WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:19.465 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:19.465 --> 00:00:20.840 align:middle line:84% I don't know how to say thank you 00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:23.430 align:middle line:84% for that introduction, which is-- 00:00:23.430 --> 00:00:28.090 align:middle line:84% it's just goes to the core of everything. 00:00:28.090 --> 00:00:30.980 align:middle line:84% Nor for those two poems beforehand. 00:00:30.980 --> 00:00:33.790 align:middle line:84% Thank you so much and the choices that was beautiful. 00:00:33.790 --> 00:00:39.950 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:39.950 --> 00:00:42.940 align:middle line:90% I love you choosing John Clare. 00:00:42.940 --> 00:00:44.590 align:middle line:84% That was an unexpected one, wasn't it? 00:00:44.590 --> 00:00:47.110 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.110 --> 00:00:49.810 align:middle line:90% Clare is a-- 00:00:49.810 --> 00:00:52.540 align:middle line:84% I think how much you've read about Clare and read Clare 00:00:52.540 --> 00:00:55.570 align:middle line:84% but I hope you stay with it because he's 00:00:55.570 --> 00:00:59.350 align:middle line:84% a strange exemplar of all the things we're talking 00:00:59.350 --> 00:01:02.560 align:middle line:90% about here this evening. 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:07.570 align:middle line:84% And a wonderful tragic figure and a much greater poet 00:01:07.570 --> 00:01:10.900 align:middle line:84% than is generally realized in English. 00:01:10.900 --> 00:01:13.750 align:middle line:84% And that's the very beautiful poem of his. 00:01:13.750 --> 00:01:18.570 align:middle line:84% Despairing though it almost is you know. 00:01:18.570 --> 00:01:21.730 align:middle line:84% And that introduction I hardly know how to-- 00:01:21.730 --> 00:01:26.770 align:middle line:84% you've sort of touched on so many things 00:01:26.770 --> 00:01:28.360 align:middle line:90% that I want to talk about. 00:01:28.360 --> 00:01:34.240 align:middle line:84% Of course you know Shelley said and Shelley 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:39.670 align:middle line:84% was one of my early heroes when I was 16. 00:01:39.670 --> 00:01:43.120 align:middle line:84% Shelley said poets are the unacknowledged legislators 00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:44.380 align:middle line:90% of the world. 00:01:44.380 --> 00:01:46.060 align:middle line:90% Unacknowledged is so important. 00:01:46.060 --> 00:01:48.393 align:middle line:84% It would be terrible if they were acknowledged you know. 00:01:48.393 --> 00:01:49.750 align:middle line:90% Just imagine what kind of-- 00:01:49.750 --> 00:01:50.677 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:50.677 --> 00:01:53.260 align:middle line:84% Of course it would be terrible in a different way, which would 00:01:53.260 --> 00:01:57.340 align:middle line:90% be more and more interesting. 00:01:57.340 --> 00:02:00.460 align:middle line:90% But you know when you start-- 00:02:00.460 --> 00:02:03.880 align:middle line:84% when you ever get a real subject in any writer in this room 00:02:03.880 --> 00:02:07.070 align:middle line:84% and I imagine the room is littered with writers. 00:02:07.070 --> 00:02:08.770 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:08.770 --> 00:02:16.220 align:middle line:90% It seems to be a small thing. 00:02:16.220 --> 00:02:18.840 align:middle line:84% And then the more you deal with it, 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:22.100 align:middle line:84% the more you realize that it's everything. 00:02:22.100 --> 00:02:26.390 align:middle line:90% Any subject can do that. 00:02:26.390 --> 00:02:32.600 align:middle line:84% A friend of mine who's a writer and a Dante scholar at Stanford 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:38.090 align:middle line:84% Robert Horg Harrison his first book is 00:02:38.090 --> 00:02:40.280 align:middle line:90% called Forests you think-- 00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:41.912 align:middle line:84% I thought when I heard about it well, 00:02:41.912 --> 00:02:43.370 align:middle line:84% that'd be interesting it's probably 00:02:43.370 --> 00:02:46.400 align:middle line:90% about cutting down trees. 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.340 align:middle line:90% Not about trees. 