Phoenix - Winter 1977 by UT Media Center

Looking for the Best Before I am old

I shall have written him one

Poem maybe as cold and passionate as the dawn. - "The Fisherman," William Butler Yeats Trying to find the best creative work on this campus is usually an exercise in frustration. Student artists a re unhappy with the quality of art reproduction in the Phoen ix (rightly so, we might ~dd), so they submit their works warily. Good fiction writers and poets are not exactly plentiful; the worst writers seem to be the most prolific - and persistent. Photographers on campus are engaged in an endless search for a darkroom - any darkroom. The problems go on and on. Thus in planning this Phoenix we prepared for the worst, and we expected it. We were wrong. Perhaps it was the English department writing contests, the winners of which are in this issue. Perhaps it was our publicity, or the dogged determination of some editors to print only first-quality work. Whatever the reason, this quarter we received plenty of very good poetry, fiction, art, and photography. The best we could find and use is here in your hands. We would like to thank the English department and Dr. Mary Richards for cooperating with us in their writing competition. Thanks are also due the people at Student Publications who gave us advertising space, typeset the copy, and gave creativity on campus a little shelter from the storm. But our biggest debt of gratitude is to the many students who contributed to this issue. The Phoenix is you. Bring contributions for the spring issue to 5, Communications Building. -Ed.

Editor Managing Editor Nonfiction Fiction Poetry Art Photography Editorial Assistants

Connie Jones Lesley Craig John Furlow Lori Kildgore Lynn Hofferberth Eric Forsbergh Robert Wade John Walker Angelyn Bales Rick Sanders Virginia Webb

phoenix 29

Hi-Test Films Presents by' John Furlow UT graduates Eric Lewald and Glenn Morgan make a film about the incoming freshman.

Phoenix Profile: Bethany Dumas, by Virginia Webb - Dr. Dumas talks about our changing language.

Wars and Lechery: The Doomed Quest for Order in Troilus and Cress ida by Photography by John 路Ron Allen - first-place Walker and poetry by winner of the Eleanor R. Donna Shephard Burke Award for nonfiction

Poetry by Marla Puziss, winner of the Bain Swiggett Prize for conventional poetry; and Eric Forsbergh, winner of the Knickerbocker Prize for experimental poetry.

Art by Patti Bellan, Ada Goedbloed, Curtis Le May, John Mishler, and Marcia Goldenstein

7 Ruby's Boys by Lisa Koger, first-place winner of the Captain Robert A. Burke Award for fiction - life on the river road. Photography by John Vavruska and Jed DeKalb

25 Photography by David cover lithography by Patti Dulaney and David Luttrell BeHan

26 Poetry by James C. Allen III, Melody Criswell, Kim Alexander, Duanita Scott, and James Seeley

28 Photography by Michael Barnard and Jonathan Daniel

Photography by John Walker and Robert Walker My Fall From Grace by Don S. Williams - the devil and a boy's first love. Poetry by Patti Walther, Judy Vaughan, Carey Jobe, Thomas Bradford Crattie, Rachel Eve Dixon, R.L. Manus, Edd Hurt, Michael Edens, Joel Haden, John Girard Willis, and Jeffry L. Malter

by John Furlow

Hi-Test Films Presents . ..

The scene is a small southern town with a large university in its midst. Students are going to classes up on a hill, milling around the Student Center, sitting on benches and in the grass talking and reading. Could this possibly be UTI Actually these are scenes from a movie made by Eric Lewald and Glenn Morgan. Many of the scenes in the film were shot around the UT campus, with UT students playing nearly all parts in the film. The film, which has been tentatively named Incoming Freshman, is the first attempt at full scale filmmaking for commercial distributorship by Lewald and Morgan. Both Lewald and Morgan graduated from UT last spring with degrees in film (two of the first three students to graduate from the College Scholars program with ~ film degree). Both have had experience with shorter

films and videotape productions for television. To say that Morgan and Lewald played an integral part in the creation of the film does not credit them enough. Besides originating the theme for the film, writing the script and directing the shooting, they acted as producers, film editors, and cinematographers. In order to procure the funds needed for such an undertaking, Lewald and Morgan had to set up a

corporation limited to ten investors. Hi-Test Films, Inc. was formed, with Lewald and Morgan as the corporation directors. As directors they exercise both managerial operation of the corporation and artistic control of material in the film. The actual shooting of the film began after Lewald and Morgan had hustled up eight investors and enough money to get through the shooting

process. Nearly all the equipment needed to film was borrowed or rented on a deferred basis, with the exception of the camera, which had to be paid for when it was rented. The actors and actresses were picked from 150 persons who reponded to ads placed in the Beacon. About 80 people actually went through the auditions which were held at a UT fraternity house. The auditions went well, Photos by Jed DeKalb

Mary Moon. quintessential freshman

as new characters developed from some of the people trying out, and the main characters took on new dimensions which the players themselves incorporated into their parts. Lewald and Morgan decided to make a film dealing with college life because "it holds something for everyone," Morgan said. High school students (prime drive-in movies attenders) wonder about college, while

people in college can identify with it. Graduates can look back on it, and parents can go see what their kids are doing. Another reason for the theme was accessability. "With a large college campus available to film on, it would be ridiculous to film a jungle movie," commented Morgan. The story centers around Jane (played by Mary Moon), an eighteen year-old freshman who is a bit naive about the ways

The film is meant to be both a comedy and a look at college life. Many of the incidents are based on tales of real experiences which were related to the filmmakers by students. "A wealth of information came from students on campus," said Lewald. The film, now intended for broader distribution, was originally aimed at the R-rated drive-in market for several reasons. This audience is one of the least demanding and is easily satisfied in its desire for movies. Also, drive-in movies have a fairly stable audience since many people simply "go to the drive-in" regardless of what movie is playing; just about any film will show some profit. Since both Lewald and Morgan would like to make films in the future, they felt that first consideration must be given to the financial success of Incoming Freshman. If their first film were not a success, it would be rather hard to get financial backing to make another film. Also, of college life. Her the independent film roommate Viv (played by distributors that spoke Leslie Blalock) has been in school for a year and is with Lewald and Morgan explained that there is a very aware of all things shortage of film available one needs to know to to them. The larger film have a great time at distributors (such as school. Viv attempts to show Jane the ways of an Paramount and United active social life, and Jane Artists) are not making as many of the "big" films changes from a naive anymore, and they are little girl to a socially able to outprice confident college female through a series of independent film misadventures, including distributors for film rights. sorority rush and a This creates a shortage "chalet" party. among the independent

distributors, explained Morgan. They decided on a comedy because it creates less problems and less expense. Films with anything other than a straightforward approach can run into trouble trying to finance camera and makeup special effects, said Morgan. Any problems with continuity, which Morgan termed "a treat for the discerning viewer ," would present much less of a problem in a comedy than in a serious film. Hopefully, particular actor or any continuity actress, said Lewald. discrepancies will be There was a small viewed as just another problem with people not reason to laugh. involved in the movie The actual shooting getting in the way during shooting, said Morgan, took place over a fiveweek period beginning but for the most part those not involved seemed November 1. During this period 95 per cent of the to be aware that film to be used in the something serious was movie production was being done and made a shot, with a little over an conscious effort to stay out of the film. This did hour and a half of raw film remaining to shoot. The not stop people from looking on when filming film that has yet to be was going on, "and shot was held up because of the appearance of occaSionally waving at snow, said Lewald. The the camera," he added. 33,000 feet of film that Both directors agreed that it would have been had already been shot were all taken within preferable to shoot the entire film sequentially, thirty or forty miles of but for various reasons Knoxville, with quite a bit they could only shoot it of the shooting being semi-sequentially. By done on the UT campus shooting the film and in the immediate sequence following campus area. sequence, the option of One of the problems faced by the filmmakers expanding the story line was the use of students as remains open to the director, said Morgan. actors. As students, they did have to go to classes, Both Lewald and Morgan agree that the so much of the shooting had to be worked around film's biggest assets were the classes of each the actors, actresses, and

Photo by Jeff Jernigan

Directors during break at Greve.

