Ianthe's child-loving POTW, #68 (re-post)
Ianthe
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Ianthe's child-loving 'Poems of the Week'. Number 68.
Re-post, 12th January 2000 -- first posted on 17th August 1996.
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This week's theme is SEXUAL/SENSUAL/EROTIC SYMBOLISM.
A posting for those who don't take thing literally. Here are
some literary texts in which a good and trusting Fraud-ian
psychoanalyist might discern a glimmer of telling sexual
symbolism... or is it just an excuse to wheel out some of the
obscure 'difficult' stuff I've collected ? Mrs Appalled of
Akron, _this_ is your chance to exclaim - "Huh! Those pedo's
- double meanings and hidden intentions everywhere, it's
disgusting!" ;-)
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* Luis Bunuel (Spain, 1900-1983)
'For Myself I Would Like...'
* Randall Jarrell (USA, 1914-1965)
'The Bronze David of Donatello'
* George MacDonald (Scotland, 1824-1905)
from 'Phantasies - a Faerie Romance'.
* Andre Breton (1896-1966)
'All The Schoolgirls Together'
* 'Anon'
from 'The Broken Moon'
* W.H. Auden (England, 1907-1973)
'This Lunar Beauty'
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_Bunuel_ was the famous Spanish film-director, who knew Lorca in
Madrid in the 1920s, and made some seminal surrealist films. He
went on to make tough, socially conscious documentaries during the
Spanish Civil War. After the fall of the Republic he escaped the
fascists to the USA, and settled in Mexico in 1947. From the
mid-1960s, Bunuel worked largely in France on films depicting the
eccentricities and kinky sexualities of the affluent classes, while
maintaining an undercurrent of political satire. He won an Oscar
in 1973 for the best foreign film, 'The Phantom of Liberty'.
About his sexuality I don't know anything more than the poem below.
_Jarrell_ was the poet, teacher and writer responsible for reviving
the reputations of Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams in the
1950s (we've had several poems from each of them here on the POTW),
and the main theme of his poetry was childhood.
_MacDonald_ was an intimate friend of girl-loving Lewis Carroll --
MacDonald's daughters were the ones who demanded that Carroll publish,
after they were read the manuscript of 'Alice in Wonderland'. He also
knew girl-loving Ruskin, and his fiction was the prime inspiration of
the great children's fantasists such as C.S. Lewis, boy-lover
T.H. White and Tolkien. He loved children, but was heterosexual
enough to have a very large family. He achieved tremendous success
in North America, and his classic children's fantasy 'At The Back of
the North Wind' was on an Open University reading list last year,
so even today he's not totally forgotten. There's a lacklustre
biography: Saintsbury, Elizabeth. 'George MacDonald - a short
life'. Canongate. London, 1987. Morris (1974, see below) thinks he
detects paedophile themes in MacDonald's work, but I'm not totally
convinced - I suspect it's deeply sublimated.
_Breton_ was the father of French surrealism, a poet, essayist, critic,
and editor, he turned from Dadaism to outline the theoretical
foundations of surrealism in his 'Manifesto of Surrealism', 1924,
and he made films with Bunuel, much to boy-loving Lorca's
consternation. Several excellent biographies of him have appeared
in the last few years, emphasising his previously neglected political
influence. As far as I know he was heterosexual.
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FOR MYSELF I WOULD LIKE
For myself I would like
tears or willow on the river bank
of gold teeth
of pollen teeth
like the mouth of a girl
from whose hair the river spouted
in every drop a little fish
in every little fish a gold tooth
in every gold tooth a thirteen-year-old's smile
so that dragonflies might reproduce themselves.
Is a girl innocent
when the wind uncovers her thighs ?
Luis Bunuel.
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THE BRONZE DAVID OF DONATELLO
A sword in his right hand, a stone in his left hand,
He is naked. Shod and naked. Hatted and naked.
The ribbons of his leaf-wreathed, bronze-brimmed bonnet
Are tasseled; crisped into the folds of frills,
Trills, graces, they lie in separation
Among the curls that lie in separation
Upon the shoulders.
Lightly, as if accustomed,
Loosely, as if indifferent, The boy holds in grace
The stone moulded; somehow, by the fingers,
The sword alien, somehow, to the hand.
The boy David
Said of it: "There is none like that."
The boy David's
Body shines in freshness, still unhandled,
And thrusts its belly out a little in exact
Shamelessness. Small, close, complacent,
A labyrinth the gaze retraces,
The rib-case, navel, nipples are the features
Of a face that holds us like the whore Medusa's--
Of a face that, like the genitals, without victory?
