Hector Reproaching Paris, by Pierre Claude Francois Delorme (1824)

We close our brief visit with painter Pierre Claude Francois Delorme (1783-1859) with his 1824 picture, Hector Reproaching Paris, which now resides in the Amiens Museum.

Your Correspondent must confess to never having seen this picture in person, and the photographic representations I’ve been able to find online are not great.  But, it is so interesting that I couldn’t let our look at Delorme pass without a few thoughts on it.

We had written about the very formal Neoclassical Empire style, and how Delorme seemed to separate himself from that tradition a bit, thanks to the influence of his love for Italian Renaissance painters such as Michelangelo and Raphael.  This picture here, with its rigid formalism and tableaux-like staging, is more in line with the style of Delorme’s time, but he still manages to incorporate some Renaissance-Mannerist thinking.

Those who remember their Iliad, recall that the whole disaster was predicated on Paris falling in love with, and taking away, the beautiful Helen of Troy.  Her defection leads to a cataclysmic war, one that takes the life of Paris’ brother, Hector, who is killed at the hand of Achilles.

Delorme’s picture illustrates the scene where Hector breaks into the lovers’ apartments to call Paris to war.  (In the text, Paris is already preparing for battle when Hector enters, but Delorme creates more drama with his staging.)  Delorme’s craft perfectly captures the differences between Hector, the warrior, and Paris, the lover.

The world of Paris and Helen is one of love and sensuality, presented in a pale, golden light.  A statue of Aphrodite (Goddess of Love) holding a dove (symbol of peace) stands in the background, while fragrant blossoms are strewn about the floor and the table is set with food and drink.  On the floor is the lyre that Paris has dropped; he stands partly on it, as if burying his worldly pleasures.  The sensuality of this realm is underscored by the nudity of Paris and Helen; particularly that of Paris, who is caught between the opposing worlds of love and war.  In an ironic touch, Paris grows more naked still – he is removing his wreath – before donning his helmet and armor.

Paris is in marked contrast with the placid and serene beauty of Helen.  She is the lynchpin of the entire tragedy, but remains a passive object to the passions around her.  More important, this perfumed world of love and pleasure is rightly her realm, and she is perfectly at home in it.  It is the figures of Hector and Paris who are the aliens or partial visitors to this space.  (Indeed, note how her pose is similar to the statue of Aphrodite in the background.)  The peacock feathers strike a note of vanity, while the leopard skin on the bed adds a bit of wild carnality.

Hector, depicted largely in shadow, appears as a representative of war, complete with red mantle.  The shield and spear are near-black outlines (the spear being particularly phallic) – this darkness announces the darkness of war.  Indeed, the right-hand side of the canvas, where Paris reaches for his armor, is also dark; the lovers exist in the shadow of war.

Delorme relies on chiaroscuro, more a Renaissance than Neoclassical technique, to provide the contrast between the worlds of love and war, of indulgence and discipline, and of pleasure and duty.  More important, the shadowy figure of Hector is supremely out-of-place in the world of Paris and Helen.

As we saw with Hero and Leander and Cephalus and Aroura, Delorme clearly always sides with the lovers.  I’m with him.

We Get Letters

One of the many benefits of conducting one’s education publicly, as we try to do here at the Jade Sphinx, is that our broad range of subjects brings us a broad range of letters.  (Oh, very well … emails; but it doesn’t sound quite the same, does it?)

Without further ado, let’s dip into our mailbag in-box, and see what we have there.

You write about children’s literature a great deal.  Do you think that’s a fit subject for adult criticism?

Short answer: yes.  In fact, I’m rather surprised at the question.  There are many children’s books – the works of Andersen, Grahame, Milne and Barrie come to mind – that rank among the most important novels in the language.  More important – a truly interesting children’s book can be read on multiple levels.  I believe that children are amused by the animal shenanigans to be found in Wind in the Willows, while adults will pause at the more subtle philosophical asides and implications. And if my home were sinking into a concrete quagmire, I would salvage a great many classic children’s books from my library before I grabbed many contemporary novels.

And keeping on a contemporary note, some of the most interesting things on bookshelves today are found in children’s books.  Look at the rich imaginative world of William Joyce, for example.

Do you really hate all rock music, or is that an affectation?  And if you do, how do you avoid it?

I am nothing but a catalog of affectations.  But, seriously, yes, I have hated most all popular music from the rock era onwards.  It’s not simply that all of it is bad – though it is; or that it is very bad for you – though it is that, too; rather, it is simply because we have lost so much by embracing so little.  The palette from which rock (and funk, pop, bubblegum, rap … and all the other playground words we use to describe it) paints with sound is a very limited one, indeed.  We now find ourselves in a musical landscape which has very little room for romantic love, or simple idealism, or even, it seems, common decency.  It is no surprise that mores and society have both degraded since the advent of rock.  If a personal library is the measure of a man, then popular music is the measure of a people, and what our music says about us flatters no one.  When contemplating contemporary music, it is inexplicable to me that we do not all simply retreat from it in shame.

As for hiding from it … it is a continual battle.

I found your lamenting a lack of humor in The Iliad and The Homesman to be more than a little quirky.  Do you really think that humor can be found in most anything?

This reminds me of another reader who asked how an aesthete could have a sense of humor.  I think the only possible reply is that an aesthete must have one.

True story: my husband and I were leaving Cambodia on our way to Thailand.  We were at the airport, going through customs.  The customs agent processing my husband’s passport looked at him, looked at the document, stamped it, and nodded him on.  My customs agent looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at me, looked at my passport…. Finally stamping it and holding it out to me.  But – before I could take it, he snatched it away and held up and tiny, printed sign that read, TEN DOLLARS COFFEE MONEY.  I cocked an eyebrow at him and countered, “how much do you want for tea?”

