Equipped with this understanding of the poem, I photographed a local South Asian grocery market that I shop at and used using digital art brushes to draw in the “X.” This art of the New India Bazar portrays a modern telling of Brathwaite’s “SycoraX” for several reasons. First, the name of the store itself suggests that its goods—like Caliban himself—are a product of mixed cultures. Housing both an Indian Nutella brand and Pakistani Magic Masala Lays, this store draws from a diaspora of South Asian influences and the newer American environment it finds itself in. These represent a third culture of South Asian American immigrants, similar to Caliban’s own representation of an Afro-Caribbean third culture. Second, the spelling of Bazar struck me the most. Bazar is, at its roots, a Persian and South Asian word meaning markets. However, the English language has adapted this word to its own spelling, “bazaar.” I found it interesting that this store would faithfully use the more ‘traditional’ spelling of the word as it directly translates from the Persian term, rather than the ubiquitous spelling. To emphasize this, I replaced the “z” with a characteristic “X” to further shield the interpretation and meaning of the word. For those unaccustomed to this spelling, they would have a more difficult (but not impossible) time deciphering it than those who are familiar with it. In true Brathwaite fashion, I have found my own connection to a third culture through the exercise of language.
Inspired by Brathwaite’s “SycoraX,” I produced a mixed-media artwork that reflects the poem’s theme of language as autonomy. Caliban in Brathwaite’s piece mentions, “wid dis X now / long before yu cud say jackie robb / inson or rt-d2 or shout / wreX / dis ya obeah bloX” (pp. 47-51). His language is strikingly oral—transcribing sounds rather than words. Brathwaite writes Caliban to speak in a voice true to him and resist changes that would make his poem easier to read for a Western audience. Often, Brathwaite takes advantage of the novel character “X” as a substitute or variable in many of these oral fragments, so he complicates the reader’s experience even further by shielding words and phrases at a time. Brathwaite preserves Caliban’s third-culture power by establishing a language that defies traditional English. By staying true to his language, Caliban can negotiate a space for himself in a densely Western population.
Equipped with this understanding of the poem, I photographed a local South Asian grocery market that I shop at and used using digital art brushes to draw in the “X.” This art of the New India Bazar portrays a modern telling of Brathwaite’s “SycoraX” for several reasons. First, the name of the store itself suggests that its goods—like Caliban himself—are a product of mixed cultures. Housing both an Indian Nutella brand and Pakistani Magic Masala Lays, this store draws from a diaspora of South Asian influences and the newer American environment it finds itself in. These represent a third culture of South Asian American immigrants, similar to Caliban’s own representation of an Afro-Caribbean third culture. Second, the spelling of Bazar struck me the most. Bazar is, at its roots, a Persian and South Asian word meaning markets. However, the English language has adapted this word to its own spelling, “bazaar.” I found it interesting that this store would faithfully use the more ‘traditional’ spelling of the word as it directly translates from the Persian term, rather than the ubiquitous spelling. To emphasize this, I replaced the “z” with a characteristic “X” to further shield the interpretation and meaning of the word. For those unaccustomed to this spelling, they would have a more difficult (but not impossible) time deciphering it than those who are familiar with it. In true Brathwaite fashion, I have found my own connection to a third culture through the exercise of language.
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My creative project explores emerging adulthood, fear, and awareness in Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “In the Waiting Room.” The protagonist, a young Elizabeth, reaches for a National Geographic magazine in the waiting room of a dentist’s office, intending to fight her boredom as she waits for her Aunt Consuelo. As a result of this seemingly harmless action, and much to her dismay, the six-year-old has an unexpected encounter with the inevitability of adulting, the instinctual desire to avoid it, and the terror of becoming like the adults around her. While reading the National Geographic magazine, Elizabeth has an epiphany—a revelation that is far removed from rationality and communication. Instead of the mundane waiting room, Elizabeth is transported into a wholly altered state of being, where her sense of identity is warped and her very nature is pulled into question. It is through this epiphany that the young Elizabeth is confronted with an unfiltered adult world for the first time. Before her experience, there was a divide between herself and the grown-ups around her—them versus me—but after her epiphany, the divide crumbles down as her childhood bubble bursts and she is thrown into the unknown. When Elizabeth realizes that she will soon be “seven years old,” her brain connects aging with adulthood (Bishop 55). She struggles with the emotions that come with her realization that she is growing old and attempts to fight the passing of time. When faced with the image of the African women, she notes that “their breasts were terrifying” (Bishop 31). Instead of exploring her horror towards the outside world, I explore the fear of maturation and her curiosity in my project. At just six years old, Elizabeth has yet to undergo puberty and the changes that will transform her body. To her, breasts belong to women, beings that are separate and distinct from her as a child. Seeing those images, therefore, adds to her epiphanic spiral that she, too, will soon develop breasts and become a woman. Young Elizabeth’s existence is shattered by the inevitability of aging into adulthood. It is perhaps at this time that Elizabeth comprehends that growing old is inevitable, but growing up is a choice. My watercolor and pencil drawing is my original interpretation of Bishop’s poem “In the Waiting Room,” highlighting her epiphanic spiral as she faces the inevitability of aging and becoming a woman. My composition is surrounded by a yellow border, whose color and design is widely recognized as the logo of the National Geographic publication; however, in my creative rendering, this well-known yellow border becomes a cautionary yellow tape, a warning signal: hazard