WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.890 --> 00:00:06.330 align:middle line:90% No copying either over there. 00:00:06.330 --> 00:00:06.990 align:middle line:90% I saw you. 00:00:06.990 --> 00:00:10.448 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:10.448 --> 00:00:19.135 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.135 --> 00:00:19.635 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:19.635 --> 00:00:22.430 align:middle line:90% 00:00:22.430 --> 00:00:27.710 align:middle line:84% So what's like a panther in the glove? 00:00:27.710 --> 00:00:30.101 align:middle line:90% Any guesses? 00:00:30.101 --> 00:00:34.080 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:00:34.080 --> 00:00:35.175 align:middle line:90% That's good, actually. 00:00:35.175 --> 00:00:36.390 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:36.390 --> 00:00:37.560 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:37.560 --> 00:00:40.470 align:middle line:84% We'll see if you're better than Dickinson in a minute. 00:00:40.470 --> 00:00:41.610 align:middle line:90% But yeah, that's good. 00:00:41.610 --> 00:00:42.600 align:middle line:90% When I was in-- 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:45.190 align:middle line:84% I just gave this talk in Austin about a week ago 00:00:45.190 --> 00:00:49.965 align:middle line:84% and the poet Dean Young had, "a urinary tract infection." 00:00:49.965 --> 00:00:56.820 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:56.820 --> 00:00:58.470 align:middle line:90% How about a let of snow? 00:00:58.470 --> 00:01:01.810 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.810 --> 00:01:03.420 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:06.100 align:middle line:90% Wash of dark? 00:01:06.100 --> 00:01:07.360 align:middle line:90% That's good too. 00:01:07.360 --> 00:01:09.940 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:09.940 --> 00:01:14.380 align:middle line:84% Wash of dark, like a light of snow. 00:01:14.380 --> 00:01:17.040 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:19.600 align:middle line:84% That's not what Dickinson thought, but yeah. 00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:20.100 align:middle line:90% Hanna. 00:01:20.100 --> 00:01:21.150 align:middle line:90% Is it the soul? 00:01:21.150 --> 00:01:25.180 align:middle line:90% 00:01:25.180 --> 00:01:26.320 align:middle line:90% Kind of. 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:28.390 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:28.390 --> 00:01:29.785 align:middle line:90% How about intermittent plush? 00:01:29.785 --> 00:01:32.272 align:middle line:90% 00:01:32.272 --> 00:01:33.730 align:middle line:84% Chariots in the vest, you might not 00:01:33.730 --> 00:01:36.040 align:middle line:84% have had time to get to these so kind of rushing you 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:38.650 align:middle line:90% through the exam, right? 00:01:38.650 --> 00:01:43.120 align:middle line:84% Well, here are Dickinson's original similes 00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:44.515 align:middle line:84% with the missing tenors supplied. 00:01:44.515 --> 00:01:49.710 align:middle line:90% 00:01:49.710 --> 00:01:52.650 align:middle line:84% It is simple to ache in the bone or the rind, 00:01:52.650 --> 00:01:57.540 align:middle line:84% but gimlets are among the nerve mangled daintier, terribler, 00:01:57.540 --> 00:01:59.055 align:middle line:90% like a panther in the glove. 00:01:59.055 --> 00:02:02.220 align:middle line:90% 00:02:02.220 --> 00:02:04.830 align:middle line:84% A voice that alters low and on the ear 00:02:04.830 --> 00:02:07.320 align:middle line:90% can go like let of snow. 00:02:07.320 --> 00:02:10.440 align:middle line:90% 00:02:10.440 --> 00:02:13.920 align:middle line:84% A dog's belated feet like intermittent plush be 00:02:13.920 --> 00:02:18.240 align:middle line:90% heard adown the empty street. 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:21.150 align:middle line:84% The eager look on landscapes as if they just 00:02:21.150 --> 00:02:24.000 align:middle line:84% repressed some secret that was pushing 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:25.470 align:middle line:90% like chariots in the vest. 00:02:25.470 --> 00:02:28.520 align:middle line:90% 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:31.730 align:middle line:84% This is a totally unfair learning assessment. 00:02:31.730 --> 00:02:34.010 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:02:34.010 --> 00:02:37.580 align:middle line:84% My dictionary tells me that gimlet isn't even a word 00:02:37.580 --> 00:02:39.560 align:middle line:90% anymore. 00:02:39.560 --> 00:02:42.980 align:middle line:84% Dickinson's talking about gimlets, the carpenter's tool 00:02:42.980 --> 00:02:49.920 align:middle line:84% for boring holes in wood and not a gin cocktail, FYI. 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:52.970 align:middle line:84% But once you see how nerve pain feels 00:02:52.970 --> 00:02:58.010 align:middle line:84% like a panther in the glove, or how a low voice 00:02:58.010 --> 00:03:01.460 align:middle line:90% sounds like a light of snow-- 00:03:01.460 --> 00:03:06.800 align:middle line:84% or the soul-- or how a dog's paws pad down 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:10.370 align:middle line:84% the street like intermittent plush, 00:03:10.370 --> 00:03:13.730 align:middle line:84% or how landscapes seem to hold secrets 00:03:13.730 --> 00:03:19.010 align:middle line:84% that surge like chariots thundering in your vest, 00:03:19.010 --> 00:03:22.700 align:middle line:84% you see things a little differently. 