Infinite Silence

•         Sempre caro mi fu quest’ermo colle,            
• E questa siepe, che da tanta parte
• Dell’ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
• Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati
• Spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani
• Silenzi, e profondissima quiete
• Io nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco
• Il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
• Odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
• Infinito silenzio a questa voce
• Vo comparando: e mi sovvien l’eterno,
• E le morte stagioni, e la presente
• E viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa
• Immensità s’annega il pensier mio:
• E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare.

Always dear to me was this lonely hill, / And this hedge, which from me so great a part / Of the farthest horizon excludes the gaze. / But as I sit and watch, I invent in my mind /   endless spaces beyond, and superhuman / silences, and profoundest quiet; /   wherefore my heart /  almost loses itself in fear. And as I hear the wind /  rustle through these plants, I compare /   that infinite silence to this voice: / and I recall to mind eternity, / And the dead seasons, and the one present / And alive, and the sound of it. So in this /  Immensity my thinking drowns: /   And to shipwreck is sweet for me in this sea.

For a while now I’ve been wondering why my mind keeps coming back to Giacomo Leopardi’s L’infinito, a nineteenth century Italian poem that I also wrote about last year. It is obviously very meaningful to me, but what is it about its fifteen lines that draw my gaze time and time again?

I believe the reason is that L’infinito conveys a very subtle feeling, one which largely eludes my powers of articulation. It is the feeling of being stuck in a small place and knowing that beyond it lies an as yet unexplored universe. You don’t have to be from a small provincial town to recognise it; anyone who at some point finds their imagination more absorbing than their immediate surroundings can probably relate to it – and that potentially includes the entire human population. Has there ever been a man, woman, or child who has walked upon the earth and thought: “This must be all there is and I, for one, am glad this is so”? No, I sincerely doubt it; for surely, even the most content among us would have once dreamed of seeing more than what they have already seen. To want more is simply to be human.

This feeling is neither good nor bad in itself, but a combination of both. It is good insofar as it points towards new horizons. Had no pioneer ever felt the urge to explore the hitherto unknown, nothing of note would have ever been discovered. But in this strange feeling darkness lurks: if you feel you are not making the most of opportunities while they are yet current, your mind will eventually give way to guilt and anxiety, which as everyone knows are better left unfelt.

It would not surprise me, however, if Leopardi felt these feelings acutely. The poet grew up, after all, in the small provincial town of Recanati and never left the Italian peninsula. Given the extent of his intellectual curiosity and brilliance, his inability to live a life as eventful as Ulysses’ must have proven vexing. To have read extensively on adventures, and yet not to have partaken in any oneself – imagine the hunger! No wonder, then, that Leopardi grew to become disenchanted with life.

The Spirit of Adventure

Now as one who has travelled quite extensively, and with a mere tenth the brain of Leopardi, I couldn’t claim to know the feeling as acutely as he did. In my first two decades, I am fortunate to have already visited around twenty countries, some of which, even, on more than one occasion. What’s more, I’ve even had the experience of spending a day on three separate continents. Let me assure you this: there is nothing quite as baffling as waking up in America, spending the morning in Europe, and going to bed in the Middle East. When you factor in time zones and transit time, the twenty-four hour day ceases to be the certainty we normally take it for.

But in spite of all the travelling I’ve done, I still yearn to travel some more. As much as I love New Zealand, there is no getting around the fact that it is a small country largely cut off from the rest of humanity. Although it is possible to live without ever feeling a tinge of regret for not venturing beyond these shores, once you’ve had a taste for life elsewhere, the thought of staying in one place from the cradle to the grave seems quite frightening. Of course, you could have a diet consisting solely of bread; but once you’ve tasted the finest fruits, the thought of living on bread alone is enough to make you shudder. For this reason it is not the scarcity of opportunities that is the issue, because if you did not have any expectations, you would be quite content with your lot. No, it is having greater expectations that causes the grief, because unless reality lives up to your standards, you’ll go through life dissatisfied, always with the thought that you’re missing out on something.

Going beyond reason

Now I don’t claim to know a great deal about poetry; in fact, you could go so far as to say that I don’t know anything at all. As a humble reader, I simply read whatever novels and poems I think might interest me and then hope for some divine inspiration to announce itself. Rarely does this ever happen; but if the text I’m reading does stick in my mind for longer than it took to read it, I consider the work personally meaningful.

