"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

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134 A Littoral Zone opens with “A Darwinian Preface” (7). Evolution prefaces and informs the work. Written in the Petrarchan sonnet form (with a variation on the rhyme scheme), the poem contrasts the mechanical workings of the evolution of the human body with those aspects of our humanity which separate us from the biological process: bravery, love, and the intellectual operations of the neocortex. (The neocortex is evolutionarily the most recent part of the brain and it is here that higher cognitive functions like language are processed (Karmiloff-Smith in Rose 174).) The poem demonstrates various movements from the octave to the sestet: from night to day, from fear to determination, from the body to the heart, and from intimations of death to celebration of life. Each of these movements offers recognition or anagnorisis. The poem reflects the poet’s realisation that life does have purpose beyond the biological. This ‘meaning’ is contained in life itself and his purpose is reflected in the final phrase: “Best buckle to”. A DARWINIAN PREFACE The crab, the clot, the muzzle or the knife: patiently, the nocturnal terrorisms stalk. Even the brave know hardly of rest, aware a body’s little but a glove stretched from metatarsals to neocortex on a stiffening frame. A hand as strange clenches on coiled lengths of fear: that old vortex steeled by the usual mundane heroisms. Your heart wins armour from confronting life, yet stays unlatched, anticipating love. Each dawn claims thanks and welcome, and gets blessed. Perhaps the sea indeed did suckle you through all its prisms, its diurnal range. There is no help for it. Best buckle to. Most of the literary critics point to pertinent aspects of “A Darwinian Preface”, but do not offer a comprehensive analysis. Sacks’ review does not link the poem to evolutionary theory, but he does say: “It is redolent with a terse fortitude, as well as with a characteristic alliance of scientific precision, poetic élan, and stoicism under siege” (1- 2). Morphet concentrates on the poem’s play between life and death and its evolutionary framework: “The evolutionary pattern that is the substratum of the poem both exposes and sustains the life of the body and the movements of consciousness” (209). Duncan Brown singles out the final eight lines and claims they are “as close to a credo as
135 anything Livingstone has written” (2002: 104), but does not explain why he says this. Dirk Klopper, in arguing that Livingstone depicts Africa as a place of predatory violence, says this poem offers “the hope of love” through the imagery of the knight’s armour and that this counters “the fact that life is predatory” (1997: 44). The poem reflects Livingstone’s belief in Darwinism, his need for purpose in the face of contingency, and the role of the imagination in attaining this purpose. His technical acuity is evident here as throughout the collection. The Petrarchan form signifies order and pattern, but a variation of the traditional rhyme scheme reflects the contingency or chance which governs the process of natural selection. The octave explores the problem of fear and the sestet offers a resolution through determinedness. The sonnet as lyric traditionally uses the first person pronoun, but Livingstone replaces this with the distancing device of the second person pronoun your (line 9) and you (line 12). The opening line’s regular iambic pentameter provides a scaffold for the list of apparently disparate objects. What is the connection between the crab, clot, muzzle and knife? They are all linked by the definite article “the”, but “or” separates the knife (a manmade object which I read as a trope for the faculty of reason which resides in the human neocortex) from the previous three natural objects. Given the title’s reference to Darwinism, these four objects represent the adaptive process (or variation) which constitutes natural selection. 29 The clot in this aspect is read as a coagulated mass of material and the muzzle as that of an animal. For the poet, they belong to a set of “nocturnal terrorisms” (line 2), an organised system of intimidation which is part of a recurring nightmare. If the four objects are read as a trope for the evolutionary process, then it is the contingency of existence which terrifies the poet. Metaphorically, each of the four objects also represents danger, or death, through the pincers of the crab, thrombosis induced by a blood clot, the muzzle of a gun, and the cutting sharpness of the knife. Both the evolutionary implications and the mechanical dangers contained in the four objects “patiently … stalk” (lines 1 and 2) the consciousness of the speaker. 29 Stephen Jay Gould defines this as “(1) agency, or organismal struggle as the appropriate (and nearly exclusive) level of operation for natural selection [and] (2) efficacy, or natural selection as the creative force of evolutionary change (with complexly co-ordinated sequelae of inferred principles about the nature of variation…)” (2002: 59, my underlining).
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"Symbiosis or Death": An Ecocritica
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Swallow) and so obviate its certain
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Contents Abstract .................
