The ANNOTICO Report

In this book, Paglia the fiery, caustic Italian American humanities
professor, analyses 43 poems closely and precisely in a bid to remind us of
nature, the body and visceral responses to words. It is very clever and
quite enthralling, particularly for those feeling underwhelmed by the
tumbling mills of syllables in the internet ether.

Sunday Morning Herald
Julia Baird.
April 19, 2005

Reclaiming art may be the left's only answer to religion's resurgence,
writes Julia Baird.

Break. Blow. Burn. That's what John Donne wanted God to do to him, and it
is also what Camille Paglia wants poetry to do to us. These words, which
form the title of her new book, are taken from John Donne's Holy Sonnet
XIV, "That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend/ Your force to
break, blow, burn and make me new".

He is writing about God, praying that a forceful Father will batter down
his heart and prise him from the clutches of sin. She is writing about
poetry, arguing that her "secular but semi-mystical view of art is that it
taps primal energies, breaks down barriers, and imperiously remakes our
settled way of seeing. Animated by the break force (the original meaning of
'spirit' and 'inspiration'), poetry brings exhilarating spiritual renewal."

In this book, Paglia the fiery, caustic Italian American humanities
professor, analyses 43 poems closely and precisely in a bid to remind us of
nature, the body and visceral responses to words. It is very clever and
quite enthralling, particularly for those feeling underwhelmed by the
tumbling mills of syllables in the internet ether.

I saw her speak to a group of devotees in a crowded theatre hall in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, last week. They whooped and hollered and clapped
in spurts as she leaned intently on the podium, a short figure in high
heels and a sober grey pants-suit, words scrolling relentlessly from her
mouth like a ticker-tape machine on high speed.

She talks so fast and is so funny that she appears almost manic. She jabbed
her finger repeatedly into what she portrayed as the puffed-up chest of the
pompous left, because, she says, she wants to remind them of art.

Not polling, not poor campaigns, not the pain of defeat. Art.

She insists that the left must shake off the sterility of postmodern
deconstruction and re-engage with art, with passion, and with the language
contained in the vernacular of talkback radio.

In the production line of books asking "Whither to the left?" steadily
rolling out of publishing houses now, people have claimed the right has
captured almost everything - money, morality, religion and war, elitists
and battlers, the rich and the rednecks.

But passion? Art? Has the right really claimed this too?

It's a bold call, but an enticing one, if simply for the reason that
something must be done about the deadly dull spectacle of modern politics,
the lack of spirit in the rhetoric, and the steamrolled political
personalities. What better way to erode democracy than to dull our senses?

Australians respond much better to passion than to earnestness.

Paglia has said some strange and mad things over the past few years, and
she frequently exaggerates for dramatic effect. She paints all universities
as hopelessly stale, elite and still in the thrall of French
post-structuralists. She also stereotypes artists as only creating dark,
agonising films for people who vote the same way, leaving it to people like
Mel Gibson to make the grand, soul-stirring epics people hanker for.

"The age of the avant-garde is over!" Paglia cried, thumping the lectern as
people cheered. "All this hip cynical posing is over!" The hip Paglia is
only cynical about people she disagrees with. She declared she felt "closer
as a secular humanist to evangelicals than to the elite professors of
universities". Strange bedfellows for a lesbian libertarian, but she says
this is because they are passionate about the Bible, its stories and its
meaning, and directly engage with it.

Which is fascinating when you think about both Australia and America - what
are we passionate about? What persuades people, provokes them, moves them
to think? What inspires us, flinging a little hook into the soul which
jerks it upwards?

The renewal of interest in religion has been obvious for some time,
particularly in Africa and South America, but also in its resurgence in
Australian political life. The Passion drew enormous crowds, and The
Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren, is still No. 1 on The New York Times
bestseller list, in hardback. At a forum a few weeks ago, Warren said he
was selling a million copies a month, and had been called upon by global
leaders, having advised the Chinese cabinet and Fidel Castro.

Which is an extraordinary achievement for the author of a book which is
neither particularly original nor well written, but which firmly pushes
people to seek meaning.

What does the left have, Paglia asked, "that can rival the Bible?".

"I prophesy to you that religion will gain and gain until the left comes to
its senses and reclaims art."

Curious thought, that it might take poetry to break, blow, burn and make
even the Democrats and the Australian Labor Party new. It is at first
glance obscure, but still, somehow, a wonderful idea.

Maybe, living in this broad land, we should have a head start.

Herald journalist Julia Baird is a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Centre on
the press, politics and public policy at the Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/
Julia-Baird/Hark-a-libertarian-looks-to-her-right
/2005/04/18/1113676702351.html?oneclick=true