Arts & Culture The Epoch Times B2 May 13 19, 2010

By CHRISTOPHER NIELD

Merlin: the very name is redolent of magic and mystery. When we picture the shaggy-bearded wizard who guides King Arthur through his many battles we no doubt also think of Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings. Both Merlin and Gan-dalf are wise men who, though on the side of good, have a wild and disturbing side to their power.

In his poem Merlin, Emerson uses this strange, otherworldly, shamanic figure from myth to rep-resent the bard or archetypal poet. As if striding into Arthurs inner sanctum, brushing past its fops and flunkeys, Merlin dismisses the court musicians harpand everything it representsas trivial.

The harps lulling sound evokes civilized values: all that shuts out the chaos beyond the castle battlements, the city wall. Yet in such safety do people grow weak and weary? Could the impregnable court, estranged from the reality of life outside, be in danger from collapsing from within?

For Merlin, the chords of the harp should ring as blows the breeze. Implicitly, Emerson evokes one of the central images of Romantic po-etry: the Aeolian harp, named after Aeolus, the Greek god of winds. This harp is not one played by human fingers, but nature itself. Its strings hum in the breeze, inducing trance. Free, peremptory, clear, its notes brook no contradiction.

As the harp is startled into song by spring airs and winter tempests, so the bard makes himself an in-strument for elemental forces.

The rich, deep swell of poetry has nothing to do with the jingling ser-enadors art or the tinkle of piano strings. We recognize the first in the clichs of popular verse: roses are red, violets are blue; greeting card jingles. For me, the second

suggests art as nothing more than mood enhancement: the lift Muzak, for instance, that tries to soothe us but which puts our teeth on edge. Neither touches the heart.

The poet speaks to make the wild blood start, expressing truths

of human experience that never change: birth, decay, death and the soul. Like Merlin, we crave to hear the storm and thunder above the transient and trifling: even in our space-age techno-bubble, our taste in art remains staunchly Neolithic.

The kingly bard is one who serves the king, yet, in a sense, the bard is king too. His artistic gift gives him spiritual authority, fully equal to the temporal. The harp is as mighty as the crown. Smiting the chords rudely and hard, the bard is a being of wrath and judgment, recalling the God of Genesis.

As the blacksmith fashions iron with his hammer and as the war-rior wages battle with his mace, so the wizard or poet uses words to produce artful thunder. His words balance form and formlessness. This is reflected in Emersons style, both exact and irregular. Rhyme runs throughout, yet the length of each line varies, surprising the ear.

The poets thunder conveys se-crets of the solar track/ Sparks of the supersolar blaze. Here, Emersons language really leaps off the page. The hissing sibilants and hard con-sonants crackle, as if with divine energy.

And surely this is what we want from art: secrets and sparks. We long for the hidden to be made known, for a sudden ecstatic epiphany. We linger on the word blaze, and glow with the promise of enlightenment.

Emerson reminds us of the power of poetry to reveal the mysteries of nature: and whatever lies within and beyond. If this truth is obscured by the imaginative poverty of much contemporary verse, we have no need to despair, for the greatest art exists in its own time. Anthologies containing the visions of Shake-speare, Shelley, Emerson, and Yeats are always there on the shelf, like barrows of ancient kings waiting to be explored. There, in the gloom, we will find abundant treasure.Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet.Christopher Nield is a poet living in London.

The AnTidoTeClAssiC PoeTry for Modern life

Merlin

Thy trivial harp will never please

Or fill my craving ear;

Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,

Free, peremptory, clear.

No jingling serenaders art,

Nor tinkle of piano strings,

Can make the wild blood start

In its mystic springs.

The kingly bard

Must smile the chords rudely and hard,

As with hammer or with mace;

That they may render back

Artful thunder, which conveys

Secrets of the solar track,

Sparks of the supersolar blaze.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

liza voronin/the epoch times

A Reading from Merlin by Emerson

By SHARON KILARSKIEpoch Times Staff

As s The 1903 childrens classic Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin is undeni-ably refreshing despite its age.

The book has very little in common with the Shirley Tem-ple film by the same title. In the book, Rebecca does not become a radio star despite the reluctance of her auntsthat she has aunts, befriends a millionaire, and has an older sister are almost all that she and Shirley Temples character have in common.

Yet Rebecca is an inspir-ing book for children gifted in language. It is no accident that Frances Hodgson Burnett, Jack London, and Mark Twain, among other writers, were known to have loved the book and it is a joy for readers who love the English lan-guage and who love the idea of ge-nius waiting to be discovered.

Rebecca is a wonder which no one with sense can miss. Even at age 7 she bedazzles and be-friends. Her eyes are overly large and bewitchingly beautiful, but these are not really what captures hearts. She has a gift for gab that not only entertains and endears but enlightens.

The book chronicles Rebeccas life from 7 to 17. At 7, she is sent to live with two maiden aunts, Mi-randa and Jane (Miranda is very stern indeed), in order to give her a chance at schooling.

Her widowed mother with seven children and sister to Miranda and Jane could never afford this lux-ury. But staunch Aunt Miranda is not impressed with Rebeccas charm and wit and is determined to refashion her into something sensible, if completely ordinary.

Aunt Jane loves and protects Rebecca when she can, seeing innocence and joy in the child, and although Rebecca tries, she can never seem to please Aunt Miranda.

Important in Rebeccas young

life are Jeremiah and Sarah Cobb, her first friends in her new town of Riverboro; her best friend Emma Jane Perkins; and Adam Ladd, a successful young businessman who, by the end of the book, is clearly smitten with her in a way that could not have been foretold from his past association as her benefactor.

Over the years Rebecca strug-gles with her heritage of poverty as well as the shame her aunt would inflict on her due to her own very vivacious nature. And Rebecca does struggle to develop the com-mon sense and orderly ways that her aunt demands.

She thrives in school and plans to create a career for herself to help her family and pay back her aunts for their bringing her up; she also eventually wins the admiration and even the heart of her aunt.

This book may not be for every child. Rebeccas gifts are so cen-tral to the book, that only those children who feel somewhat out of place in their environment are likely to take to her. Moreover, the vocabulary it requires is beyond most young readers.

Nonetheless, for gifted readers, the book can be a profound les-son in the virtues that supplement the exceptional person: humil-ity and determination. Rebecca was never indulged nor taught to think highly of herselfneither

by her mother or her auntsand so learns to use her abilities only to be of service to others.

As Rebeccas teacher says of her: I dont regret one burden that Rebecca has borne or one sorrow that she has shared. Ne-cessity has only made her brace; poverty has only made her daring and self-reliant.

Being of use to others was au-thor Kate Douglas Wiggins dear-est hope. What she wished to take with her in her casket were the following words: What she had she gave gladlyhoping it might somehow please, or help, those who had less. If it was little, at least she tried to multiply and fructify it by use; but were it little, or much, she wanted to show her worthi-ness to possess, by proving herself willing to serve.

Kate Douglas Wiggin (18561923) was an American writer and kinder-garten educator.

Childrens librAry

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Rebecca is an inspiring book for children gifted in language and a profound lesson

about humility and determination.

The 2003 edition published by Dover Publications openlibrary.org