rs thomas arghezi

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A Place of Absence and Silence in the Metaphysics of Begegnu ngen :

the Poetry of R. S. Thomas and Tudor Arghezi 1

EMILIA IVANCU

ROMANIA

Lecture given in August 2012 at the Summer School Wales and th e World, Past and Present- Cymru a'i Chyfeil lion T ramor H eddiw a Ddoe organized by the European Academy ofModern Celtic Languages in Aberystwyth

According to Martin Buber, the philosopher of dialogue, m ans existence in the world and the

world proper are twofold as a result of his twofold attitude. This twofold attitude springs fromthe twofold nature of the primary words he speaks: one primary word is the construct I-Thou,while the second is I-It, where It can mean He or She. Reformulat ing the Biblical sentence Atthe beginning there was Word, Buber writes In the beginning is relation. (Buber 1959: 18) and

presents the three types of encounter, named here begegnung pl. begeg nungen which definemans life . Here are the three types of relation that build mans existence :

First, our life with nature. There the relation sways in gloom, beneath the level of speech.Creatures live and move over against us, but cannot come to us, and when we addressthem as Thou, our words cling to the threshold of speech.

Then our life with other people. There the relation is open and verbally explicit. We cangive and accept the Thou

Third our life with intelligible forms i. e. with the absolute. There the relation is clouded,yet it discloses itself without words, but creates language. We perceive no Thou butnonetheless we feel we are addressed and we answer imagining, thinking, acting. Wespeak the primary word with our being yet we cannot utter Thou with our lips. (Buber1959: 6)

Today we shall approach the poetical work of two poets, one Welsh R. S. Thomas and theother Romanian, Tudor Arghezi, through the third type of relation that Buber analyses in his

book I and Thou, that is the relation that seems to cover much of both their works, the relationwith the absolute. Let us have a short look at their biographies, which have at least one thing in

1 This paper was written in Plas Hendre, Aberystwyth, Wales in the summer of 2012, a place where I heard the cuckoo sing inAugust. I would like to express my gratitude to Bethan Miles for her support and inspirational personality in writing this paper.


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common and which might have caused, in a way, their poetries to approach their spiritual in theway they did.

RS Thomas (1913-2000) was born in Cardiff. A Welsh poet and an Anglican priest, in many ofhis writings he approac hes the theme of divinity and mans relation to it. He wrote over twenty

volumes of poetry and was nominated for the Nobel Prize. In the later part of his life, hewithdrew on the Ll n Peninsula where, as he confessed, when he could not be a poet, he would

be a bird-watcher.

Tudor Arghezi (Ion N. Teodorescu) (1880-1967) was born in Bucharest, Romania, and his parents came from a village in Gorj, the South-East of the country. He undertook his studies inBucharest, and at the age of 20, in year 1900, became a monk in an Orthodox monastery, wherehe stayed until 1905, a time which marked his poems that aim at finding the absolute. In 1905, hewent to France, then to Switzerland and Germany. He returned 6 years later and becameinvolved in the literary life of Romania. His first volume of poetry was published only when he

had reached the age of 47. He was imprisoned twice in his life by the Communists and was banned utterly from Romanian literary life between 1948 and 1954, his name being defiled by arepresentative of the Communist propaganda, Sorin Toma, in an article entitled Poezia putrefaciei sau putrefacia poeziei in the journal Scnteia. He died in 1967 after an intense anddiversified literary life (he wrote articles, edited literary journals, wrote poetry and novels). Animportant role in his poetry was played by a series of 16 Psalms, following the Psalms of David ,

but in a new inquisitive and philosophical manner.

As tradition has taught us, prayer is the direct and simple, but thus difficult means to approachthe absolute, divinity. For the begegnung (encounter) to happen, the proper place, the propertime, the proper atmosphere have to be prepared. Man then creates this space through prayer andthus he invites the divine power to descend, to fill the half-empty-half full place. Prayer can

become the place of highest proximity to the absolute, this way producing joy or it can cause thedeepest pain if it is not answered, if the one called upon does not make himself seen or heard.Martin Bubers initial primordial word I-Thou which can be fulfilled through the act ofapproaching God, through prayer is always in danger of becoming I-It.

In the poetry of both R. S. Thomas and Tudor Arghezi, prayer is a modality in which manattempts to seek for and find the absolute. Both of them initially accept the conventionality of themeeting in the hope of hearing an answer. The setting thus ensures the frame for the I-Thou wordto perform.