00:03:22.700 --> 00:03:25.400 align:middle line:84% Dickinson's literary comparisons make 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:31.760 align:middle line:84% us perceive likenesses like someone unlike us. 00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:37.580 align:middle line:84% For a spell, we behold the world like kangaroos amid the beauty. 00:03:37.580 --> 00:03:41.870 align:middle line:84% That's the unsung work of this venerable trope. 00:03:41.870 --> 00:03:46.550 align:middle line:84% Every memorable simile increases the communal fund of likeness 00:03:46.550 --> 00:03:48.290 align:middle line:90% available within a society. 00:03:48.290 --> 00:03:56.790 align:middle line:90% 00:03:56.790 --> 00:04:03.390 align:middle line:84% Occasionally, a poetic vehicle achieves escape velocity, 00:04:03.390 --> 00:04:07.470 align:middle line:84% leaving its tenure behind entirely. 00:04:07.470 --> 00:04:11.850 align:middle line:84% It scatters like the birds, condenses like a flock, 00:04:11.850 --> 00:04:17.579 align:middle line:84% like jugglers' figures situates upon a baseless arc. 00:04:17.579 --> 00:04:22.740 align:middle line:84% Like the birds, like a flock, like jugglers' figures, 00:04:22.740 --> 00:04:25.260 align:middle line:90% we find plenty of vehicles here. 00:04:25.260 --> 00:04:29.220 align:middle line:90% But where on Earth is the tenor? 00:04:29.220 --> 00:04:34.140 align:middle line:84% When Dickinson sent these cryptic verses to an editor 00:04:34.140 --> 00:04:37.110 align:middle line:84% at the publishing house Roberts Brothers, 00:04:37.110 --> 00:04:43.430 align:middle line:84% she supplied the answer in the poem's title, snow. 00:04:43.430 --> 00:04:48.440 align:middle line:84% A vehicle without a tenor is a kind of riddle. 00:04:48.440 --> 00:04:51.710 align:middle line:84% And almost philosophical, Dickinson never 00:04:51.710 --> 00:04:54.770 align:middle line:84% reveals the answers to her riddles. 00:04:54.770 --> 00:04:57.860 align:middle line:84% The riddle we can guess we speedily despise, 00:04:57.860 --> 00:05:01.070 align:middle line:84% writes this literary sphinx, in order 00:05:01.070 --> 00:05:06.010 align:middle line:84% to foreground the mystery of likeness itself. 00:05:06.010 --> 00:05:08.800 align:middle line:84% In one of Dickinson's most famous poems, 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:11.320 align:middle line:84% the riddle remains unsolved to the end. 00:05:11.320 --> 00:05:16.040 align:middle line:90% 00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:18.140 align:middle line:90% And you have this up as well. 00:05:18.140 --> 00:05:23.600 align:middle line:84% It was not Death, for I stood up and all the Dead lie down. 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.210 align:middle line:84% It was not Night, for all the bells put out 00:05:26.210 --> 00:05:28.670 align:middle line:90% their tongues for Noon. 00:05:28.670 --> 00:05:34.610 align:middle line:84% It was not Frost, for on my flesh I felt siroccos crawl. 00:05:34.610 --> 00:05:40.790 align:middle line:84% Nor Fire, for just my marble feet could keep a Chancel cool. 00:05:40.790 --> 00:05:44.270 align:middle line:84% And yet it tasted, like them all. 00:05:44.270 --> 00:05:48.080 align:middle line:84% The figures I have seen set orderly for burial 00:05:48.080 --> 00:05:50.510 align:middle line:90% reminded me, of mine. 00:05:50.510 --> 00:05:54.920 align:middle line:84% As if my life were shaven and fitted to a frame, 00:05:54.920 --> 00:05:58.130 align:middle line:84% and could not breathe without a key. 00:05:58.130 --> 00:06:01.640 align:middle line:90% And twas like midnight some. 00:06:01.640 --> 00:06:05.660 align:middle line:84% When everything that ticked has stopped and space stares 00:06:05.660 --> 00:06:11.240 align:middle line:84% all around, or grizzly frosts, first Autumn morns 00:06:11.240 --> 00:06:14.750 align:middle line:90% repeal the beating ground. 00:06:14.750 --> 00:06:20.000 align:middle line:84% But most, like chaos, stopless, cool. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:25.430 align:middle line:84% Without a chance, or a spar, or even a report of land 00:06:25.430 --> 00:06:26.675 align:middle line:90% to justify despair. 00:06:26.675 --> 00:06:31.220 align:middle line:90% 00:06:31.220 --> 00:06:34.625 align:middle line:84% This "it" is the ultimate inkblot. 00:06:34.625 --> 00:06:37.250 align:middle line:90% 00:06:37.250 --> 00:06:40.040 align:middle line:84% Dickinson might be hinting at her theological sense 00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:44.150 align:middle line:84% of perdition, or the historical trauma of Civil War, 00:06:44.150 --> 00:06:50.150 align:middle line:84% or some domestic contretemps, or internal difference itself. 00:06:50.150 --> 00:06:53.270 align:middle line:90% Maybe it's all of the above. 00:06:53.270 --> 00:06:58.970 align:middle line:84% The poet won't say what it is, but she tells us what it isn't. 00:06:58.970 --> 00:07:02.450 align:middle line:90% 00:07:02.450 --> 00:07:04.520 align:middle line:84% The parade of negative definitions 00:07:04.520 --> 00:07:06.380 align:middle line:90% that opens the poem-- 00:07:06.380 --> 00:07:12.920 align:middle line:84% it's not death, not night, not frost, nor fire-- 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:19.010 align:middle line:84% dramatizes metaphor's failure to solve the riddle of feeling. 