5-22-06
I noticed something this morning, something that corresponds to both James and Hawthorne’s novels about travel through Rome. I noticed the walls that I have artificially constructed about my daily life which prevent me from experiencing certain aspects of daily life. I noticed that every morning when I walk to the Sede for class, I follow the same streets, streets lined with walls which block my view of the city, and block my consciousness of life beyond them. Walking down Trastevere I don’t look to the right or to the left, but in front of me. My focus is tunneled, narrowed, and focused on where I am. I no longer wander down side streets to see what is beyond my line of vision, but march quickly past them. I have constructed a pathway through Rome which limits my experiences, cuts me off from native life, and creates a world of my own, an English speaking world which is thoroughly Americanized. I live with two American class mates, I spend most of my time with them, I talk to them, I read with them, I eat with them, and in so doing I have created an artificial hub of American life in Rome comparable to the artistic community in Hawthorne’s Marble Faun or the elite upper class society of James’ Daisy Miller. We speak English, we think like Americans, and even though we try to separate ourselves from the tourists who rush through Rome in a few days, clogging the streets as the pour over maps and tourists guides searching out only the most important sites of the city, I have to ask if we are really doing the same thing and the only difference between us and them is that we are going to spend more time here.
In reading Daisy Miller and The Italian Hours I came up with a few questions about the texts, and about their author.
• When did James visit Rome?
• What was the political change which had just taken place?
I did not find an answer to this second question which was raised by reading A Roman Holiday. I would guess that it is more probably the change from a Papal State to a secular state and the war with France that followed, rather than Mussolini’s march to Rome. History is a close second to Geography in the list of things I am not good at remembering.
• James seems to echo some of my own thoughts about the outlying provinces of Rome, wondering sometimes if I would not prefer their tranquility to the rush and bustle of the city.
Yesterday afternoon I took a walk out of the city, or as far out of the city as my poor feet would carry me. It was beautiful. I walked down Trastevere, and then turned left somewhere and just kept on walking, through small parks, past tiny Bar’s, until the traffic thinned out and eventually stopped. There were trees, and fields of grass, vineyards and villas that where not butted up next to each other. But the most interesting thing to me was that there weren’t anymore walls. I could look to my right or left and see for some distance before a manmade obstruction blocked my view. It was nice to get out and away from the people and noise and traffic.
• Both James and Hawthorne see the Roman people as innocent, as free and somewhat wild. I tend to see them as more serious and care worn.
In the introductory essay for The Marble Faun Richard H. Brodhead describes Donatello stating that he is “Half man, half faun, he is a kind of missing link between the civilized and natural orders, a civilized fantasy of a precivilized form of life in which the human is still in touch with its ‘animal nature’ (page 9) and not yet condemned to sacrifice instinctual spontaneity to the rule of abstract principle.” (xviii) Yet, Donatello is transformed through his crime, yet he seems to me to be transformed into an American rather than into a more morose Italian.
• Is Daisy Miller an innocent, Does she understand the weight of her decisions and actions?
The question I was really trying to get it was this, is Daisy Miller the equivalent of the innocent Italian seen in Donatello? Untainted and uncorrupted by the world in the beginning, yet failing and falling into miserable decline in the end.
• I do see beggars, a few soldiers and monks, but I don’t think that I see as many as Hawthorne and James saw.
• What of James’ mention of tourists, does he not see himself as a tourist? Are they a different class? There for a different amount of time? Do they look at things differently? Do they look at different things? In short, what makes them different from James?
I’m not sure that I know how to begin to explore this question. It seems that James sees the same sites as the tourists, speaks the same language as the tourists, but he still keeps himself aloof.
Daisy Miller, by Henry James:
I think that this book has a great deal to do with how we work things out. How we puzzle out the intricacies of different cultures as well as how we puzzle out to intricacies of other individuals. As Daisy is trying to understand travel in Rome, Winterbourne is trying to understand Daisy. In many ways this is exactly what I have been doing for the past week. Trying to puzzle out what is and is not acceptable, do I order my food first, or pay first? Do I put the money into someone’s hand, or into the dish on the counter? Do I follow my orders with please? Do I say “excuse me” or should I say “I’m sorry” when I brush into someone on the street? Is it better to smile and nod, or avoid eye contact? Though I don’t have the same social strictures to follow, or the heights of society to fall from, I still find that I am trying to puzzle out what I ought to do just as Daisy was.
In reading this book I was struck by how much control James exerts over our perception of Daisy Miller. In fact, I would venture to state that this book is really about Winterbourne and not really about Daisy Miller. Daisy becomes the inciting action of the book, and the conclusion as well, so that our dramatic arc follows the course of her rise and fall, but that rise and fall is only seen through the eyes of Winterbourne, our narrator, and in many ways our protagonist.
