Citations: A Brief Anthology

By Jasper Siegel Seneschal

An application form doubles as the travelogue for a journey through physical and psychological wilderness; a stand-up comedy routine descends into an exposition of freedom and occult conspiracies; an album review turns into a critique of creativity, logic, and life itself; while an interview with a translator leads to questions regarding the very existence of existence.

Citations: an anthology of works written variously between 1999 and 2009, compiled for your reading pleasure by J.S. Seneschal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312065741

Book preview

CITATIONS

A BRIEF ANTHOLOGY

Edited by

Jasper Siegel Seneschal

LONDON | TORONTO

© 2012 USHGURIUD EDITIONS

Published through EVCco Communications

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

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system, without written permission of the publisher.

Cover design: E. Victor C.

Printed in the United States by Lulu Enterprises, 2013

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ISBN: 978-1-312-06574-1

First electronic edition.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Slave, agree with me!

Yes, my lord, yes!

~ Anonymous, c. 1000 BC

'The Dialogue of Pessimism'

Dedicated.

INTRODUCTION

It is a well known fact that, as a civilization grows old, its basic values are in danger of losing their hold upon the individuals who participate in it. Scepticism, doubt, and indifference begin to undermine the spiritual structure which comprises the civilization. Such scepticism toward all values, utter negation of the possibility of a ‘good life’, begins to make its appearance in Mesopotamian civilization in the first millennium B.C. This scepticism has found expression in a long dialogue between a master and his slave; it is known as the ‘Dialogue of Pessimism’.¹

~ Thorkild Jacobsen, 1946

'Before Philosophy'

 An aristocrat languishes in idle boredom. Summoning a slave, he declares his intent to engage in one activity after another so that he might meaningfully occupy his time. The slave praises each suggested task, giving this good reason and that to support his master's plans. But no sooner is each justification made than the master loses interest. His servant, quick to please, then offers counter-arguments against each rejected act so as to bolster his master's fickle whims. Hunting, feasting, coitus, oblation, philanthropy, and political revolution are all considered then dismissed, with each shown to be useful and pointless in equal measure. With every activity now lacking any meaning the master, at last, proposes a murder-suicide with his slave. But futility is discovered even in this, and he is left transfixed in his tedium, no better off than when he began.

  So runs the plot of the Dialogue of Pessimism, a text which  remains one of the more intriguing artifacts of ancient thought. Debate still continues among scholars as to whether the tone of the Dialogue was intended to be serious, satirical, or possibly something in between. What cannot be disputed, however, is Professor Jacobsen's assertion that societies, as they age, will inevitably face profound crises of faith in themselves. Pace, then, historian William Schermerhorn who, in his 1958 book Accounts of Progress, maintained that:

Any sufficiently durable culture must risk

falling victim to its own success. Enamoured by

the gains of its longevity, a culture may easily stagnate

in self-satisfaction, eventually to wither for lack

of healthy scepticism, encrusted in a hermetic shell of unquestioned traditions and dogma.²

Or, perhaps not?

   A youth inveighs the common schoolboy refrain of - "Well, I never asked to be born!" - and his words are dismissed out of hand as merely a clichéd tantrum of immaturity. Another, however, employs the words of Milton by quoting:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?

and now his parents at least pause to consider the relative profundity of this notion. Knowing his makers to be of a certain literate, if not pretentious disposition, the youth then adds how Shelley just happened to use this same passage as the epigraph to her Frankenstein, and so multiplies the credence of his complaint. And yet, even if his parents were oblivious to the works, or even the names of Milton and Shelley, they may still be won over by the tacitly knowing weight implied in this act of borrowing. Such is the power of citation.

 Of course, such is also the problem. Whether artistic, aphoristic, or academic in nature, many tend to accept a cited word with deferential ease. The preeminent airs lent by an "As So-and-so once said... will often pass a remark through a page, or conversation, without much inquest. Thus, when posed with conflicting quotations, like those of Messrs. Jacobsen and Schermerhorn, we might seem to be left in the rather ambivalent position of our master." How is one to assess the role of scepticism in cultural (and, by some extention, individual) demise based solely on the testimony of these two equally reasonable, equally authoritative, and equally unsubstantiated quotes? Are we to go so far as to actually think the matter over for ourselves?

  Certainly conclusions may be drawn without too much thought. Either excerpt here could appeal to various pre-existing biases (whether one is of a more conservative or liberal bent, for instance). One could even look to factors entirely outside the content of the quotes themselves - style of writing, regard for the authors' respective institutions, etc. - in order to form an opinion. A less superficial investigation might draw distinctions between the one's use of culture and the other's civilization; might inquire into either's definition of the term scepticism; or might even take into account the historical context of the quotes themselves, noting how the former was written in the wake of the Second World War, while the latter was penned at the height of the booming decade which followed. Beyond that, the reader may possibly hope to ascertain the editor's own preference (should he have one), perhaps seeking clues in the epigraphic location of the former quote versus the interjectional placing of the latter...or what have you.

