Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonPost by George J. DancePost by George J. DanceNeither of those poems is the one that I was referring to.
Nor was it "When the Light Appears" or "This Form of Life Needs Sex" (both of which were also posted).
So we have a mystery poem; one about which I'm supposed to have "attempted to claim that since the poem *could* be interpreted in non-pedophilic ways, that it therefore wasn't a rank piece of kiddie porn."
Pretty much.
It wasn't the sort of thing I'd allocate any memory space to.
Then we can forget it until it turns up, and move on.
Post by Michael PendragonPost by George J. DanceOn the most obvious interpretation "please master" is definitely about male/male sex - one character has a 'shaft,' the other a 'penis,' and there's no reason to imagine strap-ons.
Post by George J. DanceNone of the above specifically mention boys, although all of the "please master" supplications create the image of a young boy (acolyte) imploring an older man he has been apprenticed to.
Yes, a 'master' could be a boss, or a teacher. But I think those were more usually called 'sir'. I got the idea, partly from that form of address, that this was either describing or imagining a DS role-playing game. That makes sense if the Sub is actually asking for those things, in which case he's following a script.
And that's the thing ... when interpreting a work, *any* scenario that fits must be including in the overall evaluation of the poem. We agree that "Please Master" is overtly about homosexual sex. The fact that the narrative could be Dominant (Male Dominatrix)/Submissive, Master/Slave rpg means that this is one of the level on which it operates.
Fair enough. Every reader will bring his own background thoughts - his experiences in the broad sense (including what else he's read and thought about) - into an interpretation; and since those are all different, every reader's interpretation will be somewhat different.
To and extent. The critical reader would allow his interpretation to expand based upon the observations of others. IOW, the critical approach is inclusive; each individual interpretation isn't view as "different" or "counter," but as a new level of meaning that enriches the poem as a whole.
However, there is a finite number of interpretive levels to which any given can lay claim. To be considered valid, each individual interpretation must adhere to and support the main narrative at its most overt/basic level. In this instance, an individual interpretation is deemed "valid," so long as it fits into the homosexual Dominant/Submissive theme.
Theoretically, the finite number of interpretations will be reached, expressed, and read; at which time all informed critical readings should correspond.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonOf course D/S M/S rpgs aren't the sort of thing that the majority of people participate in/identify with. At least, I've never traveled in any such circles.
My only 'experience' is one book I read (Glassco's /English Governess/), one I tried to read (/The Story of O/), and one I've just heard about (/50 Shades of Gray). It tells me quite a few people do it, and it's reasonable to think that more of them fantasize about it without doing it. Ginsberg might have been one of either group.
The D/S rpg scenario is a part of our collective culture and visual allusions to it have turned up on prime time television shows like "Seinfeld" and "Supernatural" (and in British comedies from the 1970s, like "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "The Benny Hill Show"). Bettie Page takes it back to the 1950s, but that aspect of her career didn't become "mainstream" until much later. However, I believe it is something that most people know about *only* through its depiction in the popular media, and not from firsthand experience.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonFor the poem to have a more universal application, we need to look at other scenarios that fit.
"Master" (and "Headmaster") were common forms of addressing a teacher in the Victorian era (and may still be used in the U.K. for all I know). And "Master" as a form of address from an apprentice to a master craftsman would also have been common during that period.
Also in the British context, it could be an adult servant or employee speaking to his boss (Scrooge was Bob Cratchit's "master") and, in the American context, a black slave to the slaveowner.
Post by Michael PendragonAnd, in a subversive inversion, to be discussed a bit later, "Master" was also a formal means of addressing a youth or boy.
True.
Post by Michael PendragonI don't believe that any of these interpretations can be fully ruled out. Rather, the poem should be approached as pertaining to each of them; an particularly, with an eye on the various points of *interplay* between them.
