Spring Semester 2008
Dear English 201 Student,
Welcome to English 201. I look forward to teaching and learning with you this semester. To introduce myself and the study of literature (the artful arrangement of words), I'd like to reflect on a couple of similar sounding words: "effervescent" (a word that reflects the enthusiasm of a writer at the point of finishing a draft) and "evanescent" (a similar-sounding word that may suggest the experience of writing itself).
Each word has a long history (i.e., "etymology") going way back to the days when Latin was a living language in Europe—the days when these two words were used in relation to the chemistry of the physical world. Note that both words have something to do with vapors or the point at which a substance is in the process of transformation, as in moving from liquid to a boiling state of energy, from visible to invisible presence.
EFFERVESCENT
(1) Meaning: Ordinary use—vivacious, in high spirits. Scientific use—emitting small bubbles as gas comes out of a liquid.
(2) Latin root: fervere: to boil; fervescere: to start boiling
(3) Root meaning: starting to boil intenselyEVANESCENT
(1) Meaning: Ordinary use—fleeting, temporary, vanishing or likely to vanish. Scientific use—dissipating, disappearing like a vapor
(2) Latin root: vanus: empty; vanescere: to disappear; evanescere: to vanish
(3) Root meaning: to empty out of perception like steam that rises from boiling water, like mist that disappears in the warming of dayThe idea of impermanence is a central tenet of belief systems like Buddhism (everything we experience as humans is evanescent—life is short, relationships don't last, success is temporary, suffering and pain vanish with time, beauty is short-lived, and so forth). This idea of impermanence—while recognized in Western cultures in an acknowledgement that humans and other life forms are mortal beings (that is, they die—"All humans are mortal; Socrates is a human; therefore, Socrates is mortal")—is not a governing principle in the West. In Western cultures, dominated by Hebrew, Christian, and Muslim book-centered philosophies, the idea that all life forms die is less important than the idea of immortality of human beings (e.g., the afterlife) and/or their creations.
This focus on permanence, on eternal life, may be a side effect of print culture. Cultures of the book—a technology intended to give permanence to human activities, voices, ideas, stories, songs, and to people in a virtual world created by the written word—may be intrinsically inclined toward the idea of permanence. People living in print cultures tend to believe what is written down rather than what is spoken; a person's signature (signed or written name) carries more weight than a person's "word" (spoken promise). "Authority" (note the word "author" in this word "authority") is invested in the written word rather than in the experience of life.
Buddhism, though it is a philosophy that has inspired much writing, is less book-bound than Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. In particular, Zen Buddhist philosophy, with its blending of Taoist and Buddhist ideas, tends to privilege action and experience over words and reading. In Zen Buddhism, what is experienced is always more believable than what is written down; as the Tao Te Ching puts it in Chapter 1 (John C. H. Wu translation):
Tao can be talked about,
but not the Eternal Tao.
Names can be named,
but not the Eternal Name.This brings us back to one of our words: EVANESCENT. Actual, lived experience is by definition evanescent, particularly if compared to virtual, written experience. A story that you live is fleeting: when you have lived it, it vanishes like a vapor into the air. You live in an eternal now, and each moment is fleeting. If you try to hang on to your experience, make it last, make it permanent—you will lose touch with the center of yourself and with the flow of life. You must let go of attachment to these experiences of the senses. Live for the now; seize the day (carpe diem).
A story that you live vicariously (meaning not actually living the story but pretending or feeling or imagining that you are living it—living it in your mind only rather than in the world of actuality) can be re-lived again and again, every time you read the story. Every time you read the story, you can call back the experience, re-imagine yourself in the situation, see the same things, smell the same things, say and do the same things, maybe with variations—but essentially the experience is a repeat. It is as close to permanent as you can get.
Maybe that is why some people get writer's block. They are paralyzed by the paradox of the writing experience. On the one hand, the writing experience is evanescent, happening in the eternal now, in the continuous flow of time; on the other hand, the written work cannot express or capture the fleeting nature of reality because it stops the clock and imprints but a written "moment" in time. An essay you wrote yesterday records what you were thinking and experiencing yesterday. If you wrote an essay today on the same topic, your work might look very different, particularly if you are in a dynamic relation to the topic under consideration. No wonder some people can't even get started!
Yet the permanence provided by writing functions often as a lure for those who live in writing cultures—people like us. Writing provides a way of preserving our pasts, projecting our futures, extending our lives. Our stories, poems, books—they are like children of our mind, extending our lifetimes way into the future, way beyond the time of our own dying. That is what William Shakespeare was talking about in so many of his sonnets. Take Sonnet XVIII (one of the sonnets featured in the wonderful, award-winning film, Shakespeare in Love):
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.This sonnet describes the poet's lover as being like a summer day, and reflects on the idea that this evanescent quality of actual life can be overcome by the immortality conferred in the virtually permanent life of written texts. The poet says it boldly: "Thy eternal summer shall not fade"—meaning, you will not get old. "Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade"—meaning, you will not die either. How can this be so? Because "in eternal lines to time thou grow'st"—meaning, you will live forever in these lines that I have written. This writing itself confers immortality on you!
So Shakespeare's final couplet emphasizes the point that as long as there are people who can read, and as long as this sonnet survives so people can read it, his lover will be "alive." It is as though Shakespeare is saying, forever in the minds of people who read his poem—whether it is tomorrow, or next year, or a thousand years from now: "My poem ('this') fixes you in time, in the flush of youth; "this" poem is the source of your immortality":
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. [underlining mine]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When life is experienced as evanescent, written text can preserve moments, can record actual experiences, can extend the life of ideas, can generate new knowledge and ideas, and can inspire new experience—but the actual experience of living itself can be had only in the eternal present of actuality, and never vicariously through books or writing alone. You must be the one to be the active force in your life; you must do the learning. The books you read and the writing you do can guide you toward the authentic experience of your "authentic self" and toward the attainment of enlightenment, but your reading and your writing (like any other teacher) is no substitute for the your own authentic action and lived experience.
This distinction between read, written, and lived experience is critical. Similarly critical is the difference between learning from others—books and teachers, for example—and learning from your own reading and writing practice. The writing teacher can guide the writer toward clarity and coherence, beauty and truth, passion and power—but the teacher's guidance is no substitute for the student's own writing experiences. The mantra "Just Do It!" stresses the importance of your own practice, your engagement in your own learning, your lived experience of learning, your own writing practice.
Your life is yours alone, and only you can live it. Your teachers can provide guidance and help, but they are no substitute for your practice. You are solely responsible for your learning. If you do not practice, your learning will be delayed or stunted. Engage yourself in your learning. When you love your learning, you practice regularly. When you practice regularly, you learn much and live fully. Life is evanescent. The past is gone, and the future does not exist. The only thing real is the "now," this moment, then this moment, then this moment. Make the best use of it.
Evanescently effervescent ("Just Do It"), I remain respectfully your teacher,
Professor Gloria Floren
Created 10 August 2001. Revised 8 January 2008
Contents Copyright 2001-2008 Gloria L. Floren. All rights reserved
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