00:07:19.010 --> 00:07:27.410 align:middle line:84% And yet, Dickinson writes, it tasted like them all. 00:07:27.410 --> 00:07:31.220 align:middle line:84% Her poem works like a rudimentary algorithm, 00:07:31.220 --> 00:07:34.460 align:middle line:84% trying out various metaphors for it. 00:07:34.460 --> 00:07:38.420 align:middle line:84% Then, feeding the recycled vehicles into similes's 00:07:38.420 --> 00:07:41.420 align:middle line:90% wavy equation. 00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:43.910 align:middle line:84% With each iteration, we come closer 00:07:43.910 --> 00:07:47.390 align:middle line:84% to finding an apt likeness for it, 00:07:47.390 --> 00:07:55.070 align:middle line:84% progressing from some like in the fourth stanza to most 00:07:55.070 --> 00:08:01.400 align:middle line:84% like in the sixth in this poem of sequential approximations. 00:08:01.400 --> 00:08:04.110 align:middle line:90% 00:08:04.110 --> 00:08:09.480 align:middle line:84% But just when we expect to learn what it is most like, 00:08:09.480 --> 00:08:13.020 align:middle line:84% Dickinson's riddle jumps the track. 00:08:13.020 --> 00:08:16.860 align:middle line:84% We began with failed metaphors of death, night, frost, 00:08:16.860 --> 00:08:18.960 align:middle line:90% and fire. 00:08:18.960 --> 00:08:24.900 align:middle line:84% Then, death, night, and frost return as similes. 00:08:24.900 --> 00:08:27.690 align:middle line:84% The figures I've seen set orderly for burial 00:08:27.690 --> 00:08:29.820 align:middle line:90% reminded me of mine. 00:08:29.820 --> 00:08:36.990 align:middle line:84% Twas like midnight sun, or grizzly frosts. 00:08:36.990 --> 00:08:40.590 align:middle line:84% But a new vehicle usurps fire's position 00:08:40.590 --> 00:08:43.260 align:middle line:90% in the poem's final stanza. 00:08:43.260 --> 00:08:46.900 align:middle line:84% They were expecting fire to show up. 00:08:46.900 --> 00:08:52.770 align:middle line:84% Oddly, we learn that it is most like chaos. 00:08:52.770 --> 00:08:53.910 align:middle line:90% Stopless. 00:08:53.910 --> 00:08:56.580 align:middle line:90% Cool. 00:08:56.580 --> 00:08:59.010 align:middle line:90% What happened to fire? 00:08:59.010 --> 00:09:03.030 align:middle line:84% Fire isn't cool and it isn't stopless either. 00:09:03.030 --> 00:09:08.400 align:middle line:84% It's hot and it burns out by its very nature. 00:09:08.400 --> 00:09:13.320 align:middle line:84% Entering a new kind of variable into a figurative algorithm, 00:09:13.320 --> 00:09:18.300 align:middle line:84% Dickinson herself enters a lineage of poets from Hesiod 00:09:18.300 --> 00:09:22.200 align:middle line:84% to John Cage who've tried to introduce chaos 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:26.880 align:middle line:84% into literary form since time immemorial. 00:09:26.880 --> 00:09:32.250 align:middle line:84% Ovid even places it at the outset of his epic cosmology. 00:09:32.250 --> 00:09:36.570 align:middle line:90% 00:09:36.570 --> 00:09:40.140 align:middle line:84% Before the sea and the Earth and the all covering sky, 00:09:40.140 --> 00:09:44.250 align:middle line:84% nature appeared the same throughout all the world, 00:09:44.250 --> 00:09:46.065 align:middle line:90% which men called chaos. 00:09:46.065 --> 00:09:49.370 align:middle line:90% 00:09:49.370 --> 00:09:54.603 align:middle line:84% Once upon a time, everything was one thing. 00:09:54.603 --> 00:09:56.270 align:middle line:84% "Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe." 00:09:56.270 --> 00:10:00.080 align:middle line:90% 00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:05.980 align:middle line:84% Chaos reigns in a world before differences, 00:10:05.980 --> 00:10:08.530 align:middle line:84% but we've seen how any likeness depends 00:10:08.530 --> 00:10:14.350 align:middle line:84% on the internal difference between vehicle and tenor. 00:10:14.350 --> 00:10:20.140 align:middle line:84% Dickinson's it, then, is most like something-- 00:10:20.140 --> 00:10:25.900 align:middle line:84% chaos-- that's literally beyond comparison. 00:10:25.900 --> 00:10:30.310 align:middle line:84% Chaos is absolutely self identical, utterly 00:10:30.310 --> 00:10:34.150 align:middle line:90% unlike anything else. 00:10:34.150 --> 00:10:37.150 align:middle line:84% To shore up this metaphysical contradiction, 00:10:37.150 --> 00:10:40.390 align:middle line:84% Dickinson immediately slips a hidden comparison 00:10:40.390 --> 00:10:42.280 align:middle line:90% into her lines. 00:10:42.280 --> 00:10:46.150 align:middle line:84% At bottom, Dickinson's version of chaos 00:10:46.150 --> 00:10:48.790 align:middle line:90% looks a lot like the sea. 00:10:48.790 --> 00:10:52.810 align:middle line:84% Without a chance, or spar, or even a report of land 00:10:52.810 --> 00:10:53.980 align:middle line:90% to justify despair. 00:10:53.980 --> 00:10:56.590 align:middle line:90% 00:10:56.590 --> 00:11:01.330 align:middle line:84% Maybe despair is the answer to Dickinson's riddle. 00:11:01.330 --> 00:11:06.280 align:middle line:84% It's not death, night, frost, or fire, 00:11:06.280 --> 00:11:10.390 align:middle line:90% but it tastes like them all. 00:11:10.390 --> 00:11:13.180 align:middle line:90% Two: The Unlike. 00:11:13.180 --> 00:11:20.120 align:middle line:90% 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:24.525 align:middle line:84% Historically speaking, efforts to give form to chaos end 00:11:24.525 --> 00:11:25.025 align:middle line:90% badly. 00:11:25.025 --> 00:11:27.680 align:middle line:90% 00:11:27.680 --> 00:11:32.480 align:middle line:84% The largely forgotten Maestro Bartolome's early modern venn 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:36.752 align:middle line:84% diagram of chaos seems orderly to a fault 00:11:36.752 --> 00:11:37.835 align:middle line:90% when you look at it today. 