ahead proceed at your own risk. When her curiosity prompts her determined little fingers to flip the front page Elizabeth opens a portal of no return that thrusts her into a torrid spiral, stealing her child-like innocence. Elizabeth is unable to erase what she sees, reads, and feels. As the magazine triggers her epiphany, she is no longer the child that she once was—she has changed, she has grown up. The center of the piece features a silhouette of a girl, outlined in white, walking towards a light. I chose to use a silhouette of Elizabeth instead of her visage because the spiral she undergoes is so relatable that it can be applied to anyone in a transition phase of their life. The girl in my project has pigtails, which highlights her youth through a characteristic hairstyle for a six- or “seven-year-old” girl (Bishop 55). She is surrounded by an intricate spiral broadening behind her, which is representative of Elizabeth’s own panic attack-like spiral triggered by the National Geographic magazine. A spiral is characterized by negative emotions, and to capture these emotions, I used dark blues, blacks, and dark purples hues. In the poem, the narrator uses choppy sentences and alliteration to convey young Elizabeth emotions in the form of questions, “How—I didn't know any / word for it—how "unlikely". . . / How had I come to be here,” as she attempts to rationalize a shocking experience (Bishop 84-86). She experiences the “sensation of falling off” the world into “blue-black space,” which are the spiral’s prominent colors in my artwork (Bishop 59). The hunched-over figure, grasping her head, represents the terrified Elizabeth who has an overwhelming desire to protect herself. This creates a juxtaposition between the Elizabeth that walks to the light after her epiphany and her ‘shadow’—the Elizabeth that attempts to resist adulting, avoid aging, and negotiate with time. The curled-up Elizabeth is stuck in the spiral and takes up only about one-fourth of the canvas, seeming to almost want to disappear while her counterpart is featured in the middle of the artwork and confidently takes up the other three-fourths of the space. The figure reaching for the light is an enlightened Elizabeth emerging from the spiral with realization that she must face the world, grow up, and find herself. After she snaps out of her realization, Elizabeth finds that it is still “the fifth / of February, 1918” and although her perceptions of the world and herself have forever changed, the world is still as it was before (Bishop 99-100). “In the Waiting Room” stirred up a strong emotional response in me. Despite being in a different stage of life, I relate to young Elizabeth's fear of facing the unknown, growing old, and growing up, since I will soon be thrust into a college campus, have to navigate new relationships, teachers and begin my life as a young adult. The idea of leaving behind everything and everyone that so lovingly supported me all these years—my home, family, school, and friends—is unsettling, and at times I would rather escape to Neverland to stay with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys without ever having to grow up. Change can be absolutely terrifying, but growing up requires that we give change a chance. Nevertheless, I embrace the privilege of sculpting a new me and I can't wait to witness the metamorphosis that I will undergo as my true self emerges.
Klara and the Sun explores the (seemingly) mutualistic relationship between a devotee and deity - Klara reverently imagines the Sun as busy and tired, ultimately convincing herself that in order to attract his attention, she must reciprocate by performing a favor for him. I sought to explore this power dynamic further through a watercolor illustration, titled Klara, the Sun, and the Cootings Machine. The line that initially inspired my artwork was: "The Cootings Machine had been making its awful Pollution, obliging even the Sun to retreat for a time, and it had been during the fresh new era after the dreadful machine had gone away that the Sun, relieved and full of happiness, had given his special help" (Ishiguro, 156). The text suggests that, in contrast to many real and fictional religions (such as Caliban’s worship of Setebos), Klara has the ability - by destroying the Cootings Machine - to genuinely improve the Sun’s conditions. She is not confined to merely asking, and in exchange, providing unconditional devotion and sacrifices; their relationship bears a semblance of equality. Thus, my artwork initially started to reflect the collaborative partnership between the two characters by depicting the Sun not in the background but rather in the foreground, alongside Klara, whose head is almost equal in size to the Sun, in stark contrast to the typical imagery of a small devotee kneeling before a celestial figure, However, the presence of the Cootings Machine added complexity to this notion, as the quote above emphasized its power over the Sun. I sought to convey this by placing the Cootings Machine above the Sun and closer to the viewer, but I wanted to simultaneously acknowledge Klara's ability to stop it, bringing her still closer to the viewer. As a result of this tension between the Sun being a figure Klara looks up to and a powerless being which requires Klara assuming the role of its helper, a subtle shift in perspective emerged along the diagonal. Although I had a vivid image of Klara within my head, I was surprised to find that her physical appearance was not thoroughly defined. Josie, when searching for Klara in the shop, described her as "really cute, and really smart... she was so smart" (Ishiguro, 38-39). Drawing on these descriptions, I incorporated stereotypical cues to indicate intelligence, such as minuscule furrowed brows, a slight squint, and a focused gaze. To portray cuteness, I exaggerated the proportions of Klara's head, creating a sense of baby-like innocence, while elongating her neck as if exuding swan-like grace. Josie further described her as having “short hair”, being “almost French?”, and having “the kindest eyes”, which I tried to replicate with features such as abundant eyelashes and blue irises, symbolically representing innocence and kindness (Ishiguro, 38-39). I sought to stay as true to the text as possible but had to make a vast majority of decisions based on cultural and social biases related to concepts like "kindness" and "cuteness" and unconsciously had a Klara that resembles Japanese origin, inspired by Kazuo Ishiguro's nationality. It's possible that these qualities were lost or interpreted differently by others viewing my illustration, as perceptions of kindness and