domingo, 30 de agosto de 2020
sábado, 29 de agosto de 2020
viernes, 28 de agosto de 2020
jueves, 27 de agosto de 2020
miércoles, 26 de agosto de 2020
martes, 25 de agosto de 2020
lunes, 24 de agosto de 2020
domingo, 23 de agosto de 2020
sábado, 22 de agosto de 2020
jueves, 20 de agosto de 2020
Fabrication, Strategy, and Topsight
(from Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, Letter CXXIV — Mr. Lovelace to John Belford, Esq.; Everyman, II.490-92)
(The rake Lovelace defends his strategy to deceive and seduce Clarissa, by means of the lies and elaborate fabrications he delights in, and protests the accuracy of his plotting genius when Belford upbraids him):
Trite, stale, poor (sayest thou) are some of my contrivances? That of the widow particularly? I have no patience with thee. Had not that contrivance its effect at the time, for a procrastination? And had I not then reason to fear that the lady would find enough to make her dislike this house? And was it not right (intending what I intended) to lead her on from time to time, with a notion that a house of her own would be ready for her soon, in order to induce her to continue here till it was?
Trite, stale, and poor! Thou art a silly fellow, and no judge, when thou sayest this. Had I not, like a blockhead, revealed to thee, as I went along, the secret purposes of my heart, but had kept all in till the event had explained my mysteries, I would have defied thee to have been able, any more than the lady, to have guessed at what was to befall her, till it had actually come to pass. Nor doubt I, in this case, that, instead of presuming to reflect upon her for credulity, as loving me to her misfortune, and for hoping against probability, thou wouldest have been readier, to censure her for nicety and overscrupulousness. And let me tell thee, that had she loved me as I wished her to love me, she could not possibly have been so very apprehensive of my designs, nor so ready to be influenced by Miss Howe's precautions, as she has always been, although my general character made not for me with her.
But in thy opinion, I suffer for that simplicity in my contrivances, which is their principal excellence. No machinery make I necessary. No unnatural flights aim I at. All pure nature, taking advantage of nature, as nature tends; and so simple my devices, that when they are known, thou, even thou, imaginest thou couldest have thought of the same. An indeed thou seemest to own, that the slight thou puttest upon them is owing to my letting thee into them beforehand—undistinguishing as well as ungrateful as thou art!
Yet, after all, I would not have thee think that I do not know my weak places. I have formerly told you, that it is difficult for the ablest general to say what he will do, or what he can do, when he is obliged to regulate his motions by those of a watchful enemy. If thou givest due weight to this consideration, thou wilt not wonder that I should make many marches and countermarches, some of which may appear to a slight observer unnecessary.
But let me cursorily enter into debate with thee on this subject, now that I am within sight of my journey's end.
Abundance of impertinent things thou tellest me in this letter; some of which thou hadst from myself; others that I knew before.
All that thou sayest in this charming creature's praise, is short of what I have said and written on the inexhaustible subject.
Her virtue, her resistance, which are her merits, are my stimulatives. Have I not told thee so twenty times over?
Devil, as these girls between them call me, what of devil am I, but in my contrivances? I am not more of a devil than others, in the end I aim at; for when I have carried my point, it is still but one seduction. And I have perhaps been spared the guilt of many seductions in the time.
What of uncommon would there be in this case, but for her watchfulness? As well as I love intrigue and stratagem, dost think that I had not rather have gained my end with less trouble and less guilt?
The man, let me tell thee, who is as wicked as he can be, is a worse man than I am. Let me ask any rake in England, if, resolving to carry his point, he would have been so long about it? Or have had so much compunction as I have had?
Were every rake, nay, were every man, to sit down, as I do, and write all that enters into his head or into his heart, and to accuse himself with equal freedom and truth, what an army of miscreants should I have to keep me in countenance!
—oOo—
miércoles, 19 de agosto de 2020
martes, 18 de agosto de 2020
lunes, 17 de agosto de 2020
domingo, 16 de agosto de 2020
Notes on David Bordwell's Narration in the Fiction Film
_____. "Notes from David Bordwell's Narration in the Fiction Film." Net
Sight de José Angel García Landa 11 Oct. 2015. 2020.*
2015 DISCONTINUED
2020
2020
2015
DISCONTINUED 2020
2020
—oOo—
sábado, 15 de agosto de 2020
viernes, 14 de agosto de 2020
La motivación ostentatoria
(De Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, "El poder del fusil", en Ensayos 3: Babel contra Babel, p. 167-68).
Pero la competencia, inesperadamente suscitada por la presente discusión, entre las relaciones directas de dominación y las de producción remite el atestado, en su sustancia teórica, a una polémica clásica del marxismo: la que tuvo su expresión más explícita en el Anti-Dühring de Engels. Miactitud al respecto, frente a Engels, siempre fue, y sigue siendo, de lo más desconfiada: nunca he podido sustraerme a la impresión de que Engels partió lanza en ristre contra Dühring llevando ya en el arzón la petitio principii de la necesaria racionalidad económica del todo, con arreglo a la cual necesitaba que las relaciones de dominación no quedasen atrás como un negro grumo de irracionaidad, irreductible a la instancia axial de la racionalidad económica del proceso histórico. Así, de sus invectivas contra Dühring parece trascender, más que un genuino deseo de explicación racional, una voluntad de racionalización, en el sentido psicoanalítico de racionalización falaz, forzada por las exigencias teóricas del sistema. La duda viene no sólo de que lo inconmensurablemente gratuito y tenebroso de muchas hazañas de la dominación emite por sí mismo una invencible repugnancia a verse sometido a las más sólidas y teocráticas razones que intentan reducir esas hazañas a episodios de un mundo providente; la duda viene también de ciertos rasgos concretos de la dominación que parecen invertir el orden de prioridad establecido por el Anti-Dühring. Por no poner más que un ejemplo, a las frases —a las que, por lo burdamente directas, no se les hace injusticia al sacarlas de contexto— en las que dice: 'El ejemplo pueril inventado expresamente por el señor Dühring para probar que la violencia es el factor históricamente fundamental demuestra en realidad que la violencia no es más que el medio, y que el fin es, en cambio, el provecho económico. Y del mismo modo que el fin es más fundamental que los medios utilizados para lograrlo, en la historia es más fundamental el aspecto económico de las relaciones que el político' (hasta aquí Engels); a estas frases digo, se les puede replicar con el agudo análisis de Veblen sobre la motivación ostentatoria y emulativa en los orígenes de la riqueza. Con arreglo a ese análisis, semejante función de la riqueza, junto con sus criterios de valor, tiene su ancestro en el trofeo, esto es, en la riqueza adquirida por depredación en una acción guerrera. Pero si el trofeo en cuanto tal es tenido por valioso, si suscita la envidia hacia el que lo posee, no lo es por su posible precio inerte, sino por ser testimonio fehaciente de la hazaña violenta que llevó a su adquisición. Aquí la violencia aparece como un componente previo y necesario a la riqueza, como su condición de posibilidad, como aquello que crea de la nada su valor, no como medio para adquirir algo que fuera ya valioso por sí mismo y al margen de cualesquiera circunstancias que concurriesen en su apropiación. La apropiación violenta es, por tanto, creadora de valor. ¿Quién dice que las joyas, los metales preciosos, los primores artesanos y aun el propio despliegue paulatino del perfeccionamiento artesanal, no sólo en el ornato y en la gala, sin o también en los objetos de uso cotidiano, no tengan por contenido originario ese valor creado por la sola violencia en cuanto tal? Sea de ello lo que fuere, hablar de la violencia como medio tan unívoca y tan directamente como lo hace Engels es, desde luego, despacharla de un modo tan pedestre como inadmisible.