   In the absence of any resolution by these methods, however, and lacking any further wisdom in the matter, one might, at last, look to find some compromise. They might even grow somewhat suspicious of this very diametric. Indeed, the two views may not be mutually exclusive. Both doubt and undue assuredness could well upset the ballance of a functioning lifestyle. Surely then, both Jacobsen and Schermerhorn make valid observations. But what if now I were to tell you that one of these two author's isn't even real? The name, the book, and the quote - all fictions. Would that make the observation any less valid? The question, any less real?

  A man is fond of echoing a certain line from Hermann Hesse, until one day he is informed that it was not Hermann, but rather Rudolph Hess who actually spoke these words. Both the line and the sentiment are now discarded. An Englishwoman quotes freely from Nietszche until she goes on to read what he had to say of both the English, and of women. Again, the lines are abandoned. Yet, we do not expect either to abandon the practice of citation itself. Each will soon find appropriate replacements in other sources to confirm, or ignite their predilections. Such is our apparent need for other people's words. But still, they are only words. What is it, then, that is so appealing about taking another's word for it?

  Certainly, you would think, there is something of Pope's "what oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd" in it. Or, to quote again from one of history's most quoted books of quotations:

Try not with words the talker to outdo;

On all is speech bestowed: good sense on few.³

The above is taken from the first book of Cato's distichs. For those unfamiliar, Cato was a Roman aphorist of still disputed identity, while a distich is simply a verse of two lines. In other words, a couplet or epigram - which, of course, is not to be confused with the epigraphs already encountered here in the form of quotations preceding a text. As somewhat of an even further aside, I should note that Northrop Frye, in opening his essay Approaching the Lyric, stated that "there was a purist in the Greek Anthology who maintained that an epigram is a poem two lines long, and that if you venture on a third line you're already into epic."⁴  Likewise, one could conceivably argue that when dealing with epigraphs one should limit oneself to no more than a pair, and that if you venture on a third you're already into anthology. Speaking of which, apologies to anyone hoping to read more about the Dialogue or cultural scepticism from here on out, but, as an anthology which has already made such liberal use of other people's words before even getting to the anthologized works themselves, I believe we are now closing in on an area rather more central to the premise of this book.

  Of course, here might be an opportune place to venture off into the history of anthology itself - into Meleager's floral "Garland", or even Polemon's prior collection of epigrammatic epigraphs (or epigraphic epigrams?) - but surely I've ventured too far already. I will only briefly make mention of these two terms' shared etymology - both from the Greek epigraphein, to write on or above, in reference to architectural inscriptions (such as those compiled by Polemon) - for, perhaps, herein lies a deeper cause for our concern with other's words. The written language itself has its roots in citation, developed by the hands of scribes rendering content which was rarely their own. The first public inscriptions were quotations of law and decree, passed down from priests and kings, or even the gods themselves. To have ones words recorded at all was, for generations, an absolute guarantee of authority - indelibly carved, as they were, in the imposing stone of some great temple or monument.

  Clearly, however, this is no longer the case. Only in more recent times could we declare that something was not worth the paper it's written on. Nevertheless, a hint of vaguely fearful respect may still linger somewhere in our genetic memories to be applied to any words we might happen to face. How else to explain the extreme lengths so many have gone to under the influence of language? History is, of course, replete with examples of writers and orators who have moved both men and nations to kill by the power of words alone. Less common, but perhaps even more striking, are those who have caused their audience to turn this power against themselves. The ancient poets Archilochus and Hipponax are two such raconteurs who were said to have wielded words with such force that they drove their enemies to suicide by the sheer brutality of their invective. On the other hand, there are some who have not shamed, but inspired their public into self-annihilation. According to Callimachus, Plato's Phaedo encouraged one Cleombrotus to leap to his death in the Adriatic - yet not before he purportedly convinced hundreds more to do the same through his own rhetoric. A century or so later, Hegesias' philosophical treatise Death By Starvation was apparently so well received (and followed) that he was banished from Alexandria by Ptolemy II. Closer to our own time, the infamous plague of "Wertherfieber" which swept Europe in the wake of Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther supposedly claimed upwards of 2,000 hopeless romantics. Even more recently Gloomy Sunday, a song penned by the Hungarian duo of László Jávor and Rezső Seress, was said to have influenced a few hundred more suicides during the 1930s.