cuteness can vary among individuals. The Sun was mentioned over one hundred times throughout the text, but its descriptions were short and often focused on its patterns on the floorboard or how it resembled a pink dot over a hill. To guide my illustration, I focused on the Sun's first few descriptions as "on his journey, crossing between the building tops" (Ishiguro, 3-4). I imagined its yellowness as “nourishing” while using red-orange hues to signify its fiery reaction to the Cootings Machine (Ishiguro, 9). When it came to depicting the Cootings Machine, I found the best characterization in the lines that described it as having “three short funnels protruding from its roof, and smoke began to come out of them. At first the smoke came in little white puffs, then grew darker, till it no longer rose as separate clouds but as one thick continuous one.” (Ishiguro, 56). I aimed for a literal representation, illustrating the three short funnels positioned close together with small white puffs of smoke emanating from them. Additionally, I reflected the "Cootings" label displayed prominently on its side. While illustrating Klara, the Sun, and the Cootings Machine, I gained insight into the idea of Klara as an avatar, with her character serving as a representation of the reader's imagination. The absence of physical description enhanced her ability to embody anyone, including Josie, and perhaps would have had the effect of merely hindering the reader's connection with her. I decided to highlight the power dynamics in this illustration by focusing primarily on Klara's relationship with the Sun (instead of with Josie or Rick), and this shift in emphasis gave Klara more confidence, boldness, and strength. She became incredibly purposeful and ambitious, almost entirely shedding her usual meek and servant-like nature. But with this transformation, Klara lost some of her original essence. Her softness and gentleness seem to be diminished, and her emotional intelligence is less apparent. As a result, parts of her personality feel different from the original character. Shafranovskaia, K. (2020, March 15). Beautiful young woman with short hair, watercolor painting stock illustration - illustration of paint, hand: 175256269. Dreamstime. https://www.dreamstime.com/beautiful-young-woman-short-hair-watercolor-painting-beautiful-young-woman-short-hair-fashion-illustration-watercolor-image175256269 The novel Passing by Nella Larsen is an exploration of the particularly taxing aspect of racial identity for those whose parents come from more than one racial group. In a society that is obsessed with racial and ethnic labeling, I ponder if biracial individuals feel free to identify with more than one racial group or if they feel forced to choose one. Identity development is a difficult social, psychological, and spiritual struggle that involves so much more than simply deciding which parent’s ancestry to identify with. As is the case in Larsen’s Passing, it involves dealing with the consequences of one’s choice to identify with the dominant European American part of their heritage and lose their minority heritage, community, family, and their sense of self. Although Clare looks white and is married to someone white, she is aware of her own biracial origin and duplicitous façade. This is in contrast to Irene who, although she too is white-passing, identifies as black, married a black doctor, and lives in a predominately black community. After running into Clare while passing, Irene feels threatened by Clare's ability to simultaneously emulate and condemn white society, which showcases the latter’s deeper sense of her dual-identity. While Clare laughs and fraternizes with the enemy, Irene repudiates Clare for wearing an “ivory mask” (157). She also accuses Clare of "mockery” of her own culture (154) since Clare was not just “passing” temporarily, but choosing to identify as white in order to seize white power to advance herself in society. I noticed that it was not outrage that plagued Irene, but the realization that Clare rose quickly to the top of the social ladder and surpassed her in wealth and class. It is at this point that I had an epiphany: Irene's relationship with Clare is not about rightful indignation about her passing or even sapphic longing, but instead a resentful sense of envy at her innate ability to risk, “[have her] way” (20), and enjoy it all without reservations. Irene’s envy comes as a result of choosing to remain faithful to one race and trading her joy, dreams, and desires for middle-class stability. According to Irene’s values, joy is contingent on delayed gratification and self-sacrifice. Clare, on the other hand, lives in the moment and has "no proper morals or sense of duty" (81) and possesses an irrepressible force to sacrifice all to attain that which she yearns: “I'd do anything, hurt anybody, throw anything away" (81). Nevertheless, I suspect that Irene was most terrified of awakening her own destructive desires, letting go, and surrendering to an enjoyment that respects no limits and has no bounds. My pencil and charcoal artwork is my artistic rendition of Clare and Irene, exploring their complex relationship and interactions. Two portraits make up my artwork—one framed in white and the other in black. To the right is Clare, with her “ivory face under that bright hair” and “arresting eyes” (190-191). To the left is Irene, whose “dark curls” (224) and lighter skin allow her to pass as “a Spaniard, a Mexican, or a Gypsy” (178). Both ladies are drawn in black and white, as no color can be found on the canvas. This was an intentional choice—in black and white, both ladies of African American descent can pass as white. This reveals, therefore, that accepting a passing identity is a choice. While Clare embraces her ability to pass and the benefits that it brings to her, Irene chooses not to. Clare’s choice intimidates Irene, and her once aesthetic attraction to Clare is now tainted by envy. The background choices were intentional as well. Although one might assume that matching the color of the background to their racial identity would be a logical choice, I chose to color their background according to the ancestry they renounced. Secretly, however, both yearn for what they gave up. Irene is in touch with her ancestry, community, and traditions but craves the status Clare holds as a white woman. Clare lives with the benefits of being a white woman but misses her African American roots, visiting Irene to reclaim a little piece of herself. Nevertheless, the choice they made binds them to their place in society, but the what-ifs will always be at the forefront of their minds.
