I lost my mind at an early age and I'd be lying to you if I didn't tell you I've been searching for it ever since.
Someone once said that words don't really mean anything. What a wonderfull illusion to live by.
The well Oiled machine, the Kant. I lived it. Theology, more importantly the reason of religion in humanity is perhaps, more definitely is what twirls me.
We speak of Illusions. We speak of lies. But really aren't they the same things? Relevant truths. Things to turn the mind this way or that. Settle distant thoughts, those absurd thoughts that could be if we only let them wonder a little farther before we rationalize, reason them into a set box, a little cove deep in the droughts of our mind.
The storm is very much real. But what is reality? If it's all in our head then thinking this or that is as true to this moment as it is false the moment life forces us to deal with a new perception that doesn't fit into the box, the little cove where we've stored our observations of how things should be and how things are rightfully so.
I've lived amongst theologians, and logicians. I've spent nights with the sinister, the mornings stirring the sins free with a crossed chest and a fleeting blessing. I've watched life reason till it couldn't reason anymore and the most common thought that flies into my head is what makes everyone believe? Why this. Why that?
If the world is myth and dream then why do we always turn to books, to movies, to our entertainments to explain? Isn't it everywhere around us? Isn't it in your life? In the depths of your understandings? under standings? Under stand. What are you looking up to that has yet to dissolve?
Life would be much easier if the questions we've raised throughout class were about books. But they aren't. And they are. But they aren't.
Which leads to the next question. If I'm supposed to be outside of time looking in while living it much the same must my own illusions be dissolved to fairly see the illusions, the lies of others? Or is it through my perch that I will see my own illusions dissolve? Oh! but we'd need to know the correct way to look at things, to strike out our disillusion for this to happen, and if religion is anything is it not the structure of how to do just this?
I've studied literature as a support of Christianity for nearly four years. Now, I will continue for another four years studying literature in its opposition. How much can a mind take before it breaks apart from such strain? And why does Literature always come to the point of religion? This semester alone I've prepared two papers which incorporate Scripture, Doctrine, and Literature. And both of these essays incorporate the illusions, (or lack their of) of the writers to prove their point.
The First paper, For Professor Leubner discussed the fallibility of Rev. Samuel Parris' sermons during the Salem Witch Trials. The sermon which I analyzed for discussion was based upon Revelations. Rev. Parris' doctrine takes certain scriptural passages and twists and turns them from being a spiritual war waged between Christ and "The Dragon", into a war between "Christ his followers" and "The Devil and his Witches". Through this illusion (which he believes free of any doubt) he commits a Massacre. He brings about the death of twentysomething people. But it is not an illusion to him whatsoever. He believes it. He lives it. He sees what he is doing is the only just thing to be done.
Now who frightens you more Prospero or Parris? Who is the real Thaumaturgist?
What right does Prospero have to a throne in which he shrieks his duty? ah. But Divinity grants it thus does it not?
And now for Marlowe. For Doctor Faustus. For Gretchen Minton's Brit Lit 1 class we have been surveying early British Literature, notably on its relevance to Christianity. For Friday she asked the students to prepare for a debate over whether or not Doctor Faustus was a Christain Play.
It is of course a Christian Play. But is it really what we expect from it? I did much the same thing for Marlowe as I did for Parris. I looked up the scriptures fleetingly brought up and delved into them. And what did I find? I found Marlowe (a man who spent 6 years in college on a scholarship given to those who will become ministers) was dealing with the lack of belief. Doctor Faustus is caught upon a few verses from the bible in which sin is explained paradoxically as something everyone always has, always.
Here are the two scripture that Marlowe brings up
“
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us! If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”-1 John 1.8
In 1 John 1.8 Marlowe/Faustus has come to the question of how can this be? Logically it makes no sense. We would be in a perpetual circle of damnation. The only way to heaven would be to die in a moment of redemption? As my inept Catholicism teacher used to explain to me "If you we're on the way to confess your sins and you died, say getting hit by a car, you would be absolved and sent straight to heaven. But if you died while still in sin you would be sent to purgatory to work off those sins."
But for Marlowe, a protestant, I'm not quite sure how he would think this through. Faustus on the other hand deals with it the whole time. the entire play (to me) is based upon those two passages and the inability of logic to understand it. Mind you, Protestants during this time believed that to come to Christ you must read the bible and come to your own understanding of it (or so my illusions are). How then could Faustus believe in God? How could he believe when he saw the illusion of it all?
Marlowe goes on to say:
2 SCHOLAR Yet Faustus, look up to heaven; remember God’s mercies are infinite.
Faustus But Faustus’ offense can ne’er be pardoned! The serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus. Ah gentlemen, hear me with patience, and tremble not at my speeches, though my heart pants and quivers to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years—O would I had never seen Wittenberg, Never read book—and what wonders I have done, all Wittenberg can witness- yea, all the world: for which Faustus hath lost both Germany and the world- yea, heaven itself- heaven, the seat of God, the throne of the blessed, the kingdom of joy; and must remain in hell forever- hell, ah, hell forever! Sweet friends, what shall become of Faustus I, being in hell forever? 13.3-25
The entire play stems on the belief that Faustus cannot be forgiven of his sins (if they even are sins) because of his doctrine. Thus if he’d never gone to school and learned this, he would be stupid enough to have the faith that logic has pushed out of him.
Also.
The serpent that tempted Eve may be saved……
This is Lucifer. Lucifer will not be forgiven. Thus how can God
’s mercies be infinite?
Marlowe finishes with this:
"Faustus is gone! Regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendfull fortune may exhort the wise
Only to wonder at unlawful things:
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practice more than heavenly power permits."
He can no longer see the illusion. And beware how much you learn or else you may suffer the same fate.
Thus when reading this compiled with the Tempest I cannot help but see the likeness between both of their thinking. They are both Illusionists. While Faustus is dealing with not being able to believe the illusion of the bible, while simultaneously showing that he will become his own illusionist (Marlowe as an writer Faustus as the only means to live) Prospero and Shakespeare, I believe, one up him.
Prospero at the end of the entire allusion in his epilogue speaks:
Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint. Now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardoned the deceiver, dwell
in this bare island by your spell,
but release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardoned by,
Let your indulgence set me free.
When I read this line, instead of hearing Prospero ask for departure, or the actor ask for his leave, I heard Shakespeare ask me "can you let your own illusions go?" Though I did not know it at the time. All I knew is that there were things in my life that could no longer bear my weight, if only for the fact my mind realized their was never any support to begin with.
I've missed class. I've missed work. I've missed sleep. I've lost ledges. I've exited caves ending up in front of bigger flames. I've entered the deep. I've jumped ship. traded masters. plotted revolts. awoken sleeping kings. I've seen it all and not wanted to believe. I've hid from the entire problem only to deal with it in effect. I've tried to dispossess that which possess me. I've gone free of E. I've gone arrogantly and irrogantly.
I've felt the cold steel. I've cried out for the temptous eye cleaved out! I felt the "healer's art resolving the enigma of the fever chart."
But really I've let go of "nothing", and gained so much in return.
But the question still remains for me.
What the meaning behind Prospero's name.
Do we prosper through our illusion? Or is it going through the illusion that we prosper?