Leslie Blalock (Viv), Richard Harriman (Randy), Jim Overlay (Phil), Mary Moon (Jane) on way to big game

production crew. They maintained that everyone involved in the film did their jobs as well or better than expected, even though many of those working did so on a deferred-payment basis. The making of the film was a positive experience with no negative reactions from either crew members or actors, said Lewald. ~'At least none have been expressed to me," he added with a smile. '~We had a cast party, and it was a party of friends, not directors and actors." The very casual atmosphere present while shooting is credited with allowing performers to relax, and the shooting went very smoothly. They felt that few people were really aware of the magnitude of the production, and that this probably helped ease any pressure to perform on the players and crew. With most of the actual shooting done the incredible task of taking over six miles of film and editing it together, mixing the dialogue and sound

effects, and cutting it to feature length lies ahead. The fourteen-plus hours of raw film must be cut to 100 minutes of coherent footage that tell the story of a young girl's first encounters with college life. This is regarded by the pair as one of the essential ingredients in the creative process of movie production. No matter how good the acting, lighting, sound and setting are, they will look bad if the film is edited poorly. Both Lewald and Morgan feel that the film has surpassed their expectations in both the technical and dramatic aspects. They are confident that they have put their best efforts into Incoming Freshman with the hope that people will enjoy the film and perhaps even notice that the directors may have some filmmaking talent. Even more important are their hopes for the film's financial success. If it is successful, it could be the first small step to expanding careers in cinema for both Lewald and Morgan. The editing of the film is scheduled to be done by March or April at which time it will probably be distributed regionally throughout the Southeastern states. After the regional showings, Incoming Freshman will probably be distributed nationally. Look for it at your local theatre someone you know may be a star.

Bain-Swiggett Prize

Knickerbocker Prize

conventional poetry

experimental poetry

suite: Fort Sanders

Sleep in Nagasaki

1. On White avenue, the old houses doze in the sun like wealthy women. High windows and dark stairs, long red-carpeted halls;

Sleep will not quietly draw a silk door before my eyes tonight, lying in this bed in an inn in Nagasaki. The mats are shaken out and clean. the tea pot radiates heat into the table. The maid brings water and quietly pads away.

I have sat on back porches and in living rooms seen the paint, transparent as skin, peel gently back from walls.

There was not time enough even to be startled. A tired clerk rubbing his face, an irritated girl calling in the garden after her brother, a small boy hiding behind a twisted plum tree. They became shadows of carbon on certain stone walls.

2. There is bread baking in the warm breath of the kitchen, and Joyce kneads the dough with her long fingers. I have watched her in the afternoons when the street lifts its asphalt smells, the sounds of cars through the open windows and it is too hot to sleep.

There is a soft noise in the inn hallway. Two voices murmur, a man's, then a woman's. There is small giggle. Two pairs of arms slide together. From the garden outside, a tree casts a deformed shadow on the paper and wood lattice door. I have gathered the thick quilt around me.

3. At night, the day's exhaustion rises from the streets like steam. Somewhere a single phonograph is playing the blues.

The falling bomb did not hesitate in passing through the veil of clouds. The instant came. Massive waves of heat rolled outward in concentric spheres. Quantum shells and neutrons alike dissolved.

4. Lying in bed I have heard the house creak with the sound of bones squeaking beneath the skin. The walls remember carpenters and architects; remember forests.

The silk paintings of Buddha before his cave were swallowed in the red air. "What was this melting wind? Our houses were made of brick and now they have vanished."

5. There are alleys where bamboo grows. The afternoon sun hides in their leaves, and old women sift long fingers through the trashcans for their supper.

-Marla Puziss

Unable to finish the newspaper, Albert Einstein sits motionless at his desk until dawn. Neils Bohr, his heart pounding, jerks bolt upright in his bed. His wife assures him it is but a nightmare.

-Eric Forsbergh

Captain Robert A. Burke Award

Ruby's Boys by Lisa Koger

Ruby's boys. That's what we used to call them. Arden must have been at least thirty and Bertie was even older, but they were still Ruby's boys. We always knew, of course, that they had to be someone else's boys too. The men in Hazel Fork thought that Arden belonged to a well driller from over in Rosedale, but they could never reach a decision about poor Bertie. "He's a Johnson," one would say. "No, by God, he's not" said another. "He ain't got the Johnson nose." "That boy's got the Singleton nose if I ever saw one. Spittin' image of old Ace himself." There were some who liked to hint that Bertie belonged to one of Ruby's cousins, but there was really no way of telling. If Ruby knew, she never said. Maybe she just forgot during the years because they tell me there used to be a time here in Hazel Fork when half the men in town headed for the girls on the river road on Saturday nights. There's not much to see out there in that section of the country. The hollows are filled with black smoke from the chimneys during the day,

and the morning fog from the river barely lifts before the evening mist settles in. The air on the river road seems damper and colder than it is in Hazel Fork. The people who live out there say that's because the sun always has some place more important to go. Ruby and her boys lived in one of the little houses along the river bank. It looked just like all the others: two or three rooms with a little porch in front. There were a few patches of thick green grass in the dirt yard that sloped steeply downward to the river behind the house. The back section of the house was propped up high on wooden supports to keep the flood waters out. It looked like a rotting tree house stuck up on stilts. There must have been a thirty foot drop from the back porch to the river bank below. We used to do some fishing out there on the river, and if the fog wasn't too bad we could see Ruby sitting in her old vine rocker on the back porch late in the evening, staring out over the black river water. A bunch of dustylooking chickens roosted in the willow trees along the bank and

scratched and clawed in the wet leaves and tin cans that had settled under the high porch during the last flood. Things were quiet on the river road in the evenings except for a dog howling now and then in the distance. The people out there stick pretty much to themselves. Those who don't have a steady job, and most of them don't, seldom come to town except for their groceries once a week. They do their buying at Frasure's Grocery. Ross Frasure's is one of the few places here in town that gives credit so most of his business comes from the river road people There's the morning crowd and the evening crowd. The morning bunch are often on Ross's porch at .daybreak with their Friday paychecks from the shoeplant, waiting to "settle" with Ross when he opens up. Those that come straggling in later in the afternoon with their kids whining for "M&M"s and "Cracker Jacks" are the ones that never have a paycheck but have come to let Ross know that they're sure to have one any day. "Got me a job lined up, Ross," they'll say. "Supposed to call me the

6rst of the week." "Well what do you know!" Ross'l say, smiling with them. He never asks what happened to the job they talked about the week before but goes ahead and sacks up their food. Those river road people really like old Ross. Ruby and her boys used to come into town together every Saturday morning. There couldn't have been much left out of Arden's paycheck as a road crewman for the Highways Department after they bought their groceries, but they never owed Ross for anything, and Arden always seemed to have enough to have a good time in town on Saturday nights. Ruby and Arden would pace up and down the aisles gathering up what they needed for the week, while Bertie found a seat on one of the wooden apple crates and drank one chocolate milk after another, blinking his little black eyes and looking around. We used to watch him hanging on to Ruby before she went into the store, reminding her of all the things that she could get for him if she wanted to. When it was time to go home, Bertie was always the 6rst one in Arden's old car. He'd hop in the back seat and dig through the brown paper bags to see what he could 6nd. They never let Bertie drive, but he'd pretend to hold on to a steering wheel while he made loud screeching noises and shifted his gears wildly. He'd puSh his nose and mouth up flat against the back glass and smile at the squirrel tails that flapped and twirled in the wind on Arden's rear antenna as they drove away. The men who spent their Saturdays loa6ng and drinking orange sodas in Ross's store would shift their tobacco wads and shake their heads after Ruby and her boys had gone. "That boy ain't got a lick a sense," one of the loafers would say.