I was struck by the meaning of the different names, and their relationships to each other. The word daisy comes from the Old English daeges eage which means “days eye” referring to the phototrophic properties of the flower. The daisy family includes numerous types of flowers, some of which are weeds, while others are desirable garden flowers. Finally, there are two phrases which incorporate the word daisy, “fresh as a daisy” and “pushing up the daisies”. We start with a phrase that means fresh and full of energy, and end with the transference of energy from the significant deceased to the trivial living. Winterbourne has two interesting meanings. From the Oxford American Dictionary the word means “a stream, typically on chalk or limestone, that flows only after wet weather”. Additionally there is the idea that this character has been created from the cold and snow of winter. The interaction of these two names is bound to cause conflict, the phototrophic daisy is deprived of nutrients during the winter months and progress from freshness to death.
• Why is Daisy in Rome? What is she doing here? What is everyone else doing in Rome?
It seems apparent that Daisy and her family are completing the Grand Tour. They are visiting the major sites of the ancient world to show that they have class and sophistication. It seems that the other characters, who already possess this class and sophistication, are merely in Rome to show off that they possess class and sophistication. From what James’ writes of the movements of the socital elite, the book could just as well have taken place in New York, or London, or any other city. The characters have walled themselves off from their surroundings, they do not live like Romans, the live like Americains. They seem to have created pockets of society wherein they interact with each other and erect walls that separate them from the rest of the city, and the rest of the world. Much like the walls I have erected on my walks to and from the Sede in the mornings.
At our orientation, our second day in Rome, Professor Martemucci reminded us that we represent America. I was reminded of that when reading about Daisy and the way her countrymen ostracized her. They saw Daisy as a reflection of American society, and did not want her to represent America, but I was not clear on where Daisy was supposed to be representing America. Was she representing America to the Americans, or to the Italians? From reading Giovanelli’s comment at her funeral, I would venture to assert that she represented America rather favorably to the people of Rome.
I was speaking of names earlier, Giovanelli, according to the footnote, means Youngman. I wander if he is full of energy and life, if he is a representation of the sun, the source of life for Daisy. Yet at the same time I was fascinated at the change which overcomes Giovanelli at Daisy’s death, he turns pale, and he has no flower in his button hole.
On page 111 of the book, there is a fascinating line in which Daisy tells Winterbourne that he “cuts” her. Winterbourne rejects this metaphor, yet after they leave the Coliseum she dies. And on her death bed she seems to convey that she has turned away from Giovanelli, away from her life, towards Winterbourne, towards her death. It is also interesting that her death comes from the Coliseum, the place of countless martyrdoms for the sake of entertainment, society, frivolity. The same things which prompted the ostracism of Daisy. In the end, however, I believe that the clues James has given us point not towards society as the party guilty of Daisy’s blood, but Winterbourne.
In reading Daisy Miller and The Italian Hours I came up with a few questions about the texts, and about their author.
• When did James visit Rome?
• What was the political change which had just taken place?
I did not find an answer to this second question which was raised by reading A Roman Holiday. I would guess that it is more probably the change from a Papal State to a secular state and the war with France that followed, rather than Mussolini’s march to Rome. History is a close second to Geography in the list of things I am not good at remembering.
• James seems to echo some of my own thoughts about the outlying provinces of Rome, wondering sometimes if I would not prefer their tranquility to the rush and bustle of the city.
Yesterday afternoon I took a walk out of the city, or as far out of the city as my poor feet would carry me. It was beautiful. I walked down Trastevere, and then turned left somewhere and just kept on walking, through small parks, past tiny Bar’s, until the traffic thinned out and eventually stopped. There were trees, and fields of grass, vineyards and villas that where not butted up next to each other. But the most interesting thing to me was that there weren’t anymore walls. I could look to my right or left and see for some distance before a manmade obstruction blocked my view. It was nice to get out and away from the people and noise and traffic.
• Both James and Hawthorne see the Roman people as innocent, as free and somewhat wild. I tend to see them as more serious and care worn.
In the introductory essay for The Marble Faun Richard H. Brodhead describes Donatello stating that he is “Half man, half faun, he is a kind of missing link between the civilized and natural orders, a civilized fantasy of a precivilized form of life in which the human is still in touch with its ‘animal nature’ (page 9) and not yet condemned to sacrifice instinctual spontaneity to the rule of abstract principle.” (xviii) Yet, Donatello is transformed through his crime, yet he seems to me to be transformed into an American rather than into a more morose Italian.
• Is Daisy Miller an innocent, Does she understand the weight of her decisions and actions?