00:02:49.340 --> 00:02:53.100 align:middle line:84% The subtitle then I looked at was the Shadow of Civilization 00:02:53.100 --> 00:02:56.360 align:middle line:84% and I thought oh boy this is getting much more interesting. 00:02:56.360 --> 00:03:00.980 align:middle line:84% And then it becomes an image of the whole attitude 00:03:00.980 --> 00:03:08.120 align:middle line:84% of Western culture toward the forest 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:13.400 align:middle line:84% as the image of the unknown, the dark, the dangerous, 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:19.610 align:middle line:84% the endless, the overpowering, in the whole 00:03:19.610 --> 00:03:24.050 align:middle line:84% of our civilization and he traces it from Gilgamesh 00:03:24.050 --> 00:03:28.940 align:middle line:84% to Beckett and with of course Conrad's Heart 00:03:28.940 --> 00:03:32.570 align:middle line:84% of Darkness thrown in and some great passages of poetry. 00:03:32.570 --> 00:03:37.960 align:middle line:84% And then the second book is the Dominion of The Dead. 00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:43.430 align:middle line:84% And you think well the dead, we think of our people we've lost. 00:03:43.430 --> 00:03:45.570 align:middle line:84% He realized that the more he talks, 00:03:45.570 --> 00:03:47.150 align:middle line:84% the more he writes about the subject 00:03:47.150 --> 00:03:50.840 align:middle line:84% and the more he brings up the writings on the subject. 00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:54.450 align:middle line:84% He realized that this is maybe the central subject 00:03:54.450 --> 00:03:59.660 align:middle line:84% I mean that we are constantly being guided and trying 00:03:59.660 --> 00:04:04.183 align:middle line:84% to measure ourselves up against and learning from the dead. 00:04:04.183 --> 00:04:05.600 align:middle line:84% What would our world be like if it 00:04:05.600 --> 00:04:10.640 align:middle line:84% were involved only those who are alive among us including 00:04:10.640 --> 00:04:14.660 align:middle line:90% the endangered polar bears. 00:04:14.660 --> 00:04:16.105 align:middle line:90% we would have no Shakespeare. 00:04:16.105 --> 00:04:17.355 align:middle line:90% Just think what we would have. 00:04:17.355 --> 00:04:19.813 align:middle line:84% We would have no literature, we would have none of the arts 00:04:19.813 --> 00:04:23.060 align:middle line:84% and we'd have nothing but a few days ago. 00:04:23.060 --> 00:04:26.790 align:middle line:90% Pretty impoverished world. 00:04:26.790 --> 00:04:29.600 align:middle line:84% And when you get a subject like-- 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:30.950 align:middle line:90% I avoid these words the West. 00:04:30.950 --> 00:04:31.540 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:04:31.540 --> 00:04:36.140 align:middle line:84% I've been asked why I called this the green world because I 00:04:36.140 --> 00:04:41.240 align:middle line:84% distrust all of the language that we use for this subject. 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:46.310 align:middle line:84% I don't like talking about nature. 00:04:46.310 --> 00:04:48.500 align:middle line:84% It's as good a word as we've got I suppose. 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:51.650 align:middle line:84% But the assumption has come to be that nature is something 00:04:51.650 --> 00:04:55.490 align:middle line:84% separate from us as though we were not nature, 00:04:55.490 --> 00:04:59.210 align:middle line:84% as though the traffic problems were not a part of nature. 00:04:59.210 --> 00:05:04.640 align:middle line:84% As though everything that happens as though the Iraq 00:05:04.640 --> 00:05:06.860 align:middle line:90% debacle were not nature. 00:05:06.860 --> 00:05:09.170 align:middle line:84% As though our bad behavior were not nature. 00:05:09.170 --> 00:05:10.730 align:middle line:90% Everything is nature. 00:05:10.730 --> 00:05:11.780 align:middle line:90% We're not separate. 00:05:11.780 --> 00:05:13.310 align:middle line:90% We are not separate. 00:05:13.310 --> 00:05:15.380 align:middle line:90% And this is the-- 00:05:15.380 --> 00:05:17.630 align:middle line:84% I suppose the assumption from which 00:05:17.630 --> 00:05:22.610 align:middle line:90% I began the assumption itself. 00:05:22.610 --> 00:05:28.010 align:middle line:84% As a child I didn't understand this idea of the separation. 00:05:28.010 --> 00:05:32.210 align:middle line:84% And I remember walking along the street in the city 00:05:32.210 --> 00:05:37.820 align:middle line:84% across from New York City, North of Jersey City with my mother. 