Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Lovelace. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Lovelace. Mostrar todas las entradas
viernes, 30 de agosto de 2024
lunes, 14 de octubre de 2019
miércoles, 26 de octubre de 2016
Carew, Suckling, Lovelace (David Daiches)
From A Critical History of English Literature, by David Daiches.
Thomas Carew (1594/5-1640) both praised Ben Jonson for his successful spoliation of the ancient classics—
and paid tribute to Donne as the poet who "ruled as he thought fit / The universal monarchy of wit":
In combining the classical influence of Jonson with the metaphysical influence of Donne, Carew produced a mixture especially suited to the atmosphere of the court of Charles I. As Sir Herbert Grierson expressed it, "in Carew's poems and Vandyke's pictures the artistic taste of Charles's court is vividly reflected, a dignified voluptuousness, an exquisite elegance, if in some of the higher qualities of man and artist Carew is as inferior to Wyatt and Spenser as Vandyke is to Holbein." This is true Cavalier poetry, polished, gay, and witty. Without the formal precision of Jonson, the adroit Roman paganizing of Herrick, or the gentlemanly ease of his younger contemporary, Sir John Suckling, Carew has his own kind of urbanity. The gallantry of his love poems does not always conceal a cynicism at the core, but the control, the restrained touch of stylization in all his best work shows a sense of style in living that truly reflects the Cavalier spirit of the time and is not unattractive. Occasionally, as in the well-known song, "Ask me no more where Jove bestows", he combines Jonson's lapidary elegance with a stately singing note as well as a touch of metaphysical ingenuity, and the combination is perfectly achieved. Sometimes he echoes Donne in the frank psychological curiosity with which he explores an emotional or a sensual situation (as in "To a Lady that desired I would love her" and, in a different way, "A Rapture"), but he has a tendency to laugh off the implications of his conceits with an elegant shrug, lacking Donne's ability to carry through to the end fusion of passion and wit. It is "wit" in Carew, too—almost in the modern sense—rather than thought. There are many echoes of Donne in his poems, but the exhibitionist quality in his conceits often derives as much from Marino as from Donne. Carew's songs were meant to be sung, and lose something when merely read. His longer poems often run into mere showiness. But he had an artistic conscience; even his showiness is carefully modulated, and he always knew what he was doing.
Another heir to both Jonson and Donne is Sir John Suckling (1609-42), though both streams are shallower now. Lively, gay, very much the worldly courtier, Suckling looks to the cynical strain in Donne's early love poems and to the lighter of Jonson's lyrics. His poem, "Oh, for some honest lover's ghost" is an altogether more superficial performance than Donne's "I long to talk with some old lover's ghost." His "Hast thou seen the down i' the air" is a flippant parody (turned to satire) of Jonson's exquisite song of compliment, "Have you seen but the white lily grow." He is at his best where he combines a colloquial ease with a neatly patterned song-stanza, as in the well-known "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" or "I prithee send me back my heart" or "Out upon it I have loved / Three whole days together." "A Session of the Poets" is a lively trotting poem in thirty four-line stanzas with a deliberately crude accentual meter, describing himself and his fellow-poets competing for the laurel, only to see it given in the end by Apollo to an alderman on the grounds that "it was the best sign / Of good store of wit to have good store of coin." The poem is interesting in giving Suckling's views of his contemporaries. Carew's "muse was hard-bound, and th' issue of 's brain." Suckling describes himself as an amateur who "loved not the muses so well as his sport." The description is accurate enough: Suckling's poetry shows the Cavalier at play.
The true Cavalier poet is, however, Richard Lovelace (1618-58), whose gallantry has in it a truer strain of chivalry than Suckling's, a strain that links him with Sidney and Sir Walter Ralegh and the older tradition of Renaissance courtesy. The royalist ideal was indeed grounded in that older tradition, as we can see in Lovelace and, most clearly, in the few but noble lyrical utterances of the Scottish royalist, James Graham, marquis of Montrose. Lovelace's "To Althea from Prison" uses imagery that is as much Petrarchan as metaphysical, but the poem brings a new kind of idealism into the English lyric of the period. The same can be said of "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars," which has the lapidary quality of Jonson at his best as well as a simple gravity of tone that we cannot find in Suckling. More metaphysical in imagery, if classical in inspiration, is the interesting poem, "The Grasshopper" where a description of the heedless grasshopper is adroitly turned into a celebration of friendship. There is something of the strength of Wyatt in Lovelace at his best, as well as echoes of the Sidneian and Spenserian association of ideal love and beauty with honor and the good life. The seventeenth-century royalist ideal was perhaps anachronistic, and a somewhat faded neo-Platonism often lay behind it; but Lovelace at least gave it effective expression.