"Doesn't know he's in the world." Ross always said that Bertie should be taken away from here where they could do something for him and teach him things. "You can't teach a retard nothing," the loafers would argue. "Bunch of the boys tried teaching him a few things he ougJtt to know last summer. Take my word for it, he ain't got a brain in that peanut shaped head of his. Best thing you can do for a feller like that's to lock him up somewhere so he can't hurt himself or anyone else." Ross used to say that there wasn't a bit of harm in Bertie, that he didn't have a mean bone in his body. Nobody in town ever paid much attention to Bertie or anything else, for that matter, that went beyond the "HAZEL FORK Incorporated: Pop. 639" sign. We'd see him when he came to the store with Ruby and Arden, but what can you tell about a man by the way he drinks his chocolate milk? He never said much. The only person he ever talked to besides Arden was the man who delivered the bread to Ross's store. Bertie wouldn't go in the store with Ruby and Arden if he saw his truck parked outside. The bread man let Bertie sit in the truck seat while he unloaded the racks of bread and freshly baked cakes and he usually let Bertie pick one of the pastries right from the truck without charging him. If you happened to be standing around the store, it was really something to see. "How long you 6gure it'd take me to learn to drive a truck like you?" Bertie would ask, bouncing up and down in the seat with cake crammed into his mouth and pink icing on his chin. The bread man would pause and get very serious. He always gave the same answer. "Man-sized job, Bertie. Think you could handle it, do you?"

Bertie nodded. "Lot can go wrong." Bertie nodded, grinning widely. "No telling what can happen and a man's got to be ready to take on a heap of responsibilities when the time comes." Bertie would stop bouncing and begin to frown. "But.. .1 6gure a good man like yourself could handle her with no sweat t'all." Bertie would bounce higher than ever and say how he thought that next to Arden the bread man was his best friend. Then there was Snoe Riddle. She and her husband, Alf, ran the pool hall in town. She wasn't much to look at, with that red hair piled up on her head in those little curls and enough face powder on to smother ten women, but Bertie must have thought she was pretty. Ruby used to make Arden take Bertie into town with him once in a while on Saturday nights, and Bertie wouldn't spend a penny of his chocolate milk money if he knew ahead of time that he was going to get to go. He'd save it all up and head straight for the pool hall the minute Arden dropped him off on the corner, and he'd stay there until Arden came to pick him up. At 6rst he just hung around putting quarters in the juke box and ordering up one thing after another as long as Snoe would serve him. She was always so busy fixing hot dogs or getting someone a drink that she never noticed how Bertie watched her all the time, or if she did, she never let on. Bertie hung around there so much that he 6nally got so he could shoot a halfway decent game of pool. But whenever he thought Snoe was looking his way he'd show off a little. He started moving from table to table with his cue stick and messing in everybody's game. Alf

finally had to tell Arden not to bring him there anymore, that Bertie was going to put him out of business, and Bertie had to stay home after that.

wall. He shoved his feet in and out of Arden's dress-up loafers as he watched his brother shave.

Whenever Bertie wasn't along, "business" in town usually kept him there through Saturday night and up until noon on Sunday. He never acted like it bothered him too much not to have Bertie along. We were never too sure about where he spent his time but the important thing was that Bertie thought he knew. He had the idea that Arden wouldn't take him to town anymore because he was seeing Snoe himself! It was funny to everyone but Bertie. Snoe Riddle must have been at least fifty years old. It's hard to say whether one of the loafers in Ross's store put the idea in Bertie's head, or whether he dreamed this one up on his own, but nothing Arden said could convince Bertie that he wasn't trying to steal Snoe away from him. Every Saturday evening when Arden got ready to go in to town Bertie would start whining and begging to go along.

"Get your feet out of them shoes or you ain't going nowhere." "Can I go?"

~den's

One Saturday evening Ruby was hustling about the kitchen trying to get supper on the table before Arden left. It was warm in the house and Arden was standing outside on the back porch, barefoot and shaving himself in front of the little round mirror that hung on the wall. Bertie was sprawled out on his stomach on the porch floor, pouting, poking his fingers in and out of the holes between the planks, and blinking his red-rimmed eyes at the chickens down below. Ruby came out to tell Arden that his supper was about ready. "I'm going too," Bertie began. Arden didn't say anything but continued to stroke the area under his chin with the razor. Bertie sat up and leaned his head against the

"I'm gonna go, Arden."

"No." Arden smiled slightly and looked at himself in the mirror. "Leastways not tonight." He leaned toward the wash basin and splashed the soapy water across his face. "Take me just to Ross's store." "I ain't taking you nowhere." Arden reached for his black T-shirt that was draped across the back of Ruby's rocker and pulled it over his head. "Look, Bertie. Tonight's kind of special, you know?" Arden winked at his brother. "You and me11 go in and really do up the town next weekend, what d'you say?" Bertie began to whine. "Tell him he ain't going with me, Ruby." "You're going to see her. You're going to see Snoe... " ''Tell him he's staying here, Ruby." "Snoe, Snoe, Snoe, Snoe, Snoe, Snoe... " "Ruby?" Ruby went inside to supper. She said later that she didn't know exactly when it happened. Bertie came back inside wearing one of Arden's shoes. "Come look at what Arden done," he said, pointing to the two sections of the porch rail that were broken. "Arden's the one that broke that porch." Arden lay on his back on the ground far below, gazing up at the willow branches above him. One leg was tucked neatly in under him and his head was thrown back in an unusual display of flexibility. It was Bertie who went for help while Ruby sat cross-legged on the ground, holding her boy's head in

her lap. That's the way we found here, rocking back and forth, her hair covered with mist. From somewhere deep in her throat came a sound like an owl, a low w-h-o-o-o sound, that drifted and settled on the river air. There were brief flashes of blue through the river fog, men shouting and tramping about in the yard, poking with their flashlights. Bertie stood back with one of the chickens clutched tightly in his arms. He smoothed and patted the rumed feathers while it struggled to get away. The stretcher was carried up the bank and the shouts and the lights drove away. Ruby's boy. was dead on arrival at the county hospital. Bertie and Ruby spent the next few days doing what had to be done. A death on the river road never brought with it the usual stream of neighbors that it did here in Hazel Fork. There were no cold pies or foilcovered dishes on the tables or any outbursts of emotion that gave anyone the chance to say they "understood." Even the people in town who went to see what the county did for those who could not do for themselves were disappointed with the man and woman standing quietly in the rain. "Arden's sure as hell to be mad at me 'bout this," they heard Bertie say. "Yeah," Ruby whispered as they watched the men slide the metal box into the ground. The sheriff from Hazel Fork visited Ruby the following week. It wasn't the first time his job had called him to the river road and it wouldn't be the last. "Nothing to tell," he told us that evening in Frasure's Grocery, fingering his badge and halfway through his second orange soda. "Nothing ever changed out there. Never will." Life on the river road was always a disappointment for those of use who did not live there.

