The Ghosts I Do Know: Rhythm, Dickinson, Crane

The Ghosts I Do Know: Rhythm, Dickinson, Crane

Dr. Dustin Hellberg

Dept. of English Language and Literature,

Yonsei University, Seoul

Abstract

This paper will examine poetry and rhythm in relation to biological and evolutionary models in order to develop a hypothetical methodology by which certain aspects of literature may be examined through an evolutionary lens. It is by no means an attempt at a finalizing or totalizing way of examining literature, but as such attempts have largely been ignored or assaulted, there is a rather large niche to fill. Hence this article will attempt to redefine literature as a ‘Third Level Darwin Machine’ and parallel the science/culture/Theory[i]debate with that in physics/string theory and then it will connect poetry to Boyd’s idea of ‘rhythm and attention’ along with 'motor resonance', mirror neurons and music theory. It will then look at the influence of Emily Dickinson’s rhythmic and metaphoric compression on the poetry of Hart Crane as a mimetic function following Boyd’s notion of attention, pattern and play as functions of a Third Level Darwinian Machine which will be the operative foundation for a naturalized (but not totalized) account of poetic effect and its relation to the human species’ evolved history.

Key Words: Emily Dickinson, Hart Crane, Brian Boyd, poetry, evolution, rhythm

Word count: 8405

Locating analogous structures that exist between humans and other animals is both a tantalizing clue to our shared heritage as evolved primates and to our unique ability –alone in the cosmos, as far as we know- to self-consciously ascribe meaning to our actions, past and present, especially in symbolic value exchanges like literature, art and other abstract representational forms of communication. Yet, analogous structures alone are not smoking-gun evidence that there is a direct line of absolute correlation between, for example, the basic use of sounds and grunts by vervets to identify predators[ii] and the complex words systems employed by humans. Darwin notes, “The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of the porpoise, and leg of the horse, -the same number of vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and elephant,’ and innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with slow and slight successive modifications.” What Darwin points to here are analogous structures in animal phenotypes that indicate a shared evolutionary history. This is nothing new or surprising. When it comes to things of taxonomy or something benign like bone structure, few people have any quarrel with evolution.

However, when it comes to the brain and behavior, the timbre changes dramatically, especially among modern proponents of Theory. The human brain is an evolved organ, taking millions of years and generations to evolve its abstract language capacity, pattern recognition ability and its general knack for adapting to extremes of environment. If being human is to be part of a natural continuum, then it should follow that the humanities would take more interest in their namesake, that is to say, those sciences capable of giving a full account of the origins of the species. Yet, the natural sciences have been largely demonized or ignored in the humanities, and literary studies most specifically. E. O. Wilson says: “[Literary journals’] content consists largely of historical anecdotes, diachronic collating of outdated, verbalized theories of human behavior, and judgments of current events according to personal ideology … Modern science is still regarded as a problem-solving activity and a set of technical marvels, the importance of which is to be valuated in an ethos extraneous to science” (2002: 203). What I would like to argue tangentially is that the ‘humanistic’ sciences can only gain by interacting with the natural sciences to find an accord by which a broader and deeper (call it an evolving diachronic/synchronic synthesis) picture of ‘the human’ may be said to be found.

As this paper would like to continue in the line of thought that tries to interpret literary works with (but not in strict accordance to) natural science, a working methodology will be necessary. If behaviors seen in literary works (or the writing of the book itself) can be said to mirror to a certain degree the evolved tendencies of our species, then there are obviously several main problems and tenets to be addressed:

1)  Literature is a falsified medium, and hunting for clues in it in order to reveal universal human traits will necessarily be problematic.

2)  Literature is a mimetic repository of real human action and imagination. It can be analyzed by the natural and humanistic sciences.

3)  The methodologies of the natural sciences have been developed in accord with those sciences, not literary studies. This must be resolved.

4)  A new synthetic model is necessary for the natural and humanistic sciences to communicate with one another, without necessarily assigning either a superior explanatory role. They both explain, but cannot yet explain anything to one another.