Pero la competencia, inesperadamente suscitada por la presente discusión, entre las relaciones directas de dominación y las de producción remite el atestado, en su sustancia teórica, a una polémica clásica del marxismo: la que tuvo su expresión más explícita en el Anti-Dühring de Engels. Miactitud al respecto, frente a Engels, siempre fue, y sigue siendo, de lo más desconfiada: nunca he podido sustraerme a la impresión de que Engels partió lanza en ristre contra Dühring llevando ya en el arzón la petitio principii de la necesaria racionalidad económica del todo, con arreglo a la cual necesitaba que las relaciones de dominación no quedasen atrás como un negro grumo de irracionaidad, irreductible a la instancia axial de la racionalidad económica del proceso histórico. Así, de sus invectivas contra Dühring parece trascender, más que un genuino deseo de explicación racional, una voluntad de racionalización, en el sentido psicoanalítico de racionalización falaz, forzada por las exigencias teóricas del sistema. La duda viene no sólo de que lo inconmensurablemente gratuito y tenebroso de muchas hazañas de la dominación emite por sí mismo una invencible repugnancia a verse sometido a las más sólidas y teocráticas razones que intentan reducir esas hazañas a episodios de un mundo providente; la duda viene también de ciertos rasgos concretos de la dominación que parecen invertir el orden de prioridad establecido por el Anti-Dühring. Por no poner más que un ejemplo, a las frases —a las que, por lo burdamente directas, no se les hace injusticia al sacarlas de contexto— en las que dice: 'El ejemplo pueril inventado expresamente por el señor Dühring para probar que la violencia es el factor históricamente fundamental demuestra en realidad que la violencia no es más que el medio, y que el fin es, en cambio, el provecho económico. Y del mismo modo que el fin es más fundamental que los medios utilizados para lograrlo, en la historia es más fundamental el aspecto económico de las relaciones que el político' (hasta aquí Engels); a estas frases digo, se les puede replicar con el agudo análisis de Veblen sobre la motivación ostentatoria y emulativa en los orígenes de la riqueza. Con arreglo a ese análisis, semejante función de la riqueza, junto con sus criterios de valor, tiene su ancestro en el trofeo, esto es, en la riqueza adquirida por depredación en una acción guerrera. Pero si el trofeo en cuanto tal es tenido por valioso, si suscita la envidia hacia el que lo posee, no lo es por su posible precio inerte, sino por ser testimonio fehaciente de la hazaña violenta que llevó a su adquisición. Aquí la violencia aparece como un componente previo y necesario a la riqueza, como su condición de posibilidad, como aquello que crea de la nada su valor, no como medio para adquirir algo que fuera ya valioso por sí mismo y al margen de cualesquiera circunstancias que concurriesen en su apropiación. La apropiación violenta es, por tanto, creadora de valor. ¿Quién dice que las joyas, los metales preciosos, los primores artesanos y aun el propio despliegue paulatino del perfeccionamiento artesanal, no sólo en el ornato y en la gala, sin o también en los objetos de uso cotidiano, no tengan por contenido originario ese valor creado por la sola violencia en cuanto tal? Sea de ello lo que fuere, hablar de la violencia como medio tan unívoca y tan directamente como lo hace Engels es, desde luego, despacharla de un modo tan pedestre como inadmisible.
—oOo—
jueves, 13 de agosto de 2020
miércoles, 12 de agosto de 2020
Farewell to... everything
(From Mary Shelley's The Last Man, III.21; p. 320-22)
This summer extinguished our hopes, the vessel of society was wrecked, and the shattered raft, which carried the few survivors over the sea of msery, was riven and tempest tost. Man existed by twos and threes; man, the individual who might sleep, and wake, and perform the animal functions; but man, in himself weak, yet more powerful in congregated numbers than wind or ocean: man, the queller of the elements, the lord of created nature, the peer of demi-gods, existed no longer.
Farewell to the patriotic scene, to the love of liberty and well earned need of virtuous aspiration!—farewell to crowded senate, vocal with councils of the wisee, whose laws were keener than the sword blade tempered at Damascus!—farewell to kingly pomp and warlike pageantry; the crowns are in the dust, and the wearers are in their graves!—farewell to the desire of rule, and the hope of victory; to high vaulting ambition, to the appetite for praise, and the craving for the suffrage of their fellows! The nations are no longer! No senate sits in council for the dead; no scion of a time honoured dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel house; the general's hand is cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his native fields, unhonoured, though in youth. The market-place is empty, the candidate for popular favour fins none whom he can represent. To chambers of painted state farewell!—To midnight revelry, and the panting emulation of beauty, to costly dress and birth-day shew, to title and the gilded coronet, farewell!