Robert Walker

John Walker

(untitled) Dying would be better If we all had our way Merely take what's in hand And float away.

Stellar Matter Traces of what we have reached to seek we have caught in burning bits from the stars. They roll in our palms, dark stones too weak to reascend if thrown. Beyond Mars they streak like flashing sunlit cars but like black matchheads struck and seen as they cross night air. Sometimes they shatter above our roofs like pods and scatter unnoticed dust on our fading green and restore worn fields with stellar matter.

The moon is my master He says when. The moon is my playmate, He says how. The moon is my sorcerer He says do it. The moon, ah the moon. The nights are my playground. Light my playground all night long, And I'll tire my bones on your streams of light.

-Carey Jobe

Patti Walther

(untitled)

Sixty-second Holiday There must be something to say about A beautiful, sunny afternoon that is burning you. And after you do home, You'll torture yourself by sitting on the floor Thinking about that day. And how a skinny girl in a ruffled shirt Sat chewing on your (Whose idea was that thing) out-of-place green comb. Oh the symbolism - but you ignore it While her very long, long fingernails Reflect the sun in the only way that they could Beautifully, absolutely beautiful ..

A girl walks about white with clothes that flow and a small mouth that says shit here and shit there She fancies herself Rimbaud and casts me Verlaine, a sod. A perpetual pain ... Once upon a wall a dark girl asked if I was virtuous She was virtuosity made flesh. She said you wonder aimlessly, you love painlessly, You laugh in the face of adverbsity? It may look like I am here but no joke Monika, I'm nowhere near.

And you watch all this. From your towel, your space apart from theirs, You examine your own excuses-for-fingernails Wishing that she'd die, or that you would. Helpless against it, you would look away at the sun, squinting. Praying that she'd squint too, Maybe it would hide her eyes ... (you never knew how pretty "hazel" was) Should you go tell him that your eyes are hazel too? And go buy a ruffled shirt? Give up piano so your fingernails would someday look like hers?

- Thomas Bradford Crattie

There was something in that day, Watching a blue-green sea that seemed to exist only to bear diamond children Here and there And watching heartbreak. .. You can't help but feel somehow very old, very tired.

-Judy Vaughan

Boin-Swiggett

runner-up

Sitting Bull Seeking Immortality

Knickerbocker

My son, behold the the budding black oak trees. that stand in groves. I love to look at these, for they endure the winter's storm and bear the summer's heat - and ourselves, they share the earth, our mother. Notice, son, the day's first lights that pierce the dark with golden rays; and watch the light that grows to touch the earth and bring the warmth of spring to give rebirth to trees, and birds, and every living form that grows on land. The earth receives the warm embrace of the sun, and we shall see each seed awakened by that love, while mothers feed their young to praise the union of Earth and Sun. My dark and bitter days are almost done, but you are fresh with life. Remember, boy, that these were things that gave your father joy, and know that they cannot be owned by men who call our mother wild instead of friend.

-Rachel Eva Dixon

runner-up

And Then the Coroner will have a dance on you. He will tap dance, in a black sledgehammer's ballet, a silent ballet in which the brass instruments, the popping and fuzz of a dirty phonograph needle, and the mangled seashell shouts of a crowd are not present. This is nothing: he casually puts his ear to a seashell and hears no ocean. This silent, roaring tide washes away even the sand castles of old men, and creeps, not whistling, through empty rooms, through a sand castle that has escaped into the real world. No external signs of conflict are present. No jauntiness, either, as green and white water swirls through rooms where eggs were eaten, hair combed, toenails clipped. No trumpets here: maybe zithers and a piccolo, an off-center duet for the water's rest. And then the coroner will have a dance on you, kick up his heels, and skate away, not cracking the ice, not falling through to the cold waters below.

-EddHurt 0

From a 360 plexiglass nosecone Silently, the woodpecker feasts on the apple tree; while qUietly below, a young rooster plumes into color, raspens his voice into a crowand the cool autumn wind sculpts a delicate picture. Emotions quiver like leaves, musically nervous as if ecstasy were every first coming, and the heart were capable of no departure. Pirouetting circumstances, the seasons tell us: it is not so.

-R.L.Manus

The Albatross ... and while the Ancient Mariner held the helm he kept repeating, "the Albatross, the Albatross. it weighs me down."

into the depths plunged fishlikedolphin Apollo, the Delphinian and swam to the ragged teeth of the twelve mile reef where Juan the sailer lay, his encrusted bones within the galleon's ribs.

(untitled) So call these dark ghosts like friends, and let them sooth the cool scurry of lizards and roaches that weave the lines of night. There are men like cannibals, There is no man who would take this night for his supper.

-Joel Haden

"It weighs me down." The deck was strewn with fallen angels, like some celestial battleground where the war goes badly. "The Albatross, the Albatross," he said and his voice trailed away out over the ship's following shadow. And in Malaga they haven't mourned Juan for over four hundred years. His widow waited a season or two and married a maker of boots. They had two sons and three daughters and a numerous line of descendants who died in the Inquisition and the French invasion while the Civil War claimed the restand all because the treasure ship went down and Maria was free of Juan. They had had no children.

Spring is Spring if. .. Spring ain't spring unless(t) i git my boiled eggs & greens i love t best/ N spring ain't spring until wysteria sprouts beneath our windowsill/ Spring is Spring if... rain drench the branch N the waters run deep beneath my toes if swimming near the river flows/ the cane near the creek gits thick & the air smites yous like sweaty fingers upon the brow of dawn/ Spring is spring, if N when Winter seems as though it'll never come again/

And it's been two millenia since I, Apollo, was worshipped at Delphi and sparkling Delos on the bright sea water. I roam now - a dead god, companion to dead menand search the reefs for my followers. "The Albatross, it weighs me down." Stay, speak not forlornly. "Its weight oppresses me." It is only a dead bird. "It hangs upon me." The flesh has long since rotted and the feathers drift away even now. "Still, it is the Albatross." Aye, the Albatross.

-Michael Edens

-John Girard Willis

(untitled) Ferns have sperms and so do we, When they greet eggs there soon are three.

-JeJlry L. Malter

PHOENIX PROFILE PHOENIX PROFILE PHOENIX PROFILE PHOENIX PROFILE PHOENIX PROFILE

Bethany Dumas by Virginia Webb "Language is change," says Dr. Bethany Dumas of the English department. "If a language is living, that is, if it is in use as a daily means of communication, it will naturally change - and there's nothing wrong with that." Dr. Dumas, a linguist who received her Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas and has studied at the University of London, believes that change is inherent in the structure of language. "Those who convey the most conservative attitutes concerning change in language are those who are most knowledgeable about words and their usage, usually English teachers and the like, but they are unfortunately often the ones who least understand the nature of change in language."