A literary theory that seeks to incorporate the natural sciences should have a defined set of questions and answers that it thus seeks to elaborate. Boyd says that “any full biological explanation of a behavior needs to answer four questions: why? (fitness: what is its ultimate function?); how? (mechanism: how does it operate, what stimuli cause it to occur?); whence? (phylogeny: what are its evolutionary predecessors, what did it evolve from?); and when? (ontogeny: when does the adaptation develop and change in the individual?)” (2009: 40-41). Can any literary theory answer these questions, or how would it even begin? What, according to the ‘why’ question, is the ultimate function of literature? Unfortunately, that question is slightly outside of this particular essay, requiring much more length to clarify, though the other three questions will be addressed subsequently. Thereafter, I will turn the focus toward Crane and Dickinson and their use of rhythm with these questions in mind. As with any interdisciplinary study, this will require some time in establishing the connection between subjects and therefore will focus its attention there.

“How? (mechanism: how does it operate, what stimuli cause it to occur?)”

If we begin to see literature not only as a repository for the ‘human spirit’ but rather as a ledger in which long tracts of human history and thought have been stored, codified, hyperbolized and -too very often- lost to the ages, we may be able to establish an imperfect but functioning ‘fossil history’ in order to trace back commonalities and differences in works of literature and track their evolution. This can be done by orienting our understanding of literature (or art in general) as a type of ‘Darwinian Machine’. Plotkin (1993) discusses the notion of First, Second and Third Level Darwinian Machines and how these operations might be used to identify the origin of knowledge as something biological rather than requiring only an epistemic or philosophical question and answer. A few quotes from Boyd at length here will clarify the notion of a Darwinian Machine. He says, “The first-order Darwinian system is the evolution of life itself. Life, like other Darwinian systems, generates new genetic combinations, tests them in the environment, and allows those that do not fail the test (by dying before reproducing) to regenerate (2009: 351-352). This is the first level of the outline. Boyd continues, “Second-order Darwinian machines are systems within living organisms that themselves or deploy the same generate-test-regenerate principle. One essential second-order Darwin machine is the human immune system … Among third-order Darwin machines are our ideas and their concrete manifestations” (2009: 351-352). This is of course suggesting only that these processes are very similar in their function, and not somehow merely mechanistic entities that tick away toward some absolutely knowable consequence in deterministic fashion. Nor is it somehow suggesting that a Third Level Darwinian Machine is ‘alive’ in the same way that a biological organism is alive. They are similar in the modes of development and their particular ‘evolution’. “[These Darwinian Machines] cannot find the right answer beforehand: there is no single right form of life, no single right antibody, so single right synaptic link, so single right move. But they can generate possibilities that the environment tests” (Boyd, 2009: 120). By reexamining literature as this kind of third level Darwinian machine, we can at least set out from a slightly more naturalistic point without fear of affirming the very consequent being sought[iii]. If the product of a Darwinian machine has as its goal that which is unknowable until put in an environment (say, a literary text in a society capable or unwilling to accept its merits), then this redefinition stays that particular criticism. It also removes any accusations of determinism, as the teleological function is unknown until it has an environment in which to operate, much like any living organism.[iv]

Using Boyd’s definition of literature as a Third Level Darwin Machine (hereafter TLDM, as needed) allows a particular side-step past what might be called the ‘metaphor problem’ addressed in much post-modern/post-structural theory. Namely, that language is never quite as accurate as we think and the formation of various discourses cannot thus make a claim to be superior to one another owing to their foundation in language. Any resulting hierarchy of accuracy in language would then be deemed a politicized account, as in, who is allowed to state that this or that term is more ‘accurate’, thus according to Theory this would be something to eschew.[v] Essentially, this is a politicized update –albeit an interesting one- of the Liar’s Paradox which is at least as old as Eubulides, ca. 400 BCE. The metaphor problem is, as I see it, simply a kind of shell game[vi]: We substitute one shell/term/metaphoric overlay for another and continue to obscure the prize in a kind of linguistic legerdemain. Yet, some of this is unfortunately necessary. We speak with words. The same with writing. Explanations as such will never be ‘out of language’ in that sense, and for some, this is a core problem.[vii] The natural sciences and literature necessarily have some overlap in terminology (though obviously employed in different ways). Some of these terms are slippery and hard to define. No matter. Each gets their work done and they can be brought into accord.