00:11:37.835 --> 00:11:41.560 align:middle line:90% 00:11:41.560 --> 00:11:43.030 align:middle line:90% You might recognize this image. 00:11:43.030 --> 00:11:45.850 align:middle line:84% It's in the art museum here in Tucson. 00:11:45.850 --> 00:11:48.850 align:middle line:84% I tried to see it with John Melillo, 00:11:48.850 --> 00:11:51.265 align:middle line:90% but the gallery was closed. 00:11:51.265 --> 00:11:55.080 align:middle line:90% 00:11:55.080 --> 00:11:58.620 align:middle line:84% That's probably why it's largely forgotten, its orderliness. 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:01.260 align:middle line:90% 00:12:01.260 --> 00:12:05.250 align:middle line:84% Half a millennium later, the Japanese artist Takashi 00:12:05.250 --> 00:12:10.680 align:middle line:84% Murakami's super flat chaos looks 00:12:10.680 --> 00:12:13.950 align:middle line:84% like a kindergarten cupcake party gone horribly awry. 00:12:13.950 --> 00:12:16.560 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:16.560 --> 00:12:20.520 align:middle line:84% You could title this picture childhood, or Hiroshima, 00:12:20.520 --> 00:12:23.400 align:middle line:84% or internal difference, for that matter, 00:12:23.400 --> 00:12:26.400 align:middle line:90% and I'd buy the resemblance. 00:12:26.400 --> 00:12:30.150 align:middle line:84% Leafing through art archives for chaos' true likeness 00:12:30.150 --> 00:12:33.390 align:middle line:90% is enough to justify despair. 00:12:33.390 --> 00:12:34.170 align:middle line:90% Believe me. 00:12:34.170 --> 00:12:36.270 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:36.270 --> 00:12:39.240 align:middle line:84% But sometimes, I think modernism came pretty close. 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:44.020 align:middle line:90% 00:12:44.020 --> 00:12:46.660 align:middle line:84% Like Dickinson's version of chaos, 00:12:46.660 --> 00:12:50.650 align:middle line:84% Pablo Picasso's painting is stopless. 00:12:50.650 --> 00:12:52.870 align:middle line:84% Try tracing the snarled labyrinth 00:12:52.870 --> 00:12:57.610 align:middle line:84% of lines in the picture's lower left quadrant. 00:12:57.610 --> 00:13:03.130 align:middle line:84% And cool, with its mellow palette of Earth pigments. 00:13:03.130 --> 00:13:08.920 align:middle line:84% Beige, ecru, khaki, olive, tobacco. 00:13:08.920 --> 00:13:11.460 align:middle line:84% I just Wikipediaed a lot of brown colors. 00:13:11.460 --> 00:13:14.770 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:13:14.770 --> 00:13:17.890 align:middle line:84% Unlike the Murakami or the Bartolome, 00:13:17.890 --> 00:13:20.470 align:middle line:84% this image doesn't look like anything 00:13:20.470 --> 00:13:23.290 align:middle line:90% in particular at first. 00:13:23.290 --> 00:13:25.300 align:middle line:84% Picasso once described a painting 00:13:25.300 --> 00:13:28.840 align:middle line:90% as a sum of destructions. 00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:31.540 align:middle line:84% Forget what you learned in cubism 101 00:13:31.540 --> 00:13:35.350 align:middle line:84% and this canvas resembles nothing so 00:13:35.350 --> 00:13:38.020 align:middle line:84% much as a crumpled sheet of old parchment 00:13:38.020 --> 00:13:41.290 align:middle line:84% retrieved from the dustbin of art history smoothed 00:13:41.290 --> 00:13:42.955 align:middle line:90% out and put on display. 00:13:42.955 --> 00:13:46.820 align:middle line:90% 00:13:46.820 --> 00:13:51.890 align:middle line:84% Does Picasso's cubist inkblot look like anything to you? 00:13:51.890 --> 00:13:56.660 align:middle line:84% Have any bold audience members who want to guess what this is, 00:13:56.660 --> 00:14:00.210 align:middle line:84% or say what this looks like to them? 00:14:00.210 --> 00:14:01.020 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:14:01.020 --> 00:14:02.700 align:middle line:90% It's like a mountain scene. 00:14:02.700 --> 00:14:04.440 align:middle line:90% Great. 00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:05.940 align:middle line:90% I was hoping you would say that. 00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:07.365 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:07.365 --> 00:14:08.788 align:middle line:90% What did she say? 00:14:08.788 --> 00:14:10.080 align:middle line:90% It looks like a mountain scene. 00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:14.800 align:middle line:90% 00:14:14.800 --> 00:14:18.850 align:middle line:84% Well, in an essay with the memorable title, 00:14:18.850 --> 00:14:21.760 align:middle line:84% The Art Of The Day After Tomorrow 00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:25.720 align:middle line:84% from a collection with the even more memorable title I Know 00:14:25.720 --> 00:14:30.670 align:middle line:84% Everything, the French journalist Jacques de Garcon 00:14:30.670 --> 00:14:32.830 align:middle line:84% describes his first encounter with this image. 00:14:32.830 --> 00:14:37.690 align:middle line:90% 00:14:37.690 --> 00:14:41.350 align:middle line:84% The well-intentioned layman is a bit like a turkey, 00:14:41.350 --> 00:14:43.660 align:middle line:90% like the turkey in the fable. 00:14:43.660 --> 00:14:49.810 align:middle line:84% He definitely sees something, but he's not sure what it is. 00:14:49.810 --> 00:14:53.350 align:middle line:84% The young and sympathetic dealer comes to my aid. 00:14:53.350 --> 00:14:56.980 align:middle line:84% Oh, I know that the reading of Picasso's and Brock's most 00:14:56.980 --> 00:14:59.950 align:middle line:90% recent works is quite difficult. 