SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue 1 - Journal - Page 41
SINE QUA NON
The other side to my emphasis on feelings in an interpersonal encounter with words
while approaching a literary text is my resistance to theoretical jargon that makes a virtue out
of incoherence, so much so that it can easily become a way to hide one’s real feelings and stay
in control of things.
How could being safe in one's own mental fortress and shielded from the unpredictable winds
of change even remotely qualify as love?
It doesn’t mean we don’t need a complex vocabulary to get a deeper understanding of
the world; we do. That alone does not justify changing our fundamental relationship with the
text, which is based on common human emotions. Critical appreciation of a line, a passage,
or a poem is a detailed and sophisticated extension of my love for something. Frankly, I am
more than aware that love is power with a historical basis in race, class, gender, and sociocultural differences. I don't see why that should be incompatible with liking someone or
something for who they are or what it is. I have no interest in reading dull poetry or prose
that aims to impart political knowledge that I didn't specifically request.
Bertolt Brecht knows that there is a language that is not just ideology despite his Marxist
commitments; I don’t think there is anyone who has read Mother Courage and Her Children
without their heart being broken at the death of the heroic though mute daughter Kattrin at
the end of the play. The power lies in Brecht's portrayal of Kattrin, as he movingly portrays
her as a simple human being, rather than a creature with class consciousness, which would
be vacuous. It doesn’t matter to me whether Kattrin’s or, for that matter, Brecht’s goals are
about putting an end to social inequalities. Kattrin is an extremely complex character who
understands the injustices of the world better than anybody else. She chooses her martyrdom
in a saintlike fashion, despite being completely ordinary and insignificant. She understands
the world through her marginality, even if she never utters a single word. When the moment
for defying power and saving the lives of innocents happens, Kattrin does not hesitate to
sacrifice her own life. Kattrin is just a very beautiful human being; it is impossible not to be
affected by her. It doesn’t matter how power relations shape our reading propensities.
An interpersonal reading based on feelings is a way of cultivating an intimate relationship
with a piece of writing that affects you.
The black actor, singer, and civil rights campaigner Paul Robeson, who performed in the
musical Show Boat (1927), changed the lyrics of “Ol’ Man River,” originally written by Oscar
Hammerstein II. In its early version, the song is about a man complaining about his pain
while the river keeps going on as usual.10 In Robeson's later, more politicized version, there is
a clear note of defiance as the lyrics change from the man who “git[s] a lil drunk”11 to one who
“show[s] a little grit.”12 Hammerstein’s image of the passive, drunken, fatalistic man turns
10
Samuel Levine, “Old Man River, Sung by Paul Robeson,” NYFOS, June 3, 2016, https://nyfos.org/old-manriver-sung-paul-robeson/.
11
222pj222, “Paul Robeson - Ol’ Man River (Showboat - 1936) J.Kern O. Hammerstein II,” YouTube, October
29, 2008, https://youtu.be/eh9WayN7R-s?si=8tYhnU08aM2vWxis.
12
Joe Stead, “Paul Robeson - Old Man River,” 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEQEeNhtosg.%0A.
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