The Poet as God: The Fantasy Poetry of Clark Ashton Smith

I read a lot of literature. Of the literature I read, much of that literature is of the "fantasy" genre. And of the "fantasy literature" I tend to read, the vast majority of that is "narrative prose" or novels.

To my embarrassment, I rarely read poetry. And I never read what I would call "fantasy poetry." When I do read poetry--usually it's because I'm teaching it--the poetry I read is "hyper-canonical," major stopping points on the tour path of Western Poetry of the English Language: the Beowulf poet, Milton, Shakespeare, the Romantics, the Modernists. In spite of the fact that my wife is a poet, I rarely read contemporary poetry.

But lately I've been trying to do some serious thinking about poetry, particularly in the context of fantasy. Why?

Recently I've been working on a chapter in my dissertation focused on the fantasist, Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). Those of you who know a little about CAS know that before he was publishing in Weird Tales alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, he was publishing poetry in Poetry Magazine alongside W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. Although Clark Ashton Smith was a pulp writer who wrote genre fiction, there's an argument to be made that he was, at least earlier in his career, also a Modernist poet.

I was reading from a wonderful anthology of Clark Ashton Smith's "Fantastic Poems" that I recommend to you. It's titled, The Last Oblivion: Best Fantastic Poems of Clark Ashton Smith (New York: Hippocampus P, 2002), and it's edited by S.T. Joshi and David Schultz.

The opening of Smith's poem, "The Hashish Easter; Or, the Apocalypse of Evil" struck me. Here's how the poem begins:


Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams;
I crown me with the million colored sun
 Of secret worlds incredible, and take
Their trailing skies for vestment when I soar,
Throned on the mounting zenith, and illume
The spaceward-flown horizon infinite. (15)

Here Smith has created a character, "the emperor of dreams." I'm inclined to believe the "emperor of dreams" is a kind of imaginary poet figure, an archetype or symbol for all poets.

The Poet with a capital P wears a sun as a crown and the sky as a robe. And further, the Poet illuminates the heavens. In this vision of the poet, Smith has imagined the artist as the basis of reality. It's not as if the artist is erotically fusing with nature, an earlier idea from the Romantic period. The artist is not simply coming to terms with the world "out there" and then fusing with it. Rather, the artist is the world. The artist not only creates or organizes being. The artist becomes being as such.

I find this idea so intriguing. I reminds me of that movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. In that movie, the implication is that there is this little old man whose simple mind sustains all being. In the reality of this movie, all consciousness somewhat dwells within the wide space of this little old man's mind.

Smith seems to be offering a similar vision here. The poet doesn't stand off away from being and thereby change reality; rather, the poet becomes the very "stuff" of reality. The poet is a god not in the sense of a center of consciousness that stands out of being; rather, it is the poet who is the basis of being.

Review of Peter Jackson's *The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey*

Reviewing Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will prove a challenge for me. Although I don't believe in such a thing as "objectivitiy" in these matters of movie reviews, I do believe one should at least try to limit their bias--i.e. keep a general audience in mind--when it comes to reccommending a movie. With this film, I just can't do that! I love The Hobbit! Book, radio drama, animated film, live action film -- whatever. This novel was the story that revealed faerie to me.

The consensus at this point seems to be that the film is good but not amazing, that it satisfies the Tolkien fan more than a generic audience. That may be true, because I'm a Tolkien fan and I was blown away by the film. The cinematography was beautiful! The acting was great! The special effects were amazing! The narrative of The Hobbit was not only accurately related but it was invigorated through thoughtful and respectful embellishment!

Of course there were a few things I want to quibble with. Although I ended up liking the film's version of Thorin Oakenshield as the film progressed, I felt as though his character was initially portrayed as too young and not elegant or "kingly" enough. I really liked the portrayal of the dwarves in general, however. I like how all the dwarves had unique characteristics and how they all seemed to be--at least visually--distinctive characters. There is the "Dungeons and Dragons" fantasy stereotype of the dwarf: huge beard and mustache, short, axe, chainmail. I like how the film makers pushed against this. I really liked the portrayal of Fili and Kili. There is a single line in The Hobbit where they are referred to as the youngest of the dwarves, and Jackson really picked up on that.