My creative project explores the darker side of Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. When Victor animates the monster, he intends to create a beautiful being; however, when he comes face to face with his creation, the monster’s appearance was so horrific: “his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries…his hair was of a lustrous black…his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes…his shriveled complexion and straight black lips” (Shelley 60). In class, we understood the relationship between Victor and the monster to be a familial one—Victor serves as both the mother and the father, while the monster is the son. Victor brings the monster to life, stitching the parts together to bring life to his creation, but as soon as he is alive, Victor promptly rejects and abandons him. Though he labels himself as the “father” of a “new species,” he is absent in his child’s life (Shelley 35). Instead of exploring this familial interpretation, I chose instead to depict Victor and the monster as one. I resonated with the idiom “two sides of the same coin,” and explored this idea in my project. While a parent may abandon their offspring and not be haunted by their overwhelming guilt, one side of a person’s self cannot abandon the other without severe consequences. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, coined the term “Shadow” as the side of an individual’s personality that resides in the unconscious—a compilation of characteristics that society rejects and labels as monstrous, unacceptable, and anti-social (Jung 85). According to Jung, humans are rarely aware of their “Shadow” side, but when they suspect that human nature has the capability to become a raging monster, they sweep it under the rug. Jung implies that when these unconscious characteristics are rejected, the darker side of the self will grow larger and become uncontrollable, freeing the “Shadow” side to commit atrocities, ultimately annihilating the self. If we compare Jung’s definition of the “Shadow” side to Frankenstein, it is clear that the monster in Shelley’s novel symbolizes Victor’s darker side. The monster is Victor’s “Shadow” side, the externalization of his deepest, darkest instincts. Victor rejects, fears, denies, and fights his “Shadow” side instead of fully accepting it. If individuals step back and see their “Shadow” sides for what they really are—their basic humanity—then it becomes far less dark than what they believe it to be. Carl Jung once said, “everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker…it is” (Jung 30). My pencil, marker, and paint artwork is my artistic interpretation of Victor Frankenstein and his “Shadow,” the monster. At the forefront of this piece, two figures stand face to face. On the left is the monster, with his cruel smirk, taunting the stoic Dr. Frankenstein, who stands opposite him on the right. The monster’s “yellow skin” is patchworked from multiple corpses with “lustrous black” hair, “pearly white” teeth, and “dun-white” eyes (Shelley 60). His clothes are bloody and dirty and his overall look is extremely disheveled. Victor, on the other hand, is the epitome of class—his stoic expression complements his clean, well-fitting shirt and his intelligence is highlighted by the reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. This dichotomy, therefore, reveals the two sides of Victor’s self: the dirty, near-disgusting side represents the “Shadow,” or the monster, while the orderly side represents the ordinary Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The monster dwells outside and is shrouded in darkness, while Victor dwells in a library surrounded by the “genius” that “regulated [his] fate”—a dichotomy that emphasizes how the original side of the self is accepted by society, but the “Shadow” is exiled and shunned (Shelly 24). The colors that surround the figures create yet another dichotomy: the light green bookcase—I chose this color because it is often associated with life—contrasts the dark blue and dark green background—I chose these muted colors to represent the monster’s association with horror and destruction. Despite the many differences in their clothing, expressions, and surroundings, the two figures share the same visage, forever intertwining their fates as they exist, and will continue to exist, as one. In the center of my artwork, there is an ornate mirror with a blackened silhouette. This silhouette shares the same hair, clothing outline, and general shape as both the monster and Victor. After the monster’s creation, Victor is forced to face his “Shadow” side. Victor’s adamant rejection of the monster, however, irrevocably fractures the self. By virtue of Victor’s lack of acceptance and nurturing of his “Shadow” side, the monster takes over in a violent rage. While Victor Frankenstein is indeed the man who stares at the silvery panes of the golden mirror, it is the monster inside of him that ultimately stares back. Work Cited Jung, C. G. Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 7: Two Essays in Analytical Psychology. Edited by GERHARD ADLER and R. F. C. HULL, Princeton University Press, 1966. Jung, C. G. Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. Princeton UP, 2014. Shelley, Mary W., and J. P. Hunter. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Contexts, Nineteenth-century Responses, Modern Criticism. W. W. Norton, 1996.