Moments of great calm,Kneeling before an altar

Of wood in a stone churchIn summer, waiting for the God

To speak; the air a staircase


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For silence; the suns light Ringing me, as though I acted

A great role. And the audiencesStill; all that close throng

of spirits waiting, as I,For the message.

Prompt me, God;( Kneeling , Thomas 1996: 107)

The atmosphere is created and the silence and peace that have to surround prayer are there. Manadmits his role, as a humble being and waits for the divine word, waits for his effort to berewarded. Nonetheless, mans modern conscience presents man as self-perceived and as playinga part in a play in which one actor/party performs an action and the other does the same.

With Arghezi, the poet even chooses as the psalms as a form for his poems. The Biblical Psalmsof Davids are mans address to God for help and also his admittance of his human condition. Nonetheless, even if, as in R.S. Thomas s case, man uses the second person, the vocative toaddress divinity, thus permitting the pair I-Thou to take form, mans tone is far from being thesame as the one in Davids Psalms. The tone now belongs to a modern mind, challenged by timeand by the erosion that intervened in mans secular search for the absolute that has become mor edifficult to fulfill. We can thus see that the man bent in prayer does not look down with humility

but rather his eyes set to the absolute sky, urges a reply:

Te drmuiesc n zgomot i-n tcere

i te pndesc n timp, ca pe vnat, S vd: eti oimul meu cel cutat?

S te ucid? Sau s-ngenunchi a cere?2

I strive to sense you both in silence and above the noiseAnd throughout time, I lay in wait for you, the quarry,

Tell me then: are you the hawk, the one I seek,Should I slay you, or rather kneel before you to utter my request? 3

Both poems underline the state of waiting that man undergoes and also the inner urge and hopethat the prayer will be responded to. The prayer then, the presupposed dialogue that implies a

possible begegnung(encounter), also implies a presence as long as the state of waiting is tillmaintained. Both texts in a way show mans permanent desire of all times, that of living the

2 All psalms by Tudor Arghezi are taken from the book Tudor Arghezi, Versuri, I, II, Bucuresti, Editura CarteaRomneasca, 1980.3 The translation of Arghezis poems into English is by Diarmuid Johnson.
http://poezie-crestina.tripod.com/id26.htmlhttp://poezie-crestina.tripod.com/id26.html


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epiphany of the face, in the terms of Emanuel Levinas 4, this is what all begegnungen aim at inthe end. In both poems, then silence creates the space for the begegnung to take place, for theabsolute to be revealed. In describing the relation between man and divinity, in which the

primordial word I-Thou is to manifest itself through the begegnung, Buber says the following:

Only in virtue of his power to enter into relation is he able to live in the spirit. : [] Onlysilence before the Thou, silence of all tongues, silent patience in the undivided word that

precedes the formed and revealed response - leaves the Thou free, and permits man totake his stand with it in the reserve where the spirit is not manifest, but is. (Buber 1959:39)

And thus:In cities that

have outgrown their promise people

are becoming pilgrimsagain, if not to this place,then to the recreation of it

in their own spirits. You must remainkneeling. Even as this moon

making its way through the earths cumberstone shadow, prayer, too,

has its phases.(The Moon in Lleyn, Thomas 1996: 87)

Nonetheless, as we are told in the poem above, prayer itself has its phases and if the unity inmans heart is fulfilled, then it can bring in theory, great joy. But if the waiting becomes too longand the silence too unbearable, the begegnung can fail to. The first sign of doubt appears as thenext step in the prayer itself. Here is another strophe of Arghezis Psalm:

Pentru credin sau pentru tagad, Te caut darz i fr de folos.

Eti visul meu, din toate, cel frumosi nu-ndrznesc s te dobor din cer grmad.

Whichever should result, denial or belief,I seek you out, pursuing my futile search

You are sovereign amongst my every dream

4 The French philosopher develops the idea of epiphany of the face in Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority.(Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1966), which is focused on the ethics of theOther. The epiphany of the face is an important element in the transcendental encounter with the Other.


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And never would I dare to strike you from the skies.

Doubt intervenes in the discourse as a second stage, but man still addresses God as Thou, even ifthe desire for the absolute seems almost impossible to fulfill.