One of the great things about Jackson and his fellow film makers is their capacity to take minor references by Tolkien and to amplify and foreground them. They did this with Aragorn and the Path of the Dead in the Lord of the Rings film. And they definitely do it throughout this film.

I wish the eagles would have talked. As a kid, reading that novel for the first time, I was so intrigued by how the eagles began talking after they rescued the dwarves. I thought they were portrayed quite beautifully in the film, but the character of Gwaihir, king of the eagles, was so impressive to me as a child reader (this is one element the Rankin and Bass cartoon definately has over the film). I love the exchange between Gandalf and the eagles after the eagle's drop the dwarves off on the edge of Mirkwood forest. Maybe they'll include that in the next film.

I really liked how the film was tied into Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I loved the beginning where Frodo makes a cameo, where he pins the "No Admittance" sign on the gate, takes a book, and goes to a field to wait on Gandalf in order to surprise him. I've seen the Peter Jackson films so many times, it was wonderful to see them directly tied into this film.

I know the meeting with Radagast was a major embellishment on Jackson's part; however, I couldn't help but like it. I found that quirky character hilarious. The idea--that he would be dragged around by a band of rabbits on a sled--is hilarious! The way he was portrayed--a kind of forest hermit--resonated with me for some reason. I love the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, the mythology surrounding the books, and so any effort to visualize the full depth of Tolkien's world and to tell stories about it --whether the media be film or pastiches--I'm a supporter of. I want to know more about Middle Earth, and seeing the brief reference to Radagast from The Lord of the Rings made into a living, breathing character was great.

All in all, this was a great film! I'm eager to see it again.

Two Visions of the Racial Politics of *The Lord of the Rings*

I was sitting in a coffee shop this morning getting my daily dose of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings when I came across this passage from The Return of the King. Some context: the battle of the Pelennor Fields is waging and the battle rage of the Rohirrim has been stoked due to the death of their king and Eowyn, a princess of Rohan. The Rohirrim ride forward and confront many "evil" races of men who serve Sauron in the War of the Ring. Here is how they are described:

"Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues" (132).

This description is disturbing for its overt racism. We have here non-European races allegorically figured as evil. From the east, from the south, dark-skinned: any "man" who is other is here part of the "evil" host. And even more disturbing, they are compared to monsters with the simile "like half-trolls."

Passages like this are disturbing and difficult to wrap my mind around as a modern. Obviously, I cherish The Lord of the Rings, but passages like this--which are undoubtedly blots--give me pause. The allegorical logic is laid bare here that transmutes orcs and trolls into other human beings. The City of the White Tree, fighting the dark masses of the east, takes on a different connotation in light of this passage.

Such passages are indeed sad reminders that the writers and artists we love were living in a time of great misunderstanding, when other human who looked and lived differently (who were outside of their lived experience--at least on an intimate level) scared them.

I wonder if rather than see a passage like this as confirmation that Tolkien was a racist (a kind of low blow, I think) we could see it more constructively, as symptoms of an ideologically troubled modernity that was demanding that intelligent people come to terms with multi-valence, poly-vocality, and the juxtapositions of many worlds. Let me explain. At the same time Tolkien is writing of "half-troll" black men he is also writing about the relationship of Gimli and Legolas, their coming to terms with cultural/racial differences. In contradistinction to the passage above there is a later passage that becomes relevant. Commenting on the city of Gondor, Gimli the dwarf states,

"'There is some good stone-work here,' he said as he looked at the walls; 'but also some that is less good, and the streets could be better contrived. When Aragorn comes into his own, I shall offer him the service of stronewrights of the Mountain, and we will make this a town to be proud of.'

'They will need more gardens,' said Legolas. 'The houses are dead, and there is too little here that grows and is glad. If Aragorn comes into his own, the people of the Wood shall bring him birds that sing and trees that do not die.'" (163).

So, in opposition to the overt comparison of black men to half-trolls, we have this image of multiple races making plans to bring together multiple cultures to create a better community. To compare these passages is to remind me that these works are "undecided" on the level of ideology. They are not decided on "race" or "cultural hegemony." Rather, they are sites where racial contradictions are considered, negotiated, and ultimately are tested and solved and hopefully brought out of the fantasy world and into the real world to make things better.