The mouth's cut Cupid's-bow, the chin's unwinning dimple
Are tightened, a little oily, take, use, notice:
Centering itself upon itself, the sleek
Body with its too-large head, this green
Fruit now forever green, this offending
And efficient elegance draws subtly, supply,
Between the world and itself, a shining
Line of delimitation, demarcation.
The body mirrors itself.
Where the armpit becomes breast,
Becomes back, a great crow's-foot is slashed.
Yet who would gash
The sleek flesh so? the cast, filed, shining flesh?
The cuts are folds: these are the folds of flesh
That closes on itself as a knife closes.
To so much strength, those overborne by it
Seemed girls, and death came to it like a girl,
Came to it, through the soft air, like a bird-
So that the boy is like a girl, is like a bird
Standing on something it has pecked to death.
The boy stands at ease, his hand upon his hip:
The truth of victory. A Victory
Angelic, almost, in indifference,
An angel sent with no message but this triumph
And alone, now, in his triumph,
He looks down at the head and does not see it.
Upon this head
As upon a spire, the boy David dances,
Dances, and is exalted.
Blessed are those brought low
Blessed is defeat, sleep blessed, blessed death.
The right foot is planted on a wing. Bent back in ease
Upon a supple knee -- the toes curl a little, grasping
The crag upon which they are set in triumph--
The left leg glides toward, the left foot lies upon
A head. The head's other wing (the head is bearded
And winged and helmeted and bodiless)
Grows like a swan's wing up inside the leg;
Clothes, as the suit of a swan-maiden clothes,
The leg. The wing reaches, almost, to the rounded
Small childish buttocks. The dead wing warms the leg,
The dead wing, crushed beneath the foot, is swan's-down.
Pillowed upon the rock, Goliath's head
Lies under the foot of David.
Strong in defeat, in death rewarded,
The head dreams what has destroyed it
And is untouched by its destruction.
The stone sunk in the forehead, say the Scriptures;
There is no stone in the forehead. The head is helmed
Or else, unguarded, perfect still.
Borne high, borne long, borne in mastery
The head is fallen.
The new light falls
As if in tenderness, upon the face--
Its masses shift for a moment, like an animal,
And settle, misshapen, into sleep: Goliath
Snores a little in satisfaction.
Randall Jarrell.
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from 'PHANTASES: A FAERIE ROMANCE' [ The author ventures further into
fairy-land, but is increasingly
dogged by a malevolent dark
shadow. ]
One bright noon, a little maiden joined me, coming through the wood in a
direction at right angles to my path. She came along singing and dancing,
happy as a child. In her hands -- now in one, now in another -- she
carried a small globe, bright and clear as the purest crystal. This
seemed at once her plaything and her greatest treasure. At one moment,
you would have thought her utterly careless of it, and at another,
overwhelmed with anxiety for its safety. But I believe she was taking
care of it all the time, perhaps not least when least occupied about it.
She stopped by me with a smile, and bade me good day with the sweetest
voice. I felt a wonderful liking to the child -- for she produced on me
more the impression of a child, though my understanding told me
differently. We talked a little, and then walked on together in the
direction I had been pursuing. I asked her about the globe she carried,
but getting no definite answer, I held out my hand to take it. She drew
back, and said, but smiling almost invitingly the while, "You must not
touch it;" -- then, after a moment's pause -- "Or if you do, it must be
very gently." I touched it with a finger. A slight vibratory motion arose
in it, accompanied, or perhaps manifested, by a faint sweet sound. I
touched it again, and the sound increased. I touched it the third time:
a tiny torrent of harmony rolled out of the little globe. She would not
let me touch it any more.
We travelled on together all that day. She left me when twilight came on;
but next day, at noon, she met me as before, and again we travelled till
evening. The third day she came once more at noon, and we walked on
together. Now, though we had talked about a great many things connected
with Fairy Land, and the life she had led hitherto, I had never been able
to learn anything about the globe. This day, however, as we went on, the
shadow glided round and inwrapt the maiden. It could not change her. But
my desire to know about the globe, which in his gloom began to waver as
with an inward light, and to shoot out flashes of many-coloured flame, grew
irresistible. I put out both my hands and laid hold of it. It began to
sound as before. The sound rapidly increased, till it grew a low tempest
of harmony, and the globe trembled, and quivered, and throbbed between my
hands. I had not the heart to pull it away from the maiden, though I held
it in spite of her attempts to take it from me; yes, I shame to say, in
spite of her prayers, and, at last, her tears. The music went on growing
in, intensity and complication of tones, and the globe vibrated and heaved;
till at last it burst in our hands, and a black vapour broke upwards from
out of it; then turned, as if blown sideways, and enveloped the maiden,
hiding even the shadow in its blackness. She held fast the fragments,
which I abandoned, and fled from me into the forest in the direction
whence she had come, wailing like a child, and crying, "You have broken
my globe; my globe is broken -- my globe is broken!" I followed her, in
the hope of comforting her; but had not pursued her far, before a sudden
cold gust of wind bowed the tree-tops above us, and swept through their
stems around us; a great cloud overspread the day, and a fierce tempest
came on, in which I lost sight of her. It lies heavy on my heart to this
hour. At night, ere I fall asleep, often, whatever I may be thinking
about, I suddenly hear her voice, crying out, "You have broken my globe;
my globe is broken; ah, my globe!"