There is no other soundIn the darkness but the sound of man

Breathing, testing his faithOn emptiness, nailing his questionsOne by one to an untenanted cross.

( In Church, Thomas 1996: 94)

There is a Doubting Thomas in every man and this aspect of faith being tested, of the absolute being summoned and urged to reveal itself represents the human aspect of mans nature, which is

dual.

Here is what Arghezi writes further:

Nu- i cer un lucru prea cu neputin n recea mea-ncruntata suferin.

Dac-ncepui de-aproape s- i dau g hes,Vreau s vorbeti cu robul tu mai des.

I will not ask you to do the impossible

In my cold and miserable suffering[But] let me approach you and encourage this:

That you speak more often with your poor servant.

This is the moment in both poets texts when the implied presence of the prayer starts dissolvinginto absence. Only the addressed Thou remains, but even if man, in both cases affirms hishumility, his tone is not humble and actually addresses to God as to an equal.

To one kneeling down no word came,Only the winds song, saddening the lips

Of the grave saints, rigid in glass;Or the dry whisper of unseen wings,

Bats not angels, in the high roof.

Was he balked by silence?( In a Country Church, Thomas 1996: 43)


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And if we compare, here is A rghezi s strong call:

Singuri, acum n marea ta poveste,

Rmn cu tine s m mai msor, Fr s vreau s ies biruitor.

Vreau s te pipi i s urlu: "Este!"

Lone [witnesses] now to your great epic

Here I remain to measure myself by youI have no desire to emerge victorious

Only to feel myself grip you, and shout [my conviction]: 'Yes!' (lit. You are!)

And, as in a mirror, R. S. Thomas writes:

Will you continue to torment us?If you are ubiquitous, whynot be here, when we say: Now? (Could Be, Thomas 2004:178)

Slowly the space of the prayer becomes an empty space, a space of loneliness, in which man canonly hear his own thoughts and feel only his own wretched fate. And then man starts his revoltfor his prayers not being responded to, for his previous humility not being appreciated, for hiseffort not being acknowledged. So Arghezi writes:

Pentru credin sau pentru tagad, Te caut drz i fr de folos.

Eti visul meu, din toate, cel frumos

i nu-ndrznesc s te dobor din cer grmad. Whichever should result, denial or belief,I seek you out, pursuing my futile search

You are sovereign amongst my every dreamAnd never would I dare to strike you from the skies.

And RS Thomas:
http://poezie-crestina.tripod.com/id26.htmlhttp://poezie-crestina.tripod.com/id26.html


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I know him.He is the almost anonymous,the one with the near perfect

alibi, the face over us that lacksnothing but an expression.He is the shape in the mist

on the mountain we would ascenddisintegrating as we compose it.

He can outpace usin our pursuit, outdistancing

time only to disappearin a black hole.

(Thomas 2004: 83)

Arghezi becomes even bitter in his lament:

mi pare ru c Dumnezeu pe toi, Ne ia drept nite sprgtori i nite hoi

i nite haimanele, Creznd c tot umblm dup parale

i dup giuvaerele Mriei-Sale.

It saddens me that the Lordconsiders us all no more than burglars,

thieves and scoundrels, believing that weare out just to line our pockets

and lay our hands on his Majestys jewels. (Arghezi, mi pare ru/ It Saddens Me)

Slowly the tone has changed, the waiting has turned into revolt, the prayer has turned into ironyand scold. Moreover, Thou has turned into It . God is no longer the partner of dialogue, he has

been brought to the state of object of analysis. The gap has been created, man has been left alone,he feels that the begegnung could not be possible anymore.

A conclusion so far? Have the two poets failed in their attempt to find the absolute? Hasloneliness surrounded man in such a way that the space of prayer has turned into a vacuum? Hasdoubt corrupted man to such extent that no faith is possible any longer?


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One could assume at this stage that both R. S. Thomas and Tudor Arghezi failed in their searchor that the absolute failed in answering them. Silence and absence seem to have taken over themind and heart of man who is now left alone.