Scaling Down War: the Narrative Function of Hobbits

I was reading  The Return of the King this morning and I came upon a passage that I believe demonstrates a key narrative strategy if not pioneered at least put to good work by J.R.R. Tolkien, namely, the act of suturing together two distinct narrative scales: the epic and the mundane. Consider the passage. Pippin is conversing with a guard of Minis Tirith, Beregond, and he's complaining about his serving duties to Denethor, Steward of Gondor:

"I have kicked my heels at the door of my master's chamber for many slow hours, while he has debated with Gandalf and the Prince and other great persons. And I'm not used, Master Beregond, to waiting hungry on other while they eat. It is a sore trial for a hobbit, that. No doubt you will think I should feel the honour more deeply. But what is the good of such honour? Indeed what is the good even of food and drink under this creeping shadow?" (89, Ballantine Trade Paperback).

I love this image of Pippin standing off as Denethor absently eats a spread of delicious food amid an important conversation with Gandalf. I imagine a look of sincere frustration on the poor hobbit's face.

We have here two separate worlds brought together through the experience of the hobbit: (1) the epic world of politics and cities and dark lords and armies being debated by Denethor and Gandalf, and (2) the quotidian world of food and drink and boredom experienced by Pippin. We have here two scales brought in contact with each other: the global-political and the local-experiential. Denethor and Gandalf are concerned with politics and the logistics of fighting a war; Pippin is concerned with grabbing an ale and some food. But both Gandalf/Denthor and Pippin are reacting to the same historical situation, the coming of the great war of the ring.

This juxtaposition of multiple narrative scales in the same scene makes, I think, Tolkien's portrayal of the experience of war--in spite of it being fantastical--somewhat realistic. In reading these novels, you're not simply dwelling on the level of the epic, a narrative mode that somewhat cruelly relates the death of thousands and political backs and forths with scant a comment. You also get to connect with the participants in the war on the level of their personal experiences. For example, the reader is introduced to Beregond's son in the previous chapter. He is not simply one of the many guards of Minis Tirith who die in the approaching seige.

To put it simply: Tolkien uses the mundane perspective of the hobbits looking onto great things, important meetings, in order to "humanize" the experience of the war of the ring, to scale it down to an accessible level for his reader.

A Book Review of Lin Carter's *Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers* (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976)

I've recently been reading Lin Carter's famous essay collection about the pioneers of sword and sorcery, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976). It's a fun book, a relaxing read, but in terms of analysis, it falls short. It's more and less a biographical reference guide for a variety of heroic fantasy writers. I came to it specifically because of the chapter on Clark Ashton Smith. I'm trying to write a chapter in my dissertation about Smith, and locating basic biographical material has been difficult.

The most interesting essay in the anthology, I think, is the opening one: "The Sword of Faerie." In this essay, De Camp surveys imaginative literature from its mythical "origin" to its most recent incarnations. He effectively binds together the classical manifestations of heroic fantasy like Ancient Greek and Anglo-Saxon epic poetry to the modern manifestations, e.g. Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos stories, and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Further, he binds together the Gothic novel, the historical novel, the novel of romantic primitivism, in an attempt to portray imaginative literature as a kind of thread running through literary history.

Other essays are worth reading for their information but I was reluctant of some of the analysis. The one on Robert E. Howard offers an unsympathetic view of the writer's life and deals in suspicious armchair psychology. Of particular note is Carter's essay on J.R.R. Tolkien. He states that the The Hobbit comes close to "universal appeal" and rightly observes that "few works can be read with pleasure" by both adult and young readers (224). I completely agree. To corroborate Carter's idea, I'll say that The Hobbit was a profound experience for me as a young kid. I read it in the 5th grade and have had a habit of reading and re-reading it since. I return to the book often.

Carter also claims that Tolkien was what he calls a "rurophile," a worshiper of an idealized vision of nature. He states that, for Tolkien, "life in the Industrial Age had some of the qualities of life in prison" (234). I find that intriguing, this notion that a sense of the cruelty and inhumanity modern life shades Tolkien's work; however, Carter seems to criticize or at least poke fun at Tolkien for his apparent negative vision of modernity. There's a strange propensity in Carter's work to interpret or morally censure the personalities and lives of the writer's he is studying (writer's he ostensibly enjoys).

This is a classic text, I'd say, worth the money and the time; however, Carter's style of literary criticism is just strange. It hybridizes basic historical literary research with psychological case studies. At the same he's relating for you essential information about these writers--in bald "info-dump" fashion--he's also "judging" them, speculating about whether they were psychologically sound.