What encounter with art changed you profoundly?

Too many to list here.  Perhaps the most formative was a one-man show by John Gay about Oscar Wilde called Diversions and Delights.  It starred Vincent Price and I went multiple times in my early teenage years.  I’ve never been the same.

When the Apollo Belvedere came to New York as part of the touring Vatican show – again in my teenage years – I stood before it for hours, transfixed.  Here, I thought, was something utterly and completely perfect in every way. 

After reading your piece on the New American Philistine, I suggest you leave your mother’s basement and walk around the real-world for a bit.

Many thanks for the breath of fresh air.  Or something.

Brickbats aside, America isn’t the Land of the Philistine, it’s the Promised Land of the Philistine.  We don’t want to hear it, and pretend that all aesthetic opinions are created equal, and that democratization of taste allows the cream to rise to the top.  But none of that, however, is quite true.  Signs of our cultural decay are all around us, and plain to see.  We are gorging ourselves on junk, and it is killing us. 

Do you have questions?  Send them in for a future column!

The Iliad of Homer, Translated by Robert Fagles

Robert Fagles

Few literary terrains are more treacherous than translation.  Add to that translating an ancient text into a modern idiom (much like translating Martian into contemporary English), and you get an idea of the challenges involved.

Two of the cornerstone texts of the Western tradition are both the Iliad and The Odyssey, attributed to the Greek poet Homer.  Both were epic poems meant for recitation – in the largely oral tradition of the Greeks, bards and poets would recite this remarkable narrative from memory, milking the dramatic moments for all their worth.  (Well … parts of it from memory, as it would take some eight hours to read aloud.)  The Iliad deals with the Achaean attack upon the city Troy over the abduction of the beautiful Helen.  Troy is defended by the king, Priam, and his sons, Hector and Paris (who romanced Helen away from her home). 

However, the overarching narrative of war is secondary to the story of Achilles, the greatest of Achaean warriors.  He stays at the shore for most of the action, nursing an ego bruised by his Achaean comrades.  He refuses to intercede in the fighting, though his near-superhuman abilities would easily turn the tide.  The great mystery of Achilles is that he is a superman in all things but emotional stability, having all the sensitivity of a six year old girl. 

Also involved are the gods and goddesses, particularly Zeus and Hera, who play with the warring factions much like heartless children pulling the wings from flies.

The epic is written on a very high note – every book within it needs not only a stirring inner-voice, but an inner soundtrack of every Wagnerian finale.  With the Iliad, too much could never be enough.

Some 20 years ago, both The Iliad and Odyssey were translated anew by scholar and poet Robert Fagles (1933-2008) to great critical acclaim.  A professor at Princeton University, Fagles understood the necessity for narrative drive and rhythm, and he had a deep and profound understanding of the differences between the ancient world and today.

As one who grew up on the Alexander Pope translation of the Iliad (and the T.E. Lawrence version of The Odyssey), I had thought another translation superfluous.  It was only when a copy of the Fagles Iliad fell across my desk weeks ago that I realized how much I had missed.  Here is how Fagles opens the epic:

Rage -- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,

murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,

hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,

great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion

feasts for the dogs and birds,

and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,

Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

Fagles takes a (literally) heroic epic and makes it full-blooded once again.  Perhaps too full-blooded, as Fagles seems to relish the copious amounts of gore and grue to be found in Homer.  Here’s a good example:

Lycon, flailing,

chopped the horn of Peneleos' horsehair-crested helmet

but round the socket the sword-blade smashed to bits --

just as Peneleos hacked his neck below the ear

and the blade sank clean through, nothing held

but a flap of skin, the head swung loose to the side

as Lycon slumped down to the ground...

Or this:

Idomeneus skewered Erymas straight through the mouth,

the merciless brazen spearpoint raking through,

up under the brain to split his glistening skull --

teeth shattered out, both eyes brimmed to the lids

with a gush of blood and both nostrils spurting,

mouth gaping, blowing convulsive sprays of blood

and death's dark clouds closed down around his corpse.

Horrible stuff – but much more effective when read aloud.  And while rereading Fagles’ Iliad, I read much of it aloud, finding the rhythm to the words and a better understanding the bardic tradition.  As Fagles said in an interview for the Paris Review:  As I read Homer, he’s a remarkable combination of the timeless, immortal phrase, and of the timely, too, and he’s meant to be heard, not read. “Homer makes us Hearers”—in Pope’s fine formulation—“and Virgil leaves us Readers.” The Iliad is more than half dialogue, direct discourse; the Odyssey more than two-thirds. Both are very dramatic poems, in other words, filled with many voices. It’s as if Homer were a ventriloquist, projecting his voice into the voices of dozens of people living within his poems. That’s one of the most important things to capture—if you can—the dramatic sense that he conveys. Whole books (Books Nine and Twenty-four of the Iliad, Nineteen and Twenty-three of the Odyssey, the reunion of the king and queen) could be lifted out of the text and placed directly on a stage. They’re plays waiting to be performed.

And yet … and yet --- I found something profoundly disturbing during the 10 days or so I immersed myself in Homer’s world.  The heroic walked hand-in-hand with the merely brutal; the sublime often culminated in the petty and parochial; and, worse still, the universe seemed indifferent in equal measure to human achievement and suffering, with nothing at the end but the black void of death. 

We like to think that, in the thousands of years since the creation of this poem that mankind has made tremendous strides, and indeed, we have in science, technology and our understanding of the world.  However, the inherent cruelty of the human heart remains a mystery as deep today as it was to Homer.  Why do we crave and recoil from war in equal measure?  Why do we pray to a god (or gods) who make sport of us?  And, in the end, what does all the toil, the pain, and, also, the triumph mean?  In answering such questions, we are no further along than Homer.