Yet, there is another view upon things as man s journey does not seem to stop here. The EasternOrthodox tradition relies very much on a small prayer that originates in the Gospel of Marcus averse that normally is not taken into consideration because it contains the grain of doubt that

belongs to Doubting Thomas. The small prayer is the following: Lord, I do believe. Strengthenmy disbelief . Ultimately these words can be read differently: I believe but still I know I do nottruly believe. And how universal are they in their honesty and authenticity, how truly do theyspeak of the dual human and divine nature of man, how accurately do they describe mans life inthe world and his relation to it in all the ways not only in what regards spirituality. One ofArghezis psalms even shows mans que stioning himself and his nature:

Nici rugciunea poate, nu mi-e rugciune, Nici omul meu nu-i poate omenesc,ard ctre tine-ncet, ca un tciune,

Te caut mut, te-nchipui, te gndesc.

Perhaps these prayers of mine are not real prayers at allPerhaps the man in me is other than human

I am like an amber, smoldering for youIn silence for you I search, I imagine how you look,

and in my thoughts I give you form.

By questioning the nature of his prayers, and his own dual nature, man accepts his parallel beliefand disbelief, the half-truth and the half-doubt of his address to God. Man proves himself to beonce more a mixed creation of colours, a mixed compound of conscience and spirit, moreover, a

place where the dual aspects of his nature fight to find a common way. RS Thomas even almostreformulates the biblical little prayer Lord I do believe. Strengthen my disbelief into

Because we are full of prideIn our humility, and because we believeIn our disbelief, Lord have mercy!

And he goes on:

And because on the slope to perfectionWhen we should be halfway upWe are halfway down, Lord have mercy! ( Kyrie, Thomas 2004: 135)


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And this is the moment when the whole stage is reversed, in the moment when man admits thedoubt as being part of his faith and faith part of his doubt, the moment when silence has become

profound and loneliness bitter, when God has announced his absence by letting the prayer become a monologue, when the absolute fades into a shadow. It is in this moment then when the physical absence and silence become and create the metaphysics of presence and meaning,without actually the epiphany of the face to have taken place. The begegnungis fulfilled becausemeaning is suddenly gained. Martin Buber says the following Meeting with God does not com eto man so that he would concern himself with God, but in order that he may confirm that there ismeaning in the world ( Buber 1959: 115) and meaning will also rise from the metaphysics thatsilence and absence can give birth to:

It is this great absencethat is like a presence, that compels

me to address it without hope

of a reply. It is a room I enterfrom which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrivalof one who has not yet come .(Thomas in Ward 2001: 124)

With Arghezi, meaning rises out of emptiness:

Pribeag n es, n munte i pe ape, Nu tiu s fug din marele ocol.

Pe ct nainte locul mi-e mai gol, Pe-att hotarul lui mi-e mai aproape.

Vagrant on plains, in mountains and on watersI cannot run away, escape the great circle.

The emptier the place ahead of me,The closer to him I can find myself.

Consequently and paradoxically, the metaphysics that is born in this search which relies on andends in silence and absence is what Martin Buber calls further on the way:

And yet in accordance with our nature we are continually ma.kjng the eternal Thou intoIt, into some thing - making God into a thing. Not indeed out of arbitrary self-will ;God's history as a thing, the passage of God as Thing through religion and through the

products on its brink, through. its bright ways and its gloom, its enhancement and itsdestruction of life, the passage away from the living God and back again to Him, thechanges from the present to establishment of form, of objects, and of ideas, dissolutionand renewal-all are one way, are the way. (Buber 1959: 112)


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This way that both RS Thomas and Tudor Arghezi seem to have chosen or that seems to have been chosen for them both is what has been called by Eastern Orthodox mystics the apophaticknowledge 5 (Gr. apophasis apo-denial, or Via negativa as opposed to the positive knowledge

kataphatic (Gr. kataphatikos positive speaking ). This type of approaching the absolute presupposes that the absolute cannot be known through affirmation (the cataphatic knowledge) but rather through negation. In other words, by asserting that God is good, one would eliminateeverything that God could be.

In this sense, a poem of RS Thomas, Agnus Dei, confirms the experience of knowledge that isultimately based on denial and doubt, because then what is left after all the doubt and all thedenial is just valid:

God is love. Where there is no love, no God?

There is only the gap betweenword and deed we try

narrowing with an idea. (Thomas 2004: 139)

With Arghezi suffering is sublimated and turned into a song, Via Negativa becomes the offering brought to that who suffers in the shape of creation:

O nelinitit patim cereasc

Braul mi-l zvcnete, sufletul mi-l arde.

An unsettled heavenly passionUrges my arm, burns my soul.