  Beyond the powers of authority and persuation, however, perhaps the most appealing aspect of another's words is simply their convenience. Whether distilled in the briefest apophthegm, or spread out across some voluminous tome, the thought is ready-made, the heavy lifting done. It's there to be used like a weapon or tool, and as time wanders on, seemingly leaving us fewer and fewer new things to say, it becomes ever more useful. As technology moves forward, as well, it also becomes much easier. Indeed, in this information age, where so much is available to so many so quickly that enlightenment nearly verges on light pollution, it can sometimes appear that expression has been reduced to  nothing more than a mad race to unearth and claim references. As such, the citation is also there to be  donned, like some article of fashion from which we may reap the praise of discriminating taste without ever exerting ourself in the actual toil of manufacture. Of course, if one is feeling particularly creative, one might coordinate a passage or phrase with a few select others to complete an ensemble that may faintly suggest something almost barely original. The entire genre of scholarly writing rests mainly on this principle, where texts consist merely of some brief proposition followed by a cobbled litany of he-said's and she-said's. This patchwork mode of address, worthy of Dr. Frankenstein himself, perhaps found its greatest expression, though, in a classical form of poetry known as the cento. In this method every single line is an excerpt from another writer's work, removed and rearranged from its proper context so as to convey the centologist's own personal whim. From here, I suppose, one might view the anthology as a sort of novelized cento, with each constituent piece being merely an extended citation. After all, what is the point of assembling such a thing if not to express something through the act of its assembly?

   Having come to this point you may assume it is the role of an introduction like this one to explain what the editor is attempting to express through this particular anthology. At very least, you would probably expect him, by now, to have touched on the actual works contained in this book; to have outlined what they themselves might be trying to express, and to illustrate what their perceived relation to each other is.  All very reasonable assumptions to make assuming the editor, himself, was aware of such things. But if all these rather unfocused musings haven't already made it apparent, the fact is I'm not entirely sure what this anthology is supposed to be about. I had hoped somewhere in the writing of this preface that I might finally glean this little detail; reveal what the works themselves have to say, and why I've brought them all together. But no such luck, so far. At present, I can only tell you that I've done this thing, and was compelled, somehow, to do so.

  Of course, there are some ostensible similarities between each of the parts in terms of certain subjects and themes which should become obvious upon reading (this selection was not totally arbitrary, whatever else it may be). But, at a deeper level, it is the underlying message or implication, of each and in sum, which still remains somewhat elusive - if not, perhaps, illusory. After all, there could be no real point to any of it. Indeed, it may well be folly to expect some unified (let alone meaningful) statement from such disparate, random findings - an interview, a school report, a five minute play, an application form, and then all these quotations, citations, and so forth. That these should even share the designation of literature, let alone the pages of any compendium, is questionable at best. I claim no expertise in the writers involved (obscure as most of them are, the reader may well have more information about them than me). I don't even claim to have much affinity for the pieces themselves. They were certainly not all chosen on technical merit. I submit only that this small collection of various words, sutured together and promoted from darkness, seems to express something which I, myself, can't quite seem to express...for whatever that's worth.

  I'll just end by citing a reference to yet another quote. In closing the introduction to the anthology in which the abovementioned Frye essay appears, its editors note how "Derrida remarked that introductions are always preposterous, written after what they purport to come before."⁵ This introduction may now seem especially preposterous, given the arguably preposterous nature of all that which follows: a brief anthology of obscure works by unknown authors, which may, or may not express something, in whole or individually, about a topic the anthologist has yet to conceive. It should though, if nothing else, serve as some warning to the reader that, after finishing this book, you, like myself - like the master and his slave - may find yourself no better off than when you began. Still, at least, we can say that we've occupied some time. Or, then again, you may choose to keep silent. As for me, I've said my piece.

 J.S.S.

Toronto, Sept. 2012

_______________________________________

¹ Frankfort, H. et al., Before Philosophy - The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, (Chicago, 1946).

² Schermerhorn, William, Accounts of Progress - A Fake Book, (Unreal, Nonexistent).

³ Chase, W.J., The Distichs of Cato - A Famous Medieval Textbook, (Madison, WI, 1922).

⁴ Hosek, C. & Parker P., Lyric Poetry - Beyond New Criticism, (Toronto, 1985).

⁵ Ibid.

After the first draught of this poison [...] you probably imagine that you are going in the direction of the infinite,whereas you are simply drifting into the incoherent.

~ Chemist & Druggist, 1868

'On Absinthe'

After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.

~ Ada Leverson attrib. Oscar Wilde, 1930

'Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde'

I will make a libation to my god [...] Now then, what is good?

~ Anonymous, c. 1000 BC

'The Dialogue of Pessimism'

FIRST INTERVIEW

Mort W. Lumsden

Readers of Informem's debut issue will recall a promise that, in addition to this journal's assemblage of verse, short prose, criticism, and sundry related articles, would be included:

interviews with the most important and influential literary figures of the day.

In hindsight this may have been a slightly over-reaching promise to make for a small, self-published, regional literature review which has thus far been comprised mainly of submissions from friends of the editor - and read mostly by the same.

  To be quite truthful, four issues in, I - Informem's aforementioned editor, publisher, art director,