The question I was really trying to get it was this, is Daisy Miller the equivalent of the innocent Italian seen in Donatello? Untainted and uncorrupted by the world in the beginning, yet failing and falling into miserable decline in the end.
• I do see beggars, a few soldiers and monks, but I don’t think that I see as many as Hawthorne and James saw.
• What of James’ mention of tourists, does he not see himself as a tourist? Are they a different class? There for a different amount of time? Do they look at things differently? Do they look at different things? In short, what makes them different from James?
I’m not sure that I know how to begin to explore this question. It seems that James sees the same sites as the tourists, speaks the same language as the tourists, but he still keeps himself aloof.
Daisy Miller, by Henry James:
I think that this book has a great deal to do with how we work things out. How we puzzle out the intricacies of different cultures as well as how we puzzle out to intricacies of other individuals. As Daisy is trying to understand travel in Rome, Winterbourne is trying to understand Daisy. In many ways this is exactly what I have been doing for the past week. Trying to puzzle out what is and is not acceptable, do I order my food first, or pay first? Do I put the money into someone’s hand, or into the dish on the counter? Do I follow my orders with please? Do I say “excuse me” or should I say “I’m sorry” when I brush into someone on the street? Is it better to smile and nod, or avoid eye contact? Though I don’t have the same social strictures to follow, or the heights of society to fall from, I still find that I am trying to puzzle out what I ought to do just as Daisy was.
In reading this book I was struck by how much control James exerts over our perception of Daisy Miller. In fact, I would venture to state that this book is really about Winterbourne and not really about Daisy Miller. Daisy becomes the inciting action of the book, and the conclusion as well, so that our dramatic arc follows the course of her rise and fall, but that rise and fall is only seen through the eyes of Winterbourne, our narrator, and in many ways our protagonist.
I was struck by the meaning of the different names, and their relationships to each other. The word daisy comes from the Old English daeges eage which means “days eye” referring to the phototrophic properties of the flower. The daisy family includes numerous types of flowers, some of which are weeds, while others are desirable garden flowers. Finally, there are two phrases which incorporate the word daisy, “fresh as a daisy” and “pushing up the daisies”. We start with a phrase that means fresh and full of energy, and end with the transference of energy from the significant deceased to the trivial living. Winterbourne has two interesting meanings. From the Oxford American Dictionary the word means “a stream, typically on chalk or limestone, that flows only after wet weather”. Additionally there is the idea that this character has been created from the cold and snow of winter. The interaction of these two names is bound to cause conflict, the phototrophic daisy is deprived of nutrients during the winter months and progress from freshness to death.
• Why is Daisy in Rome? What is she doing here? What is everyone else doing in Rome?
It seems apparent that Daisy and her family are completing the Grand Tour. They are visiting the major sites of the ancient world to show that they have class and sophistication. It seems that the other characters, who already possess this class and sophistication, are merely in Rome to show off that they possess class and sophistication. From what James’ writes of the movements of the socital elite, the book could just as well have taken place in New York, or London, or any other city. The characters have walled themselves off from their surroundings, they do not live like Romans, the live like Americains. They seem to have created pockets of society wherein they interact with each other and erect walls that separate them from the rest of the city, and the rest of the world. Much like the walls I have erected on my walks to and from the Sede in the mornings.
At our orientation, our second day in Rome, Professor Martemucci reminded us that we represent America. I was reminded of that when reading about Daisy and the way her countrymen ostracized her. They saw Daisy as a reflection of American society, and did not want her to represent America, but I was not clear on where Daisy was supposed to be representing America. Was she representing America to the Americans, or to the Italians? From reading Giovanelli’s comment at her funeral, I would venture to assert that she represented America rather favorably to the people of Rome.
I was speaking of names earlier, Giovanelli, according to the footnote, means Youngman. I wander if he is full of energy and life, if he is a representation of the sun, the source of life for Daisy. Yet at the same time I was fascinated at the change which overcomes Giovanelli at Daisy’s death, he turns pale, and he has no flower in his button hole.
On page 111 of the book, there is a fascinating line in which Daisy tells Winterbourne that he “cuts” her. Winterbourne rejects this metaphor, yet after they leave the Coliseum she dies. And on her death bed she seems to convey that she has turned away from Giovanelli, away from her life, towards Winterbourne, towards her death. It is also interesting that her death comes from the Coliseum, the place of countless martyrdoms for the sake of entertainment, society, frivolity. The same things which prompted the ostracism of Daisy. In the end, however, I believe that the clues James has given us point not towards society as the party guilty of Daisy’s blood, but Winterbourne.
posted by Harvy at 4:48 AM
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