While I don’t know much about Romanticism, I understand that Leopardi belonged to the movement, which was interested in concepts like the Sublime and the awe-inspiring grandiosity of nature. The Romantics were keen on exploring the infinite possibilities of the mind; some went so far as to take mind-altering opiates to enter a kind of mystical experience. While I don’t believe Leopardi was one of these drug-taking poets, he certainly was interested in the mind. Reading L’infinito, I can’t help but think that Leopardi was trying to overcome the physical world’s severe limitations. As the place where he has spent his earthly existence, the ‘ermo colle’ (solitary hill) is dear to him; but at the same time, it is bracketed off by a ‘siepe’ (hedge), limiting his ability to see anything beyond it. This problem is one we are all familiar with. Excepting a small handful of astronauts, we have lived the sum of our lives on the earth, and it is from here that we have formed our understanding of everything. All our thoughts, our emotions and dreams have been formed on terra firma, which naturally limits ours understanding of the universe; indeed, until a few odd decades ago, we had no certainty of what the dark side of moon looked like.

Painfully aware of these limitations, Leopardi recedes into his mind, which is infinitely richer than his view from the hill. Indeed, when we look at the things he contemplates, which include ‘l’orizzonte’ (the horizon), ‘spazi’ (spaces), ‘silenzi’ (silences), ‘quiete’ (quiet), ‘l’eterno’ (the eternal), and ‘il vento’ (the wind), it becomes clear they are all essentially abstract in nature. Lacking in form, these concepts can be understood conceptually but are not easy to make a mental image of, simply because they do not really look like anything.

If you try to picture ‘silenzi’ (silences), what do you see? I personally think of outer space, but this is probably because I associate silence with a dark void where no life can support itself. So in other words, because I don’t have a physical image of silence in my mind, I end up thinking of something that I associate with the concept. The pluralising of the word ‘silenzi’ (silences) is also curious. It is seemingly natural to think of silence as being simply the absence of noise; but the word ‘silences’ implies that there are more than one kind of silence. Perhaps silence can be seen not just as the absence of noise, but rather as the absence of anything. Hence if there is noise in the traditional sense of the word – that is, noise in the outer world being carried along by sound waves – there may also be ‘noise’ in the inner world of the mind. These inner noises may include thoughts, feelings, and ideas – things innate to the human condition, and without which one can barely be considered human. So if these things ever become silent in someone, it means that someone has died.

As far as natural phenomenons go, the wind is extremely abstract: since the wind is invisible, you only ever see it in its action; hence the reason I think of the rustling of leaves when I think of wind. But if you were to take away all the objects upon which the wind blows, would it still be visible? I somehow don’t think so. You need concrete objects in order to see abstract ones. Without the former, the latter are imperceptible.

‘Orizzonte’ (horizon) is another one of those interesting concepts that do not exist outside of the mind. The reason the horizon does not have an existence independent of our sight is because it isn’t a thing in itself so much as what we see when we see the sky touch the earth. Of course, where the earth appears to touch the sky varies depending on where we are at any given time; what may be the horizon for one person, may still be the sky for another. This leads me onto another thought: since there is no line demarcating the earth from the sky, you could say that, inasmuch as our bodies are above the ground, we are always in the sky. Not surprisingly, however, no one cares to think like this. For most people, the sky begins about 100 metres above sea level – anything less and something which is in the sky may be described as being “in the air”, but perhaps never “in the sky”.

As for the expression ‘Le morte stagioni’ (the dead seasons), the reason it is evocative is because it is plural, and not singular. If it were ‘the dead season’, one would probably think of winter, which is an obvious symbol of death, given all the dead-looking trees and hibernating animals. So the fact that Leopardi talks about the dead seasons is all the more striking, for assuming that the poet is indeed referring to the four seasons, one would be forced into associating seasons with death in a way that one might not have thought to do so otherwise. Of course, Leopardi may not be thinking of the four seasons; but even if we think of the dead seasons as being metaphorical, in our minds at least we probably cannot help but ‘see’ images of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, as these are are what come to mind when we hear the word ‘seasons’. But the fact that he then talks about the ‘present and living’ season seems to suggest that this ‘season’ he has in mind is life. Therefore, by the ‘dead seasons’ he may be referring to two periods when one is not alive: the one immediately preceding one’s birth, when one is not yet; and the one immediately following one’s death, when one is no longer. It is only in the brief interlude in between these two infinities that one is alive and able to enjoy the present and living season, but once the interlude is over, one returns to a dead season – this one set to last for the rest of eternity.