My creative project was inspired by John Keats's letter to his brothers George and Tom in December 1817. This letter is among the most intellectually thrilling of any I have read. In dissecting the letter, I noticed that Keats bounces carefree like a butterfly from one idea to another while examining the processes of his intuition and beautiful mind until he suddenly lands serendipitously upon a magnificent sight of perception. Keats then remarks about an idealized creative state of mind, the one in which a poet displays "Negative Capability." The Oxford English Dictionary identifies Keats' complex term as a "quality of a creative artist." However, Keats refers to it as the ability to lose himself in the "uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason" (Keats 1). Negative Capability is a state of being—receptive and open to all—where the poet perceives his surroundings while taking part in a host of life experiences that occur in unison with his own. This ability to expand the self by losing oneself in an empathetic receptiveness, a broad-mindedness of the actuality that excludes emotion and denies personal perspective to expand all understanding, makes the concept complex and enthralling. The irony of it all is that when I read Keats' novel concept (Negative Capability), I had the irrational need to offer a close analysis of his ideas to make rational sense of the term; however, it soon dawned on me that my urge for a definite definition contradicted the very essence of Keats' concept. No definition, no matter how extensive, will ever satisfy the depth of Keats' timeless and inconceivable vast concept—the core of his creative genius. In the same letter, Keats suggests that Samuel Coleridge is unwilling to allow mystery or doubt to remain unadulterated. Instead, Keats claims that Coleridge indulges in an unrelenting search for knowledge when he should be seeking to contemplate beauty and truth (a "verisimilitude") attained serendipitously from the innermost core of mystery ("Penetralium"). Keats' intuitive experiences expose his creative genius by nullifying that which has originated from the rational mind or, as Keats so elegantly wrote, "a great poet['s]... sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration" (Keats 1). A negative capable individual is fluid and yielding, immersing himself in experiences in tandem with his own. It is a receptive and passive individual, whose self withdraws, as it allows the substance of its subject to exist within, thereby collapsing the walls that divide the poet and the other. This ability to become another gives the poet a view of life and a perception of existence equal to none. Nevertheless, it does come at an extreme personal cost. As a negative capable poet, Keats could not choose which feelings he let in while surrendering himself to the full intensity of the experiences within creatures, people, and nature. As such, he drowned himself in fear, bliss, pain, elation, desperation, awe, madness, sublimity, and distress. My pencil and watercolor painting is my original interpretation of Keats' Letter to his Brothers, George and Thomas, portraying the role of Negative Capability in the creative process. The figure in the upper left side is the poet Keats himself. His portrait is done in pencil—the black-and-white tones contrast starkly with the colorfulness of the other sections. This dichotomy is intentional: Keats' portrait represents the poet without Negative Capability, while the colorfulness represents "being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts" that one experiences when in the state of Negative Capability (Keats 1). The transmutation from faded pencil portraiture to a faceless watercolor silhouette represents the transformation Keats undergoes when writing—he must allow himself to exist in a state of Negative Capability. To do so, he loses all of the defining characteristics of self, hence the featureless face extending from the portraiture. This poet self, the one that experiences Negative Capability, is able of "obliterat[ing] all consideration" because of his control over "the sense of Beauty" (Keats 1). Therefore, the nebula spiral at the bottom of the painting represents what one can perceive and experience when in a state of Negative Capability. Space is infinitely expanding and viewed with sublime emotions, comparable to the experience of being in a state of Negative Capability. It is my artistic rendering of Keats' contemplative state free from logical or scientific knowledge thrusting himself into the chaos of uncertainty, confusion, and paradox that reveal the depth of perception invisible to those who aspire to attain certainty. Here, the world and its moral framework are no longer relevant, giving the poet creative license to pause and exist in his characters' bodies, experiencing their full intensity and range of emotions. Therefore, when Keats mentions that he, as the Poet, "has no Identity," this lack of identity does not have a negative connotation (Keats 2). In class, we understood the Poet to be nothing more than a vessel or mirror, which takes away from Keats. However, my focus on Negative Capability reveals a new interpretation: the Poet's lack of identity allows him to experience the state of Negative Capability, allowing him to release his creative genius. Keats can access Negative Capability only in this absence of identity, where the Poet becomes "The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women" (Keats 2) or mirrors others' identities. As such, the Poet is no longer a negative, parasitic entity but instead a state of being capable of maintaining creative tension to engage in an imaginative rendering of its subject while maintaining an openness to the subject as it reveals the truth of itself.