00:14:59.950 --> 00:15:01.780 align:middle line:90% Of course, it's easier for me. 00:15:01.780 --> 00:15:04.700 align:middle line:84% I was there when the paintings were done. 00:15:04.700 --> 00:15:07.810 align:middle line:84% I know all about what the artist wanted to put in them. 00:15:07.810 --> 00:15:12.220 align:middle line:84% For instance, Monsieur, this one represents the poet. 00:15:12.220 --> 00:15:15.080 align:middle line:90% 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:15.580 align:middle line:90% Ah! 00:15:15.580 --> 00:15:17.770 align:middle line:84% Good manners demand that I limit the expression 00:15:17.770 --> 00:15:22.210 align:middle line:84% of my total astonishment to this exclamation. 00:15:22.210 --> 00:15:25.493 align:middle line:84% I thought I was looking at a landscape 00:15:25.493 --> 00:15:26.785 align:middle line:90% and it turned out to be a poet. 00:15:26.785 --> 00:15:31.100 align:middle line:90% 00:15:31.100 --> 00:15:36.590 align:middle line:84% The know it all de Garcon can be forgiven 00:15:36.590 --> 00:15:40.760 align:middle line:84% for mistaking this puzzling portrait for a landscape, 00:15:40.760 --> 00:15:43.130 align:middle line:90% or a mountain. 00:15:43.130 --> 00:15:46.970 align:middle line:84% The turkeys in La Fontaine's fable are not so lucky. 00:15:46.970 --> 00:15:49.550 align:middle line:84% They fall prey to a fox because they 00:15:49.550 --> 00:15:53.300 align:middle line:84% fail to recognize what they're looking at. 00:15:53.300 --> 00:15:56.420 align:middle line:84% Personally, I can't help seeing a Turner esque 00:15:56.420 --> 00:16:01.320 align:middle line:90% detail over here. 00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:04.290 align:middle line:84% In the fish scale wavelets of brushwork, 00:16:04.290 --> 00:16:08.070 align:middle line:84% the outline of a ship's prow and sail-- 00:16:08.070 --> 00:16:11.910 align:middle line:90% I can't quite-- right over here. 00:16:11.910 --> 00:16:15.120 align:middle line:84% And the scribbled atmospheric dusk of the picture's 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:17.460 align:middle line:90% left margin. 00:16:17.460 --> 00:16:19.710 align:middle line:84% But once you focus your attention 00:16:19.710 --> 00:16:22.440 align:middle line:84% on the rounded crown and sloping profile 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:25.030 align:middle line:84% at the top of the canvas, do you see it up there? 00:16:25.030 --> 00:16:26.040 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:28.980 align:middle line:84% A peculiar likeness begins to take shape 00:16:28.980 --> 00:16:32.250 align:middle line:90% around the poet's head. 00:16:32.250 --> 00:16:35.280 align:middle line:84% See those overlapping corners that indicate 00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:38.520 align:middle line:90% the backrest of his armchair? 00:16:38.520 --> 00:16:45.030 align:middle line:84% A little clay pipe projects from his mouth at a jaunty angle. 00:16:45.030 --> 00:16:48.810 align:middle line:84% You can make out his hands too, grasping a rolled up manuscript 00:16:48.810 --> 00:16:51.670 align:middle line:90% at bottom center. 00:16:51.670 --> 00:16:53.100 align:middle line:90% There's that. 00:16:53.100 --> 00:16:53.970 align:middle line:90% And there's a man-- 00:16:53.970 --> 00:16:54.990 align:middle line:90% there's the manuscript. 00:16:54.990 --> 00:16:58.210 align:middle line:90% 00:16:58.210 --> 00:17:03.360 align:middle line:84% Now that we know what we're supposed to see in this 131.2 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:08.430 align:middle line:84% by 89.5 centimeter region of unlikeness, 00:17:08.430 --> 00:17:10.470 align:middle line:84% let's have a closer look at the poet's head. 00:17:10.470 --> 00:17:17.859 align:middle line:90% 00:17:17.859 --> 00:17:21.069 align:middle line:90% Or maybe, I should say heads. 00:17:21.069 --> 00:17:25.089 align:middle line:84% In this portrait, Picasso offers us two countenances 00:17:25.089 --> 00:17:27.790 align:middle line:90% for the price of one. 00:17:27.790 --> 00:17:30.100 align:middle line:90% To left facing profile-- 00:17:30.100 --> 00:17:33.580 align:middle line:84% I'm not sure if it's left for you guys. 00:17:33.580 --> 00:17:37.630 align:middle line:84% That profile resembles an African sculpture, 00:17:37.630 --> 00:17:40.600 align:middle line:84% maybe one from Picasso's private collection 00:17:40.600 --> 00:17:44.120 align:middle line:84% which underscores the poet's otherness. 00:17:44.120 --> 00:17:48.550 align:middle line:84% The domed brow, intent gaze, and pursed lips 00:17:48.550 --> 00:17:51.700 align:middle line:84% lend this racialized hemisphere of his identity 00:17:51.700 --> 00:17:54.880 align:middle line:84% an air of fierce command, like the ruler 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:58.330 align:middle line:90% of some sub-Saharan kingdom. 00:17:58.330 --> 00:18:05.140 align:middle line:84% On the other hand, his right facing Siamese twin 00:18:05.140 --> 00:18:07.570 align:middle line:90% looks melancholy to me. 00:18:07.570 --> 00:18:11.290 align:middle line:84% The invisible eyes downcast, the mouth vaguely 00:18:11.290 --> 00:18:15.370 align:middle line:90% indicated by that chalky pipe. 00:18:15.370 --> 00:18:17.500 align:middle line:84% There is something of a sad congruent 00:18:17.500 --> 00:18:20.920 align:middle line:90% to this aspect of the poet. 00:18:20.920 --> 00:18:23.860 align:middle line:84% He seems to be perpetually mourning his own self 00:18:23.860 --> 00:18:26.500 align:middle line:90% difference. 