Consequently, what seemed meaningless, an unacknowledged effort, has turned out to be theway in which meaning can be created. The empty world from where God withdrew himself turnsto be recreated through the journey of seeking. The world and thus the absolute, through the

process of distancing that the transgression in dialogue from Thou to He/It allows man toexperience the journey, the world and enrich himself with the grapes of meaning. Silence isaccepted and meaning is revealed:

Prompt me, God; But not yet. When I speak,

5 For further information upon this subject, please consult Vladimir Losski, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, StVladimir's Seminary Press, 1976 and Dumitru Staniloae, T rirea lui Dumnezeu n Ortodoxie, Cluj-Napoca, Dacia, 1993.


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Though it be you who speakThrough me, something is lost.The meaning is in the waiting. ( Kneeling, Thomas, 1996: 137)

He goes on to say:

Let me tell you that withoutcatching a thing I was not far

from the truth that time, since meaningis not in having but in trying.

( Afon Rhiw, Thomas 2004: 203).

Arghezi would, on the other hand, accept that the absolute can be found everywhere:

Ca-n oglindirea unui drum de ap, Pari cnd a fi, pari cnd ca nu mai eti;

Te-ntrezrii n stele, printre peti, Ca taurul slbatec cnd se adap.

As a glint of light on flowing waterOne moment you appear, the next you state your absence,

I encounter you in the stars, see you amongst fish,An untamed stag, I find you drinking from the pool.

Conclusions:

A few conclusions of general nature could thus be drawn at this point:

1. Two poets, coming from different countries which lie at the two extremes of Europe andwho grew and activated in different religious confessions have found the absolute on a

journey full of paradoxes.2. For both of them the begegnung does not happen in the ideal form of epiphany of the

face, that of seeing and touching the absolute, but in a reverse way, that of absence andsilence, because, their spirit and mind, grown and developed in a world of Deus Absconditus, identify themselves with the short Biblical prayer: I do believe, Lord.Stengthen my disbelief.

3. It is space and time which, according to another philosopher of dialogue, Gabriel Marcel,are manifestations of an absence that are filled, through the journey both poets undergo,with the meaning of experiencing the world and the relation with the absolute.


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4. The empty place, void of presence, and hence filled with absence, is the journey itselfthat both Tudor Arghezi and R. S. Tomas take, the place being located in the journey.The latter, referring to a Welsh poem in 14 th century, Claf Abercuawg , writes an essayand also a poem named Abercuawg this being the name given to this imaginary placewhich can be everywhere all along the journey, and consequently at the end of the the

journey to the absolute both he and Arghezi start:

Abercuawg? Where is it?Where is Abercuawg where the cuckoos sing?

I asked the professors.Lo, he, lo, there; on the banks

of the river they explainedhow Cuawg had become Dulas.

[] I looked at the surface of the water

but the place that I was seekingwas not reflected therein.[]

An absence is how we become surerof what we want. Abercuawgis not here now but there. Andthere is the indefinable point,the incarnation of a concept,the moment at which a little

becomes a lot. []

I am a seeker in time for that which is beyond time, that is everywhere

and nowhere; no more beforethan after, yet always

about to be, whose duration is of the mind but free, as Bergson would say of the minds

degradation of the eternal.( Abercuawg , Thomas 1978: 26)


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Bibliography

Arghezi, T. Versuri, I, II, Bucureti: Editura Cartea Romneasc, 1980.

Buber, M. (1958) I and Thou. Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith. New York: Charles Scribner's

Sons. (Original book was published in 1923)Levinas, E. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority.Translated by Alphonso Lingis.Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.

Losski, V. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976

Staniloae, D. Trirea lui Dumnezeu n Ortodoxie, Cluj-Napoca, Dacia, 1993.

Thomas R. S. (2004). Collected Later Poems 1988-2000. Tarset: Bloodaxe Books Ltd.

Thomas R. S. (1978). Frequencies. Macmillan.

Thomas R. S. (1996). Selected and edited by Anthony Whwaite. London: J. M. Dent

*** (1995). Portrait of R. S. Thomas. Bookmark, (Retrieved August 10 th)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8v-uc-DI7g.

Ward, J. P. (2001) The Poetry of RS Thomas. Bridgent: Poetry Wales Press Ltd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8v-uc-DI7ghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8v-uc-DI7g

rs thomas arghezi

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