Many of the changes taking place within our language now are minor and insignificant, but others are more important because they reflect a basic ignorance of the history of words. "But that's to be expected," adds Dumas, "because as life becomes more complex, we have less and less time to devote to the study of etymology." It is for this reason that the more conservative scholars oppose change - they believe in the necessity of upholding a standard of correct usage of the language. Dumas points out the importance of distinguishing within this opposition to change, the difference between an emotional response to the ignorance betrayed, and an intellectual response whose

underlying objective is keeping language "pure." Some current changes that Dumas observes in the language are the use of the phrase "and plus" as a conjunction in written English, formerly heard only in informal speech; words such as "irregardless" instead of "regardless", or "enthused" instead of "enthusiastic" are examples of improper usages that are gradually becoming acceptable. Of course it is impossible to regulate change, so the concept of an absolute standard is meaningless, Dumas says, because "language doesn't have much to do with logic." Our situation as English speakers is rather unique, because the English language has undergone rapid change in a relatively short period of time, and we have almost no written record of the changes and their causes. The Norman invasion of. the British Islands in 1 066 introduced French as the language of court and the aristocracy, and Latin continued as the language of the church and of scholarly writing. As a result, the English language as it was spoken at that time was seldom written down. "Books slow change, because they provide a standard for usage of

language," Dumas says. Thus, when our language was in a very formative stage, there were few books or records to establish and perpetuate any standards of correct usage.

Dr. Dumas' area of specialization is socio-linguistics, particularly the study of dialect and southern white English. As director of the Tennessee Language Survey, Dumas will be conducting a research project this spring that deals with southern white English and its dialects in Tennessee. Dumas and her field-workers (all of whom must be from the South) will interview approximately 150 subjects in the major rural areas of Tennessee. She sees an important relationship between southern white English and black English, and hopes to deal with this aspect of language in the proposed study. Not many studies of this type have been conducted in the past, but with a Southerner as president, and with national awareness of the South increasing, Dumas foresees a possibility of increased availability of research funds for studies in dialectology. Because of Jimmy Carter's election the traditional attitude toward a southern dialect may be subject to re-evaluation across the country. "When someone responds to a dialect, it is not the sound of the dialect they are responding to; it is rather the type of person associated with that dialect to which they are responding. One's perceived status is the single-most determinant in attit1Jdes toward dialect. There are no superior dialects - a value judgment is meaningless here. All dialects are equal," Dumas says. The notion of superiority of a certain dialect arises from misconceptions of status in language.

As an English scholar, Dumas is naturally aware of the growing concern over the relative illiteracy of many students: "In some cases we're graduating illiterates, and this is extremely serious." Because we are the first country to try to educate everyone, we find ourselves in a dilemma. "We are committed .to a nonelitist position in education because of the nature of democracy, but we are rapidly finding that it is too expensive to educate everyone, and that such attempts have resulted in the lowering of standards." According to Dumas, the first step is to recognize and accept such facts. This is reflected in her realistic view of language: "Language is going to change and that's a fact - a fact we should learn to accept and to deal with rather than criticize."

Photo by Michael Barnard

Lithograph by Patti BeHan

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Lithograph by Ada Goedbloed

Woodcut by Curtis LeMay

Wood sculpture by John Mishler

Graphite by Marcia Goldenstein

Jed DeKalb

My Fall

From Grace by Don S. Williams

I'm not making any alibis. If this has been a terrible week, it's been my fault, to tell the truth. It all started last Monday when I went to get the bus after school. I walked back to the back of the bus where Jim always has -me a seat saved and sat down and we started playing "twenty questions" or something until the bus started rolling forward and Jim punched me with his elbow and nodded his head toward where Julie was sitting by herself. Now this was strange because Ron Walker always sits by Julie on the way home. She's a good looking girl only fourteen and already on the first-string cheerleading squad.

She's got shoulder-length black hair and brown eyes and dark skin and long slim legs and believe me, she's a well-developed girl for her age. And just to think that tonight ... well, I'll get to that later. Anyway I turned back to Jim and he whispered, "Why don't you go sit with her?" Well of course it was an absurd idea and was bound to lead to trouble - which it did - so I rejected the idea and indicated that he ought to do it. He said he couldn't because he was going steady with Marsha and what would she think if she heard that he had sat beside Julie Shannon all the way home? Well, that was true I realized

because like everybody else, I knew what kind of girl Julie Shannon was and I knew what Marsha would think. But I still hedged because I'm a good Christian boy (or was then) and my dad - he's a preacher says that one should avoid the very appearance of evil. Jim called me "chicken" then and said that I had just been too sheltered with my problem, but I stuck to my guns and he didn't say anymore about it. Still the idea was sort of exciting in a way. I mean I'd actually seen what goes on on that bus between Julie and Ron and I've heard what they do at night after the ball games when they go over to her house

Illustration by Robert Wade

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while her parents are at a party. That Ron's a braggart. Anyway the idea of sitting on the bus with Julie began to grow on me and I couldn't sleep that night for thinking about it. I kept imagining my hand or her knee and then ... but I won't go into detail. I tried to chase the visions out of my mind but they just wouldn't go and that night I liked to have never gone to sleep because of them. I'm convinced now that it was the devil at work because why else would I have done all of the things I've done since then even though I know in my heart that they're wrong? Anyway I half made up my mind Tuesday that I would sit with her, due to a number of things. I had just about forgot about her until I was eating an ice cream in the courtyard after lunch and saw Julie's friend Sandra walking toward me with the strangest kind of grin on her face. She sat down beside me and said "Julie's struck on you." I didn't believe her for a minute and went on eating my ice cream like it didn't make any difference to me whether she was struck on me or not. She just sat there sucking on a popsickie and I started getting sort of excited. Imagine, Julie Shannon struck on me. "You're lying," I said, without even looking up. She didn't say anything and I said "Who told you?" "A little bird," she said. I could have strangled her but I just went on eating my ice cream like it was all I was interested in. To be honest, I don't even remember what flavor it was. "What about Ron?" I finally asked. She just hopped up and started walking away, humming some dumb song. I was in a bad way all that day. I knew that if I started messing with Julie I'd be in one big mess. Well I resolved not to, but like The Lord, the devil works in

mysterious ways. To be honest I think they both get pretty underhanded sometimes. Here's what happened. I waited that afternoon until the bus was nearly full before getting on, hoping somebody would get the seat next to Julie but no one had when I got on so I decided that I'd just act as if I hadn't seen her and started walking on back toward the rear of the bus but it's hard to avoid looking at someone when they're right in front of your face so I was almost forced to look at her. I sort of glanced up at her and she was looking me right in the eyes and smiling at me. I felt an itching in my innards and felt my heart start to pound but I started to walk on toward the back of the bus anyway when I saw Jimmy looking up at me and I knew that if I didn't sit down beside her I'd be a laughing stock within two days so I sat down next to her. She had on a real short skirt and I was nervous and this made me even more nervous. We sat there a while and talked about the weather and whether ole Seymour was going to win the ball game or not Friday night. Really, I could have cared less what ole Seymour did but I had to talk about something. Finally, though, I asked, "Where's Ron been lately?" "I don't keep up with Ron," she said. "I thought you two were going together ," I said. "We were," she answered, "but I don't like him anymore." I didn't know exactly how to handle the situation then but I felt awful good about the turn of events. Anyway sin or no sin I knew what I was going to do. Somehow during the bus ride I managed to drop my ink pen and when I reached down to pick it up I let my hand sort of rub against her leg and then let it fall sort of onto her

