Diario

Another story in Spanish, from my Introduction to Spanish Literature course. This is loosely based on Elena Poniatowska's story "El recado". Don't ask me how this ends. It's not autobiographical (though my teacher refused to believe that), so there's no "ending". It's intentionally ambiguous.

Mis amigas me dijeron que no lo llamara a él. “Ya tiene novia,” me dijeron, “Deja de pensar en él.” Pero no puedo. No sólo me acuerdo de él en los pensamientos, sino también en los sueños. Me dijeron, “Chiquilla necia. No se puede encontrar el amor verdadero cuando apenas tienes quince años.” Yo sé que piensan que dicen la verdad, pero me parece que no es tan simple. Hay muchos tipos de amor. Tal vez no puedo encontrar el amor permanente—el amor que quiero mantener por toda la vida—a esta edad, pero ¿no hay otros tipos de amor, que también son verdaderos y profundos? No sé. No soy sabia como mi mamá. Sólo sé que lo que siento no puede ser mentira. Y siento con toda el alma que lo amo.

A Friendly Reminder to Poets

These metrical feet are useful to know in the writing, reading, or discussing of poetry. You'll feel really smart when talking over poems with your friends if you can accurately pull this vocabulary out of your hat. Capitalized syllables are stressed.

IAMB: alas (a-LAS)
TROCHEE: outlast (OUT-last)
SPONDEE: well-loved (WELL-LOVED)
ANAPEST: indirect (in-dir-ECT)
DACTYL: ludicrous (LUD-i-crous)
AMPHIBRACH: imposter (im-POS-ter)
CRETIC (or AMPHIMACER): what a dump (WHAT a DUMP)
CHORIAMB: how to survive (HOW to sur-VIVE)
PYYRHIC: and the (and the)

Famous or original lines containing these feet are welcomed in the comments. Iambs, at least, ought to be easy--jot down almost any of Shakespeare's verses. Trochees, anapests, and dactyls are also pretty common.

On Existentialism and Ethics

I was too tired to write tonight, but wanted to post. Here are excerpts from my side of an old e-mail debate with a friend. The topic was Sartre's essay "Existentialism is a Humanism", particularly as it relates to ethics or the lack thereof.

"The responsibility part of existentialism is also tied up with ethics. Say I kill you. From an existentialist perspective, no one has a monopoly on absolute truth and can condemn that as absolutely bad. But I have chosen to give value to killing through my action, and existentialism says the responsibility is wholly mine. I can't blame it on societal influences or religious fanaticism or anything else. Sure, that doesn't stop the fact that it's not absolutely wrong, but few people want to accept that kind of responsibility. And you can't be a half-existentialist. If you want a philosophy of freedom, you have to take the consequences.
. . .
There is also the existentialist idea of good faith and bad faith, which is sort of ethics-related. Good faith is recognizing your freedom and making your own decisions (actively determining your essence), not blindly following society or a religious dogma, or trying to delay the moment of choice on a matter. Because of this, existentialists tend to place a lot of value on courage, not as something objectively valuable (because that would be inconsistent), but as an important quality for living an honest ("good faith") life. This is where you're really allowed to judge others' actions. You can't condemn something as "bad" based on objective values, but you can condemn it as dishonest. A lot of existentialist literature touches on this--exposing the cowardice of people who try to fake their way through the preset paths of life.
. . .
You can also be heroic and magnanimous as an existentialist. Perhaps the reason people think existentialists are gloomy is because many of them point out that there is always a choice--death. (This means you can also never shirk responsibility by saying you were forced to do something. Even if someone is holding a gun to your head and telling you to do x, you are responsible for the consequences of x if you do it.) In most cases, death is an absurd choice. But in some cases, it is the only honest choice. To be a "good faith" existentialist generally involves performing actions that give value to freedom, and in some cases that may mean making the choice to die for it."

Ayn Rand and Victor Hugo

After reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shurgged, I was disgusted by Ayn Rand's philosophy. Imagine my surprise, then, when Web surfing revealed Rand's admiration of my favorite author--Victor Hugo. She mentions his works frequently in her Romantic Manifesto, even devoting a chapter to her introduction of Ninety-Three. Her comments reveal that she had read even some of his most obscure works. Admittedly, the two share a couple superficial elements of Romantic prose. Both paint exaggerated characters, headstrong and independent. Both often write about people with near-absurd commitments to their values. However, the substance of their prose--their social aims--are profoundly different. I don't think Hugo would approve of Objectivism. Nor does Rand approve of the liberal goals Hugo professed.

Hugo writes, in his introduction to Cromwell (often called his "Romantic Manifesto") that "Romanticism is liberalism in literature". Hugo means liberalism as we know it: advancement of the awareness of and help for poverty, equalization of opportunity, and socioeconomic progress of every sort--hardly Rand's ideal. Independent of political aims, their ethical philosophies could not have been more distinct. The intensity of Hugo's heroes' commitment to duty and self-sacrafice is only equalled by that of Rand's characters' rejection of the same ideals! In Les Miserables,  Hugo writes, "It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How all-sufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty." Compare this to the following excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, "You have sacraficed happiness to duty... Happiness is the proof of your moral integrity". Rand's further objection to duty as a moral standard is evidenced by her statement, "Immanual Kant is the real villain of our age".

Great Quote

"The lemonade is weak, like your soul."
from a rather odd translation of Schiller's play Intrigue and Love.