Holding Infinity in the palm of your hand

All of these abstract-seeming nouns are interesting because, in their formlessness, they symbolise eternity. If something has a definite form, it means that this thing is confined by its form and is thus finite. The fact that the earth is spherical and has measurable dimensions implies that it is finite and is thus fated to pass away. But silence, on the other hand, does not have measurable dimensions, hence the reason we can imagine it lasting forever. By the same principle, the Bible says that God should never be depicted, perhaps because any depiction would have a silhouette, which would erroneously make someone infinite appear finite.

So by contemplating these formless concepts, Leopardi is trying to imagine eternity beyond the finitude of his lonely hill. Considering that he was an atheist, you could say that despite giving up on God, he still craved for eternity, and sought to find it within his mind. But alas, his attempt is futile: so immense is the concept of eternity that the human mind can only understand it conceptually. Unable to come to terms with eternity, his thoughts drown, leading him to flounder in the sea.

That colossal shipwreck

The word ‘naufragar’ can be translated as either ‘floundering’ or ‘shipwreck’, the latter of which, curiously enough, brings to mind Ulysses’ shipwreck in the twenty-sixth canto of Dante’s Inferno. In this canto, the deceased Ulysses’ tells Dante and Virgil of how he had set out on a final voyage to travel beyond Spain and find the things behind the sun, “where no man dwells”. In fact, Ulysses sails so far westward that he ends up in the Pacific Ocean; and just as he approaches the shores of Purgatory, at the antipodes of Jerusalem, his vessel breaks apart, killing every man on board. That Ulysses almost makes it to the ‘dark mountain’ of Purgatory in the distance is, furthermore, not without significance. It is after all the case that Dante’s intermediate place between heaven and hell exists to prepare Christians for their eventual ascent into heaven by ‘purging’ them of the sins that had still been with them at the time  of their deaths. Therefore the fact that a crew of pagans unfamiliar with the Christian gospel almost make it to Purgatory shows both:

1) how ‘virtuous’  human efforts not sanctioned by God can be insofar as the crew managed to reach the other side of the world by their own devices; and yet

2) how ultimately doomed pagan efforts are, for whether one is a brilliant pagan sailor who almost makes it to Purgatory before drowning, or whether one is a hopeless pagan sailor who drowns at the start of the voyage, before any achievements of note can be made, makes no effective difference; for in either case a drowned sailor who had never received God’s grace will end up in hell.

The Ulysses ‘shade’ who makes a cameo in the Inferno never uses the word ‘naufragar’ to describe his shipwreck, but his description of the prow going down until the water has closed over all the crew more than illustrates the point.

Down is the new up

But back to my main argument: in poetry, it seems that the concept of ‘floundering’ in the sea is an apt description of how one struggles – to make peace with the fact that one will one day die. In The Sickness unto Death Soren Kierkegaard describes how man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite: since we can imagine the possibility of living forever, and have a deep-seated hope that we will do so, the realisation that death is inevitable causes us much distress. This distress he calls ‘despair’, and as far as feelings go, it is one that separates us from animals, who have no concept of living forever, and hence don’t fret about it not coming to pass. Anyway, I found these passages from The Sickness unto Death (trans. Alastair Hannay, Penguin Books, 2008) which I thought may be particularly conducive in our understanding of the poems:

Now if possibility outstrips necessity, the self runs away from itself in possibility so that it has no necessity to return to. This then is possibility’s despair. Here the self becomes an abstract possibility; it exhausts itself floundering about in possibility, yet it never moves from where it is nor gets anywhere, for necessity is just that ‘where’. Becoming oneself is a movement one makes just where one is. Becoming is a movement from some place, but becoming oneself is a movement at that place.

Thus possibility seems greater and greater to the self; more and more becomes possible because nothing becomes actual. In the end it seems as though everything were possible, but that is the very moment that the self is swallowed up in the abyss. Even a small possibility needs some time to become actual. But eventually the time that should be spent on actuality gets shorter and shorter, everything becomes more and more momentary…(p. 39).