knee, like it was an accident but we both knew it wasn't. Just like I figured she didn't move it like most girls would have so I let it lay there a minute and then started moving it around on her knee and I could tell she enjoyed it and I did too. Well by the time the bus got to my house she was sort of flustered and I was half crazy, to be honest. I mean this was the first time that I'd ever done anything like this, although I'd heard some of the guys talk about such stuff a lot. I used to be amazed at some of the things they said they did. It seemed awful sinful and I would go home and ask dad what he thought made boys want to be like that, and he said it was because they had the devil in them and I reckon its the truth, although for the life of me I can't remember when he started creeping into me. I guess I just let my guard down. Like dad says, the devil's just awaiting to get a hold on you and you've got to be on guard all the time. Well, somewhere along the line I goofed because I was doing just like all the other guys now. Anyway by the time I got home, I was trembling so and was so pale and flushed that mom thought I was sick and made me go lie down til I got to feeling normal again, which was about an hour and a half later. I stayed awake about half the night that night, knowing I had sinned and repenting for it. I felt like God would forgive me because I decided not to do it again and once I decided that, I fell right to sleep. And I swear I did intend not to, but the guys bragged on me so much for finally coming out of my shell that I began to be right proud of myself in a strange kind of way, because, you see, I wasn't altogether proud. One minute I'd be proud as a cock and the next I'd be mighty ashamed and I'd vow not to fool with such things again but then I'd see her in my mind and I'd know even while I was

avowing it that I'd be right back in that seat again. And sure enough whâ&#x201A;Źn four o'clock rolled around there I was again. Well this time we even made out openly and I can't remember much about it but I swear I believe that at one time I even had my hand down the front of her blouse and believe me, that ain't newspaper filling that bra. It takes the bus about forty-five minutes to get to my house, it has to go over so many dirt backroads, but that day it seemed I got home in ten. Well I guess that if you've been keeping up with the days at all you know by this time that this was Wednesday and that's prayermeeting day at our church. I tried to bellyache my way out of going but my dad said I had a better chance of getting over my bellyache at church than I did staying home watching "Gunsmoke" and finally I gave in. When we got there I slipped into the back row where the Spirit of the Lord would be the weakest I suppose. Before they got through the first three hymns I was already feeling gUilty and by the time Dad started preaching I was in an awful black mood. To top it all, he chose as' his sermon "Resisting Temptation", and I thought he would never quit once he got started. He preached about Adam being led astray by Eve and about David and Bathsheba and finally about how Christ had resisted temptation by Satan himself. But just as he was about to end the sermon (just to show you how far gone in sin I was) I happened to glance over at the pianist's legs. Her skirt was hiked up a little and I looked at her in a way that I never had before and almost lost track of the sermon even. Well I knew then and there that I had better repent and come clean so I went up and "rededicated" my life and vowed to sin no more. People

around me began to shout and one or two of the kids went up and I felt so good and clean inside and Dad said later that night that he thought that would long be a night to remember in the history of the church and he told me how proud he was of me. The next day he wouldn't have been so proud. I guess the devil had such a hold on me by this time that I was a sure goner. I went to school all inspired' about how I had turned back from the devil and had quit lusting after "the flesh". Everytime I thought about "the flesh" I would start singing "The Old Rugged Cross" and its pretty hard to lust after the flesh while singing a song like that, believe me. Well I was doing fine until about one o'clock, after lunch, when Ron Walker came up to me. "Hello Ron," I said real friendly like, trying to show love for my enemy. He didn't say hello back. "I hear you been messing around with my girl," he said in a low voice. I could tell by the way he looked that he wanted to fight but I didn't want to; you're not supposed to fight and, besides, Ron is a little bigger than I am so I said, "She said she wasn't your girl any more but if she is I won't bother her anymore." I said it meekly but I don't think he was even listening because he belted me in the mouth. I remember when I got up, thinking that I ought to try and not fight but he hit me again and I guess the devil took over because I know I wouldn't have beat him like I did, otherwise. When it was over, I had a black eye and a cut lip but he had two black eyes and his nose was bleeding, and about twenty of our friends had gathered and I was suddenly a hero (even though I'd probably only won because Ron had been laid up with the flu) and Julie ran to me and I hugged her despite my new vows.

About that time the principal came along and herded us to his office. He paddled us both and Ron hurried away. The principal grabbed me by the shoulder when I started to do the same and turned me around. "What got into you today, Steve?" he asked me, looking me in the eyes like he was trying to see into my soul. I didn't answer but I knew well enough alright. It was the devil. Well we got on the bus that day and Julie and I made out more than ever before and I felt great, and she asked me if I would sit with her at the ball game and maybe afterward we could go up to her house for a while. She didn't have to tell me what for. I knew alright. And it didn't even bother me all day until I went home and went to bed and started thinking of the fire and brimstone and Satan and how it wouldn't end after a year or two or a hundred or even ten thousand but, like dad says, how that's only the beginning. I know it's strange but I didn't ask forgiveness one time although I didn't sleep much that night. In the first place, I knew that God only helps them who help themselves and I didn't even intend to back out this time and I knew that under those conditions my prayers wouldn't make it off the ground. Somehow I made it through that night but today I still felt bad until I saw Julie in her cute little cheerleading outfit. Then I felt a lot better. I've been so excited all day that I can hardly do anything right. I can't wait until tonight. Oh, I know what I'm going to do is wrong and I ought to pray for grace to resist the temptation, but I'm not going to because the devil has me now whether I like it or not and when I stand before the throne to be judged I'll just say, "That's right Lord, you go ahead and send me down. I deserve it." Because the devil's in me.

John Walker

A'L'Etoile Moving within the confines of the cards, Mystical, animated dream of lovers, death, and fortunate. An agile magician, such sleight of hand: He did not move at all. The royal thrones, with scepters raising in midair, But three there were That more than others, breathed: The sun, the moon, And finally, the star Which burned an arc around the world Then rested as the crown Above your hair. Tarot. -Donna Shepherd

Da vid Luttrell

Moses

(untitled)

On mountain peaks The sun is closer Cool breezes QUicken

Moonclusters, azesty starchild, rainbow neons, ribbons of rainbow Quiet unstruct1,lred and unstrung where did I go back there in yesterday With a fraction of tomorrow mix in one cup of heated desires -rinse until rotten, but I meant to touch you for a thought of crispy lightening/who pulled the plug and turned me off/disconnected forgotten and alone in smokeless fog, STAPLE SHUT MY EYES, i am blind anyway.

Correspondences leap to mind

Apprehends itself Flows to the valley Breath for the spreading oceans of green And manna for me

-James C. Allen III

-Kim Alexander

AUBADE Eighth grade girls, swishing dresses and purses at short boys-I broke mine on an obnoxious brunette. "He read my story in class!" -to run home on the wind, a red, denim cloud of enthusiasm ... Life, I am drunk on you. You are my wine and milk and Ripple and orange juiceI see you through cigarettes at small-talk parties through an empty door into darkness through the haze of boredom the prisms in my lover's eyes the stupor of the stage the grey soup of sleepyou are the light, and the door into darkness.

A Poem

Woo me.

-Melody Criswell

To be an unmitigated staple and apply a loose advantage to paper, is to write a poem.