00:18:26.500 --> 00:18:29.890 align:middle line:84% A head, Picasso once said, was a matter 00:18:29.890 --> 00:18:32.770 align:middle line:84% of eyes, nose, mouth which could be 00:18:32.770 --> 00:18:36.700 align:middle line:90% distributed any way you like. 00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:40.990 align:middle line:84% In this pictorial economy however, certain commodities 00:18:40.990 --> 00:18:44.350 align:middle line:90% appear to be in short supply. 00:18:44.350 --> 00:18:46.960 align:middle line:84% The poet's discordant profiles must 00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:51.640 align:middle line:90% make do with a single mustache. 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:54.790 align:middle line:90% I can't actually reach it there. 00:18:54.790 --> 00:18:58.045 align:middle line:84% Like conjoined Mr. Potato heads from a toddler's nightmare. 00:18:58.045 --> 00:19:00.130 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:19:00.130 --> 00:19:02.920 align:middle line:84% No wonder our two faced subject isn't 00:19:02.920 --> 00:19:04.955 align:middle line:90% feeling like himself forever. 00:19:04.955 --> 00:19:07.570 align:middle line:90% 00:19:07.570 --> 00:19:09.500 align:middle line:90% Is it visible to you? 00:19:09.500 --> 00:19:10.000 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.400 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:16.420 align:middle line:84% Of course, nobody, unless they're chaos personified, 00:19:16.420 --> 00:19:21.580 align:middle line:84% is ever wholly self identical when you think about it. 00:19:21.580 --> 00:19:27.280 align:middle line:84% We all feel like fierce African kings and sad pipe smoking 00:19:27.280 --> 00:19:31.070 align:middle line:90% kangaroos from time to time. 00:19:31.070 --> 00:19:35.980 align:middle line:84% So why does Picasso call this painting The Poet and not 00:19:35.980 --> 00:19:43.240 align:middle line:84% every man, or self-portrait, or Herman Rorschach? 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:48.900 align:middle line:84% Poets look just like anyone else on the outside, after all. 00:19:48.900 --> 00:19:51.210 align:middle line:84% It's some kind of internal difference 00:19:51.210 --> 00:19:55.500 align:middle line:84% that distinguishes them from others, as Dickinson knew maybe 00:19:55.500 --> 00:19:58.140 align:middle line:90% all too well. 00:19:58.140 --> 00:20:01.590 align:middle line:84% To really depict his subject, Picasso 00:20:01.590 --> 00:20:04.800 align:middle line:84% has to show us what's inside a poet's head. 00:20:04.800 --> 00:20:09.820 align:middle line:90% 00:20:09.820 --> 00:20:10.725 align:middle line:90% Is that big enough? 00:20:10.725 --> 00:20:11.350 align:middle line:90% You can see it? 00:20:11.350 --> 00:20:15.170 align:middle line:90% 00:20:15.170 --> 00:20:18.320 align:middle line:90% What do we see there? 00:20:18.320 --> 00:20:23.090 align:middle line:84% Amid the chaos of drifting glyphs, a listing crucifix, 00:20:23.090 --> 00:20:26.300 align:middle line:84% the remains of a reversed swastika, 00:20:26.300 --> 00:20:31.100 align:middle line:84% one pictorial motif emerges intact. 00:20:31.100 --> 00:20:33.650 align:middle line:84% Whenever I look at this painting, 00:20:33.650 --> 00:20:37.400 align:middle line:84% I can't help seeing a steep pyramid. 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:41.600 align:middle line:84% Its translucent apex piercing an ocher banner, 00:20:41.600 --> 00:20:45.020 align:middle line:84% like a parody of the Great Seal on the back of the US dollar 00:20:45.020 --> 00:20:50.483 align:middle line:84% bill embedded in the poet's cranium. 00:20:50.483 --> 00:20:52.025 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I think that might come across. 00:20:52.025 --> 00:20:53.750 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:20:53.750 --> 00:20:57.830 align:middle line:84% There's even a little patch of sky in the offing. 00:20:57.830 --> 00:21:00.020 align:middle line:84% It could be a background detail plucked out 00:21:00.020 --> 00:21:04.340 align:middle line:84% of Hieronymus Bosch, or an eruption of proto surrealism 00:21:04.340 --> 00:21:06.380 align:middle line:90% in the inkblot. 00:21:06.380 --> 00:21:12.080 align:middle line:84% Have any, like myself, seen this tomb in the poet's head? 00:21:12.080 --> 00:21:15.530 align:middle line:84% I can't find any reference to it in the literature 00:21:15.530 --> 00:21:18.650 align:middle line:90% on Picasso's painting. 00:21:18.650 --> 00:21:21.170 align:middle line:90% Maybe it's just me. 00:21:21.170 --> 00:21:24.490 align:middle line:84% I'm a delusional thanatophile with pharaonic inclinations. 00:21:24.490 --> 00:21:26.870 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:21:26.870 --> 00:21:30.230 align:middle line:90% But I hope you see it too. 00:21:30.230 --> 00:21:33.620 align:middle line:84% Gazing on this archeological will o' the wisp, 00:21:33.620 --> 00:21:36.110 align:middle line:84% I know how Dickinson felt when she glimpsed 00:21:36.110 --> 00:21:39.020 align:middle line:84% that imagined community and possibly 00:21:39.020 --> 00:21:41.270 align:middle line:90% a steeple unseen by others. 00:21:41.270 --> 00:21:46.080 align:middle line:90% 00:21:46.080 --> 00:21:49.440 align:middle line:84% Anyone who majored in English in the 90s 00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:51.870 align:middle line:84% knows that it's always already never 00:21:51.870 --> 00:21:55.230 align:middle line:84% a good time to review basic concepts from post 00:21:55.230 --> 00:21:58.320 align:middle line:90% structuralism 101. 