As is the case with most of the Romantics poets, Willam Wordsworth abandons the classical muse concept as the origin/inspiration for his works. In the traditional sense, poets were at the mercy of the Muses’ capriciousness—nothing but a mere conduit of their ever-fleeting, supernatural moments of revelation. Wordsworth, on the other hand, embraces the process of the unconscious as inspiration for his creative poetic process. Through written language, the poet becomes aware of the self—the unknowable essence beyond comprehension—that the unconscious introduces to the mind and the poet meets in his poetry. For most, after a certain age, our mental processes are no longer pure: they are contaminated by biases, prejudices, worries, experiences, and preconceptions. We have polluted our consciousness and lost that child-like innocence, the inner eye of primal sensory perception, and sense of wonder. Wordsworth’s words “I gazed—and gazed—but little thought / What wealth the show to me had brought”(Wordsworth 17-18) are evidence that he has retained his child’s eyes which made his unique and extraordinary communion with nature possible. I argue that, for Wordsworth, nature was the trigger of his visualizing faculties rather than his muse. This Wordsworthian power of seeing both the immediate and the remembered world is not only puzzling but also genius, as Wordsworth seeks to free his editor-self from the bondage of the immediate, all-powerful emotions to reign in the remembered world. In examining this poem through the lens of my creative project, it becomes evident that Wordsworth has both a poet-self and an editor-self. In accordance with Wordsworth’s Preface: poetry is but the “spontaneous overflow” of emotions recollected in tranquility (Wordsworth 2). These transcendental, spontaneous experiences represent the poet-self ,while the abstracted, recollected tranquility represents the editor-self. In the realm of Wordsworthian poetic creation, one cannot exist without the other. As such, the editor-self carries the inspiration back to the conscious, where he interacts with it, and is eventually assimilated by it, thereby enriching, expanding, and improving it into written form. The poet-self is representative of childhood, the unconscious, and nature; the editor-self is representative of adulthood, the conscious, and the mechanical process of writing. Wordsworth’s spontaneous process of contemplating and contending with nature and comprehending and assimilating it with his inner eye in the present moment melts away fear, doubt, and inadequacy to create something new, something outside of the boundaries of the existing. To understand this separation, I found the example of a well to be helpful. The poet-self serves as the well itself, housing the inspiration that stems from the unconscious and remains untainted. The editor-self, then, must retrieve the water (inspiration) piece by piece as though it draws the water from the well with a bucket, translating it from the unconscious to the conscious to give it form. In terms of the poem, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” the poet-self is the one who surrenders to experience the daffodil field to the fullest with a childhood-like innocence and without restraint, and the editor-self is the one who writes the actual poem. Each time Wordsworth is in his “vacant or in pensive mood” and revisits the memory, the editor revises the poem to achieve its polished final state (Wordsworth 20). This creative energy is further dissipated by the sharing of the poem, where readers assimilate what is being shared and acquired with some extent the poet-self’s experiences. It is only through the editor’s multitude of revisions that Wordsworth is able to achieve a simple diction, flawlessly bestowing his unparalleled creation layer by layer with a complex depth of meaning. My multi-medium artwork—wherein I incorporated hand-drawn images and graphics and a collage—is my original interpretation of Wordsworth’s source of inspiration and his two selves. Divided up into five distinct sections, with each part representing a different aspect of Wordsworth’s poetic process. As the center of the piece, the inner eye draws the audience’s attention to it. The images of “a host, of golden daffodils” (Wordsworth 4), “hills” (Wordsworth 2), and “clouds” (Wordsworth 1) compose the eye and “flash upon that inward eye,” as clear as a photograph (Wordsworth 21). The hyperrealistic collage represents the clarity with which Wordsworth experiences the memories and his ability to return to the field in his mind. His hyperrealistic and vivid experiences in the moment with nature becomes creative energy as the poet encounters, interacts with, and challenges his emotions. Moving clockwise to the upper right, there is a graphic abstract representation of Wordsworth’s surrender to his senses. Wordsworth focuses specifically on the visuals—the “golden” color of the daffodil (Wordsworth 4)—and the movement—the daffodils “fluttering and dancing” in the wind—abandoning himself to feelings and allowing himself to indulge purely with his senses (Wordsworth 6). At this moment, Wordsworth is his poet-self that experiences nature through the five senses depicted in this section: eyes, mouth, nose, ears, and hands. The bottom right corner represents the innocence of the poet-self and the childlike perspective through which he views the world. The little boy, slightly blurred as if he exists as a faded memory, is the image of Wordsworth’s childhood, where views are untainted and unaffected by the rational. This idea is further cemented by the rose watercolor featured on top of the boy—symbolizing rose-colored glasses, a common euphemism for uncorrupted view. By the edges of these sections, the blue from the other sections can be seen bleeding through the edges of the image of childhood. This is representative of how the unconscious is intertwined with childhood and the poet-self. The section directly to the left focuses on the unconscious itself. Bathed in blue, a color that often represents the depth of the unconscious, a hand reaches out toward a water ripple. This hand represents the editor-self reaching to the unconscious, or the water, and pulling inspiration from it. The last section of my project is a representation of “I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o'er vales and hills” that symbolizes the state of solitude that the editor-self needs to carry out his task (Wordsworth 1-2). In class, Dr. Dawkins created a graph detailing level of emotion on the y-axis and time that passes on the x-axis. In this graph, the level of emotion spikes after Wordsworth experiences the daffodil field, decreases after an indeterminable amount of time, and rises once again when he begins to write the poem. In my interpretation, however, this graph differs greatly. Instead of decreasing after the daffodil field, the level of emotion plateaus, remaining stable until after the poem is finished. This is because the editor-self is constantly revisiting this moment, bringing back the emotions before they can diminish again. The cycle continues until the editor-self has revised the poem to his liking, ultimately crafting the poem we know and love, and proclaimed that there is a kind of primitive nature, which is immortalized in a cosmic universe that contains all beings and where all events are sacred. The leftmost graph is Dr. Dawkin's own creation and has been reproduced with her permission. To review Dr. Dawkin's graph in its full state, view our second class recording of the semester.