-Duanita Scott

The Intertwining of Autarkies

Ho hum hie the sea beneath clouds Blotched and bloodied by (What else?) The red eye of the east. A patch of fog A singing gull (23-25 inch wingspan, Dark-tipped, orange-beaked Yellow stick legs drawn up parallel To a sailing carcass, cuddled feet, Black, darting eyes, intestinal parasites) Misted flukes of light Atomized aura (two or three) Now. The cradle rocks The lurching ambiguous surf leads me By the waters I shall not lie me down Ha, ha, ha You shit! I hold up these gnarled and bluing knuckles To hide my face, rub my silly face, my eyes, And there, then, is the sea still waiting Blue and wet Blue and cold As old as the first pip of life So what? I'm not asking the questions

II It's damp here Poor Tom has the goose-bumps that laid the golden egg And cold Shall we wrap it up and take it with us? There! Was that a porpoise jumping? Or a drowning soldier? But where will we put it, I mean where? The frame is fruitwood driftwood Very rare: Early 19th Century. One chance in a million. Pulls it all together very nicely, don't you think? I'll think about it Those sweet rushes, The graceful arms surfacing from blue chic Red nails diving into pink fingers Red lips lightly breaking an ovular rim of crystal

Perspective here, but There's too much red my dear. It won't go, it won't go simply. I didn't school properly Flash of silver flanks Instinctive turns in unison Recognition of danger Are you listening to a word I'm saying? I floundered in shiny shoes (Turn minnows!) Sea puppets? Maybe a different frame, With a little green, antique? He's jumping again Over there! More to the left! Slick and gray Covered with seaweed The problem is the frame It doesn't make sense Don't you think?

III Give just a minute more (So Punch can rub his lumps) I'll give you a stick See how easy it is? Then I'll stand thus: Your hands within my body Mine within yours A puppet fantasy for our separate tomorrows That's all, that's it Use a toothpick if you like It won't hurt so much Good! I laughed their laughs Smiled their smiles Flashed,dodged, dove Now! Now! Hit me hard! But I had no instinct What is it anyway? Suddenly everyone turned and here I am Careful of the ears, my dear It's better now I was meant to make soft marks To be obliterated by instinct That toothpick... Driftwood I like it this way Fish and puppets Ha,ha Punch will get a few lumps for that That's enough, that's all Next time we'll play porpoise

-James Seeley

WaRS &, t€Ch€RY th€ boom€b Quest

tROllus anb CR€SSlba

Eleanora R. Burke Award

byRon Allen The Weltanschauung of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cress ida is one of extraordinary bleakness: the world of the play and its inhabitants are infected with an incurable disorder. The search for a fixed image of absolute value, a final just arbiter, is ultimately futile, rewarded only by continued and hopeless decay. The dominant theme of incurable disorder is evident in both of the plots around which the play unfolds. The two stories - the one of the love of the title characters and the other of the Greek siege of Troy - are intertwined and interdependent, both of them offering numerous manifestations of the disorder motif. The quest in each of the two is to find a fixed idea of a controlling factor of life which makes it meaningful despite the apparent disorder. Rather than the uncovering of love or honor or anything else as a fixed point of reference, all that is finally found is, as Thersites calls it, an all-pervasiveness

of "lechery and wars." (V.ii.193-194) Developments in the war and lechery plot lines are caused by events in the other. Because Troilus, for example, influenced by his love for Cressida, is able to persuade Hector and the others not to give up Helen to the Greeks, the siege continues. Had Troilus not succeeded in his argument, there would have arisen no occasion for his separation from Cressida. The war plot, then, causes the estrangement of the lovers, while one of the lovers has unassumingly been involved in the continuation of the war plot. Just as the plots grow out of each other, so do they parallel each other, both slogging through the quagmire of disorder, with no real prospect for any ultimate resolution, to the end of the play. The disorder, even the absurdity, that is life, is most tellingly seen in the very root of the action of T&C. That root, of course, is in Helen, and when Shakespeare shows her to us, we are not favorably impressed. Engaging in carefree repartee (III.i.45-146), she is

strangely removed from the real world of men fighting and dying for her sake. Rather than using carefully meas ured poetry, Shakespeare gives Helen four lines of verse. Her remaining speeches are in prose. Neither does she move in a regal aura surrounded by poor mortals hushed in the presence of such beauty; she strolls about with the far from noble Pandarus and her lover Paris, who publicly calls her Nell. How is it logically possible in any system which is basically ordered, one almost hears Shakespeare asking, to fight a war over anyone called Nell? Hector recognizes the absurdity lying at the base of the conflict when he urges returnig Helen to the Greeks in order to bring the war to an end: ... Let Helen go. Since the first sword was drawn about this question Every tithe soul 'mongst many thousand dismes Hath been as dear as Helen. I mean, of ours. If we have lost so many tenths of ours To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us (Had it our name) the value of one ten, What merits in that reason which denies The yielding of her up? (II.ii.17 -24)

Even Troilus, who eventually makes the convincing argument against returning Helen to the Greeks, wonders at the beginning of the play what the point of it all is: Fools on both sides, Helen must needs be fair When with your blood you paint her thus! I cannot fight upon this argument: It is too starv'd a subject for my sword. (1.i.86-89)

It is not only the Trojans who wonder at Helen's being the cause of all the surrounding miseries; Ulysses, the most profound of the Greeks, is amazed that so much could happen in the seeking of revenge for one man:

o deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns, For which we lose our heads to gild his horns! (IV.v.30-31)

Given such colors of absurdity in which Shakespeare paints Helen, it is little wonder that chaos is the order of this day whose dawn has been ordained by her. Beyond the absurdity of the root of the action found in Helen, the action of the play is itself shot through with chaos. The reality of an honour which leads men to fight and often die is denied. Shortly after Hector makes the plea Quoted above, he insists that If Helen be wife to Sparta's king (As it is known she is), these moral laws of nature and of nations speak aloud To have her back return'd. Thus to persist In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, But makes it most heavy. (II.ii.183-188)

Despite his recognition of these principles, Hector immediately betrays them by continuing Yet ne'ertheless, My sprightly brethren, I propend to you In resolution to keep Helen still;

For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependence Upon our joint and several dignitaries. (II.ii.189-193)

In making this decision, Hector makes it apparent that the sort of honor operative in the play is not one which seeks the course of a benevolent and just humanity and follows it but one which seeks the path of greatest glory. As Troilus puts it in his reply to the above resolution of Hector, Why, there you touch'd the life of our design. Were it not glory that we more affected Than the performance of our heaving spleens, I would not wish a drop of Troyan blood Spent in her defence. (II.ii.194-198)

The several characters of T&C search in various ways for an image of value, that fixed point of some sort, but fail to find it. Troilus, as seen in the above Quotation and in his idealistic plea to his brothers and his father that they "stand firm by honor" (II.ii.68), is filled at the play's beginning with youth's certainty of purpose. He speaks in these instances and within the war plot as within the love plot in the typical idiom of the young man in love:

o virtuous fight, When right with right wars who shall be most right! True swains in love shall in the world to come Approve their truth by Troilus. When their rhymes, Full of protest, of oath, and big compare, Want ,similes, .truth tir'd with iteration"As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, As iron to adamant, as earth to th' centre" Yet, after all comparisons of truth, As truth's authentic author be cited, "As true as Troilus" shall crown up the verse And sanctify the numbers. (III.ii.158-169) The immutable constancies Troilus finds in love and honour are both shattered by the end of the play. Cressida betrays him virtually the moment that she is out of sight. Shakespeare, in the same way he carefully denies a grand presence to Helen, denies Troilus the opportunity to make an effective tragic stand through the juxtaposition of Troilus' bitter discovery with a running commentary by the scurrilous Thersites, who reduces this potentially tragic situation to the lowest imaginable bawdy humor: "Any man can sing her, if he take her cliff. She's noted" (V.ii.l0-ll). Troilus fares little better in his attempt to be the tragic hero in the battle scene when he attempts to revenge himself on Diomedes. By the inclusion of the bovine Ajax and an absurd argument over who gets to fight Troilus (I want to fight him/No, I want to fight him/You can't 'cause I'm going to/Will nod/Will too!! All right, then, I'll fight you both and exeunt), Shakespeare reduces another potentially highly charged scene to virtual slapstick. While Troilus reacts to situations created by others, Cressida is a creator of situations. For her, love is far from the eternal constant that Troilus in his naivete

professes, even though she replies to his above-quoted speech Prophet may you be! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, When time is old and hath forgot itself, When water drops have worn the stones of Troy, And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up, And might states characterless are grated To dusty nothing - yet let memory, From false to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falsehood! When th' have said "as false As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth, As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer's calf, Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son" "Yea," let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, "As false as Cressid." (1I1.ii.170-183)

