Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Lyrical hardass
Imaginative Conservative features an 1845 poem by Poe, a lyrical and HARDASS imprecatory curse against Science. Apt and prophetic.
Poe's name-dropping of old gods reminded me of this passage from Michelet's 1904 history of the Inquisition and witch hunts.
This comes shortly after the account of a peasant's life that I cited last week.
But is she so plain, this little peasant wife, whose dreaming imagination feeds on all these fancies? I have described her life, how she keeps house, how she spins as she watches her sheep, how she trips to the forest and gathers her little bundle of firewood. No very hard work is hers as yet; she is not the repulsive-looking countrywoman of a later time, disfigured by unremitting labour in the wheat fields. Neither is she the heavy citizen's dame, fat and indolent, of the towns, who formed the subject of so many appetising stories amongst our forefathers. Our heroine is timid, and has no sense of security ; soft and gentle, she is conscious of being in God's hand. On the mountain crag she sees the black and lowering castle, whence a thousand dangers may at any moment descend. She fears and honours her husband; a serf elsewhere, by her side he is a king. All innocence as the woman is, still she has a secret — we have said so before — a secret she never, never confesses at church. She carries shut within her breast a fond remembrance of the poor ancient gods now fallen to the estate of spirits, and a feeling of compassion for them. For do not for an instant suppose, because they are gods, they are exempt from pain and suffering. Lodged in rocks, in the trunks of oaks, they are very unhappy in winter. They greatly love heat, and prowl round the houses; they have been surprised in stables, warming themselves beside the cattle. Having no more incense, no more victims, poor things, they sometimes take some of the housewife's milk. She, good managing soul, does not stint her husband, but diminishes her own portion, and when evening comes, leaves a little cream behind in the bowl. These spirits, which no longer appear except by night, sadly regret their exile from the day, and are eager for lights. At nightfall the goodwife hardens her heart and sallies out fearfully, bearing a humble taper to the great oak where they dwell, or the mysterious pool whose surface will double the flame in its dark mirror to cheer the unhappy outlaws.It wasn't just Science that killed the old Natural deities. It was first the theoretical religion of Christianity that broke our ties to reality, making it vastly easier for the Enlightenment to cram us full of abstract delusions that enrich the priests and popes and bankers while killing the souls and bodies of the peasants. Note also that Michelet recognized the comparative ease of peasant life versus the endless labor of industrial farming and industrial production. US and UK historians were handing us the vicious myth of peasant hardship, but French historians weren't fooled. More recent US and UK historians have recovered Michelet's view.
Labels: 2000=1000, From rights to duties, imprecatory psalm
¶ 8:58 AM