I had multiple ideas for creative projects floating in my head, but the more I pushed myself to brainstorm, the more my brain resisted by reminding me of the unfinished list of tasks that needed my undivided attention. I decided to take a walk in the hopes that nature would distract my brain, be my muse, and awaken my inspiration, and surprisingly, it did! The walk soothed my brain and provided me with clarity. On this peaceful walk, where I gazed at the trees and the beginnings of the spring buds on the bare, beige branches, I realized that in order to harness creativity, the mind must be prepared to welcome it or invite it in. It is futile to try and force creativity, as I tried to do, if I am not in the right headspace. The mental shackles that constrict the brain must be shaken off to free holistic brain function. It is only when one pauses the rational mind that we are allowed to create a space within ourselves to be free and creative. My charcoal and watercolor painting is my original interpretation of Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” that portrays the author’s creative process. The interpretation that was explored in class was a power struggle between the two—the anarchy underneath is seething and wants to break free, but the order above attempts to control nature, forcing it to comply with its orderly state. The two are constantly in a state of conflict, but this artwork introduces a new interpretation—rather than being in conflict, the two are now collaborating. The upper part, usually considered the ordered mind, represents the conscious mind, which is aware of reality and contains our thoughts and memories. The lower part, which represented chaos, now acts as the subconscious mind—the unaware yet automatic mind. The conscious mind must be rational and composed to set up the stage for inspiration to bubble up from the subconscious. The two must work in unison: without the conscious mind, inspiration will be wasted and without the subconscious, inspiration has no grounds from which to rise up. The “caverns measureless to man” symbolize the depths of the imagination—where inspiration stems from—settled deep in the subconscious mind (Coleridge 27). Creativity draws from the entirety of the brain: in order to harness its power, the mind must utilize both the subconscious and the conscious, the right and the left sides of the brain. To visually represent this, I situated the dome inside Coleridge’s head, effectively equating it to his mind and representing his awareness and imagination. The ornate architecture, spreading beyond the bounds of his mind, is defined by “walls and towers… girdled round” and sharp, sleek lines, reflecting the conscious mind and the ordered dome (Coleridge 7). The middle section represents the flowing water of the “mighty fountain” that was “forced” to erupt (Coleridge 19). In this artwork, the mighty fountain is a representation of creativity—a force that violently bursts out of the subconscious, coming and going as it pleases. The space that represents the subconscious and conscious mind are of the same color—both are gold, which symbolizes not only that they are invaluable, as gold is the most valuable metal, but also that they are equal and cannot work without the other. The portrait of Coleridge is left in its original charcoal state to emphasize the light and shadow that falls across the surface of his face. The shadows symbolize his crippling lack of inspiration and his despair of not being able to hold on to it. The light, which directly contrasts the darkness, represents the precious moments when inspiration abounds and flows endlessly. In his poem, Coleridge mourns the loss of the “symphony and song” of an “Abyssinian maid,” wishing that he could “revive” it within himself. Through an analogy, one can compare the song of the Abyssinian maid to inspiration and his wish to hear it again to his wish to harness inspiration at will (Coleridge 39-43). Inspiration serves as a “miracle of rare device,” where the “sunny pleasure-dome” is full of creative force, bursting uncontrollably, but the “caves of ice” represent the moments where the mind has to be still, patient, and calm, inviting inspiration in (Coleridge 35-36). One is able to draw connections from this interpretation to William Wordsworth’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” In the poem, Wordsworth emphasizes the need to achieve a specific mental space to prime the mind for inspiration. He acknowledges poetry as the overflow of spontaneous emotion, but it is recollected in tranquility. Exercise or engagement with art acts as the priming elements to set the near-meditative “vacant” or “pensive” mood, which is necessary to provide inspiration (Wordsworth 20). Once this is achieved—once inspiration strikes—the mind is ready to welcome creativity with open arms. It seems like Coleridge already knew what neuroscientists took years to learn: it takes the whole brain to harness creativity, not just the right hemisphere, and in order to access it, one must be in a specific mental state for creativity to settle in and flow unrestricted.