Of the minor Cavalier poets, mention may be made of Sidney Godolphin (1610-43), the majority of whose poems remained in manuscript until the twentieth century. He, too, has the graver note which we sometimes find in Lovelace (in Suckling's "Sessions of the Poets" Apollo advises Godolphin "not to write so strong"), together with a restrained metaphysical touch which adds just the right note of subtlety to the quiet clarity of his style. The influence of Donne and Jonson combine here most happily.
Richard Corbet, bishop of Oxford and Norwich (1582-1635), is a minor lyrist of the period whose character and poems reflect a robust joy of life which was to become one element in Cavalier opposition to the Puritans. His one famous poem, "A Proper new ballad, intituled The Fairies' Farewell, or God a Mercy Will," gives lively expression to the sense that the Puritan spirit had killed the happy superstitions of Old England:
"There never was a merry world since the fairies left dancing and the parson left conjuring," said John Selden in the middle of the century, and this remark, together with Corbet's poem, shows that there was much more than political or theological opinions involved in the Civil War and also helps to explain why the large majority of those interested in the arts and letters (Milton was the great exception) were on the royalist side.
Thomas Carew (1594/5-1640) both praised Ben Jonson for his successful spoliation of the ancient classics—
Nor think it theft, if the rich spoils so torn
From conquered authors, be as trophies worn—
From conquered authors, be as trophies worn—
The Muses' garden with pedantic weeds
O'er spread, was purg'd by thee, the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention planted.
O'er spread, was purg'd by thee, the lazy seeds
Of servile imitation thrown away,
And fresh invention planted.
In combining the classical influence of Jonson with the metaphysical influence of Donne, Carew produced a mixture especially suited to the atmosphere of the court of Charles I. As Sir Herbert Grierson expressed it, "in Carew's poems and Vandyke's pictures the artistic taste of Charles's court is vividly reflected, a dignified voluptuousness, an exquisite elegance, if in some of the higher qualities of man and artist Carew is as inferior to Wyatt and Spenser as Vandyke is to Holbein." This is true Cavalier poetry, polished, gay, and witty. Without the formal precision of Jonson, the adroit Roman paganizing of Herrick, or the gentlemanly ease of his younger contemporary, Sir John Suckling, Carew has his own kind of urbanity. The gallantry of his love poems does not always conceal a cynicism at the core, but the control, the restrained touch of stylization in all his best work shows a sense of style in living that truly reflects the Cavalier spirit of the time and is not unattractive. Occasionally, as in the well-known song, "Ask me no more where Jove bestows", he combines Jonson's lapidary elegance with a stately singing note as well as a touch of metaphysical ingenuity, and the combination is perfectly achieved. Sometimes he echoes Donne in the frank psychological curiosity with which he explores an emotional or a sensual situation (as in "To a Lady that desired I would love her" and, in a different way, "A Rapture"), but he has a tendency to laugh off the implications of his conceits with an elegant shrug, lacking Donne's ability to carry through to the end fusion of passion and wit. It is "wit" in Carew, too—almost in the modern sense—rather than thought. There are many echoes of Donne in his poems, but the exhibitionist quality in his conceits often derives as much from Marino as from Donne. Carew's songs were meant to be sung, and lose something when merely read. His longer poems often run into mere showiness. But he had an artistic conscience; even his showiness is carefully modulated, and he always knew what he was doing.
Another heir to both Jonson and Donne is Sir John Suckling (1609-42), though both streams are shallower now. Lively, gay, very much the worldly courtier, Suckling looks to the cynical strain in Donne's early love poems and to the lighter of Jonson's lyrics. His poem, "Oh, for some honest lover's ghost" is an altogether more superficial performance than Donne's "I long to talk with some old lover's ghost." His "Hast thou seen the down i' the air" is a flippant parody (turned to satire) of Jonson's exquisite song of compliment, "Have you seen but the white lily grow." He is at his best where he combines a colloquial ease with a neatly patterned song-stanza, as in the well-known "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" or "I prithee send me back my heart" or "Out upon it I have loved / Three whole days together." "A Session of the Poets" is a lively trotting poem in thirty four-line stanzas with a deliberately crude accentual meter, describing himself and his fellow-poets competing for the laurel, only to see it given in the end by Apollo to an alderman on the grounds that "it was the best sign / Of good store of wit to have good store of coin." The poem is interesting in giving Suckling's views of his contemporaries. Carew's "muse was hard-bound, and th' issue of 's brain." Suckling describes himself as an amateur who "loved not the muses so well as his sport." The description is accurate enough: Suckling's poetry shows the Cavalier at play.