Farewell to the giant powers of man,—to knowledge that could pilot the deep-drawing bark through the opposing waters of shoreless ocean,—to science that directed the silken baloon through the pathless air,—to the power that could put a barrier to mighty waters, and set in motion wheels, and beams, and vast machinery, that could divide rocks of granite or marble, and make the mountains plain!
Farewell to the arts,—to eloquence, which is to the human mind as the winds to the sea, stirring, and then allaying it;—farewell to poetry and deep philosophy, for man's imagination is cold, and his dnquiring mind can no longer expatiate on the wonders of life, for 'there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest!'—to the graceful building, which in its perfect proportion transcended the rude forms of nature, the fretted gothic and massy saracenic pile, to the stupendous arch and glorious dome, the fluted column with its capital, Corinthian, Ionic, or Doric, the peristyle and fair entablature, whose harmony of form is to the eye as musical concord to the ear!—farewell to sculpture, where the pure marble mocks human flesh, and in the plastic expression of the culled excellencies of the human shape, shines forth the god!—farewell to painting, the high wrought sentiment and deep knowledge of the artist's mind in pictured canvas—to paradisaical scenes, where trees are ever vernal, and the ambrosial air rests in perpetual glow:—to the stamped form of tempest, and wildest uproar of universal nature encaged in the narrow frame, O farewell! Farewell to music, and the sound of song; to the marriage of instruments, where the concord of soft and harsh unites in sweet harmony, and gives wings to the panting listeners, whereby to climb heaven, and learn the hidden pleasures of the eternals!—Farewell to the well-trod stage; a truer tragedy is enacted on the worl's ample scene, that puts to shame mimic grief; to high-bred comedy, and the low buffoon, farewell!—Man may laugh no more.
Alas! to enumerate the adornments of humanity, shews, by what we have lost, how supremely great man was. It is all over now. He is solitary; like our first parents expelled from Paradise, he looks back towards the scene he has quitted. The high walls of the tomb, and the flaming sword of plague, lie between it and him. Like to our first parents, the whole earth is before him, a wide desart. Unsupported and weak, let him wander though fields where the unreaped corn stands in barren pleny, through copses planted by his fathers, through towns built for his use. Posterity is no more; fame, and ambition, and love, are words void of meaning; even as the cattle that grazes in the field, do thou, O deserted one, lie down at evening-tide, unknowing of the past, careless of the future, for from such fond ignorance alone canst thou hope for ease!
This summer extinguished our hopes, the vessel of society was wrecked, and the shattered raft, which carried the few survivors over the sea of msery, was riven and tempest tost. Man existed by twos and threes; man, the individual who might sleep, and wake, and perform the animal functions; but man, in himself weak, yet more powerful in congregated numbers than wind or ocean: man, the queller of the elements, the lord of created nature, the peer of demi-gods, existed no longer.
Farewell to the patriotic scene, to the love of liberty and well earned need of virtuous aspiration!—farewell to crowded senate, vocal with councils of the wisee, whose laws were keener than the sword blade tempered at Damascus!—farewell to kingly pomp and warlike pageantry; the crowns are in the dust, and the wearers are in their graves!—farewell to the desire of rule, and the hope of victory; to high vaulting ambition, to the appetite for praise, and the craving for the suffrage of their fellows! The nations are no longer! No senate sits in council for the dead; no scion of a time honoured dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel house; the general's hand is cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his native fields, unhonoured, though in youth. The market-place is empty, the candidate for popular favour fins none whom he can represent. To chambers of painted state farewell!—To midnight revelry, and the panting emulation of beauty, to costly dress and birth-day shew, to title and the gilded coronet, farewell!
Farewell to the giant powers of man,—to knowledge that could pilot the deep-drawing bark through the opposing waters of shoreless ocean,—to science that directed the silken baloon through the pathless air,—to the power that could put a barrier to mighty waters, and set in motion wheels, and beams, and vast machinery, that could divide rocks of granite or marble, and make the mountains plain!
Farewell to the arts,—to eloquence, which is to the human mind as the winds to the sea, stirring, and then allaying it;—farewell to poetry and deep philosophy, for man's imagination is cold, and his dnquiring mind can no longer expatiate on the wonders of life, for 'there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest!'—to the graceful building, which in its perfect proportion transcended the rude forms of nature, the fretted gothic and massy saracenic pile, to the stupendous arch and glorious dome, the fluted column with its capital, Corinthian, Ionic, or Doric, the peristyle and fair entablature, whose harmony of form is to the eye as musical concord to the ear!—farewell to sculpture, where the pure marble mocks human flesh, and in the plastic expression of the culled excellencies of the human shape, shines forth the god!—farewell to painting, the high wrought sentiment and deep knowledge of the artist's mind in pictured canvas—to paradisaical scenes, where trees are ever vernal, and the ambrosial air rests in perpetual glow:—to the stamped form of tempest, and wildest uproar of universal nature encaged in the narrow frame, O farewell! Farewell to music, and the sound of song; to the marriage of instruments, where the concord of soft and harsh unites in sweet harmony, and gives wings to the panting listeners, whereby to climb heaven, and learn the hidden pleasures of the eternals!—Farewell to the well-trod stage; a truer tragedy is enacted on the worl's ample scene, that puts to shame mimic grief; to high-bred comedy, and the low buffoon, farewell!—Man may laugh no more.
Alas! to enumerate the adornments of humanity, shews, by what we have lost, how supremely great man was. It is all over now. He is solitary; like our first parents expelled from Paradise, he looks back towards the scene he has quitted. The high walls of the tomb, and the flaming sword of plague, lie between it and him. Like to our first parents, the whole earth is before him, a wide desart. Unsupported and weak, let him wander though fields where the unreaped corn stands in barren pleny, through copses planted by his fathers, through towns built for his use. Posterity is no more; fame, and ambition, and love, are words void of meaning; even as the cattle that grazes in the field, do thou, O deserted one, lie down at evening-tide, unknowing of the past, careless of the future, for from such fond ignorance alone canst thou hope for ease!
