A Thinking Series… Part 1

by Jonathan Lowery • June 21st, 2008

I want to try an experiment with an extended thought. This post will be broken into several parts because of its length. Part 1 is mainly concerned with laying the groundwork arguments for my main focus. I haven’t finished the draft process yet so I don’t know how many posts this will take up. Part 2 is done so I’ll put that up in a few days. I may alter some things if good comments are raised about what goes up.

Introduction
I want to toss up a draft of some thoughts I’m working on. I recently read a book called Planet Narnia by Dr Michael Ward, which I highly recommend. The book dealt with a theory on a hidden, but central, theme embedded in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia – the use of medieval astrological bodies in the creation of the individual stories.

I won’t go into detail about that theory. If you want more, read the book. It’s great. What I am after is a particular concept that Dr. Ward clarified in the opening arguments for his theory. The concept was described from one of C.S. Lewis’ writings on his own creative process. Lewis took the image of a dark shed with a beam of light shining in through a gap above the door and gave two methods of artistic engagement.

The first method Lewis called ‘looking at the beam’ which Dr Ward labels more succinctly as ‘contemplative’ engagement. ‘Contemplation’ regards the idea of the audience (reader in Lewis’ case) looking at the artistic creation as an object. The audience sees the beam of light and engages it as a beam of light.

The second method described by Lewis is what concerns me, primarily. ‘Looking along the beam’ is further streamlined by Dr Ward as ‘donegality’ – this word refers to a particular beach in England for reasons found in the book. ‘Donegality’ or ‘looking along the beam’ takes the audience inside the ray of light so he can see the landscape behind the gap in the doorframe. This takes the focus from the light itself (which is now invisible to the audience) and places the focus on a completely separate object, the landscape.

The Translation
The ‘contemplative’ thought will occupy the conscious mind for the main part. This is where the audience will say, “Oh! I get it, he’s running!” or “I see, she is jealous.” The contemplative moments are mathematical, they feed into one another to produce a result. This is the forward action of a scene or play: the plot.

The ‘donegal’ aspect is harder to define. I re-wrote a post from several months ago as a poem in an attempt to describe this:

The Ocean Flies

The sky flattens out to meet the trees
The rain falls hard enough to hear
Thunderous joy as drops find bliss

Hurricane unwound, blind and toothless
Descending, only searching for a bed
Titanic breeze adrift on a sea of land

Colossus of clouds, waning, still immense
This storm brings the ocean,
On wings of warm winds

My feet drown in flooded grass
I face the single cloud that covers the sky
Taste salt far from its home, miles away.

Art fails in every way
A thing is too much to capture
I cannot pin the sky, nor corner a cloud

Although still I try… am compelled!
The deluge pervades, pressing
What cannot be held

There are stories to tell,
Emotions to evoke,
Always Experience beckons
With a stronger cord.

So ‘donegality’ is the created frame through which a work of art is viewed. It is also the channel which controls the general trend of audience response. In this poem, word choice and structure are some of my donegal elements. Making the transition to the stage requires that we find the corresponding elements between the two art forms.

————-To Be Continued!————-

Part 2 deals with some practical translation terms and how this idea takes shape in another medium.

By the way, Dr. Ward gets a huge send up for being personable (read: ‘cool’) enough to email me when I linked his book on my reading list. I made sure to link the book and his website this time.