Sydney Owenson's (Lady Morgan's) "The Musical Fly and William Blake's "The Fly"

                

 
Photos above:

 Left: Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) with harp, compliments of NY Public Library

Right: the-fly-shapiro.webp from Google Images

Below is an excerpt from a paper presented at the Association for Franco-Irish Studies, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland: 

In Sydney Owenson's poetic collection, Lay of an Irish Harp,  her chapter titled, “The Musical Fly,” renders a quote in French: “De pouvoir sans nous ennuyer Eterniser une bagatelle,” which translated into English generally states, “We cannot perpetuate a trifle annoyance.” Her poetic rendition continues with the tale of a fly’s encounter with the silent strings of a harp and an allusion to William Blake’s “The Fly” (See Blake's poem below.)

In the third stanza, she writes: 

Not seem’d unconscious of the charm
That lurk’d in every silent string
For oft the little vagrant swept

               O’er every chord his lucid wing. 

A fly not only is an insect that displays independence, but the word, fly, is both transitive and intransitive, with multiple meanings, all of which are related to transcendence. This fly, then, could be representative of independence. While Blake’s fly has an inevitable brush with death, “For I dance/And drink and sing, /Till some blind hand/Shall brush my wing,” Owenson’s fly, with a touch of its lucid wing, flirts with the silent strings of the Irish harp, a symbol of Ireland, and manages to create a resonance with the origins of the harp’s music. 

Both writers use a melodic format with metaphoric representations of the human aspiration for independence and the complexity that occurs when this spirit interacts with annoying governmental and societal dictates. Both poets elucidate for their audiences the dire consequences associated with submission to an overt power. 

Whereas Blake’s fly dances until it receives its fatal blow, Owenson’s fly dances to silent strings. Hers lives in a paradox that illustrates her desire to convince those in the British government, who could create the true music to allow their constituents to experience a reality based on tolerance, but choose instead to manage their constituents like that of the insect-vagrant, whose truth consists of momentary felicity. 

Owenson’s careful choice of lexicon in her poetic representation of independence reveals the antagonism that echoes throughout Irish history, like the strings of her harp, often resonating in a cultural vacuum of silence. 

***********************************************************

The Fly 

by William Blake

Little fly,

Thy summer’s play

My thoughtless hand

Has brushed away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink and sing,

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life

And strength and breath,

And the want

Of thought is death,

Then am I

A happy fly,

If I live,

Or if I die.

The Tiny Hand of Samuel Armas (In honor of Respect for Life )

Photo from Google Images

In 1999, Michael Clancy captured on film the little hand of Samuel Armas, held here by Vanderbilt University Hospital surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bruner. The iconic element here is the hand of the human fetus, for it represents life, innocence, and complete vulnerability.

This is an excellent example of iconic realism in photography, for one usually would not think that the connection between a 21 week old human in the womb and a surgeon could physically take place in this manner. See how the tiny hand grasps the finger of the surgeon, illustrating the need for human touch even when the baby is in the mother's womb!

One cultural dilemma that this photograph reveals is that even though there exist limitations and possibilities of medical science,  the beauty in the touch of a human hand is a divine statement that life is precious and can be meaningful from the womb... before birth.

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee..." (Jeremiah 1:5) kjv

Brandon Balengee, Bio-Artist, and Iconic Realism (Click onto this title to see and hear Brandon Balengee discuss his research/art.)

Here, Brandon Ballengee, artist and scientist, collaborates with communities around the world to bring awareness of environmental change. His source is the iconic feature of ancient civilizations, the pond. Ballengee's research follows the phenomena of mutation in the amphibian populations worldwide. Then, he uses his skill as an artist to create awareness of this biological variance, focusing his audience's attention on environmental transformation.

How does this relate to Iconic Realism? 

 1: Iconic natural pond

 2: Scientific research of pond creatures within the pond

 3: This brings audiences to awareness of the importance of clean water sources

An added feature here is taking the scientific research and turning it into an art form, again, to bring awareness of the need for environmental stewardship.  

Click the link below to see and hear Brandon at work: 

Sydney Owenson: 'The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa,' Independence, and Education

The Resurrected Christ by Salvator Rosa

Courtesy of Google Art

From my book, Innovations in Rhetoric in the Writings of Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan), p. 231

Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan), a voice representing independent consciousness, does not discriminate between various forms of aristocratic domination and the voice of the common person. Where knowledge and awareness are concerned, she reveals her perspective of the truth as she illustrates in the following passage from her biographical sketch, The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa:

Knowledge, which is supremacy as long only as it is a monopoly, was then the exclusive possession of the clergy; and the intellectual disparity, which existed between the many and the few, long continued to be the instrument of delusions, of which ignorance inevitably becomes the dupe and the victim. (Owenson, The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa, p. 2)

Her purpose for writing evolves from her focus on bringing awareness of the global and historical significance of Ireland to a philosophical focus on the dissemination of knowledge to all thinking individuals. In the above passage, she points out an ‘intellectual disparity’ which exists between those who have been taught through intensive educational programs and, consequently, then use that education as an “instrument of delusion.” 

Even though she presents Rosa in a discrete manner, Owenson reveals her disdain for any totalitarian control over the human spirit, be it religious or governmental. She remains devoted to the concept of independent and critical thinking as the way for humanity to advance to an  elevated consciousness. Thus, her biography of Salvator Rosa is a statement on the evolution of human culture and the possibilities that exist when human beings utilize the knowledge they gain (educational experiences) in a positive way to enlighten others. 

Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite: Music and Iconic Realism

Click HERE to view a rendition of Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite Number I, Opus 46

         A delicate melody flows from a flute. One by one, the oboe, then strings, echo this melody until the orchestra swells with the soft, yet intensely resonating melody. Eventually, every section of the orchestra sings this song of peaceful resolve, as the audience awakens to Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite Number 1, Opus 46.  Grieg introduces the gentlest instruments of the orchestra and gradually blends in the strength of the entire string and brass sections with a calm resonance a listening audience could associate with morning sunrise. Grieg’s opus illustrates iconic realism as each member of the audience attends to this aural depiction of the dawn of something within its consciousness, interpreting possibility in variation with a theme.

       Iconic structures in music include those resonating mechanisms that represent a specific sound source recognized by a community. These aural sources could include human made instruments, the human voice or natural sounds common within a specific environment. For example, the oboe is a wind instrument that produces sounds very close in frequency and intensity to the human voice. In many baroque pieces of music, which were composed during the enlightenment of human culture, the oboe is a featured instrument, which establishes the iconic nature of the oboe within a musical piece constructed of other wind instruments.

         Since the human voice would not naturally be situated in a musical ensemble, the placement of this icon for the human voice provides the listener an opportunity to attend to this iconic realism within the musical genre of artistic expression and feel the dissonant harmonics that naturally resolve to consonance when the oboe blends with the instrumentation. This aural exercise incorporates resonating sound waves with the listener’s memory, which leads to an interpretation of the sound and thus, the association of significant meaning to the specific sound. 

(from my book, The Theory of Iconic Realism: Understanding the Arts through Cultural Context)