The metaphor problem is very similar if not the same issue as the ‘frame problem’ raised by Plotkin. Plotkin notes (1993: 225-226) that while the first and second level Darwinian machines have bearing on one another, there is a question whether and how much influence these have over the third. It is exactly here where the difficult task lies between tying together heuristics of explanation between the natural sciences and cultural observation of particular instances. He says, “If the perpetuation of genes, the primary heuristic replicators [here to mean first, second and third level Darwinian machines, my note], is what the primary and secondary levels are ultimately about, then many of the consequences of culture seem to run counter to this general goal” (1993: 226). Perhaps here, Plotkin means that culture may, in general, react against the notion of a goal, or telos. We shouldn’t confuse this general goal as something preordained or necessary. Plotkin continues, “I think, though, that this view is wrong, a kind of conceptual illusion based on our present incomplete understanding of culture. Some of the seemingly ‘unnatural’ features of culture, like sanctions against sexual behavior or the establishment of certain kinds of cultural institutions, may be culture-level manifestations or consequences of cultural selection set by the primary and secondary heuristics” (1993: 226). If this is accurate, then there exists no divide between the slow Darwinian model of evolution and the ostensibly Lamarckian rapid proliferation of cultural practices. Here, the metaphor problem of naming and renaming the same functions and practices is resolved as a system of interrelated behaviors each framed by the other, instead of hair-splitting definitions of theories more allied with the ‘linguistic turn’. It is a chain versus a rupture.[viii]

The linguistic turn problem is addressed by Boyd (2009) in relation to narrative and its communicative abilities in human expression and culture. He says, “[Narrative] does not depend on language. It can be expressed through mime, dance, wordless picture books, or movies. And although such narratives are often predicated on or elaborated through language they need not be” (2009: 130-131). Here is perhaps the strength of seeing literature as a third level Darwinian machine, since it abrogates the need to couch the debate purely in language itself (which avoids the self-recursive paradox of Theory in general) and allows for other forms of communication and information participate as interpretive functions. If something as basic to literature as narrative does not specifically require a ‘languaged’ medium, then I believe we may safely proceed.[ix]

An interesting corollary between Theory and evolution can be found in the debate over String Theory in modern physics. Cultural theory as a whole does not make quantitative predictions, opting rather for qualitative descriptions. This is not a negative critique. It is similar to Super String theory and its inability (as of yet!) to provide testable, experimental models for support of its wonderful and weird notions. Yet, as Feynman says, “String theorists don’t make predictions, they make excuses” (qtd. in Woit, 2006: 175). While I do not wish to raise charges against Theory,[x] its very hostility to science as having something ‘real’ to say about the physical world –and thereby about the human species- would seem to place it into a similar camp as that of String Theory: it is tantalizing and engaging, but cannot offer testable proof of its hypotheses. Some might say that this is no fault, and others would say that is exactly the point of Theory’s endeavor. It is this that Theory, and especially the literary studies, can gain from incorporating natural science into its mien. Yet, as I would like to bring the natural sciences and the humanities into concert, an ethos with which current Theory is simply incompatible. This hostility and incompatibility is not new. Ashcroft, et al., outline Lyotard’s famous critique of science saying, “Science as [Lyotard] argues, classifies the narrative dominated oral world as belonging to a different mentality, ‘savage, primitive, undeveloped’. From this view develops ‘the entire history of cultural imperialism from the dawn of Western civilisation [sic]” (2002: 164). This attack is representative, though it seems misguided.