To an extent, as a literary criticism, it's kind of a parody of the Freudian psychoanalytical literary criticism that was vogue in the 40s and 50s.

December and the Tolkien Ritual

December brings with it a desire to read Tolkien. For years now, a holiday season ritual of mine has been to return to The Hobbit and The Lord of Rings.

I think this began in December of 2001 when Peter Jackson's films began to come out. I was a freshman at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio at the time, but I was home for break. Everyone was still reeling from the September 11th horror. I remember I saw the first Peter Jackson adaptation with my father, uncle, and brothers. The sequence of Gandalf the Grey seemed to key into so much of my anxiety at the time, centered not just on 9/11 but on my still fresh new experiences as a college freshmen. This image of a solitary grey pilgrim standing before a smoking demon gave simplistic allegorical shape to what I was feeling like at the time.

After watching the movie--which blew me away--I started reading through the books, book I hadn't read since early high school. I don't think I finished reading The Lord of the Rings, stalling somewhere at the point after the Battle of Helm's Deep and the beginning of the domestication of Gollum. But of course I made my way through The Hobbit. It's such a quick read! An elegant little book!

The following year, when Peter Jackson's version of The Two Towers came out, I felt compelled to try the cycle again. This time I finished in full both the LOTR and The Hobbit. I saw the second movie. I was thrilled by the battle of Helm's Deep. And I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but I had established a kind of tradition. The following December, as the release of Jackson's Return of the King approached, I re-read LOTR and The Hobbit. Since then, I've read this books every December.

It is very satisfying, going on this journey over and over. I don't know why. People who have "high" literary tastes will probably raise an eyebrow at this need to read and re-read, at this this spiral that might appear to be a pathological compulsion to repeat and experience something over and over. How many times does the One Ring need to destroyed until we've vanquished the Dark Lord?

In any case, the work of J.R.R. Tolkien has become associated in my mind with December, with the end of a long year. When Frodo and Sam and Gollum finally reach the crack of doom, my year is over, and it's ready to return to the Shire and start the whole thing over again.

Art, Drugs, and Religion: Clark Ashton Smith's "The Disinterment of Venus"

So I've revving up my engines to prepare for writing my next dissertation chapter. This chapter will focus will on Clark Ashton Smith (13 January 1893 – 14 August 1961), a poet and writer of fantasy fiction who published in Weird Tales alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. I wanted to discuss one of this stories here, "The Disinterment of Venus." Published in Weird Tales in July of 1934, it appeared alongside the famous novelette, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key," a collaboration between H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price.

The story takes place in Smith's imaginary French province of Averoigne, at a 16th century Benedictine monastery. While the monks are digging in their garden, they come upon a giant statue, "the grimy head and torso of what was plainly a marble woman goddess from antique years." The statue is revealed to be somewhat supernatural. It evokes in people who look upon it deep desires. These desires are animal in nature: lust, hunger, the desire for alcohol. To a large extent, the statue emanates a kind of vice aura that contaminates those who look upon it. As the story progresses, the statue turns many of the otherwise god-fearing monks to sin. Eventually, one monk decides he has had enough. He approaches the statue with an intent on destroying it, with a heavy hammer. He is found the next day in the hole from which they exhumed the statue. The statue has crushed him to death, is on top of him, and it seems as though--even in death--he is embracing it.

Though this story didn't "scare" me, I found it extremely intriguing. I think allegorizes a certain kind of relationship to art, to drugs, to religion. In this story, an art object becomes monstrous. It becomes a kind of narcotic, something the monks become addicted to. And it leads to their ruin. I think this comparison between art and addictive drugs quite intriguing. Both drugs and art are reagents to ostensibly expand one's consciousness, yes? And furthermore, both drugs and art are sometimes offered as substitutes for religious experience. In this story, you have a drug-like art object set in a monastery, a place of worship. For me, this temple place with a goddess statue that attracts like a drug is a kind of "bridge point" between this world and other worlds. It is a kind of precipice that the monks throw themselves into in order to escape mundane existence in the seeking out of other worlds.

I think there is an ever prevalent attraction to the idea of "escaping" the world through art, through drugs, through religion Clark Ashton Smith's oeuvre as a whole.