George MacDonald.
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ALL THE SCHOOLGIRLS TOGETHER
Often you say - marking the earth with your heel as the wild rose
blooms in a bush
Wild one seemingly made only of dew
You say - The whole sea and the whole sky for a single
Victory of childhood in the country of dance or better for a single
Embrace in a train corridor
Going to the devil with rifle shots on a bridge or better
Yet for a single timorous word
Such as must be said while gazing at you
By a blood-stained man whose name goes from tree to tree
Who keeps going in and out among a hundred birds of snow
Where then it is nice
And when you say it - the whole sea and the whole sky
Scatter as a cloud of little girls in the yard of a strict boarding school
After the dictation in which 'The heart takes'
Was perhaps written 'The heart aches'
Andre Breton.
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from 'The Broken Moon'
VI.
Little dress of the last kiss
run away swallow the evening star go now
or I shall unravel with bliss
upon this point of your sharp heart
suddenly elusive you unshape fly
like Ariel into the distance between us
child unreal
as the moon sleeping with eyes open fearful
of thirteen little stars and the earth's enmity
my kisses follow like thirteen wasps over dark waters
to strip you to leave you nude delicate
wearing only the three green ribbons of all
my secret daughters
'Anon.'
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THIS LUNAR BEAUTY
This lunar beauty
Has no history
Is complete and early;
If beauty later
Bear any feature
It had a lover
And is another
This like a dream
Keeps another time
And daytime is
The loss of this;
For time is inches
And the heart's changes
Where ghost has haunted
Lost and wanted.
But this was never
A ghost's endeavour
Nor finished this
Was ghost at ease;
And till it pass
Love shall not near
The sweetness here
Nor sorrow take
His endless look.
W.H. Auden.
[ A poem about children's beauty, using moon and ghost symbolism.
Written during Auden's first spring as a school teacher (1930),
it was originally titled 'Pur', a reference to the 'Puer Aeternus'
or 'beautiful sacred child' (for more on Puer Aeternus see:
- http://www.multimedia.calpoly.edu/libarts/smarx/Publications/YouthAge/ ]
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[ Of course, symbolism has its hilarious flipside - here a repeat
(from 'The Sea' posting) of an utterly camp little poem-ette by
Uranian pun-master poet "Philebus" (John Leslie Barford.
England, 1886-193?)... ]
MOORINGS
Little bouy, the big ships sailing
From their travels look at you,
Trusting with a faith unfailing
You will hold them taut and true.
My ship's also in a hurry
For a haven, to enjoy
Rest awhile fom all the flurry ...
May I moor up, little boy ?
"Philebus"
[ Even the name "Philebus" held a symbolic camp wordplay -
'phile' = 'lover of' (also 'feel'), 'bus' = 'boys', if
pronounced in a clipped upper-class English accent; while
to those not 'in the know' it would merely protect the
poem by alluding to Plato's text 'Philebus', which
considers the place of pleasure in 'the good life'. ]
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A good book by a ped-freindly psychologist, looking at paedophilia
in literature, and drawing out a number of hidden themes (he devotes
a chapter to MacDonald, among all the other 'usual suspects' -
JM Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Herbert Read, Walpole, Mann,
Kingsley, Dowson, Kilvert, TH White) is:
Fraser, Morris. _The Death of Narcissus_. London. Secker and
Warburg, 1976. (Out-of-print.)
'Bye for now,
Ianthe.
January 2000 web links:
* Ianthe's Poetry Archive:
(all postings archived, e-mail me for access)
* The Girl Lover's Guide to Books and Literature:
http://fly.to/alisse
* BoyWrite:
http://www.ivan.net/bw/boywrite.shtml
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KEYWORDS:
pedophilia paedophilia paedophiles pedophiles
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ends.