In Robert Browning’s “Caliban Upon Setebos,” the readers are exposed to Caliban’s most confidential thoughts. The exposure of his most private thoughts leads to two contradictory interpretations of Browning’s Caliban. One characterization of Caliban is that he projects his internal violence and spitefulness onto Setebos, thereby creating a violent, spiteful god. A contrasting view of Caliban is to look at how he observes the world and the people around him, particularly Prosper. He extrapolates from his observations of a seemingly cruel world (think of, for instance, the Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest) that Setebos must be a capricious, and sometimes violent and spiteful, god. This view suggests Caliban is a philosopher/thinker. Caliban’s ability to use inductive reasoning to reach conclusions about Setebos and Prosper suggests a high acuity of vision and intellect. My drawing focuses on these two distinct interpretations of Browning’s Caliban by adapting a particular passage, in which Caliban has a thought experiment about Setebos’s thoughts and arbitrary actions when helping beings lower than himself:
By choosing to draw a beastly Caliban, instead of Setebos (who Caliban is adopting the role of Setebos), the “I” in this passage becomes more closely associated with Caliban himself. That is, one would imagine, if Caliban actually had more power, such as Setebos or Prosper in the poem, then he would have the large, maniacal smile seen in the left figure. In contrast, the right side shows Caliban as a person with a high acuity of vision and intellect. There are three heads. The one at the top is Setebos, the one in the middle is Prosper, and the one at the bottom is Caliban. The connection of the three heads represents how Caliban has such an awareness and understanding of Setebos and Prosper that he can accurately guess what Setebos and Prosper (though Prosper is not actually in this particular passage) would think. The adaptation of this passage to an artwork shifts the subconscious decision readers make when reading “Caliban Upon Setebos” to a more conscious one. Distinctly showing these two opposing views of Browning’s Caliban pushes the viewer to more actively think and discuss the question: is Caliban the barbaric, spiteful, violent being or the thinker, a being with high acuity, or perhaps both? First Draft of the Drawing: Delving into the first draft of the drawing is a good place to start to learn more about the artistic process and choices. There were two critical differences between the first sketch and the final draft of the drawing. First, I decided to fill up more of the paper, where the figures connected to each other. Filling up the page and connecting the beings together is meant to spur conversation about the connection between the figures. For instance, an initial thought I had was that the Caliban on the bottom right is how Caliban actually is, just a person; the Caliban on the left is the Caliban created by other people in The Tempest through their descriptions of him; and the egg is how Caliban sees his own predicament, as a person enslaved by Prosper, who has gone through many hardships but is still standing. Another thing to ponder is the positioning of the three heads. Why is Setebos’s head at the top, Prosper’s in the middle, and Caliban’s head at the bottom? At least from the artist’s perspective, I was thinking about Sigmund Freud’s superego, ego, and id. The second critical choice made early on in the drawing process was that in contrast to the serious, dark mood in the first sketch, I chose to take a colorful and somewhat more comical approach in the final draft. While the serious, dark mood of the first sketch fits more with the overall mood of “Caliban Upon Setebos,” my art piece could be interpreted as a parody or dark humor. One intention to choose a more satirical approach is for the artwork to connect the viewer to the artist and artwork more. This piece is meant to promote discussion and be accessible to all ages. However, one element that could be lost is the gravity of the situation. Arguably, Caliban started natural theologizing because he is trying to understand his enslaved condition and trying to figure out if he can rebel against his slave status and Prosper (Loesberg 872). The severity of the situation, where Prosper’s enslavement of Caliban leads him to need to natural theologize to attempt to understand his situation and his violent thoughts originating from viewing a seemingly cruel world, could be lost in the art piece. However, what could be gained is the potential dialogue about important themes (e.g., the different aspects of the same person, the effects slavery has on the mind) or just child-like themes (e.g., why use crayons and oil pastels instead of say watercolor, what’s the purpose of using crayons and oil pastels for most of the painting versus digital drawing for the knife and blood gushing out of the egg). Works Cited Browning, Robert. “Caliban upon Setebos.” The Tempest, Shakespeare, edited by Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan, Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2011, pp. 338-347.
Loesberg, Jonathan. “Darwin, Natural Theology, and Slavery: A Justification of Browning’s Caliban.” ELH, vol. 75, no. 4, 2008, pp. 871-897. The inscription on the girdle around Innogen's waist references the following passage:
The rose images reflect the seeming dichotomy of Innogen. Roses could be signs of female sexual purity, and they are often used in Western art as symbols of female goodness because of the Catholic tradition of the Miracle of the Roses. But roses (and other flowers) can also be understood as symbols for female fecundity, sexuality, and even genitalia because they are part of a plant's reproductive process. This symbolic meaning of flowers can be seen, in one example, in visual art of Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers, which have long been interpreted as veiled depictions of vulvas, the exterior part of women's genitalia. On the one hand, Innogen/the rose is the perfect example of female chastity; on the other hand, Innogen/the rose is a whore just by virtue of having a vagina.
Innogen appears in a vaginal shape that is connected to the bracelet, the "manacle" of Posthumus's love, in order to show how Iachimo's slander works. By equating her sexuality with the value of the ring that Posthumus wears, Iachimo was able to commodify Innogen and enter her reputation into an exchange circulation. Securing the bracelet from her when she sleeps makes it so that he can trade in on her sexual reputation in exchange for the ring that Posthumus put up in the wager. The bracelet symbolically becomes her vagina; thus, when Iachimo takes the bracelet, he takes her vagina (as far as Posthumus knows). In reality, he only took the bracelet and he did not take her marital chastity. She remains safely ensconced in the vaginal shape of this image, but the eyes around her watch her relentlessly and the hands around her wait to point accusing fingers at her. She cannot protect her reputation from slander. Her safe space is also a prison. |
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