—oOo—
martes, 11 de agosto de 2020
Los Toros: Happening y Desmadre
(de Fernando Sánchez Dragó, Gárgoris y Habidis: Historia mágica de España, IV.4: "Los Toros")
Citaré todavía un último y muy espectacular ejemplo de tauromaquia y religión barajadas a la española. Asunto, esta vez, de apocalipsis (uno de nuestros más singulares fetichismos). Y de teatro, afición casi tan añeja en la Península como la convocada ayer y hoy por una corrida de cartel. Durante los siglos XVIII y XIX, sin fundamento mecanicista pero con lógica profunda, el toro ascendió a personificación del caos en las mojigangas híbridas de orangután y gurrumino que por aquel entonces solían montarse o más bien desmontarse en la plaza de la capital. Eran motivos populares o sainetes de moda cuya escenificación se desbarataba bruscamente al irrumpir un morlaco en el ruedo. El desenlace se pinta solo: consistía (lo dije) en un apocalipsis de libertad improvisado por los actores al ritmo de sálvese quien pueda, pero sin perder la cara. La conciencia profesional y los derechos del público compelían a resolver la situación según el perfil dramático de cada personaje. Entremés hubo, como el intitulado Una corrida en el infierno, que el príncipe Luzel recorrió a hombros el anillo después de liquidar al cornúpeta con una estocada hasta la bola. Tuvo que transcurrir un siglo para que los boquirrubios del underground neoyorqués inventaran el camelo del happening. Nosotros ya teníamos el desmadre.
¿Algún ejemplo actual? Búsquenlo en Arroyomolinos del Puerco, una vez al año y en noche sin luna. Los mozos cierran las salidas, apagan las luces y abren de par en par las puertas de las casas. Sólo entonces se desencajona un novillo con cencerro y...
El quince de septiembre, en Tordesillas, una rutilante cáfila circula bajo los balcones del edificio consistorial. La integran cuatro chavales disfrazados de señoritas, otros tantos manolos en carroza floribunda, dos botargas, don Quijote sobre Rocinante, Sancho a lomos de burra y armado con una pica, varios toreros de a pie y, para remate, un sultán. No falta la tarima de rigor ni por supuesto el toro, que ya sale a galopes de clarín. Los dominguillos lo citan y lo llevan hacia el tinglado, sobre cuyas tablas, sin inmutarse, los travestíes ingieren refrescos servidos por una ilustre fregona.
En San Sebastián de los Molinos se echa al ruedo un cofrade disfrazado de vaquilla y embiste a una viril hilandera que, impenitente, está plantada allí mismo tirando de copo y huso. Va la lagartona por los aires, aireando quizá sus vergüenzas en forma de badajo de campana, y el diestro derriba al bicho con tres escopetazos. El maderamen del animal pasa entonces al balcón del ayuntamiento para que haya constancia de su muerte..."
¿Disparates? No del todo. Mejor hablar de orgía, de mundo al revés, de eterna lucha por subvertir el orden social e imponer el cósmico. Ágape y chaos.
O tentativa del español infinito.
¿Conviene echar cuentas? Toro de la Barrosa, toro cacereño de andas y volandas, toro de Dominguillo, toro enmaromado de Benavente, toro de Tordesillas, toro otoñal de Medinaceli, toro del Cristo de Deza, toro riojano de las banastas, toro del aguardiente, toro de Toro y toros mil de Fuentesaúco, Cuéllar, Coria, Simancas, Peñafiel, Fuenteguinaldo, Montehermoso, Turégano, Puebla de Montalbán... No, no conviene. Quedaría nómina de nominalismos.
Y además, por desgracia, las cuentas ha mucho que terminaron. Mi deuda, como la de Sócrates con Critón, está saldada. No así (espero) nuestra suerte colectiva. Ni el futuro.
Para enfrentarnos a él, para correr aquélla, tenemos hoy por hoy un último y solitario caudal: el toro. Si yo cupiese en tus zapatos, español, no lo desperdiciaría. Pero qué importa. Quizá tu camino y el mío estén a punto de bifurcarse.
—oOo—
Living in the Last Days of Civilization
(From Mary Shelley's The Last Man, II.20):
I can speak for myself—want of energy was not my failing. The intense life that quickened my pulses, and animated my frame, had the effect, not of drawing me into the mazes of active life, but of exalting my lowliness, and of bestowing majestic proportions to insignificant object—I could have lived the life of a peasant in the same way—my trifling occupations were swelled into important pursuits; my affections were impetuous and engrossing passions, and nature with all her changes was invested in divine attribute. The very spirit of the Greek mythology inhabited my heart; I deified the uplands, glaes, and streams, I
Had sight of Proteus coming from the sea;Strange, that while the earth preserved her monotonous course, I dwelt with ever-renewing wonder on her antique laws, and now that with excentric wheel she rushed into an untried path, I should feel this spirit fade; I struggled with despondency and weariness, but like a fog, they choked me. Perhaps, after the labours and stupendous excitement of the past summer, the calm of winter and the almost menial toils it brought with it, were by natural re-action doubly irksome. It was not the grasping passion of the preceding year which gave life and individuality to each moment—it was not the aching pangs introduced by the distresses of the times. The utter inutility that had attended all my exertions took from them their usual effects of exhilaration, and despair rendered abortive the balm of self-applause—I longed to return to my old occupations, but what use were they? To read were futile—to write, vanity indeed. The earth, late wide circus for the display of dignified exploits, vast theatre for a magnificent drama, now presented a vacant space, an empty stage—for actor or spectator there was no longer aught to say or hear.
And heard old Triton blow his wreathed horn. (Wordsworth)
—oOo—
lunes, 10 de agosto de 2020
domingo, 9 de agosto de 2020
sábado, 8 de agosto de 2020
Los farsantes sinceros
De la novela de Gonzalo Torrente Ballester Javier Mariño (1942-1985; Almuzara, p. 290). Javier es invitado en París por su amigo George a conocer a su padre, el exiliado presbítero ortodoxo Hipólito, y su familia.