The only thing that can rule out an interpretation is something in the text itself, and admittedly the two guys in the poem could be in any of those roles, or (in my D/S interpretation), playing any of those roles. Only a reader can decide which, based on his or her own background ideas and beliefs.
And on this point we disagree. I maintain that a *critical reader* would not decide on any one of those interpretations, but would take all of them into account. And, in taking each interpretation into account, would decide that each is equally viable. And, as each is equally viable, no one of these interpretations is correct: the poem's meaning *must* apply to, and include, *all* of them.
But does an interpretation include a dozen or more various scenarios? The answer is relatively simple: by identifying the underlying common denominators and adopting as broad (and inclusive) an interpretation as possible.
In Ginsberg's poem, the underlying common denominators are 1) homosexual sex, and 2) Dominant/Submissive sex. We must next determine what his message about homosexual Dominant/Submissive sex is, and apply that message to each of the various scenarios.
The message, so far as I can determine, is one of reciprocal spiritual/psychological completion on the part of both "master" and "slave." This not only holds true on a literal level (that is, within each of the afore-mentioned sexual scenarios), but on a metaphorical level when applied to any social situation involving a "master" and "subordinate."
Post by George J. DanceThat's why I called "please master" a Rorschach poem: it's capable of more than one interpretation, and the interpretation a reader picks says more about the reader as it does about the poem.
No, no, no. To settle on a single interpretation in terms of narrative scenario is to not understand the poem (or any poem) at all. The only thing such a "Rorschach test" would prove is whether one is capable of applying a critical analysis to a poem ... or not.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonPost by George J. DancePost by George J. DanceIn this poem, the nature of the supplications is overtly sexual, implying that the acolyte is a virgin experiencing various sex acts for the first time.
I fail to see that implication. It reads to me as if the speaker knows exactly what's going to come (pun intended).
That is a valid interpretation. However, it is only one interpretation. And by limiting your understanding of the poem to only one interpretation, you are missing out on the other levels upon which it operates.
I understand, and I'm not trying to limit the interpretation; that's why I called your saying that I would do that "an outrageous lie".
But that is, in effect, what you are doing. You're allowing for numerous individual interpretations, rather than comprehending that each individual interpretation is merely a part of the complete picture.
And, in this instance, the complete picture includes man-boy sex.
For instance, let's take a social interpretation: the "master" (supervisor) and "slave" (subordinate) in the workplace. The psycho-sexual S&M overtones apply to the workplace situation, and the homosexual (when both employees are male) and pedophilic overtones apply (if only on a latent/subconscious/subtextual level): the (father figure) manager exerting his dominance/authority over the compliant (child figure) underling.
In short, the homosexual D/S sex/pedophilia interpretations apply to each scenario on some level.
Post by George J. DanceAs I see it, those who'd argue that a poem like this is simply "a rank piece of kiddy porn" are the ones doing the limiting.
That statement was made regarding another poem (or, rather, my recollection of what I took away from a vaguely remembered poem). However, it is both accurate and limiting in regards to this piece.
It is a rank piece of pornography. Ginsberg/the narrator graphically depicts an interminably long list of sexual acts in such a manner that one can safely draw the conclusion that he was typing with only one of his hands on the keyboard.
And, insofar as its M/S depiction lends itself to a child/adult interaction, it is kiddie porn as well. And, IMO the child/adult reading was intentionally hinted at, and cultivated, throughout the narrative, and that the poem is "a rank piece of kiddie porn."
It is other things as well (all of them exhibiting varying degrees of offensiveness), but the "kiddie porn" element cannot be brushed aside.
Post by George J. DanceI'm simply trying to make the points that (1) there are alternative interpretations, and (2) those readers' interpretations owe more to them than to the poem.