….everything is possible in possibility. One can therefore run astray in all possible ways, but essentially in two. The one form is the wishful, the hankering; the other is the melancholic-fantastic (hope in the one case, fear or dread in the other). Fairy-tales and legends often tell of a knight who suddenly catches sight of a rare bird of which he then sets off in pursuit, since in the beginning it seemed quite close, but then it flies off again, until at last night falls. The knight is separated from his companions and lost in the wilderness in which he now finds himself. Similarly with wish’s possibility. Instead of taking possibility back to necessity he runs after possibility – and in the end cannot find the way back to himself. Much the same happens in melancholy but in the opposite direction. The individual pursues with melancholic love one of dread’s possibilities, which in the end takes him away from himself, so he perishes in the dread, or perishes in what it was he was in dread of perishing in. (p. 41).

If these passages reveal anything, it is that Kierkegaard was a firm critic of Romanticism, which he believed encouraged people to run after possibilities at the expense of themselves. It is as if he were comparing the Romantic individual to a drunkard who, in drinking throughout the day, escapes having to confront reality; although the alcohol may create diversions for the drunkard to revel in, it prevents this one from engaging with life enough to do something worthwhile. Perhaps in Kierkegaard’s eyes, Leopardi, by contemplating all these things, is avoiding having to own up to the fact that he will die. But the task he sets himself, which is that of contemplating eternity, is so obviously impossible that, in “floundering about in possibility,” as Kierkegaard puts it, he ends up being “swallowed up in the abyss.”

That sinking feeling

This feeling of sinking is also present in the sonnet When I have Fears that I May Cease to be by John Keats. In this work the poet is fully aware of his mortality and how the passing of time hastens the closing of his life:

• When I have fears that I may cease to be
• Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
• Before high-piled books, in charact’ry,
• Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
• When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
• Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
• And think that I may never live to trace
• Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
• And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
• That I shall never look upon thee more,
• Never have relish in the faery power
• Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
• Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
• Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

I believe this poem shares with Leopardi’s poem a mood of despair, a feeling that in spite of everything, his life will end and he will be left with nothing. The last line reads, “Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink,” which is similar to Leopardi’s thoughts floundering in the sea in the sense that both describe desirable things being submerged in a liquidy substance that will ultimately be their undoing. When Keats is to die, none of the love and fame he has amassed both in his lifetime and beyond it will be useless to him, because he will not be around to enjoy them. And whilst Leopardi does not speak of love and fame, his thoughts, even if they will be preserved on paper for the benefit of future generations, will not accompany him to his death; for when he dies, he will die alone.

Everybody leaves if they get a chance

Now I believe this feeling of despair is also present in perhaps my favourite song ever, Radiohead’s Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. The presence of so many arpeggios (or ‘arpeggi’ to use the correct Italian plural form) creates a real buoyancy that makes me imagine myself soaring in the skies.

The music sounds really hopeful and promising – until you read the lyrics and realise just how negative they are.

• In the deepest ocean
• The bottom of the sea
• Your eyes
• They turn me
• Why should I stay here?
• Why should I stay?
•  
• I’d be crazy not to follow
• Follow where you lead
• Your eyes
• They turn me
•  
• Turn me on to phantoms
• I follow to the edge of the earth
• And fall off
• Everybody leaves
• If they get a chance
• And this is my chance
•  
• I get eaten by the worms
• Weird fishes
• Get picked over by the worms
• Weird fishes
• Weird fishes
• Weird fishes
•  
• I’ll hit the bottom
• Hit the bottom and escape
• Escape
•  
• I’ll hit the bottom
• Hit the bottom and escape
• Escape

As is always the case with song lyrics, they sound more impressive when sung. If you simply read them out loud, they would not sound particularly impressive; but when sung the way Thom Yorke sings them, they become magical and transport the listener into an enchanted realm where everything becomes possible.

But behind the happy exterior lies a sunken despair that the lyrics are quite not able to conceal. Although being attracted to someone’s eyes may sound like something positive, being turned on to phantoms and falling off the edge of the earth do sound wilfully destructive. Might the ‘weird fishes’ be pangs of despair so great in their intensity that the subject is willing to do anything to escape them? “Hitting the bottom” sounds like floundering in the sea or sinking, if perhaps more forceful in its application than what the aforementioned poets end up doing. When I think about it, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi could easily be the song of Ulysses’ ‘mad flight’ to the island of Purgatory:  eager as he is to get away from it all, Ulysses embarks on a final adventure and sails beyond the edge of the then known world, only to capsize and find himself spending an eternity stuck in a small flame in hell.

Just my two cents for the day.