Wednesday, April 1, 2009

A Wondrous Oriental Tale of a Naked Saint

I know that we are specifically meant to be discussing the language of the poem at the end of the story, but I am going to deviate for just a little while. One of the first things that I noticed about this story was the evocative language - it just seemed so different to the language of the other tales we have been reading in this class. Even if the plot lines of the other tales were aimed at adults rather than children, their language remained basic and childlike. However this story had great imagery and onomatopoeia - as the sentence structure became more and more garbled and confusing, I could almost hear the wheel of time turning. The long winded sentence structure describing the saint's feelings towards the wheel made me feel nervous as I was reading it. For instance, this sentence really stood out to me: "...poured itself eternally, eternally without a moment's pause, without a second's pause, this was the way it sounded in his ears, and all his senses were geared to this roaring." The repetition and the way the sentence quickens in pace was very effective. Through the language, I could understand how anxious and stressed the saint was feeling. This difference in language made the tale more of a literary Kunstmärchen than a simple folk tale. The language was too refined and well thought out to simply be a tale passed down theough the ages by word of mouth.
However, we are meant to be discussing the relationship between the music and the poetic language, so I will move on to that. The music which eventually transforms the saint into a spirit cines durectky frin the intrinsic connection between love and the pure beauty of nature. It seems almost religious - God has finally given this soul a respite and transformed him into an angel through his beauty and love. Although the poetic language of the song adds to the transformation and no doubt helps the saint to transform, "the song arose from the undulating music." It was the sheer beauty and joy of the music that transformed the saint - the poetic language was merely an added bonus. I therefore believe that the power evoked by the music is not truly accessible to the language, rather the power of the music itself creates the poetic lyrics.
There are elements of this tale that make it fairy tale like. We first encounter our hero (the saint) , he then encounters a problem (the never ending noise of the wheel of time), he suffers through the noise, then the solution arrives in the form of the beauty of the night and the lovers (perhaps God) and his problem is solved as he transforms into a spirit and leaves the Earth to live eternally (happily ever after) in heaven. However, even though it follows the folk tale format, it is definitely a literary tale. The language is much more evocative and well developed than the language of any folk tale - which is simple and mundane in comparison.

2 comments:

  1. I really like your first point about the structure of the writing. I hadn't really noticed that on my own, but the story seems much more literary now. You also made a good point about how it obviously could not have been passed down from word of mouth. You really changed my overall evaluation of the tale!

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  2. I was going to say exactly what Chester said. I hadn't thought about trying to pass this tale down by word of mouth like the folk fairy tales. you really wouldnt be able to do it very well as the language is so rich and steeped in imagery. The fairy tales are plot driven and are therefore more easily told as an oral story.

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