Term Paper on "Apollonian and Dionysian Myth"

Term Paper 5 pages (1388 words) Sources: 1+ Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Dionysian Myth in Two Poems by Frank O'Hara

Poetry has traditionally been the realm where the Dionysian myth, as defined in opposition to the Apollonian myth, is able to reign free, effectively embracing the sort of chaos and formlessness that has traditionally defined Dionysus. At the same time, it is very difficult to isolate the Dionysian qualities of a poem from the Apollonian qualities, as we rely on the difference between the two as definitional factors in each; in order for true poetry to occur, one needs the Apollonian to give form and temperance to the wildness of the Dionysian. Still, in the following essay, we will attempt to read two poems by Frank O'Hara, "Poem" and "Homosexuality," from a purely Dionysian standpoint - even though, it may be argued, that an Apollonian reading of the poems may also be elicited.

Before we begin, a word about those qualities typically considered to be "Dionysian." Michael Thro has used the following themes in his delineation of the Dionysus myth: earth, id, eros, Epicurean, heart, emotion, feeling, chaos, excess, female, equality, art, spontaneity, impulsiveness, country, romanticism, nature. In other words, Dionysus is the polar opposite of everything the Apollonian is meant to represent (sun, ego, psyche, stoic, etc.) in her psychoanalytic study of the Apollo and Dionysus myths, Helene Deutsch has characterized Dionysus as follows: "His ability to perform miracles and to personify whatever the situation calls for, on the one hand, and his ferocity and amorality, on the other, place him outside the mortals' conception of good and bad." Thus, Dionysus must be considered outside conventional notions of good and evil, an argument that Nietzsche, in his the Birth of Tragedy, also supported. Dionysus is ultimately about indulgence, about giving into pleasure and letting go of all obligations, and feeling no guilt whatsoever about it. Based on these qualities, it is not difficult to see that Frank O'Hara was a most Dionysian poet.

Frank O'Hara's "Poem," one of a handful of nameless poems dashed off in the course of his brief yet prolific career, is short enough to be quoted here in full:

Green things are flowers too

And we desire them more than George Sand's blue rose not That we don't shun poison oak

The poem's immediate concern is with the establishment of a visual image derived from nature - that of the flower, a classical poetic motif. But O'Hara's first line is decidedly unflowery; instead, it is rather playful in its tone and construction: "Green things are flowers too." What are the other "green things" that the poet was referring to or thinking of before the poem began - those green things that announce their presence by the inclusion of the word "too" at the end of the line? Could it be the poison oak mentioned in the last line?

Poem" is about desire in a purely aesthetic sense. It is Dionysian not only in this embrace of desire and the aesthetic, but in that it does not fear embracing the irrational, the absurd, in rendering a work of art. The poet states that we desire flowers more than George Sand's blue rose; in other words, a blue rose is not a flower? The poem does not really make any logical, Apollonian sense - and that is exactly O'Hara's point. A classical, romantic nature poem about flowers might attempt to elaborate on the qualities of the blue rose via metaphor, thus allowing the Apollonian to temper the Dionysian impulses of the poem. But O'Hara will have none of it - other than stating that it belongs to George Sand, the famous French writer from the 19th century, we do not learn anything else about flowers, other than what they are not: poison oak.

The second poem of our inquiry, "Homosexuality," has a rather deceptive title, as the poem itself does not seem to have much to do with the subject of homosexuality - at least not as it has been constructed today. It is not until near the end of the poem when we begin to recognize that the poem is about, among other things, "cruising" - that is, searching for… READ MORE

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