00:21:58.320 --> 00:22:01.950 align:middle line:84% But Jacques Derrida, the last century's great rhapsode 00:22:01.950 --> 00:22:07.080 align:middle line:84% of differences, might help us to unlock this miniature pyramid 00:22:07.080 --> 00:22:08.355 align:middle line:90% buried in the poet's skull. 00:22:08.355 --> 00:22:13.390 align:middle line:90% 00:22:13.390 --> 00:22:17.920 align:middle line:84% In a 1968 address to The French Philosophical Society, 00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:23.640 align:middle line:84% Derrida spells out his thoughts on what he calls différance. 00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:27.420 align:middle line:84% The Clown Prince of gramatology coined this theoretical 00:22:27.420 --> 00:22:31.680 align:middle line:84% neologism by replacing the penultimate E in the French 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:36.870 align:middle line:84% word for difference, différence, with an A. 00:22:36.870 --> 00:22:38.910 align:middle line:84% It's a devious sleight of hand, really, 00:22:38.910 --> 00:22:42.030 align:middle line:84% because you can't hear any difference 00:22:42.030 --> 00:22:45.660 align:middle line:84% between the original E and Derrida's interpolated A 00:22:45.660 --> 00:22:48.960 align:middle line:90% in spoken French. 00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:50.880 align:middle line:90% You can only see it. 00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:54.510 align:middle line:90% 00:22:54.510 --> 00:23:00.660 align:middle line:84% It is read, or it is written, but it cannot be heard. 00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:03.360 align:middle line:84% It cannot be apprehended in speech, 00:23:03.360 --> 00:23:06.510 align:middle line:84% and we will see why it also bypasses the order 00:23:06.510 --> 00:23:09.510 align:middle line:90% of apprehension in general. 00:23:09.510 --> 00:23:15.240 align:middle line:84% It is offered by a mute mark, by a tacit monument. 00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:19.470 align:middle line:84% I would even say by a pyramid, thinking 00:23:19.470 --> 00:23:22.380 align:middle line:84% not only of the form of the letter A 00:23:22.380 --> 00:23:25.830 align:middle line:84% when it is printed as a capital, but also 00:23:25.830 --> 00:23:28.350 align:middle line:84% of the text in Hegel's encyclopedia 00:23:28.350 --> 00:23:31.380 align:middle line:84% in which the body of the sign is compared 00:23:31.380 --> 00:23:34.860 align:middle line:90% to the Egyptian pyramid. 00:23:34.860 --> 00:23:40.050 align:middle line:84% The A of différance, thus, is not heard. 00:23:40.050 --> 00:23:44.820 align:middle line:84% It remains silent, secret and discreet as a tomb. 00:23:44.820 --> 00:23:48.870 align:middle line:90% 00:23:48.870 --> 00:23:53.130 align:middle line:84% Like Derrida's undercover A, the stealth pyramid 00:23:53.130 --> 00:23:58.020 align:middle line:84% inside the poet's head is silent, secret and discreet 00:23:58.020 --> 00:23:59.370 align:middle line:90% as a tomb. 00:23:59.370 --> 00:24:03.090 align:middle line:84% But I, for one, can't help seeing it, nonetheless. 00:24:03.090 --> 00:24:07.030 align:middle line:90% 00:24:07.030 --> 00:24:10.630 align:middle line:84% Once glimpsed, it's as inescapable as the tomb too. 00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:13.300 align:middle line:90% 00:24:13.300 --> 00:24:17.740 align:middle line:84% Traditionally, artist's picture a poet's difference from others 00:24:17.740 --> 00:24:20.725 align:middle line:84% by crowning the head with a laurel wreath. 00:24:20.725 --> 00:24:24.920 align:middle line:90% 00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:26.960 align:middle line:84% This is like my favorite cranky poet. 00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:31.893 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:24:31.893 --> 00:24:32.435 align:middle line:90% That's Dante. 00:24:32.435 --> 00:24:35.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:24:35.030 --> 00:24:38.240 align:middle line:84% Relocating his cubist sign of unlikeness 00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:41.690 align:middle line:84% inside the poet's head, Picasso marks it 00:24:41.690 --> 00:24:45.410 align:middle line:90% as an internal difference. 00:24:45.410 --> 00:24:49.040 align:middle line:84% Poets look just like everybody else on the outside. 00:24:49.040 --> 00:24:50.930 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:24:50.930 --> 00:24:54.920 align:middle line:84% But they make a different kind of sound. 00:24:54.920 --> 00:24:59.855 align:middle line:84% That pyramid in the skull pictures that different sound. 00:24:59.855 --> 00:25:03.400 align:middle line:90% 00:25:03.400 --> 00:25:08.770 align:middle line:84% Picasso's portrait isn't a poet's likeness exactly. 00:25:08.770 --> 00:25:10.140 align:middle line:90% It's an unlikeness. 00:25:10.140 --> 00:25:12.650 align:middle line:90% 00:25:12.650 --> 00:25:15.750 align:middle line:90% Three: The Not Unlike. 00:25:15.750 --> 00:25:20.143 align:middle line:90% 00:25:20.143 --> 00:25:21.810 align:middle line:84% Maybe I'll go back to the portrait here. 00:25:21.810 --> 00:25:25.480 align:middle line:90% 00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:29.100 align:middle line:84% Sometimes when I despair of making any sense in this 00:25:29.100 --> 00:25:33.300 align:middle line:84% lecture, I imagine sitting in the audience for Derrida's talk 00:25:33.300 --> 00:25:35.510 align:middle line:90% about différance. 