Cabell's Three Modes of Romantic Life

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Cabell's Three Modes of Romantic Life

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1elenchus
okt 6, 2015, 11:00 am

I'm slowly gleaning JBC's concept of Romance, and its three attendant modes: gallantry, chivalry, poetry. I've not tried to find a discussion in which he expounds at length on them, rather picked up pieces here and there as I read various novels.

My most recent effort was in his afterword to Domnei, which I recently read and reviewed, and there was a bit in The Way of Ecben but not a full treatment.

I imagine Beyond Life will have something useful, in fact it's in the chapter on the Witch-Woman that I detected my first example of his discussion (and this was either borrowed from the afterword noted above, or the other way round). Presumably there are more passages in Beyond Life, but would anyone recommend another source?

2Crypto-Willobie
okt 6, 2015, 11:42 am

Beyond Life is probably the optimum place. It's hard to recall just where in his labyrinthine opus he discusses which-what, but there are always the Introductions to each volume in the Storisende Edition (including one to Beyond Life), which were later collected into one volume Preface to the Past http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=10754121818&searchurl=bi%3D...

For an 'outside-looking-in' view there's always the JBC volume in Twayne's American Authors series by the fine scholar Joe Lee Davis -- he covers these concepts iirc. It's from around 1960, so some if it (espcially the bio part) is a little out of date, but the critical bit is well done though we might disagree on some specific works. All over the net for a few bucks, e.g. http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=16226978538&searchurl=bi%3D...

3elenchus
okt 6, 2015, 11:58 am

You've recommended Davis to me before, and I believe I have it catalogued in my wishlist but haven't picked it up yet. This may be the time, or if not then shortly after running through Beyond Life.

4elenchus
okt 6, 2015, 12:09 pm

From the afterword to Domnei, as published in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series:

Baalzebub: "A pest upon this domnei! ... For then the idiot hungers after a life so high-pitched that his gross faculties may not so much as glimpse it; he is so rapt with impossible dreams that he becomes oblivious to the nudgings of his most petted vice; and he abhors his own innate and wholly natural inclination to cowardice, and filth, and self-deception. He, in fine, affords me and all other rational people no available handle; and, in consequence, he very often flounders beyond the reach of my whisperings." 162-63

This quote exemplifies so much of what I adore about Cabell. First, the droll decision to put the words into the mouth of a demon, complaining about humanity. So tangential an approach to praising humanity! He does not extol human achievement or potential, rather it comes in sideways: anything that frustrates a demon in its efforts to nudge a person to evil, is ergo a victory.

Also, that victory is diluted, since we "flounder" more than we reach and clasp the brass ring.

Finally, JBC fully acknowledges our constraints, our tendency for sin, and holds out the real possibility despite all that, for attaining something close to the divine. Though that aspect is only hinted at in this passage, it seems fairly clear elsewhere.