(urth) Hunter of the East

[Gerry Quinn]

From: David Stockhoff 
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 2:22 AM
To: The Urth Mailing List 
Subject: (urth) Hunter of the East

On 11/12/2011 2:32 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* David Stockhoff <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> **
> > > > > And where is the rising sun in the poem? 
>
> > > > Come on – you are not seriously making such an argument? The Sun is
> > > > not yet visible, but its rays shining on the top of a tower are.
>
> > > "The Sun is not yet visible." Thank you.

> > You asked “where is the rising sun”? It is just below the horizon. In 
> > a moment we will see it. Already we see its light shining on the 
> > tower. It is Orion that is nowhere mentioned, nowhere visible, and 
> > nowhere implied except for your invalid paint-by-numbers insistence 
> > that any hunter must somehow be Orion.

> Now you claim illiteracy as an advantage of your argument? I suppose you 
> have no choice. But at least we agree that the sun is not yet risen, but 
> rather implied. Its rising is imminent.

Actually, there is a real sense in which we do see it.  Can’t you see someone in your rear-view mirror while driving?  When you do, what you are actually seeing a pattern of reflected light that is uniquely characteristic of the person you see.  That’s exactly what’s happening in the poem – we are seeing light reflected from the turret that is recognisable and uniquely characteristic (in colour and position and time) of the rising-but-still-under-the horizon Sun.  

It is Orion that is nowhere visible, nowhere present, nowhere implied.


> > > > I found two interpretations. Both agreed with me that the hunter is
> > > > the Sun.

> > > No they don't.

> > Yes they do. One says: “The stanza presents two arresting 
> > personifications, the first when/Morning/chases the stars away and the 
> > second when the sun,/the Hunter of the East/, lassoes the/Sultan's 
> > Turret/with a rope of light.” The second (speaking of a third) says 
> > “/Hunter of the East/somewhat arbitrarily taken to mean "Eastern 
> > wisdom, a mighty slayer of delusion" where 'the Sun' would suffice“. 
> > Neither mentions Orion anywhere.

> Gerry, those are not exactly full explications.

So?  They identify the Hunter as the Sun.  They don’t mention Orion.  I reckon they think it’s so obvious that the Hunter is the Sun that no further explication is needed.  


> But the personifications are completely correct. I told you this twice 
> and I say it again: the Hunter of the East is, in a way, the sun. Why do 
> you keep arguing about what we agree on? Do you think this strengthens 
> your argument about what we DON'T agree on?

You originally denied the Hunter was the Sun.  Now you’re admitting that it is, but you’re trying to insist that somehow you are right too and he is still somehow Orion.

> These comments only support our agreement that the Hunter is the Sun. 
> They don't support your contention that the Hunter is NOT Orion. For 
> that you're on your own.

You have no case for Orion except an insistence that the classical allusion to Orion as Hunter must be significant.  All the other arguments that have been put forward for Orion are utterly strained and unbelievable.  What exactly would be the *point* of such a content-free allusion?


> > I told you the sun is the Hunter of the East. I told you
> > HOW he is the Hunter of the East and how it derives from the
> > just-vanished Orion, who is the original Hunter of the East.


> And I won't hold my breath to hear your theory of how the poem shuts off 
> the obvious Hunter-Orion association so that the sun personification is 
> clear as glass and as meaningless.

It doesn’t have to shut off anything.  It doesn’t have to shut off the association between hunters and Orion, any more than it has to shut off the association between the bowl of night (now the bowl of morning) and breakfast cereal.  The reader is supposed to pick up on the metaphors and allusions that are there, and not chase ones that aren’t there.  (It could very well be that Fitzgerald worried a little about people getting hung up on irrelevant Orion associations, but decided that the vivid description of the “noose of light” and the specific denotation of the Hunter “of the East” would be enough that attentive readers would not be drawn towards that trap.  Maybe he underestimated the attraction of certain readers for such traps.)


> For the record, I don't necessarily argue that FitzGerald meant to put 
> into the poem a handoff from vanishing Orion to rising Sun (even by way 
> of Apollo) that creates the delicate image of vanishing that I see and 
> have described. I don't think he was a great poet but rather a clumsy 
> and an almost accidental one. His allusions were both classical and 
> commonplace, and his poems were about as deep as a New Age paperback.

Haha.  Will you abandon Wolfe too, when Hyacinth fails to develop a dick, when Silk-as-faun has run its course into emptiness, when Echidna as Typhon’s sister is finally seen to lead nowhere...?


> But he wouldn't have put a sobriquet of a famous summer-dawn 
> constellation in a poem about stars before dawn and expected his readers 
> to just ignore it in favor of an almost literal description---one that 
> isn't even very evocative when it is read that way.

I think you underestimate him, in at least two ways.  

- Gerry Quinn



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