00:25:35.510 --> 00:25:36.810 align:middle line:90% It makes me feel better. 00:25:36.810 --> 00:25:39.270 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:25:39.270 --> 00:25:41.640 align:middle line:84% Throughout the published version of his speech, 00:25:41.640 --> 00:25:47.070 align:middle line:84% the theorist ties himself into knots to make clear whether 00:25:47.070 --> 00:25:51.600 align:middle line:84% he's discussing différance or différence, 00:25:51.600 --> 00:25:54.330 align:middle line:84% which sound exactly the same in French, 00:25:54.330 --> 00:25:58.320 align:middle line:84% but mean totally different things. 00:25:58.320 --> 00:26:01.320 align:middle line:84% To be perfectly honest, I've never understood the difference 00:26:01.320 --> 00:26:06.090 align:middle line:84% between difference and différance myself. 00:26:06.090 --> 00:26:11.430 align:middle line:84% But that sneaky little A makes all the difference. 00:26:11.430 --> 00:26:15.240 align:middle line:84% In this respect, Derrida's A is not 00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:19.560 align:middle line:84% unlike the A that opens Gertrude Stein's literary portrait 00:26:19.560 --> 00:26:21.110 align:middle line:90% of Bernard Fay. 00:26:21.110 --> 00:26:27.266 align:middle line:90% 00:26:27.266 --> 00:26:28.385 align:middle line:90% A is an article. 00:26:28.385 --> 00:26:32.109 align:middle line:90% 00:26:32.109 --> 00:26:39.050 align:middle line:84% A is an article, grammatically speaking, most of the time. 00:26:39.050 --> 00:26:45.110 align:middle line:84% A portrait, a poem, a sad kangaroo. 00:26:45.110 --> 00:26:47.270 align:middle line:90% But it's also a noun. 00:26:47.270 --> 00:26:53.210 align:middle line:84% The alphabetical character, A. Pronounce it as a short vowel 00:26:53.210 --> 00:26:56.570 align:middle line:84% and you have an article, where a long gives 00:26:56.570 --> 00:27:03.710 align:middle line:84% a voice to a noun, the letter A. The two A's look identical 00:27:03.710 --> 00:27:08.720 align:middle line:84% on paper, but they sound different. 00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:13.790 align:middle line:84% Stein's A, then, is the hermeneutic mirror image 00:27:13.790 --> 00:27:18.350 align:middle line:84% of Derrida's A. One is seen but not heard, 00:27:18.350 --> 00:27:23.690 align:middle line:84% while the other is heard but not seen. 00:27:23.690 --> 00:27:29.990 align:middle line:84% Unlike Picasso, Stein doesn't try to picture différance. 00:27:29.990 --> 00:27:33.350 align:middle line:90% She sounds it out. 00:27:33.350 --> 00:27:37.970 align:middle line:84% Fashioning likenesses from sound makes perfect sense 00:27:37.970 --> 00:27:42.760 align:middle line:84% if you're mistrustful of appearances after all. 00:27:42.760 --> 00:27:47.110 align:middle line:84% Bernard Fay himself was obsessed with discerning 00:27:47.110 --> 00:27:51.280 align:middle line:84% the invisible differences between people. 00:27:51.280 --> 00:27:56.560 align:middle line:84% Under the Vichy regime, Fay was responsible for sending 00:27:56.560 --> 00:27:59.590 align:middle line:84% hundreds of suspected Jews and Freemasons 00:27:59.590 --> 00:28:02.920 align:middle line:90% to German concentration camps. 00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:06.850 align:middle line:84% Conspiracy theorists in the audience 00:28:06.850 --> 00:28:09.790 align:middle line:84% won't miss the connection between Picasso's hidden 00:28:09.790 --> 00:28:14.155 align:middle line:84% pyramid and the Masonic symbol for Fay's historical victims. 00:28:14.155 --> 00:28:17.230 align:middle line:90% 00:28:17.230 --> 00:28:22.240 align:middle line:84% A Jew or a Freemason looks just like anybody else 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:24.340 align:middle line:90% on the outside. 00:28:24.340 --> 00:28:29.890 align:middle line:84% So does a poet, or a homosexual, or a sacred music aficionado 00:28:29.890 --> 00:28:32.590 align:middle line:90% for that matter. 00:28:32.590 --> 00:28:37.150 align:middle line:84% Stein's sound portraits echo locate individuals 00:28:37.150 --> 00:28:41.200 align:middle line:84% within the imagined communities of our time, 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:44.500 align:middle line:84% just as Dickinson's musical vehicle cathedral 00:28:44.500 --> 00:28:49.750 align:middle line:84% tunes situates listeners in her congregationalist social order. 00:28:49.750 --> 00:28:53.750 align:middle line:90% 00:28:53.750 --> 00:28:56.480 align:middle line:84% Over the course of nearly half a century, 00:28:56.480 --> 00:28:59.960 align:middle line:84% Stein composed some of the most peculiar likenesses 00:28:59.960 --> 00:29:03.320 align:middle line:84% in the history of Western portraiture. 00:29:03.320 --> 00:29:09.180 align:middle line:84% We can't hear the poet reading Bernard Fay aloud today, 00:29:09.180 --> 00:29:11.420 align:middle line:84% but I do have a clip of her performing 00:29:11.420 --> 00:29:14.000 align:middle line:90% another verbal portrait. 00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:17.210 align:middle line:84% It takes a little over 4 minutes to play this audio inkblot 00:29:17.210 --> 00:29:19.670 align:middle line:84% from beginning to end, but it's worth 00:29:19.670 --> 00:29:21.770 align:middle line:84% listening to the poem all the way through 00:29:21.770 --> 00:29:25.830 align:middle line:84% to see if it brings to mind anyone in particular. 00:29:25.830 --> 00:29:28.010 align:middle line:84% Let's think of this as our final exam. 00:29:28.010 --> 00:29:30.760 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER]