Final Paper

Angel Parmar

Dr. Michael Sexson

Lit 337 and Lit 438

27 April 2012

“Generations of men, throughout recorded time, have always told and retold two stories-that of a lost ship which searches the Mediterranean seas for a dearly loved island, and that of a god who is crucified on Golgotha” –J. L. Borges (Frye 15)

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.  Now women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.” (Hurston 1)

“A good deal has been said sine then about the relation of language and silence, but real silence is the end of speech, not the stopping of it, and it is not until we have shared something of this last Sabbath vision in our greatest romance that we may begin to say that we have earned the right to silence.” (Frye 188)

           

Throughout the ages, people have written romances that send readers repeatedly to search for that elusive Mediterranean island. Even after countless tales, we never seem to find the one perfect romance; the one Frye tells us will earn us our right to silence. We tell and retell this same story, but never seem to tire of it; we never feel we have reached the end. There is something about romance that once we take our first voyage, we cannot seem to content ourselves at home again no matter how good home is. We are all like Sinbad: adventuring, casting ourselves into peril, surviving only to come home and find ourselves mysteriously lured back again and again. “I lived in Baghdad for some time, in prosperity and peace and happiness, until my soul began to long for travel and sightseeing and commerce and profit…” Sinbad relates to his listeners (Haddawy 20). When our soul begins to long for adventure and escape from the familiar, readers set sail upon the “Ocean of Stories” in hopes of finding the island.

            Romance gives readers their chance to venture beyond the edges of reality and even of their own imaginations as they abandon their lives to sail away into the unknown. This is a great gift from the author; it is a one-way ticket to our fantasy. While in this realm of story, we may dream beyond the limits of time, space, and moral constraints. The tale allows us to become more than we are, to experience life through the eyes of another, and to come safely home, perhaps better for having the journey. Frye reminds us, “…the message of all romance is de te fabula: the story is about you; and it is the reader who is responsible for the way literature functions, both socially and individually” (Frye 186). When stepping into the story, we become a part of it. We are not standing outside looking in; we cease to exist in our world of harsh reality and become alive in the lines of the romance as it gently carries us away. What this means when we turn the last page and come back to reality is an individual choice. Some may choose to continue the fantasy; others will set it aside to live their life again. This return from fantasy is not simple, Frye explains, “The improbably, desiring, erotic, and violent world of romance reminds us that we are not awake when we have abolished the dream world: we are awake only when we have absorbed it again” (Frye 61).  Even after we come back to reality, at some point, romance will whisper at their ear, and tug at their soul until another adventure is found.

            Romance is not new, and yet not old either. Some romance tales are ancient, but they still have their original power. The very tale that keeps us young, vibrant, and adventurous could of course never grow old or die. “Great literature,” writes Frye, “is what the eye can see: it is the genuine infinite as opposed to the phony infinite, the endless adventures and endless sexual stimulation of the wandering of desire. But I have a notion that if the wandering of desire did not exist, great literature would not exist either” (Frye 30). It is in the pages of romance that we find inspiration to go further. Within romance, the muses seem to dance, play, and dare us to invite them into our hearts and minds. Whether the tale inspires stargazing, a painting of a grand seascape, a study of the history of the world, or a vision of a new story, the muses whisper to us from between the lines of the story. Romance refreshes us after a day of paying the penance of “the original orchard thieves”, and allows our memory to set our imaginations swirling (Melville 21).

            According to Frances Yates, the Franciscan, Gesualdo wrote about the effects of memory, “… it is like the Ocean, father of waters, for from memory flow all words and thoughts; it is like the heaven, with its lights and operations; it is the divine in man, the image of God in the soul” (Yates 165). When using memory, or calling upon Mnemosyne, the Mother of the Muses, we are able to allow our thoughts to flow and create a new chapter to add to something Salman Rushdie refers to as “the sea of stories”. Imagine an actual ocean of stories; at the source, we find stories from all places and all times, and at their source is the memory that allowed them to come to life. These memories come from the minds of the authors who, for a time, became creator gods. “Literature” according to Frye, “is an aspect of the human compulsion to create in the face of chaos” (Frye 31). When an author is inspired, they create not only a story complete with characters, moral values, physics, memories, and examples, but they also create a way in which they are able to transport someone into their world of imagination. The audience, if the story is enjoyable, comes into this created world and follows the author’s pen on whatever path he sets them on.

            An attempt to write the perfect romance requires a large amount of memory. Throughout the ages, people have tried many methods to improve their memory using a variety of methods. The first memory system is widely attributed to Simonides of Ceos in the fifth century BCE,

“He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty (of memory) must select places and form mental images of the things they wish to remember and store those images in the places, so that the order of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images of the things will denote the things themselves, and we shall employ the places and images respectively as a wax writing-tablet and the letters written on it” (Yates 2).

Using a memory system, people are able to pull from previous sources and traditions to fuel their imaginations. Each of the systems seems to base itself on the work of Simonides. The most important aspect of a memory system is its usefulness. Some have found a simple method works well; others such as Giordano Bruno worked with elaborate systems of stars and symbols. This “magic” as it was considered was a dangerous art at the time, and Bruno came to a violent end. Another magic user was Camillo who brought memory to a point Yates explains this way, “The mind and memory of man is now “divine”, having powers of grasping the highest reality through a magically activated imagination” (Yates 157). The training of the memory, whether through “magical” or mundane means is useful for many trying to bring the mind to a higher level of universal knowledge. This belief seems valid; the amount of understanding we have available depends upon what we remember and how we piece it all together. This stringing together of memory and imagination may one-day lead to the perfect romance.

     Beyond romance, memory serves many purposes in storytelling. As Sean Kane discusses in his book Wisdom of the Mythtellers, old myths are useful in society. “In the Pacific Northwest, the elders know that certain barks…will make a good tonic. That kind of knowledge is all very practical-practical enough for pharmaceutical companies to send researches after the stories of native elders in order to find the bases of possible drugs” (Kane 37). These myths were used to aid in the survival of people of originating the culture. Through the invention of outrageous stories, people find help in their efforts to remember important aspects of their environment. The information easily passes on with the story to the next generation. “In Australia and the American Southwest, Aborigines and Apache Indians independently invented forms of the loci method” Foer relates in his book. The loci method comes from Simonides; this describes the use of a location or memory palace in which images may be arranged in a way that they are easy to recall when needed. The natives Foer describes, “…instead of using buildings, they relied on the local topography to plot their narratives, and sang them across the landscape…”Myth and map became coincident” says Foley, a linguistic anthropologist” (Foer loc 1325). Of course, as Foer notes, the relocation of Native Americans resulted in the loss of their myths. This loss of culture has led to a loss for not only the Native Americans, but for all. As Kane relates myths of which berries are dangerous, the fact that other stories are lost due to relocation twists at the hearts of those who understand the value of these tales. Physical survival is not the only value of these stories; they allow the people a tie to their community and to nature.

            We live in a world in which we struggle for balance. According to the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Services “Species Reports”, there are thirteen endangered species in Montana alone. Kane relates myths from the Pacific Northwest in which those who take too many salmon from the waters suffer dire consequences. As the importance of this myth diminishes over time, the impacts due to the change in cultural climate are astonishing. There are now eleven listings of endangered salmon species (see U. S. Fish & Wildlife Services website). This is not to claim that the people who held the myth in their memory and hearts have turned away and have diminished the entire salmon population. The point is, while these stories are revered works of wisdom the forward thinking of the story allowed people to keep the balance of nature. It is not difficult to see the importance of these tales. The reason the stories lived in the memories of the people for so long is that they are extremely exaggerated. It is much easier to remember a trickster suffering a terrible fate because of his disobedience than it is to recall a parental warning of what could happen. Just as Foer found it was easier to remember someone smoking a salmon on the strings of a piano rather than just the item “Salmon (peat-smoked if pos.)” from a list (Foer loc 1256).

            Romance rarely has balance, in fact, it seems to convey the very opposite. In romance, we concern ourselves with abundance or indulgence. Looking again to Sinbad and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights, we see stories of riches beyond imagination collected by the common person. The character’s days of being poor and underprivileged end, and a seemingly golden road to a higher social standing unfurls at their feet. These archetypal rags to riches stories are, for obvious reasons, an often chosen path of escape for those readers who identify with the hero at the beginning of the novel. His struggle and theirs intertwine allowing the reader to step into the lavishly lived life of the hero. When discussing the King Arthur romances, Heinrich Zimmer explains, “The hero in those days was the maker of his own weapons, literally the ‘forger of his own fortune’” (Zimmer 189). These stories are especially appealing at times when the reader feels powerless. The hero ultimately has control over his future. Much of the enjoyment comes from stepping into the shoes of the hero, and finding the feelings we long for.

            Monetary and social gain are not the only lavish topics in romance; violence generally expected. Frye observes, “Romance in particular is, we say “sensational”: it likes violent stimulus, and the sources of that stimulus soon become clear to the shuddering censor” (Frye 24). Scenes such as men hiding in jars covered in boiling oil and  sealing up the jar,  in “The Story of ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, decapitating a man on New Year’s Eve in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or watching as people are used as slaves are common in romance. The reader seems to accept this as part of the story; it is only part of the trial the hero must endure or a tool that he may use to move on to the next episode of his quest. Although the censor may have difficulty with this aspect of romance, the readers of this genre expect and accept this part of the story. The feeling while reading these parts is not one of disgust or fear for the most part, it is more an experience of cheering on the hero. Although he will assuredly know victory, there is still the excitement of his struggle. The violence makes him stronger and grander, which later makes him more suitable for his reward; generally, his gains from the trials are a better social standing, and the attentions of his one true love.

            This fantasy about social climbing makes some of the upper class nervous. They attack romance and belittle those who read it. “In a bourgeois society, a good deal of anxiety about popular literature has had a vestigial class motivation. Prohibition was clearly part of an effort to impose a middle-class ethic on a working class society who might be alcoholically stimulated to do less work. Similarly, sexual prudery has often been a middle-class reaction to the fact that pleasures of sex are available to ordinary people, and are therefore, as the proverbial lady says, ‘much too good for them’” (Frye 25). Therefore, these “dime novels” come under attack and belittlement, as do their readers. Societies in which the upper classes wish to keep their position; they treat romances like propaganda that threaten to tear their world apart. Fearing the fantasy will spill out of the pages leading the readers to question their social standing and act. While diminishing the “lesser” of their society they also may underestimate the value of their happiness in their current social position. It is great to fantasize, but most people are willing to live the life they have carved out for themselves with their loved ones.  If they were not, chances are they would do something about it instead of sit and enjoy a book.

    Several parts of what goes into romance as previously mentioned are: memory, indulgence, monetary gain, adventure, social upheaval, sex, and violence. There are still more that are important, some of which we will discuss. Nature, for example plays a large part in giving us cues as to what the characters are dealing with and what will come next. If the storm clouds roll in, we know the mood of the story will turn dark. If it is spring, we may expect love or conception; in winter, death may come. Trees, flowers, newly fallen snow, etc. hold implied images that guide us through stories. Nature can also act as an obstacle for the hero to overcome. In many stories, an ocean is crossed or a mountain climbed. In Daphnis and Chloe, winter keeps the young couple apart, “the other farmers and the herdsmen took pleasure in the brief respite from work…to them the winter was sweeter than summer, autumn, and even spring. But Chloe and Daphnis remembered the pleasures they had had to leave behind, their kisses, their caresses, and their meals together. They passed sleepless nights and grievous days waiting for the spring to restore them to life after death” (Longus 174).  In this story, there is nothing they can do but pine away for each other. These situations create tension and keep readers on the edge of their seats. “There are two major structural principles in fiction: one is the polarization of ideal and abhorrent worlds, which we have seen is central to romance; the other is the cycle of nature, in which the solar and seasonal cycles are associated in imagery with the cycle of human life” (Frye 80). This is one more reason to work on memory skills. If we desire to completely understand and appreciate a work of art such as the story of “Daphnis and Chloe, we need to remember these traditions. Without this information, we cannot appreciate that the author has not only written a beautiful romance, but that with this tradition, he has paralleled human life with the cycles of nature. This grants us a richer, more vivid picture of the story and of the author. It also allows us to bring the story closer to our hearts. A spring day or a cold winter night is easy to imagine, from there the story inserts itself, and pulling us further into the adventure.

   Nature is not the only obstacle couples come up against in these grand romances. Although social status levels create such uproar when it comes to the enjoyment of romance, they become useful in the stories. When young people from different social positions are attracted to each other in the story, they must find a way around the status quo so that they may be together. Daphnis and Chloe had problems with their lineage, which was fortunately resolved when their hidden identities became apparent. It was not as easy for ‘Ali Baba who needed to change his social standing to have a chance at winning over his true love. Poor ‘Ali fell in love from first sight, but in his society it is impossible for a lazy street boy to even gain a glance from a princess much less marry the girl. Fortunately, for him, he found a way to become infinitely rich and gain the approval from the king. For Daphnis and Chloe, their identities lay hidden and only through the truth are they able to come together. ‘Ali was forced to hide his identity to gain his bride.

The spectrum of identity changes in romance is immense. From changing to a donkey, to the use of an assumed name, it is common to find characters hiding or becoming someone new. “Changes in identity do not have to go all the way into metamorphosis: they may stop at sexual disguise such as a heroine putting on boys clothes or vice versa” Frye points out “…Change of name is still simpler and often used without any apparent motive in romance” (Frye 106). The use of a complete metamorphosis is one way to change the point of view of a character; while changed to the new form they may see a completely different world than they had previously envisioned. With a new name, characters may move about without dragging the baggage of their family’s social standing. When used against the hero these techniques usually mean to harm him. For example, the leader of the forty thieves uses a false identity to gain access to ‘Ali Baba’s home. However, when the hero uses these methods, they lead to situations that are often humorous and can end awkwardly or at the very least bring about challenges for him as he attempts to get back to his original point of origin.

            Humor is another useful element found in romance. Whether poking fun at the elite or illustrating a scenario so outrageous readers cannot help their amusement, humor aids in our escape from our everyday lives and into the world of romance. In Lucius or the Ass it is difficult not to laugh during several parts of the story such as when Lucius in his animal for leaps out of the bed which he is carried in on and over to the roses that will enable him to change back leaving the crowd aghast. Another example is the scene in which his owners have him eating from a proper table in a restaurant. Let us not forget the final meeting when he meets with his lover only to have her turn him down because he is no longer a donkey at all. The humor seems to allow the reader to accept the violence and odd sexual situations illustrated in the story. These outrageous moments also make the story memorable. This is one technique used by those who train their memory; they take a familiar setting, place images of unusual and unlikely objects, attach a meaning and it becomes easy to recall. Because we can recall the outrageous easily, a romance with its adventure, humor, riches, etc. is much easier to remember for some than a passage from an Economics text for example (assuming the person reading the textbook is not using a memory system). When looking at the real world and at an ideal world to escape to, we need humor to get us through some of the difficult moments with a bit more grace.

     Love takes quite a bit of humor and understanding and since we would not have a romance without love, we must look at this issue. In many stories, as in life, the first love is an agonizing experience fraught with longing, confusion, and questioning whether the young person is suffering a curse or if the gods bless them. In “Callirhoe”, after Chaereas falls in love at first sight he is described, “Chaereas, then, smitten with such a wound of love, could scarcely manage to make his way home. He was like some noble warrior wounded in a vital spot in war, ashamed to fall but unable to stand” (Chariton 4). This is much like the scene from “Daphnis and Chloe” when Chloe first kisses him, “Daphnis like someone who has been bitten rather than kissed, instantly became gloomy. He shivered now and again, and could not restrain the pounding in his heart; he wanted to look at Chloe, but whenever he looked at her, he turned all red” (Longus 146). This is the point at which the hero loses his full control of himself. Something larger has come in and taken over; the battle began and ended before he could fight back. Love has taken control of his mind and heart and it seems, his body as well as Chaereas can hardly walk and Daphnis shivers.

    This is a big step in the maturation of the character; how our hero handles this agony of love tells us a lot about him and his potential. When ‘Ali Baba persists in sending his mother to try to win the approval of the king so he may have a chance to marry her, we see he is more than a street rat. We see he is maturing and is willing to fight for something. This is a bit unexpected since up to this point he has been extremely lazy and willing to give up easily. He has no control over the king’s decision, yet he keeps fighting. The binds of love are not only for the young, “”I am also the greatest fool,’ answered Merlin. ‘I love another more than I love myself, and I taught my beloved how to bind me to herself, and now no one can set me free’” (Zimmer 199). Whether or not the hero, who until this time is comfortable in and by himself will let another in, and will give her power over his heart is crucial. Of course, the hero always will, but we still suffer along with him waiting and hoping he will accept the love he feels, survive it, and gain the attention of the woman he loves. Until this time, our hero is the embodiment of freedom who enjoys his life as his own. There is an anxiety about having our hero tied down. After all, look what happened when Yoko Ono stepped into John Lennon’s life. According to many, she ruined his life, his music, and led to the end of a great musical era. That is real life; in romance, the union of the couple is that of such a pure love it could only enhance their lives.

            In the natural path of romance, as we have noted, the pair fall in love; this is not the end of the story; usually it is only the beginning. They must have adventures and fight for each other. They may be flung to separate corners of the Earth (at least in the days when Earth still had corners-as you know it has since become round). Separated, the couple must persevere until they are able to be together again. This brings of course the problem of virginity. Will they stay faithful to each other? For our hero, it is generally acceptable for him to have a passionate evening here or there. He is the man and so his virginity adds no value to him as a potential life mate. As long as he keeps his heart pure for his one true love and acts honorably on his adventure, we accept his actions. Her virginity is an altogether different matter. Frye states, “…virginity is to a woman what honor is to a man, the symbol of the fact that she is not a slave” (Frye 73). Not giving up her virginity through the adventure, she waits for her hero to come home; this is her honor code. When she gives herself to the hero, she is enslaving herself to her love for him just as Merlin did when he gave his freedom to his true love. She willingly gives a symbol of herself to him and to no other. This is the result of their trials; when he gives up his heart and she gives her virginity the relationship is complete; they have moved to another world of existence as one.

            “For the heart of man is committed to two worlds. On the one hand, there is the wild forest of experience, which is without as well as within, pathless, full of monsters and adventures, fairies and enchantresses, and of spellbound lovely beings who require to be rescued and who then bewitch their rescuers. And on the other hand, there is the dense sweet-smelling whitethorn hedge; and all longing for far spaces comes home to rest under its cloud of flowers, painfully yet blissfully stilled. The serpent coils into its last sleep. And this is the eve of the day of creation, the dark night before the myriad forms and events of the visible world have burst from the sanctuary whose veil no hand has ever raised” (Zimmer 201).

            The trials, pain, lust, love, humor, all create movement in the romance. “There are therefore four primary narrative movements in literature. These are, first, the descent from a higher world: second, the descent to a lower world; third the ascent from a lower world; and fourth, the ascent to a higher world. All stories in literature are complications of, or metaphorical derivations from, these fur narrative radicals” (Frye 97). It is important, when attempting to write the perfect romance to remember these layers and think carefully about how the characters should move about between them and where they will end up. What could take a hero from our world down to hell? Perhaps the longing for his love will create this movement. To make him go to a higher level of paradise, he would need to win the heart of the fair maiden. Then again, maybe the hero begins at paradise, happily lacking the knowledge that she exists. When they meet and fall in love at first sight, he finds himself cast out of the garden and into a life that is unfamiliar.  His struggles and adventures may take him down further to hell, but we must remember to bring him back up again. We cannot leave our hero in hell. To do so would leave us there with him since we journey along with him.