Nuevos golpes dados a la puerta le devolvieron a la realidad, y antes de que se hubiera levantado ya había acudido, rápidamente, Eulalia. Identificó al hombre que entraba como el presbítero Hipólito. Era muy alto, huesudo, extremadamente delgado, con barba y cabellos largos. Los ojos, como los de George, y, advirtió también, como los de Eulalia: ardientes ojos meridionales. Vestía un largo ropón sobre el que brillaba una cruz de oro. Al entrar, se le acercó su hijo, y doblando la rodilla, le besó la mano. Luego dijo:
—Señor, éstos son nuestros hermanos Magdalena y Javier.
El hombre, sonriéndoles, respondió:
—Sed bienvenidos.
Hablaba con voz profunda y varonil, y sus palabras francesas tenían una remota resonancia exótica. Esperaba Javier con la mano tendida, pero el sacerdote se aproximó a los iconos y, de rodillas, oró en silencio. Sólo cuando pasados unos minutos se hubo santiguado, volvió el rostro otra vez sonriente hacia los huéspedes. Se acercó a Magdalena, que le estrechó la mano, y cuando se aproximó a él, tuvo la repentina impresión de que tanto el presbítero como sus hijos eran unos deliciosos farsantes de la curiosa y siempre divertida estirpe de los farsantes sinceros. Sin meditarlo mucho, decidió seguirles el aire: ya que a punto de farsante era difícil que nadie le pudiera superar; y así, al tener entre la suya la mano del sacerdote, hizo una reverente genuflexión y dejó un beso suave sobre los dedos escuálidos, al mismo tiempo que espiaba el rostro venerable esperandoadvertir un gesto de sorpresa, cualquier detalle revelador que no apareció, porque no podía interpretarse como tal la cruz casi imperceptible que trazó el hombre sobre su cabeza.
—Te conozco—dijo luego—a través de mi hijo, y sé que eres cristiano. Te suplico que aceptes mi bendición.
Después se dirigió a Magdalena.
—De ti, Magdalena, espero que muy pronto recobres la salud perdida. No tengo repugnancia de aceptarte en mi casa y sentarte a mi mesa, porque estás bautizada, y aunque no lo quieras, eres con nosotros parte en el Cuerpo de Jesucristo. Hace mucho tiempo que en mi casa rezamos por ti.
Pese a su disposición para recibir cualquier sorpresa, no pudo menos de quedar atónito al observar que Magdalena bajaba la cabeza al escuchar las palabras del presbítero, que en cualquier otra persona hubiera tomado por indiscretas.
'Pero esta muchacha —pensó—, no se dará cuenta del aire teatral de todo esto? ¿O es que extrema su cortesía hasta representar ella también una pequeña farsa de arrepentimiento?'
—oOo—
Ambassade à l'Italie fasciste
D'après Serrano Suñer, Entre les Pyrenées et Gibraltar (1947), ch. 7. 'Le Voyage de la paix':
En vue du golfe de Naples, nous vîmes s'avancer vers nous la seconde escadre, qui devait nous faire escorte jusqu'au port. Sur le mole, vêtu de blanc et chargé de décorations, nous attendait le comte Ciano et, à ses côtés, Ettore Muti, habillé en général de la Légion espagnole. Derrière eux, une énorme suite, toujours étincelante d'uniformes militaires, de diplomates et de fascistes. Le régime s'était spécialisé, à un point insoupçonnable, dans ce genre de mise en scène. Devant tant de virtuosité, la pauvreté de notre appareil apparaissait comme dérisoire.
Ciano monta à bord et vint au-devant de moi. Nous nous saluâmes, moi avec l'émotion propre à mon tempérament—et je dois dire que tout ce que signifiait cette rencontre en aurait remué de plus froids que moi—lui avec cette cordialité désinvolte qui était la marque dominante de sa façon d'être. Je lui parlai de notre amitié et de notre reconnaissance, sur le ton pénétré d'un Espagnol qui vivait, luttait et souffrait passionnément au milieu des bassesses et de l'incompréhension de ces heures difficiles, où commençait à luire enfin une grande espérance. Au nom de mon pays, je le remerciai pour l'aide généreuse et désintéressée sous laquelle elle s'était produite. Je rappelai que non seulement aucune ombre, si légère qu'elle fût, n'y avait effleuré notre souveraineté nationale—ce que nous n'eussions d'ailleurs jamais admis—mais encore qu'on ne nous avait menacés d'aucune prétention d'ordre économique, mais traités, au contraire, avec une parfaite largeur de vues pour toutes les transactions commerciales inhérentes à la guerre.
Sa réponse fut, naturellement, un peu plus conventioonnelle. Dès les premierse mots, il aborda un sujet des plus précis et qui l'obsédait: il nous fallait sur-le-champ, et toute affaire cessante, retirer notre ambassadeur. Il formulait cette demande en termes dont la dureté passait les bornes de la discrétion et celles, peut-être, de sa compétence, et que je ne juge pas necessaire de transcrire ici. Il pensait, du reste, rappeler de son côté le compte Viola.
Le soir même, et sans nous laisser une heure de repos, il organisa en mon honneur un dîner, à Santa-Lucia, avec les autorités napolitaines, les fonctionnaires qu'il avait amenés avec lui et les personnes qui m'accompagnaient. La nature de cet homme ne lui permettait pas de rester en place un seul instant, et il fallait que, chaque jour, officiellement ou deans le privé, il se répandît en déjeuners, en dîners ou en fêtes de tout ordre, comme quelqu'un dont c'eût été la principale fonction ou l'essentiel de la vie. Cette agitation, qui trahissait une certaine légèreté, me frappa pour la première fois à cette occasion.
A l'inverse, la ferveur qui m'animait me plongeait dans un état de concentration sur moi-même presque obsessif… Ma passion pour les choses d'Espagne, mon angoisse pour les heures indécises que vivait le monde, ma 'cause' en un mot, était l'unique sujet auquel je fusse capable de m'intéresser et dont il fût en mon pouvoir de l'entretenir. De mon point de vue particulier, j'étais stupéfait de rencontrer un ministre dont l'attention m'apparût comme aussi dispersée et aussi sautillante que la sienne. Il prêtait l'oreille de façon fort intermittente aux problèmes auxquels j'essayais de l'amener, et il s'en échappait soudain pour courir aux choses qui étaient le plus éloignées, sans le moindre esprit de suite ou d'à-propos. Tout cela, joit à ses brusques mouvements de tête, à ses salutaations, à ses sourires, à certaine façon de ne point perdre de vue les gens qui dînaient à d'autres tables, à cette curiosité—ou, pour mieux dire, à cette inattention—si multiple et si superficielle, me déconcerta profondément. Je me repliai dans cette attitude silencieuse dont il fut assez fin pour s'apercevoir aussitôt. De toute manière, notre entrée en contact fut malheureuse, et il est curieux de savoir que, deux jours après, un journal français rendait exactement compte de l'impression de malaise que j'avais éprouvée dans mon entrevue avec le comte Ciano. Étant donné la prudence presque excessive dont j'entourais ma première incursion hors du territoire de mon pays, et la réserve où j'avais tenu à m'enfermer, il n'est pas douteux que le journaliste qui avait su recueillir une pareille impression devait être d'une étonnante sagacité.
Quoi qu'il en fût, dès le lendemain, j'abandonnai ma prévention. J'avais compris que des rapports politiques d'un objet aussi capital ne pouvaient se subordonner à des motifs d'humeur ou de sensibilite personnelle, et je changeai radicalement d'attitude. José Antonio Giménez Arnau, écrivain phalangiste qui avait été, sous mes ordres, directeur général de la Presse, et qui à l'époque remplissait, à notre ambassade à Rome les fonctions d'attaché, s'était rendu compte de la situation. En connaisseur avisé des détails de la politique romaine, il me représenta avec insistence que la place qu'y occupait Ciano devait être tenue pour plus que prééminente. De son côté, celui-ci accentua ses bonnes manières, et allait se montrer chaque jour plus attentif et plus empressé. Peut-être s'était-il fait, à part lui, des réflexions qui concordaient avec les miennes. Quelques jours après, comme je lui montrais des feuillets que je venais de rédiger, et où j'évoquais le sacrifice des légionnaires italiens, il en fut ému et, je crois, sincèrement. La glace avait été rompue entre nous, et, dès avant mon retour en Espagne, pour des raisons, où, dans son cas comme dans le mien, la politique jouait assurément son rôle, une amitié s'était nouée de lui à moi. Si elle n'alla jamais jusqu'à un attachement profond, elle se maintint constamment sur un plan d'affection et de confiance, jusqu'à certain jour don’t j'aurai à dire un mot plus loin.
Ciano me parla, à ce moment-là, de son voyage en Espagne. Il brûlait du désir de le faire, et d'étrenner ainsi l'hommage dû par les Espagnols à son pays et à lui-même. Il estimait, sans doute, que le ministre le plus représentatif de la nation la plus hispanophile possédait une créance sur la gratitude de mes compatriotes, et qui'il était en droit d'attendre d'eux un accueil délirant. Même sous les régimes qui contrôlent l'enthousiasme populaire, les hommes demeurent sensibles aux démonstrations et à l'applaudissement des foules. Ils finissent par croire à leur spontanéité, quand ils n'en présument point dès le début.
Ma réponse, évasive et presque dilatoire, le surprit et, naturellement, lui déplut. Sans doute pensa-t-il, au premier abord, que c'était une marque d'ingratitude. Rien n'était moins vrai. Mon comportement ne m'était dicté que par la crainte qu'il ne nous fût pas possible de répondre avec une suffisante réciprocité, ou pour le moins assez dignement, à tout ce que l'Italie avait organisé en notre honneur. Ce déploiement naval, ces défilés, ces uniformes, ces fêtes, ces réceptions brillantes, le 'grand jeu', dont savait user leur propagande, tout cela m'intimidait au plus haut point, lorsque je reportais ma pensée sur notre régime adolescent et presque infome, sur l'indigence de nos moyens au lendemain d'une guerre civile encore chaude. J'imaginais que nous nous trouverions amoindris dans l'estime de gens aussi sensibles que l'étaient nos amis à l'éclat des manifestations extérieures… Bientôt je devais modifier mon sentiment. Le spectacle de notre arrivée à Barcelone, au retour même de ce voyage, me détermina à donner suite à l'invitation que souhaitait Ciano, et qu'il n'était que juste, en somme, de lui faire.
( p. 86-89).
—oOo—
viernes, 7 de agosto de 2020
jueves, 6 de agosto de 2020
Shakespeare's psychology
Literary Scholar Neema Parvini: "Shakespeare seems to have understood, implicitly, what modern psychology has found: that human beings have a habit of making decisions based more on their intuitions and emotions than on their cognitive reasoning.”https://t.co/t77vjue8nF— This View of Life (@tvolmag) August 6, 2020
miércoles, 5 de agosto de 2020
martes, 4 de agosto de 2020
Tragedies Deep and Dire
From Mary Shelley's novel on apocalyptic pandemic, The Last Man (1826), ch. 19:
July is gone. August must pass, and by the middle of September we may hope. Each day was eagerly counted; and the inhabitants of towns, desirous to leap this dangerous interval, plunged into dissipation, and strove, by riot, and what they wished to imagine to be pleasure, to banish thought and opiate despair. None but Adrian could have tamed the motley population of London, which, like a troop of unbitted steeds, rushing to their pastures, had thrown aside all minor fears, through the operation of the fear paramount. Even Adrian was obliged to part to yield, that he might be able, if not to guide, at least to set bounds to the license of the times. The theatres were kept open; every place of public resort hwas frquented, though he endeavored so to modify them, as might best quiet the agitation of the spectators, and at the same time prevent a reaction of misery when the excitement was over. Tragedies deep and dire were the chief favourites. Comedy brought with it too great a contrast to the inner despair; when such were attempted, it was not infrequent for a commedian, in the midst of the laughter occasiones by this disproportioned buffoonery, to find a word or thought in his part that jarred with his own sense of wretchedness, and burst down from mimic merriment into sobs and tears, while the spectators, seized with irresistible sympathy, werpt, nad the pantomimic reverlry was changed to a real exhibition of tragic passion.
It was not in my nature to derive consolation from such scenes, from theatres, whose buffoon laughter and discordant mirth awakened distempered sympathy, or where fictitious tears and wailings mocked the heart-felt grief within; from festival or crowded meeting, where hilarity sprung from the worst feelings of our nature, or such enthralment of the better ones, as impressed it with garish and false varnish; from assemblies of mourners in the guise of revellers. Once however I witnssed a scene of singular interest at one of the theatres, where nature overpowered art, as an overflowing cataract will tear away the puny manufacture of a mock cascade, which had before been fed by a small portion of its waters.
I had come to London to see Adrian. He was not at the palace; and, though the attendants did not know whither he had gone, they did not expect him till late at night. It was between six and seven o'clock, a fine summer afternoon, and I spent my leisure hours in a ramble through the empty streets of London; now turning to avoid an approaching funeral, now urged by curiosity to observe the state of a particular spot; my wanderings were instinct with pain, for silence and desertion characterized every place I visited, and the few beings I met were so pale and woe-begone, so marked with care and depressed by fear, that weary of encountering only signs of misery, I began to retread my steps towards home.
I was now in Holborn, and passed by a public house filled with uproarious companions, whose songs, laughter, and shouts were more sorrowful than the pale looks and silence of the mourner. Such an one was near, hovering round this house. The sorry plight of her dress displayed her poverty, she was ghastly pale, and continued approaching, first the window and then the door of the house, as if fearful, yet longing to enter. A sudden burst of song and merriment seemed to sting her to the heart; she murmured, 'Can he have the heart?' and then mustering her courage, she stepped within the threshold. The landlady met her in the passage; the poor creature asked, 'Is my husband here? Can I see George?'
'See him,' cried the woman, 'yes, if you go to him; last night he was taken with the plague, and we sent him to the hospital.'
The unfortunate inquirer staggered against a wall, a faint cry escaped her—'O! were you cruel enough,' she exclaimed, 'to sen him there?'
The landlady meanwhile hurried away; but a more compassionate bar-maid gave her a detailed account, the sum of which was, that her husband had been taken ill, after a night of riot, and sent by his boon companions with all expedition to St Bartholomew's Hospital. I had watched this scene, for there was a gentleness about the poor woman that interested me; she now tottered away from the door, walking as well as she could down Holborn Hill; but her strength soon failed her; she leaned aggainst a wall, and her head sunk on her bosom, while her pallid cheek became still more white. I went up to her and offered my services. She hardly looked up—'You can do me no good,' she replied; 'I must go to the hospital; if I do not die before I get there.'
There were still a few hackney-coaches accustomed to stand about the streets, more truly from habit than for use. I put her in one of these, and entered with her that I might secure her entrance into the hospital. Our way was short, and she said little, except interrupted ejaculations of reproach that he had left her, exclamations on the unkindness of some of his friends, and hope that she would fin him alive. There was a simple, natural earnestness about her that interested me in her fate, especially when she assured me that her husband was the best of men,—had been so, till want of business during these unhappy times had thrown him into bad company. 'He could not bear to come home,' she said, 'only to see our children die. A man cannot have the patience a mother has, with her own flesh and blood.'
We were st down at St Bartholomew's, and entered the wretched precincts of the house of disease. The poor creature clung closer to me, as she saw with what heartless haste they bore the dead from the wards, and took them into a room, whose half-opened door displayed a number of corpses, horrible to behold by one unaccostumed to such scenes. We were directed to the ward where her husband had been first taken, and still was, the nurse said, if alive. My companion looked eagerly from one bed to the other, till at the end of the ward she espied, on a wretched bed, a squalid, haggard creature, writhing under the torture of disease. She rushed towards him, she embraced him blessing God for his preservation.
The enthusiasm that inpired her with this strange joy, blinded her to the horrors about her; but they were intolerably agonizing to me. The ward was filled with an effluvia that caused my heart to heave with painful qualms. The dead were carried out, and the sick brought in, with like indifference; some were screaming with pain, others laghing from the influence of more terrible delirium; some were attended to weeping, despairing relations, others called aloud with thrilling tenderness or reproach on the friends who had deserted them, while the nurses went from bed to bed, incarnate images of despair, neglect, and death. I gave gold to my luckless companion; I recommended her to the care of the attendants; I then hastened away; while the tormentor, the imagination, busied itself in picturing my own loved ones, stretched on such beds, attended thus. The country afforded no such mass of horrors; solitary wretches died in the open fields; and I have found a survivor in a vacant village, contending at once with famine and disease; but the assembly of pestilence, the banqueting hall of death, was spread only in London.
I rambled on, oppressed, distracted by painful emotions—suddenly I found myself before Drury Lane Theatre. The play was Macbeth—the first actor of the age was there to exert his powers to drug with irreflection the auditors; such a medicine I yearned for, so I entered. The theatre was tolerably well filled. Shakspeare, whose popularity was established by the approval of four centuries, had not lost his influence even at this dread period; but was still 'Ut magus,' the wizard to rule our hearts and govern our imaginations. I came in during the interval between the third and fourth act. I looked round on the audience; the females were mostly of the lower classes, but the men were of all ranks, come hither to forget awhile the protracted scenes of wretchedness, which awaited them at their miserable homes. The curtains drew up, and the stage presented the scene of the witches' cave. The wildness and supernatural machinery of Macbeth, was a pledge that it could contain little directly connected with our present circumstances. Great pains had been taken in the scenery to give the semblance of reality to the impossible. The extreme darkness of the stage, whose only light was received from the fire under the cauldron, joined to a kind of mist that floated about it, rendered the unearthly shapes of the witches obscure and shadowy. It was not three decrepid old hags that bent over their pot throwing in the grim ingredients of the magic charm, but forms frightful, unreal, and fanciful. The entrance of Hecate, and the wild music that followed, took us out of this world. The cavern shape the stage assumed, the beetling rocks, the glare of the fire, the misty shades that crossed the scene at times, the music in harmony with all witch-like fancies, permitted the imagination to revel, without fear of contradiction, or reproof from reason or the heart. The entrance of Macbeth did not destroy the illusion, for he was actuated by the same feelings that inspired us, and while the work of magic proceeded we sympathized in his wonder and his daring, and gave ourselves up with our whole souls to the influence of scenic delusion. I felt the beneficial result of such excitement, in a renewal of those pleasing flights of fancy to which I had long been a stranger. The effect of this scene of incantation communicated a portion of its power to that which followed. We forgot that Malcolm and Macduff were mere human beings, acted upon by such simple passions as warmed our own breasts. By slow degrees howerver we were drawn to the real interest of the scene. A shudder like the swift passing of an electric shock ran through the house, when Rosse exclaimed, in answer to 'Stands Scotland where it did?'
Alas, poor country;
Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be called our mother, but our grave, where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern extasy: the dead man's knell
Is there scarce asked, for who, and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or else they sicken.
Each word struck the sense, as our life's passing bell; we feared to look at each other, but bent our gaze on the stage, as if our eyes could fall innocuous on that alone.The person who played the part of Rosse, suddenly became aware of the dangerous ground he trod. He was an inferior actor, but truth now made him excellent; as he went on to announce to Macduff the slaughter of his family, he was afraid to speak, trembling from apprehension of a burst of grief from the audience, not from his fellow-mime. Each word was drawn out with difficulty; real anguish painted his features; his eyes were now lifted in sudden horror, now fixed in dread upon the ground. This shew of terror encreased ours, we gasped with him, each neck was stretched out, each face changed with the actor's changes—at length while Macduff, who, attending to his part, was unobservant of the high wrought sympathy of the house, cried with well acted passion:
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? —O hell kite! All?
What! all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop!
A pang of tameless grief wrenched every heart, a burst of despair was echoed from every lip.—I had entered into the universal feeling—I had been absorbed by the terrors of Rosse—I re-echoed the cry of Macduff, and then rushed out as from an hell of torture, to find calm in the free air and silent street.
—oOo—
—oOo—
lunes, 3 de agosto de 2020
domingo, 2 de agosto de 2020
Voice to the Soundless Thought
From Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826), ch. 18 (Penguin, 262-4):
'It is too late to be ambitious,' says Sir Thomas Bowne, 'We cannot hope to live so long in our names as some have done in their persons; one face of Janus holds no proportion to the other.' Upon this text many fanatics arose, who prophesied that the end of time was come. The spirit of superstition had birth, from the wreck of our hopes, and antics wild and dangerous were played on the great theatre, while the remaining particle of futurity dwindled into a point in the eyes of the prognosticators. Weak-spirited women died of fear as they listened to these denunciations; men of robust form and seeming strength fell into idiotcy and madness, racked by the dread of coming eternity. A man of this kind was now pouring forth his eloquent despair among the inhabitants of Windsor. The scene of the morning, and my visit to the dead, which had been spread abroad, had alarmed the country-people, so they had become fit instruments to be played upon by a maniac.
The poor wretch had lost his young wife and lovely infant by the plague. He was a mechanic; and, rendered unable to attend to the occupation which supplied his necessities, famine was added to his other miseries. He left the chamber which contained his wife and child—wife and child no more, but 'dead earth upon the earth'—wild with hunger, watching and grief, his diseased fancy made him believe himself sent by heaven to preach the end of time to the world. He entered the churches, and foretold to the congregations their speedy removal to the vaults below. He appeared like the forgotten spirit of the time in the theatres, and bade the spectators go home and die. He had been seized and confined; he had escaped and wandered from London among the neighbouring towns, and, with frantic gestures and thrilling words, he unveiled to each their hidden fears, and gave voice to the soundless thought they dared not syllable. He stood under the arcade of the town-hall of Windsor, and from this elevation harangued a trembling crowd.
'Hear, O ye inhabitants of the earth,' he cried, 'hear thou, all seeing, but most pitiless Heaven! hear thou too, O tempest-tossed heart, which breathes out these words, yet faints beneath their meaning! Death is among us! The earth is beautiful and flower-bedecked, but she is our grave! The clouds of heaven weep for us—the pageantry of the stars is but our funeral torchlight. Grey headed men, ye hoped for yet a few years in your long-known abode—but the lease is up, you must remove—children, ye will never reach maturity, even now the small grave is dug for ye—mothers, clasp them in your arms, one death embraces you!
Shuddering, he stretched out his hands, his eyes cast up, seemed bursting from their sockets, while he appeared to follow shapes, to us invisible, in the yielding air—'There they are,' he cried, 'the dead! They rise in their shrouds, and pass in silent procession towards the far land of their doom—their bloodless lips move not—their shadowy limbs are void of motion, while still they glide onwards. 'We come,' he exclaimed, springing forwards, 'for what should we wait? Haste, my friends, apparel yourselves in the court-dress of death. Pestilence will usher you to his presence. Why thus long? they, the good, the wise, and the beloved, are gone before. Mothers, kiss your last—husbands, protectors no more lead on the partners of your death! Come, O come! Whil the dear ones are yet in sight, for soon they will pass away, and we never never shall join them more.'
From such ravings as these, he would suddenly become collected, and with unexaggerated but terrific words, paint the horrors of the time; describe with minute detail, the effects of the plague on the human frame, and tell heart-breaking tales of the snapping of dear affinities—the gasping horror of despair over the deathbed of the last beloved—so that groans and even shrieks burst from the crowd. One man in particular stood in front, his eyes fixt on the prophet, his mouth open, his limbs rigid, while his face changed to various colours, yellow, blue, and green through intense fear. The maniac caught his glance, and turned his eye on him—one has heard of the gaze of the rattle-snake, which allures the trembling victim till he falls within his jaws. The maniac became composed; his person rose higher; authority beamed from his countenance. He looked on the peasant, who began to tremble, while he still gazed; his knees knocked together; his teeth chattered. He at last fell down in convulsions. 'That man has the plague,' said the maniac calmly. A shriek burst from the lips of the poor wretch; and then sudden motionlessness came over him; it was manifest to all that he was dead.
Cries of horror filled the place—every one endeavoured to effect his escape—in a few minutes the market place was cleared—the corpse lay on the ground, and the maniac, subdued and exhausted, sat beside it, leaning his gaunt cheek upon his thin hand. Soon some people, deputed by the magistrates, came to remove the body; the unfortunate being saw a jailor in each—he fled precipitately, while I passed onwards to the Castle.
—oOo—
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