Sunday, November 28, 2004
Wit
The second movie on my list of favorites in my Blogger profile is a small film done by HBO a few years ago called Wit. Emma Thompson stars as Vivian Bearing, who has just been diagnosed with stage four metastatic ovarian cancer--there is no stage five. She is known as the most reputable scholar of John Donne's Holy Sonnets in academia: a force to be reckoned with.
So, Donne wrote all of these complicated poems about the meaning of life and the mystery of salvation, trying to work out in his brilliant little head what can only be understood with the heart. Vivian found great purpose in dissecting these contemplations, in the abstract, but now that she's faced with her own literal death she's having a hard time coping with the pressure.
It's a beautiful movie.
I watched it tonight (besides the first two parts of The Lord of the Rings, it is the only dvd I own yet) because I needed to be reminded of how precious life is and all. Listening to the music over the final credits, I wanted to share a scene with y'all.
In the beginning of the movie, Vivian is remembering a conference she had as an undergraduate with her professor and mentor, Dr. EM Ashford:
Your essay on Holy Sonnet 6, Miss Bearing, is a melodrama with a veneer of scholarship unworthy of you, to say nothing of Donne. Do it again.
Begin with the text, Miss Bearing, not with a feeling.
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe"
You've entirely missed the point of the poem, because, I must say, you've used an edition of the text that is inauthentically punctuated....
Do you think that the punctuation of the last line of this sonnet is merely an insignificant detail? The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death, calling on all the forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life. In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation:
And Death--capital D--shall be no more--semicolon--Death--capital D, comma--thou shalt die--exclamation mark
Now if you go in for this sort of thing, I suggest you take up Shakespeare.
Gardner's edition of the text returns to the Westmueller Manuscript source of 1610, not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar. It reads:
And death shall be no more--comma--death thou shalt die
Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from life everlasting. Very simple, really. With the original punctuation restored, Death is no longer something to act out on a stage with exclamation marks. It is a comma, a pause.
This way--the uncompromising way--one learns something from the poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death, soul, God, past, present: not insuperable barriers. Not semicolons. Just a comma.
Vivian recites the complete sonnet in the final scene, just after she's died.
It goes like this:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more--comma--death thou shalt die.
So, Donne wrote all of these complicated poems about the meaning of life and the mystery of salvation, trying to work out in his brilliant little head what can only be understood with the heart. Vivian found great purpose in dissecting these contemplations, in the abstract, but now that she's faced with her own literal death she's having a hard time coping with the pressure.
It's a beautiful movie.
I watched it tonight (besides the first two parts of The Lord of the Rings, it is the only dvd I own yet) because I needed to be reminded of how precious life is and all. Listening to the music over the final credits, I wanted to share a scene with y'all.
In the beginning of the movie, Vivian is remembering a conference she had as an undergraduate with her professor and mentor, Dr. EM Ashford:
Your essay on Holy Sonnet 6, Miss Bearing, is a melodrama with a veneer of scholarship unworthy of you, to say nothing of Donne. Do it again.
Begin with the text, Miss Bearing, not with a feeling.
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe"
You've entirely missed the point of the poem, because, I must say, you've used an edition of the text that is inauthentically punctuated....
Do you think that the punctuation of the last line of this sonnet is merely an insignificant detail? The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death, calling on all the forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life. In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation:
And Death--capital D--shall be no more--semicolon--Death--capital D, comma--thou shalt die--exclamation mark
Now if you go in for this sort of thing, I suggest you take up Shakespeare.
Gardner's edition of the text returns to the Westmueller Manuscript source of 1610, not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar. It reads:
And death shall be no more--comma--death thou shalt die
Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from life everlasting. Very simple, really. With the original punctuation restored, Death is no longer something to act out on a stage with exclamation marks. It is a comma, a pause.
This way--the uncompromising way--one learns something from the poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death, soul, God, past, present: not insuperable barriers. Not semicolons. Just a comma.
Vivian recites the complete sonnet in the final scene, just after she's died.
It goes like this:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more--comma--death thou shalt die.