00:05:37.820 --> 00:05:41.700 align:middle line:84% In those days there were flagstones on the sidewalks. 00:05:41.700 --> 00:05:43.730 align:middle line:84% I think flagstones have not been seen 00:05:43.730 --> 00:05:46.040 align:middle line:84% in most places for a long time but they 00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:48.440 align:middle line:84% were much more beautiful than what we've had since. 00:05:48.440 --> 00:05:55.040 align:middle line:84% But between the flagstones blades of grass were coming up. 00:05:55.040 --> 00:05:58.080 align:middle line:84% And I asked my mother where they came from. 00:05:58.080 --> 00:06:00.890 align:middle line:84% And she said well, the Earth is under there. 00:06:00.890 --> 00:06:04.550 align:middle line:84% And I remember the strange feeling of elation 00:06:04.550 --> 00:06:07.490 align:middle line:84% that the Earth was really under there. 00:06:07.490 --> 00:06:10.730 align:middle line:84% That this was so reassuring to me. 00:06:10.730 --> 00:06:13.610 align:middle line:84% And I was probably three years old, somewhere 00:06:13.610 --> 00:06:15.170 align:middle line:90% between three and four. 00:06:15.170 --> 00:06:20.390 align:middle line:84% But the idea that the Earth was right there. 00:06:20.390 --> 00:06:22.280 align:middle line:90% It was waiting. 00:06:22.280 --> 00:06:24.200 align:middle line:90% It knew what to do. 00:06:24.200 --> 00:06:28.460 align:middle line:84% The grass knew how to grow and do-- 00:06:28.460 --> 00:06:30.470 align:middle line:90% the grass knew how to grow. 00:06:30.470 --> 00:06:35.990 align:middle line:84% And in spite of, maybe there was nothing wrong 00:06:35.990 --> 00:06:38.810 align:middle line:84% with the buildings but I mean they weren't the whole world 00:06:38.810 --> 00:06:43.760 align:middle line:84% and the Earth was there and the Earth 00:06:43.760 --> 00:06:46.190 align:middle line:84% knew what it was doing all the time. 00:06:46.190 --> 00:06:50.390 align:middle line:84% And this is still a matter of great reassurance to me. 00:06:50.390 --> 00:06:56.600 align:middle line:84% And I felt then and I've always believed 00:06:56.600 --> 00:07:02.840 align:middle line:84% that this idea about being concerned with the environment 00:07:02.840 --> 00:07:04.920 align:middle line:90% is ridiculous. 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:08.390 align:middle line:84% I mean why are you not concerned with the environment, 00:07:08.390 --> 00:07:10.406 align:middle line:90% the environment is you. 00:07:10.406 --> 00:07:12.810 align:middle line:84% You don't exist without an environment, 00:07:12.810 --> 00:07:14.940 align:middle line:84% you don't exist without the environment. 00:07:14.940 --> 00:07:18.150 align:middle line:90% We don't exist without it. 00:07:18.150 --> 00:07:23.370 align:middle line:84% We are not a unique species that can exist entirely 00:07:23.370 --> 00:07:27.450 align:middle line:84% by itself in the whole of the unknown universe. 00:07:27.450 --> 00:07:31.140 align:middle line:84% I mean, what an incredible-- what an incredible arrogance 00:07:31.140 --> 00:07:32.760 align:middle line:90% we've arrived at. 00:07:32.760 --> 00:07:37.500 align:middle line:84% Every so-called pre-literate culture knew this 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:39.630 align:middle line:84% and they were perfectly sure about it. 00:07:39.630 --> 00:07:43.090 align:middle line:84% Somewhere along the line we developed a doubt about it. 00:07:43.090 --> 00:07:46.050 align:middle line:84% We have it-- we have it in the Western world 00:07:46.050 --> 00:07:49.080 align:middle line:84% and the whole succession to the Abrahamic covenant 00:07:49.080 --> 00:07:51.390 align:middle line:84% one of the problems about having a special relation 00:07:51.390 --> 00:07:57.360 align:middle line:84% with a single God is that you're right. 00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.160 align:middle line:90% Imagine what that means. 00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:00.593 align:middle line:90% I mean God is on your side. 00:08:00.593 --> 00:08:02.010 align:middle line:84% Look at what's in the White House. 00:08:02.010 --> 00:08:04.340 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:04.340 --> 00:08:08.040 align:middle line:84% God is on your side and whether God knows that or not. 00:08:08.040 --> 00:08:12.960 align:middle line:84% And that means anything goes you know 00:08:12.960 --> 00:08:14.820 align:middle line:84% because you know you're right, which 00:08:14.820 --> 00:08:16.290 align:middle line:84% means that everybody else is wrong 00:08:16.290 --> 00:08:17.910 align:middle line:90% if they don't agree with you. 00:08:17.910 --> 00:08:20.670 align:middle line:84% And we certainly are seeing how that works itself out 00:08:20.670 --> 00:08:21.270 align:middle line:90% at the moment. 00:08:21.270 --> 00:08:23.850 align:middle line:90% 00:08:23.850 --> 00:08:31.200 align:middle line:84% But the cultures, the great cultures before us 00:08:31.200 --> 00:08:36.480 align:middle line:84% from which we've come which are ourselves all 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:37.620 align:middle line:90% knew better than that. 00:08:37.620 --> 00:08:41.760 align:middle line:84% And mythology language itself knows better than that. 00:08:41.760 --> 00:08:42.900 align:middle line:90% It's embedded. 00:08:42.900 --> 00:08:44.880 align:middle line:84% You take etymology of almost anything 00:08:44.880 --> 00:08:48.180 align:middle line:84% and you'll come back into knowledge about these things 00:08:48.180 --> 00:08:52.740 align:middle line:84% which we're sort of pushing aside at the moment. 00:08:52.740 --> 00:08:57.930 align:middle line:84% One of the troubles about having a firm conviction 00:08:57.930 --> 00:09:04.100 align:middle line:84% about these things if you're a writer 00:09:04.100 --> 00:09:08.180 align:middle line:84% is the danger of preaching, starting to become-- 00:09:08.180 --> 00:09:09.680 align:middle line:90% it becomes two dimensional. 00:09:09.680 --> 00:09:12.416 align:middle line:90% Because alas, you're right. 00:09:12.416 --> 00:09:13.910 align:middle line:90% [laughter] 00:09:13.910 --> 00:09:16.190 align:middle line:90% This is true. 00:09:16.190 --> 00:09:19.700 align:middle line:84% You can get to be fundamentalist just about anything 00:09:19.700 --> 00:09:22.700 align:middle line:84% the moment the moment you're right. 00:09:22.700 --> 00:09:24.650 align:middle line:84% Nietzsche said a wonderful thing. 00:09:24.650 --> 00:09:27.350 align:middle line:84% He said one of the only things really 00:09:27.350 --> 00:09:31.350 align:middle line:84% to be said for winning is that you can say, well, 00:09:31.350 --> 00:09:34.640 align:middle line:84% now I've done that and I know what that amounts 00:09:34.640 --> 00:09:36.980 align:middle line:90% to let's try something else. 00:09:36.980 --> 00:09:39.320 align:middle line:84% Which means let's try losing for a change. 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:50.810 align:middle line:84% And there are a whole extremely profound and unlimited 00:09:50.810 --> 00:09:58.820 align:middle line:84% philosophies and ways of looking at reality which 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:02.240 align:middle line:90% are not limited in that way. 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:07.730 align:middle line:84% Which say you know let's start with loss and let's follow loss 00:10:07.730 --> 00:10:10.790 align:middle line:84% and see what that-- and I think this is-- 00:10:10.790 --> 00:10:12.770 align:middle line:84% I think this is where language begins. 00:10:12.770 --> 00:10:15.325 align:middle line:84% I think this is where poetry begins. 00:10:15.325 --> 00:10:16.200 align:middle line:90% And I don't mean to-- 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:17.783 align:middle line:84% I don't mean to sound gloomy about it. 00:10:17.783 --> 00:10:19.220 align:middle line:84% I don't think it's gloomy at all. 00:10:19.220 --> 00:10:23.390 align:middle line:84% I think that I believed that for example language and poetry, 00:10:23.390 --> 00:10:26.510 align:middle line:84% I said this earlier today so I apologize for those 00:10:26.510 --> 00:10:28.100 align:middle line:90% who are hearing it twice. 00:10:28.100 --> 00:10:30.410 align:middle line:84% I believe that the origin of these two things 00:10:30.410 --> 00:10:33.020 align:middle line:90% is pretty much the same. 00:10:33.020 --> 00:10:38.720 align:middle line:84% They probably started at the same place, maybe many times 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:39.500 align:middle line:90% at the same place. 00:10:39.500 --> 00:10:42.570 align:middle line:90% 00:10:42.570 --> 00:10:46.310 align:middle line:84% It's not many days since you saw a picture of an Iraqi woman 00:10:46.310 --> 00:10:48.820 align:middle line:90% who's just lost a son.