, someday I might be able to properly describe the sunrises I’ve seen, the sunsets, the meteor showers, the thunderheads, the squall lines with their lightning displays, the beautiful blue waters of the southern islands, the auroral beauty of the Northern lights and perhaps best of all, those welcoming green runway threshold lights at the “bottom” of an instrument approach to minimums.

19

Thats a fair point. I really only used Keller’s piece as a hook to hang my thoughts about those on this board who think (as Keller undoubtedly also seems to) that somehow it is possible to enjoy a privileged unmediated understanding of “the text-in-itself”. The idea that all one needs is the “right spirit” in which to approach a text and then the “true meaning” will stand revealed is to me palpable nonsense. Keller brings her own prejudices to the texts she reads and like all of us is incapable of doing anything else. We who have had an extra 100 years of literary theory and philosophical thought can try to recognise where writers privilege their views but we are likewise stuck in our own literary nexus.

I distinguished between two sorts of “commentaries” not because of anything Keller said but more because “commentaries” in general get a bad press on these boards. Also I was directly replying to what Joel had written.

I don’t want to spoil anyone’s enjoyment of reading either Keller or poetry. But I don’t look at Latin and Greek poetry in this way. Perhaps all literature has “to touch the listener’s heart” in the sense we have to find some sense of engagement. I think my engagement with classical literature is more intellectual than emotional although often it’s not possible to disengage the two. We might sympathise with Dido abandoned but those sympathies shouldn’t blind us to the opposite position that she was a foreign princess who entered into a sham marriage in a cave and who sought to divert the epic('s) hero from fulfilling his divine destiny. What makes the Aeneid a great (perhaps inexhaustible is a better word) poem are the contradictions, the irreconcilable differences. Our emotions have to be engaged but we need to keep our wits about us too. Ovid always surprises and subverts. He plays with our emotions and exhibits literary brilliance. He seems to me a fiercely intellectual poet best met with as many resources as we can muster. Much the same could be said of Catullus and Lucan. I have started looking at Horace and feel sure that there is something more complicated there than the usual characterisation of court sycophant. (I am grateful to scribo for starting the Horace thread as it spurred me to action).

Aetos in your impressive list of reading you don’t mention Tragedy. I found reading Aeschylus’ Agamemnon a very rewarding (and difficult) experience. Likewise I recommend Seneca’s Thyestes.

20

What I find tragic in the Dido episode is not so much that she’s been jilted, but that she has been manipulated by Juno (the cave) and Venus (Cupid’s arrow). Obviously for the sake of the story, this is the way events must unfold, thus I don’t think Dido had much choice. From the moment Aeneas showed up on her shore, she was doomed.

That’s only because I’m just not there yet! I feel I need a lot more work in Attic prose before I’ll be ready for tragedy. Right now, my goals are to finish Herodotus (I’m on Book 6), finish the Iliad (presently at Book 13) then move on to the Odyssey and Xenophon more or less contemporaneously. Following that, I’ll attempt Thucycides and Plato. Then perhaps I’ll be ready for Aeschylus and Euripides. Meanwhile, Denniston & Page’s Agamemnon is sitting on my bookshelf and every now and then I look at it wistfully, and think someday…
P.S. I use commentaries (as many as I can find!)for everything I read, but following mwh’s “rule”, I read them after I’ve worked out the meaning (via context or lexicon). Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised, sometimes not.