            When pondering the creation of the perfect romance, we must use our memories to complete our own mental journey. We must adventure in the mind and fight our own battles first. If we do not first memorize the elements, archetypes, layers, traditions, etc., we cannot even begin. To open and expand our minds to become the creator god necessary to brave the chaos of the everyday to defy physics in order to reach out from the pages and through our written words snatch the reader and pull him along on a grand adventure, we must first train our memory. Keeping in mind Thomist memory rules quoted by San Gimigano, “There are four things which help a man to remember well. The first is that he should dispose those things which he wishes to remember in a certain order. The second is that he should adhere to them with affection. The third is that he should reduce them to unusual similitudes. The fourth is that he should repeat them with frequent meditation” (Yates 86). Using this method, we can easily keep track of all the elements that go into building the perfect romance. Writing a story is like building a home, for it to last we must first build a strong foundation. This foundation is memory.      

Memory systems first came about from oral cultures. When it is impossible to write down and keep information, memory is crucial. As we search the great “ocean of stories” for the harbor of silence when writing the perfect romance, we should look back to the oral traditions. This is not only because they used memory efficiently, but also because they began the tradition of romance in storytelling.  They did not worry about being original; they cared about the traditions and how easily the story was to remember and retell.  Shrugging off the anxiety of influence, we may move forward by borrowing techniques of our past. In the oral tradition, stories and language are very fluid. When a portion is lost, another suitable narration may act as a substitute. Without a written account, there is no assurance of a consistent telling of the story. This keeps the story current; if something is outdated, the part changes with little consequence. If we use our memory to keep the tradition, but forget the anxiety of influence, perhaps we may come closer to the perfect romance.

Before we know if we are even on the right track to writing the perfect romance, we must learn prudence. According to Cicero, “ Prudence is the knowledge of what is good, what is bad and what is neither good nor bad. Its parts are memory, intelligence, foresight (memoria, intelligentia, providential). Memory is the faculty by which it is seen that something is going to occur before it occurs” (Yates 20). We need to train our memories so we are able to see if we are getting closer to achieving the grand goal. Those of the oral tradition, who came up with romances we are still enjoying today knew these secrets. If we can put aside the prejudices some have with oral cultures, we can move forward with their help.

If the only way to earn our silence is to write the perfect romance then we must make our best attempt by using every tool we can. Through reading and memory, we can find the path and continue the journey that began with the ancients. It may be an impossible task, but the accomplishments we can achieve along the way are incredible. We must hold hope that at the end of our adventure toward the perfect romance we will find happiness, because of course, every romance must have a happy ending. So, our choices are simply to either continue the tradition or stop writing new romances. It does not seem that readers have tired of hearing and telling these stories, nor does it seem they will any time soon. As our culture changes, romance comes with us on our journey. The stories of the ancients still hold their value today. Romance ages as we all aspire to: with grace, dignity, and a bit of a flippant attitude toward those who would criticize us. Even if we never reach the end of the conversation of romance, we are not at a loss; “silence is golden” to some; but to many, a great story is priceless.

   

           

Works Cited

Chariton. "Callirhoe." Morales, Helen ed. Greek Fiction: Callirhoe, Daphnis and Chloe, Letters of Chion. New York, New York: Penguin Classics, 2011. 1-134.

Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking With Einstein The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. New York City, New York: The Penguin Press, 2011.

Frye, Northrop. The Secular Scripture A Study of the Structure of Romance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Haddawy, Husain translator. Sinbad and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights. New York City, New York: W .W. Norton & Company, 1995.

Hansen, William ed. Anthology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York City, New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

Kane, Sean. Wisdom of the Mythtellers 2nd ed. Orchard Park, New York: Broadview Press, 1989.

Longus. "Daphnis and Chloe." Morales, Helen ed. Greek Fiction: Callirhoe, Daphnis and Chloe, Letters of Chinon. New York, New York: Penguin Classics, 2011. 135-210.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick; or, The Whale. n.d.

Rushdie, Salman. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1990.

Service, U. S. Fish & Wildlife. "Listings and occurrences for Montana." 24 April 2012. U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service Species Reports. 24 April 2012 <http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/pub/stateListingAndOccurrenceIndividual.jsp?state=MT&s8fid=112761032792&s8fid=112762573902>.

Yates, Frances A. The Art of Memory. Chicago, Illinois : The University of Chicago Press, 1966.

Zimmer, Heinrich. The King and the Corpse. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975.