The true Cavalier poet is, however, Richard Lovelace (1618-58), whose gallantry has in it a truer strain of chivalry than Suckling's, a strain that links him with Sidney and Sir Walter Ralegh and the older tradition of Renaissance courtesy. The royalist ideal was indeed grounded in that older tradition, as we can see in Lovelace and, most clearly, in the few but noble lyrical utterances of the Scottish royalist, James Graham, marquis of Montrose. Lovelace's "To Althea from Prison" uses imagery that is as much Petrarchan as metaphysical, but the poem brings a new kind of idealism into the English lyric of the period. The same can be said of "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars," which has the lapidary quality of Jonson at his best as well as a simple gravity of tone that we cannot find in Suckling. More metaphysical in imagery, if classical in inspiration, is the interesting poem, "The Grasshopper" where a description of the heedless grasshopper is adroitly turned into a celebration of friendship. There is something of the strength of Wyatt in Lovelace at his best, as well as echoes of the Sidneian and Spenserian association of ideal love and beauty with honor and the good life. The seventeenth-century royalist ideal was perhaps anachronistic, and a somewhat faded neo-Platonism often lay behind it; but Lovelace at least gave it effective expression.
Of the minor Cavalier poets, mention may be made of Sidney Godolphin (1610-43), the majority of whose poems remained in manuscript until the twentieth century. He, too, has the graver note which we sometimes find in Lovelace (in Suckling's "Sessions of the Poets" Apollo advises Godolphin "not to write so strong"), together with a restrained metaphysical touch which adds just the right note of subtlety to the quiet clarity of his style. The influence of Donne and Jonson combine here most happily.
Richard Corbet, bishop of Oxford and Norwich (1582-1635), is a minor lyrist of the period whose character and poems reflect a robust joy of life which was to become one element in Cavalier opposition to the Puritans. His one famous poem, "A Proper new ballad, intituled The Fairies' Farewell, or God a Mercy Will," gives lively expression to the sense that the Puritan spirit had killed the happy superstitions of Old England:
Farewell, rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.
And though they sweep the hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
Lament, lament, old abbeys,
The fairies lost command;
They did but change priests' babies,
But some have changed your land,
And all your children sprung from thence
Are now grown Puritans;
Who live as changelings ever since,
For love of your demains.
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.
And though they sweep the hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
Lament, lament, old abbeys,
The fairies lost command;
They did but change priests' babies,
But some have changed your land,
And all your children sprung from thence
Are now grown Puritans;
Who live as changelings ever since,
For love of your demains.
"There never was a merry world since the fairies left dancing and the parson left conjuring," said John Selden in the middle of the century, and this remark, together with Corbet's poem, shows that there was much more than political or theological opinions involved in the Civil War and also helps to explain why the large majority of those interested in the arts and letters (Milton was the great exception) were on the royalist side.
—oOo—
viernes, 31 de agosto de 2012
El sueño de Ada Byron
Augusta Ada Byron, hija del poeta Lord Byron y de
Annabella Milbanke, se convertiría en condesa de Lovelace cuando su
esposo William King heredó el título. Como su padre, al que no conoció,
fue una aristócrata excéntrica, y más si cabe, pero en otro
sentido—tenía una pasión por las matemáticas y el cálculo. Se le
atribuye haber escrito el primer programa informático, un siglo antes
de que existieran los ordenadores.
"Volcar los poderes del pensamiento en un dispositivo mecánico" es el
capítulo 4 de La Información,
de James Gleick (2012), dedicado a Ada Lovelace y a Charles Babbage.
Babbage había diseñado una calculadora mecánica, la Máquina
Diferencial, y tenía planes de desarrollar una versión mucho más
compleja, la Máquina Analítica—una especie de ordenador steampunk de la
era victoriana, cuyos engranajes acabarían por superar en su
complejidad las disponibilidades técnicas de la época.
La máquina de
Babbage siguió siendo teórica, pero sus posibilidades de cálculo
hipotéticas estimularon la imaginación matemática de Ada Lovelace,
amiga de Babbage. Tampoco eran Babbage y Ada, siendo excepcionales,
unos Frankensteins fuera de su siglo, pues el telar de Jacquard ya se
"programaba" en cierto modo usando unas tarjetas perforadas para
combinar las modalidades de funcionamiento. Y ya existían las
computadoras... humanas, personas dedicadas a realizar operaciones de
cálculo, hacer tablas de logaritmos, etc. Ada veía posibilidades mucho
mayores en la máquina de Babbage—hoy diríamos que veía en ella el
primer ordenador, la primera computadora mecánica que inauguraba la
informática:
"La máquina no sólo calculaba,
realizaba operaciones,
decía Ada, definiendo operación como 'cualquier proceso que altere la
mutua relación de dos o más cosas', y declaraba : 'Se trata de una
definición muy general, e incluiría todos los objetos del universo'. La
ciencia de las operaciones, tal como ella la concebía,
es una ciencia en sí misma (más adelante otros la
llamarían cibernética - JAGL),
y tiene su propia verdad y su propio valor abstracto, del mismo modo
que la lógica tiene una verdad y un valor peculiares,
independientemente de los objetos a los que podamos aplicar sus
razonamientos y sus procesos [...]. Uno de los principales motivos de
que el carácter distinto de la ciencia de las operaciones se haya
notado tan poco y en general se le haya prestado tan poca atención y
tan poco detenimiento, es el significado cambiante de muchos de los símbolos
usados.
Símbolos y significado. Ada hacía hincapié en que no hablaba sólo de matemáticas. La máquina 'podía actuar sobre otras cosas aparte del número'. (...). Había sido una máquina de números: ahora se transformaba en una máquina de información." (Gleick 122)
Ada programaba la máquina mentalmente, sobre el papel, visto que su existencia era mayormente teórica. Pero la máquina corría de boca en boca; alude a ella Poe, y Oliver Wendell Holmes veía en ella una monstruosidad amenazadora, "Un monstruo de Frankenstein, una cosa sin cerebro y sin corazón, demasiado estúpida como para meter la pata, que proporciona resultados igual que una desgranadora de cereales, pero no hará que sean más sabios ni mejores, por más que muela mil celemines" (Gleick 126). Babbage seguía dando vueltas a diversos inventos en torno a un concepto que no existía todavía: el procesamiento de datos: "Su verdadero objeto era la información: el envío de mensajes, la codificación y el procesamiento" (127). Acabaría siendo la computadora que acabaría con todas las computadoras—con las humanas, digo:
"Proyectada
primero para generar tablas de números, la máquina en su forma actual
ha hecho que las tablas numéricas resulten obsoletas. ¿Previó Babbage
una cosa así? Lo que desde luego se preguntó es cómo utilizaría el
futuro su invento. Conjeturaba que pasaría medio siglo antes de que
nadie intentara crear de nuevo una máquina computadora de uso general.
En efecto, se tardaría más de un siglo en cimentar el sustrato
tecnológico necesario. 'Si alguien', decía, 'sin tener conocimiento de
mi ejemplo, emprende la construcción efectiva de una máquina que
encarne en sí a todo el departamento ejecutivo de análisis matemático
a partir de principios distintos o a través de medios mecánicos más
simples, no tengo ningún miedo a dejar mi reputación en sus manos, pues
sólo él será plenamente capaz de apreciar la naturaleza de mis
esfuerzos y el valor de sus resultados". (129)
Miraba con esperanza a la electricidad, que en efecto sería casi cien años más tarde la que acabaría permitiendo las operaciones informáticas con la finura y velocidad necesarias.
"Pocos
años antes de su muerte, dijo a un amigo suyo que de buena gana
renunciaría a todo el tiempo que le quedara de vida, fuese el que
fuese, con tal de que le permitieran vivir tres días cinco siglos
después.
En cuanto a su joven amiga Ada, condesa de Lovelace, murió muchos años antes que él, a consecuencia de una dolorosa y larga enfermedad de cáncer de útero. Sus sufrimientos apenas lograron ser paliados mediante el uso del láudano y el cannabis. Durante largo tiempo su familia le ocultó la verdad de su enfermedad. Al final comprendió que iba a morir. 'Dicen que los acontecimientos por venir arrojan su sombra con antelación', comentaba en una carta a su madre. '¿No podrían alguna vez arrojar su luz con anterioridad?' Fue enterrada junto a su padre.
Ella también tenía un último sueño, una última visión del futuro: 'Ser en el tiempo una autócrata, a mi manera'. Tendría a sus órdenes regimientos que desfilarían ante ella. Los opresores de la tierra tendrían que rendirse a sus pies. ¿Y de qué estarían hechos esos regimientos suyos? 'De momento no quiero divulgarlo. Sin embargo, tengo la esperanza de que sean las tropas más armónicamente disciplinadas, al estar compuestas de números inmensos, desfilando con una fuerza irresistible al son de la Música. ¿Verdad que es muy misterioso? Desde luego mis tropas tienen que estar compuestas de números, o no existirán [...] Pero por otra parte, ¿qué son esos números? Es un enigma...'." (Gleick 130).
En cuanto a su joven amiga Ada, condesa de Lovelace, murió muchos años antes que él, a consecuencia de una dolorosa y larga enfermedad de cáncer de útero. Sus sufrimientos apenas lograron ser paliados mediante el uso del láudano y el cannabis. Durante largo tiempo su familia le ocultó la verdad de su enfermedad. Al final comprendió que iba a morir. 'Dicen que los acontecimientos por venir arrojan su sombra con antelación', comentaba en una carta a su madre. '¿No podrían alguna vez arrojar su luz con anterioridad?' Fue enterrada junto a su padre.
Ella también tenía un último sueño, una última visión del futuro: 'Ser en el tiempo una autócrata, a mi manera'. Tendría a sus órdenes regimientos que desfilarían ante ella. Los opresores de la tierra tendrían que rendirse a sus pies. ¿Y de qué estarían hechos esos regimientos suyos? 'De momento no quiero divulgarlo. Sin embargo, tengo la esperanza de que sean las tropas más armónicamente disciplinadas, al estar compuestas de números inmensos, desfilando con una fuerza irresistible al son de la Música. ¿Verdad que es muy misterioso? Desde luego mis tropas tienen que estar compuestas de números, o no existirán [...] Pero por otra parte, ¿qué son esos números? Es un enigma...'." (Gleick 130).
—oOo—
lunes, 16 de abril de 2012
Programados para creernos libres
De una
entrevista a Adolf Tobeña en Tercera Cultura, sobre la mente y la
enfermedad mental:
El cerebro humano está probablemente construido para decirnos en todo momento que somos los amos de nuestro pensamiento y de nuestras conductas y de nuestras opciones, y que, además, las tenemos abiertas. No las tenemos accesibles, pero, cuando hay una lesión severa, cuando hay un traumatismo y nos quedamos sin la posibilidad de mover los brazos, o las piernas, o las cuerdas vocales. Es decir, cuando no hay más remedio que aceptar que como resultado de una fractura o una lesión tisular hay una pérdida de libertad. Y también cuando se nos imponen otros individuos. Pero, en estos casos no hay pérdida de libertad personal porque a pesar de todo, aunque te enjaulen, el cerebro nos continúa diciendo que dentro de tu mente puedes pensar con tanta libertad como siempre y puedes enfrentarte a los problemas más abiertos que quieras. Igual no lo podrás comunicar, no lo podrás escribir, nadie se enterará, pero continúas teniendo la libertad de pensar, de imaginar, de conjeturar.
El cerebro está montado para darnos esta autonomía en todo momento. Porque es imprescindible, porque lo necesitamos para vivir.
To Althea, from Prison
WHEN Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fetter'd to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.
When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free—
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.
When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
(Richard Lovelace)
El cerebro humano está probablemente construido para decirnos en todo momento que somos los amos de nuestro pensamiento y de nuestras conductas y de nuestras opciones, y que, además, las tenemos abiertas. No las tenemos accesibles, pero, cuando hay una lesión severa, cuando hay un traumatismo y nos quedamos sin la posibilidad de mover los brazos, o las piernas, o las cuerdas vocales. Es decir, cuando no hay más remedio que aceptar que como resultado de una fractura o una lesión tisular hay una pérdida de libertad. Y también cuando se nos imponen otros individuos. Pero, en estos casos no hay pérdida de libertad personal porque a pesar de todo, aunque te enjaulen, el cerebro nos continúa diciendo que dentro de tu mente puedes pensar con tanta libertad como siempre y puedes enfrentarte a los problemas más abiertos que quieras. Igual no lo podrás comunicar, no lo podrás escribir, nadie se enterará, pero continúas teniendo la libertad de pensar, de imaginar, de conjeturar.
El cerebro está montado para darnos esta autonomía en todo momento. Porque es imprescindible, porque lo necesitamos para vivir.
***
WHEN Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fetter'd to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.
When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free—
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.
When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
(Richard Lovelace)
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