And I'll reassert my main contention that 1) the alternate interpretations are merely pieces of the larger interpretation, and that 2) the mistaken insistence on individual interpretations (as opposed to a single, multi-layered reading) is what separates the critical reader from the casual one.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonI agree that the Submissive/Slave/Acolyte/Student/Boy/Virgin knows exactly what's going to come. That doesn't necessarily mean that he's experienced it before. Since the poem works on either level, we can not only leave both interpretations open, but can merge them into a homosexual variation on the heterosexual Virgin/Whore imago.
We now have a reciprocal relation between the "Master" and "Slave" -- wherein each becomes an aspect of the other's Anima or muse; and thus, complete each other (at least as Anima figures).
Again, that's fair enough; a sex poem should transcend the physical motions to get at the idea of souls or spirits merging, when "two become one" as Plato and Jesus had it, right up to the Spice Girls. (Which is one reason I don't like Ginsberg's poem: it doesn't go beyond the physical.)
IOW: it's porn.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonPost by George J. DancePost by George J. DanceThis certainly evokes the middle aged man's self-idealized view of a Man-Boy love affair.
It could, for some middle-aged or older men, admittedly. I expect it did for Jim, which is not to say he shared that view of course.
It's a valid interpretation, and one that must be included in any understanding of the poem -- especially in light of the fact that Ginsberg claimed to be sexually attracted to young boys (early teens).
Agreed again: Ginsberg was an admitted MAP (Minor-Attracted Person), who was by his own account molested by a predator when he was 8. One can't rule out that he was thinking about it. At the same time, there's no reason to think that he was writing about it, that that's what he was trying to communicate.
I disagree. There is plenty of reason to assume he was thinking about. In fact there is plenty of reason, based upon the role that being a MAP played in his life, to suspect that his poem is primarily an autoerotic rumination on, and self-justifcation of, an adult-minor sexual coupling. And, such a reading can easily be applied to the poems' "Please master" structure.
One can argue over whether it is the primary aspect of the poem, but one can never dismiss it from any valid interpretation.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonGinsberg the poet has chosen to use the acolyte's voice to express himself. Yes, I know the Karla dogma by heart, but since both the Master and Acolyte are creations of the poet, both represent their creator to some degree.
I think Karla's speaker/writer dictum is full of shit. The speaker and writer are distinct categories, but that could be a distinction without a difference; Karla simply begged the question when she said those who identified the two in this or that poem were "confused". Even where a writer uses an invented persona as a speaker, the persona is still saying and doing what just what the writer wants him to say and do, in order to communicate what the writer wants to say - his character has no more independence of mind than, say, a sockmonkey.
I wouldn't say that Karla's dictum was full of shit (although Will's use of it as a "Get out of jail free" card certainly is), as it is correct insofar as it goes. A writer can have a character express hateful, bigoted remarks only to expose (by example) the character flaws that give rise to them. In a similar manner, the sociopathic characters in my stories don't represent me, per se, so much as psychological tendencies I've rejected. Of course, the other side of the coin is that in order for me to have rejected these tendencies, I must first have entertained them to some extent.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonGinsberg was well aware that the larger part of society has an aversion to both homosexuality and considers "man-boy love" a moral abomination.
In my lifetime, both were considered abominations; for example, I remember reading a book on morality from the early 1960s (title and author long forgotten) that pointed out that (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that "even the most committed homosexual knows that he is mentally ill."
As per the teachings of Sigmund Freud who called it an "aberration," and recommended treatment to correct it. And I should make it clear that our cultural acceptance of a psychological aberration (a differentiation from the norm) doesn't make it any less of one.
Post by George J. DanceGangs or mobs would attack and even kill them, just as they'd do for suspected predators today. Even Ayn Rand used to tell her acolytes (paraphrasing again), "you can be homosexual; you just cannot morally act on it." That is changing; I'd say that most of "society" below a certain age just doesn't care about that anymore.
That certain age being ... 60? Most people my age or younger (myself included) don't care about it one way or the other. We have adopted a laissez-faire attitude toward it through having become familiarized with it at a fairly early age. And, for better or worse, we can give Ginsberg (and poems like "Please Master") some credit for this.