The reader or playgoer has seen Cressida's calculated actions to attract Troilus as effectively as possible (Oh, I've told you that, but I shouldn't have; now you'll take advantage of poor little me. You'll just have to kiss me to // " ~

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keep me from saying anything else I shouldn't). Given what is seen of her character, when Cressida makes the above answer to Troilus' protestations, one has the same feeling of inescapable foreshadowing that is sensed when Macbeth says "to be King/Stands not within the prospect of belief/No more than to be Cawdor." The almost certain suspicion comes true: no sooner is Cressida in the camp of the Greeks that she kisses them and makes a lovers' pack with Diomedes. For Cressida, obviously, love has value only when it is not possessed. Suitably to the dominant motif of T&C, Cressida, who might have been a tragic heroine, loses love the moment she finds it. In Cressida is seen a much more personal version of the same phenomenon of the previously mentioned root of all the play's action: the whoredom of Helen. Ulysses recognizes this when he first sees Cressida:

Fie, fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip; Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. 0, these encounters so glib of tongue, That gives accosting welcome ere it comes And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every ticklish reader - set them down For sluttish spoils of opportunity And daughters of the game! (IV.v.54-63)

The character most cognizant of the widespread disorder is Ulysses, who also most firmly asserts that the nature of the universe is an ordered one. He deplores the lack of order as being the reason for the ills befalling the Greeks: But when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what protents, what mutiny, What raging of the sea, shaking of the earth, Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors Divert and crack, rend calm of states Quite from their fixture! 0, when degree is shak'd, Which is the ladder to all high designs, The enterprise is sick! (l.iii.94-103)

It is easy enough to agree with Ulysses that disorder is responsible for the creation of the existing problems. The modern mind may be somewhat suspicious that the sort of order, rank, and degree for which Ulysses pines would find its ultimate expression in a Hitlerian totalitarianism. Even so, there is no denying that his motives at the time of his assertion of a universal order are noble and that the Elizabethan audience would identify order with a benign monarch rather than with a despot. If one grants this, however, what becomes of this eternal and universally decreed image of fixed value which Ulysses espouses? It becomes obvious to both the reader and to Ulysses in the course of the chaotic miseries of T&C that this fixed value does not exist, for, if it did, it surely would be brought to bear during the play, and this does not occur. There is no judgment which will "run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos (5:24). Shakespeare seems to be describing the truth as he sees it when he has the eloquent and disillusioned Ulysses speak of time not as the friend of the good and honorable but as being like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand And with his arms outstretch'd as he would fly Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. Let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was! For beauty, wit, High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating Time. (III.iii.165-174)

Only Thersites, in the literarily familiar role of the fool who speaks truth, undergoes no disillusionment in the

play, and this only because he has no illusions about the nature of man and the world in which he lives in the first place. Throughout the play, Thersites provides cynical and bitter comment of the play in particular and on human nature in general. He rails Lechery, lechery! still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them! (V.ii.185-186)

Thersites is right: all those in the play are finally motivated not by love but by lechery, not byfierte but by

orgueil. Shakespeare uses structure in T&C to negate the impact of any scenes which risk moving onto a plane higher than the mundane one on which the play supposes all human activity to exist. The form for doing this is preceding or following any scene likely to suggest a nobility of humanity with levelling commentary by Thersites or his less offensive but hardly more attractive Trojan complement, Pandarus. For example~ the Grecian war council is preceded by a tongue in cheek scene between Pandarus and Cressida and is followed immediately by the initial appearance of Thersites. This same scene serves also as prelude to the corresponding soul searching council scene in Troy, which in turn is followed by yet more vicious ranting by Thersites. Indeed, in some cases (the above mentioned scene in which Troilus discovers the true nature of Cressida, the scenes between Troilus and Cressida in Troy with Pandarus present), the safety-valve comic commentary is injected into the scene proper. Another subtle method of lessening seriousness is in the devise of having Ulysses and Nestor refer to the slanderous amusements not only of Thersites but of Patroclus and Achilles in the midst of the highly important and serious Grecian discussion in the third scene of the first act. The most telling of the several events in the play which Shakespeare forces into opposition is the comparison of

the battle waged by Ajax and Hector and the mock battle of Hector and Achilles. The first is a fairly fought medieval joust in which no blood is shed. It is, indeed, the very picture of order and decorum: the lists are set out; Diomedes and Aeneas function admirably as judges; a sort of victory is gained; the victor shows mercy to the loser - and there is absolutely no effect on anything. Contrast this with the slaying of the disarmed Hector by Achilles' henchmen: here is no order, no honor, no fairness, but instead everything repugnant to the Elizabethan, and in many instances to the modern, mind. How can there be any universal order of the sort previously acknowledged by Ulysses when we see that the climactic action of the play is the slaying of the Trojan hero (remember the Elizabethan partiality for Troy) by the dastardly action of the indolent Achilles, who himself does not even deign to soil his hands with the murder, and who is finally moved into action only by the death of his homosexual lover? It is agreed by Trojans and Greeks alike that Troy will stand only as long as Hector is alive to fight for it. It is thus forced to our attention that it is the action symbolic of the omnipresent chaos, which has removed Hector from the scene, and not the action symbolic of order, which has accomplished nothing at all, which is finally decisive. It is ironic that Shakespeare does to the Trojan War in T&C what Tom Stoppard was to do over three centuries later to Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstem Are Dead. That is, he chooses a classical story of widely acknowledged value and places it in a context of absurdity, where there is no honor, no love, no justice, no fixed point of reference for any sort of value - a world where there is only chaos. In T&C there is no hopeful taking of the reigns of state by Malcolm, no reconciliation of Montagues and Capulets, not even a tragic hero allowed to die in his favorite dream. We know Troy will fall, but there will be no passing away of the old order in favor of a progressive new one. The old order will remain, and with the old order there is no order. There is not even any hint that a new regime would be any improvement. The final bleak conclusion of T&C, appropriately enough in this world where no logical order exists, is voiced by' the Prologue: "good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war." (Pro. 31) Please note: While I did not draw directly on secondary material in the writing of this essay, I have doubtless reacted in some measure to the universe of the playas suggested by Una Ellis-Fermor in her The Frontiers of Drama. illustrations from Complete Works oj Shake8peare, London: 1875. engravings by Kenny Meadows.

Ron Allen is a senior in the College Scholars Program. His concelntration is in comparative literature. Prior to writing an unfavorable review of Macbeth, he was a drama critic for the Beacon.

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Figure Study in conte by Thomas Riesing

Joe Willis