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Acknowledgements To Andrew Stevens
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ix Humankind’s abuse of nature an
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Introduction It was a Hogsback poet
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3 USA and was the first to apply th
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5 cilia, spirochaetes, mitochondria
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7 Durban in 1964 to take up the pos
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9 as the Earth. The poetry demands
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Perhaps in moments of - shall we sa
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13 married? This chapter will explo
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15 This is an idealistic position b
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17 Here, the “planet” and “a
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value. Julia Martin repeatedly stre
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21 The puzzle of ecology, then, is
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23 historic social conflicts. Langu
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25 ‘There remains,’ wrote Heide
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27 discourse, but as a fundamental
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the contradictions of consciousness
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31 Shelley refers to imagination an
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33 The freedom of birds - Keats’
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35 universe as mere mechanism” bu
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37 My 1963 comically chivalrous res
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39 research has followed two main p
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41 is definitive, not only for its
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Chapter Two Douglas Livingstone: Hi
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45 admired by poets of all poetical
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47 in the publication of Sjambok an
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49 conflict: “I don’t think any
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51 long-term implications of this t
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53 urbanisation. He adds that in th
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55 be seen as a stylistic pastorali
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57 (173). Livingstone, too, speaks
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59 to find a closer identification
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61 notes the “universality” of
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63 The first chapter of Chapman’s
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65 It should be mentioned, however,
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the stones, slaked battles, seas; t
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69 while I claim the undertone is a
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71 conjuring up a bizarre psycholog
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Yet the overriding relationship we
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75 The next collection, Sjambok and
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77 reflects the major variations of
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79 This new idea-system… I shall
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81 … we are the architects of our
Page 93 and 94: 83 our anthropocentrism. This deepe
Page 95 and 96: The first sputnik blipped above me
Page 97 and 98: 87 way of finding our sense of plac
Page 99 and 100: 89 poem, indicates that overcoming
Page 101 and 102: 91 constancy” where living things
Page 103 and 104: 93 dissolves” (line 46). He is le
Page 105 and 106: 95 / their daily crust on farm and
Page 107 and 108: 97 lightning” (line 14). The fig
Page 109 and 110: 99 life-forms. The poem ends on an
Page 111 and 112: 101 nature. As demonstrated in the
Page 113 and 114: 103 planting and regeneration. In
Page 115 and 116: 105 inhabitants, also cleansed and
Page 117 and 118: 107 The poem is divided into four p
Page 119 and 120: 109 position. Wilson defines biophi
Page 121 and 122: 111 humanity has no future place on
Page 123 and 124: 113 omnipotent power is disastrous
Page 125 and 126: 115 Because he suffers from, or is,
Page 127 and 128: We are an animal that needs to use
Page 129 and 130: 119 his scientific work lies in the
Page 131 and 132: 121 "metallic man" (line 6) who com
Page 133 and 134: 123 It [A Littoral Zone] might with
Page 135 and 136: 125 Livingstone” (1997). David Le
Page 137 and 138: 127 and decreases the pressure on p
Page 139 and 140: 129 suggests that much of Livingsto
Page 141 and 142: Chapter Five From Darwinism to Desp
Page 143: 133 conundrum also plagues Livingst
Page 147 and 148: 137 The sestet explores the result
Page 149 and 150: 139 [W]hile human survival may be c
Page 151 and 152: 141 The poem uses the coelacanth, a
Page 153 and 154: 143 examines evolution at cellular
Page 155 and 156: 145 (Dennett 86) which “propel”
Page 157 and 158: 147 reconnecting with the Earth and
Page 159 and 160: 149 ignorant or arrogant to see thi
Page 161 and 162: 151 This densely layered poem explo
Page 163 and 164: 153 is best to leave nature to do i
Page 165 and 166: 155 this reverence is an even great
Page 167 and 168: 157 continuation of a species. The
Page 169 and 170: 159 The remnants of the San people
Page 171 and 172: 161 In the third stanza he sees the
Page 173 and 174: 163 implication is that the San sha
Page 175 and 176: 165 is his anger extended to humank
Page 177 and 178: 167 “Carnivores” and social des
Page 179 and 180: Chapter Six “Seeking life, seekin
Page 181 and 182: 171 symbolise cosmic evil, but rath
Page 183 and 184: 173 The snake here symbolises self-
Page 185 and 186: 175 of Looking at a Black Snake”
Page 187 and 188: 177 The dead snake lies on the beac
Page 189 and 190: [A] constant image is that of the c
Page 191 and 192: 181 with a duiker doe - the visitor
Page 193 and 194: 183 life force (signified by the su
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185 This poem describes the first s
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187 The poem works with the idea of
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189 itself and so managed to captur
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191 The title of the poem alludes t
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193 resolve humankind’s psychomac
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195 The above ‘conventional’ lo
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197 opera, Lohengrin so that the po
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199 redolent of the happier moments
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I conclude this chapter with an exa
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203 perceived by my senses, but not
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205 resolution through atonement, w
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207 they “meld / in manic songs o
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209 A brief review will be useful.
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211 appears as thanatos” (207). T
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Conclusion The coming together of t
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“An appraisal of sewage pollution
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Appendix B continued 217
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Primary Texts Bibliography Livingst
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Clouts, Sidney. "The Violent Arcadi
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Hillman, James. Dream Animals. San
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One’s Reality: A study of the wor
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