Post by George J. DanceI don't think the same can. or will, or should ever happen to those who fantasize about molesting children, any more than to people who have other rape fantasies. "Don't act on it" should be not only a socially but a legally enforceable rule, and I predict it will be as long as most of us have children of our own.
A hundred years ago, most would have drawn the same conclusion about homosexuality. This is the fundamental basis of our ongoing argument over whether NAMBLA has the right (inalienable, not legal) to express its beliefs.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonWhether Ginsberg actually had such encounters, or only fantasized about such encounters, is entirely beside the point in approaching his poem. The result would have been the same in either case: that is, he would have attempted to justify the man-boy love *act* both to society at large and to himself (when society labels you a "monster," it's got to have some effect on your self-image/self worth).
He's certainly doing something like that for *homosexual* love - he's at least writing "shock poetry," throwing it in the faces of those who would consider it
an abomination. The text supports that well enough.
The homosexual context is overt, the MAP subtextually.
Post by George J. DanceThere's nothing in the text to say that he's doing that for child molesting, though; the idea that the speaker is a child isn't ruled out by the text, but it isn't supported by anything in it, either. Some readers are going to read it that way, some won't; as with Rorschach ink blots, the subject sees it or not because of the subject, not because of the poem or the blot.
It isn't directly supported, but it is strongly hinted at in the master/subordinate (adult/child) structure. And, it's inescapable when one takes Ginsberg's expressed preferences into account,
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonMore importantly, this "autobiographical" approach fits in with each of the aforementioned scenarios (Master/Slave, Dominant/Slave, Teacher/Student, Craftsman/Apprentice, Alchemist/Acolyte, Man/Boy, etc.). And, because it fits, it provides another level (autobiographical) on which the poem can be appreciated.
Sure, "autobiographical" criticism can enhance one's knowledge of a poem; considering how people prefer reading biographies (both non-fiction and fiction) to, say, reading meditations on eternal verities, it's a good way to bring people to poetry.
Reading biographies can help one to better understand the writings of an author. I'm currently reading a biography on Charles Dickens, and the correspondences between his fictional characters and the various people in his life can be enlightening.
Post by George J. DanceBut it cannot say anything definitive about the poem, or what the writer meant to say in the poem. Critics who disagree about that have to rely on what the writer did say: on the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text.
And the text readily allows for, even hints at and encourages, an adult/child relationship. At best, it's the 800 lb gorilla in the room.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonIf the speaker (Ginsberg) were an adult addressing a boy as "Master," the poem becomes the perverse fantasy of a middle-age man mooning over/having sex with an adolescent boy -- while elevating the boy in his corresponding Anima role as a teacher, light-bringer, Messiah.
The poem becomes a poetic re-envisioning of the man-boy sexual act as a form of spiritual communion/completion.
It's an iconoclastic, amoral confrontation with heterosexual societal norms that my devilish nature applauds. In fact, I've taken a similar (albeit heterosexual) tack in a couple of my own poems ("Shall I Choose Thee, Lovely Maide" and "Come Away").
Well put. "Shock poetry" can be about more than the shock; that can be just a device to get the reader out of his comfort zone, and get him thinking about things he wouldn't think of otherwise.
It can also be a sensationalistic lure to draw the reader to a poem/book he might not otherwise notice.
Post by George J. DancePost by Michael PendragonThis is not to say that I find any quality in Ginsberg's poem. It is a poorly written piece; structurally repetitive, repulsively vulgar; and in spite of its subversive intent and graphic language, duller than dishwater.
Agreed. Unless one's into sex fantasy (and I'm not), there's nothing in it that I'd expect anyone to find attractive. Maybe the repetition gives it some power as a performance piece, say if Ginsberg or someone like him were reciting it the way he did "Howl". But that's all I can see of value in it.
IOW: it's a rank piece of porn (with kiddie porn overtones).