The Critical Corner – 06/26/2017

Notes for a reading of the 'Book Lamentations' by Gregory of Narek
Armenian News Network / Armenian News:
By Eddie Arnavoudian
Reading Narek: Five:
Elegies 21-25
1. In one aspect, Elegies 21-25 constitute a relatively coherent whole expressing 
clearly Narek's conception of man/woman as a magnificent, richly-gifted, 
rational being who has however failed to live up to his/her essence and: 
potential. Essence and potential frequently appear as silent oppositions in: 
hammering images of failure and degeneration. I am man/woman, but 'I never traveled the path of goodness'. "Of my own free." 
will I mortgage myself to death, never standing as a man on my own two feet, 
never in possession of the mind of a rational being 
by the road - p61 'I gave myself up to death, I did not stand up as a man, 
I never had a rational mind' - p61). So I am less than myself, less than human. How can I now consider myself? 
man/woman How can I consider myself rational', when 'the doors of my perception 
are locked ("How can I consider myself a human being... how will I be called rational" "when? 
My doors of knowledge are closed' - p63)? How can I be human when I betray myself, 
destroy my body, when I am spiritually lost and mentally deluded, with twisted 
will and broken heart, absent minded and stagnant brained' ('when I was selfish 
and destructive ... deceitful and soul-crushing, fiercely willful, heartbreaking 
crazy...insensitive, mindless and crazy' - p65)
2. Narek is afflicted, his spirit is tortured by the consciousness of his diminution. 'I am vanished like the passing morning cloud, like the dew of morn ('how? 
I vanished without a fine morning cloud and morning dew' (p63, 64). He is crushed 
beneath 'the pain and the danger, the hesitations and the tribulations that 
accompany the body consumed by sin ('pain and danger, of hesitations and anxieties 
- when your body is consumed by sin' (p66-7). His soul and spirit, his very being, 
is now 'ugly, listless, weary and totally exhausted' 
completely exhausted' (p62). Every sign of nobility and rationality is snuffed out (Elegy 21c, 22b and c). "I cannot call myself a living, breathing being, let alone a spiritual one." 
rational one' 'I am an olive-tree, deserted, sterile and withering. I am a: 
body, saddening, condemning and torturing my soul. I am a string of imperials 
gold coins, now spent and lost.'' 
to call myself, let it be spiritual or intellectual' - p63, 'Olive, abandoned desert 
in the place, free and fast. I am a body, tormenting and judging my soul. 
p64) Desperation, pain and suffering are so acute that the poet shrieks out 
against life itself. I lament the breast that gave me milk. Why did I not suck? 
coagulated bile instead?' 
somewhere I did not suck coagulated bile.' - p65) 
3. Once again Narek presents the hapless condition of soul and spirit in images of: 
suffering social man and woman (Elegy 23c and 25b). Not in control, powerless, 
the individual cowers in terror before the reality of everyday life. If I see 
a soldier, I expect death, if it be a messenger, news of disaster...If a hand is 
raised, I bend, If I hear a slight noise, I start' ('If I see a soldier, I die 
waiting, or a messenger, a bot of a curse... Or a raised hand is bowed down, 
a promise from every slight storm' - (p68). The ship of his being is shattered 
by the blows of the wild waves' 
p73). Then there follows an amazing description of a shipwreck, with the whole 
collapsing structure, its components, furnishings and contents captured in: 
dramatic and dynamic detail. This is a stunning metaphor of the total collapse 
of the spirit of man/woman, 'this image of destruction reminds me of my misery' 
(p73), says Narek himself. 4. Narek's emotional trauma, his psychological torture and his crushing mental 
travails are born of his acute consciousness of the contradiction between: 
hellish reality and suppressed potential of grandeur. It is born of a 
terrifying grasp of the abyss that exists between the hellish actual and the: 
heavenly possible. So great is the abyss that it casts a shadow of despair 
doubt on our ability to bridge it. Will I ever see the battered ark of my body? 
restored? Will I ever see my shipwrecked soul healthy again? Is there hope I? 
might see this exiled slave set free? ('Will there be an ark of many depths? 
if I see my body repaired, I will notice the broken ship of my lamentable soul as a new one. 
There will be a long-term prisoner released again. (p74) 
But hope does exist and does so as an ineradicable existential component of: 
man/woman! It is revealed in our very consciousness of the contradiction 
between reality and our innate potential. Endless human weakness and failure 
sap hope and confidence, seemingly fatally. Yet rational, critical 
self-examination will generate yes a terrifying consciousness of the scale of 
catastrophe but also and more critically knowledge of that indestructible core 
of capability that we possess as human beings and that remains a permanent 
foundation for recovery. Self-examination and the resulting knowledge of the contradiction within our 
being and between our objective reality and potential, together with the 
tremendous emotional and psychological storm it unleashes, is a first step, a 
condition for recovery. In the rational consciousness suffering and despair 
stand with the hope, passion and will for recovery. 5. Acutely conscious, intellectually alert, emotionally charged, utterly focused 
and fiercely determined Narek appears in ceaseless battle to secure the triumph 
of human potential despite the history of lapse and collapse. There is 
something inspirational in the drama of tortured struggle against constantly 
wavering confidence, in the passionate stirring of mind and will towards 
potential perfection against the bleakest reality. This affirmation of the human being as a rational and responsible creature with 
the ability to act wisely, to be free, to live well and attain hitherto 
unprecedented heights prefigures some of the rationalist thinkers of the 
Renaissance and the Enlightenment. 6. The first 25 elegies are stocktaking of the human condition; a depiction of the 
broken man/ woman; images of social and individual landscapes of devastation we 
have caused. There is the affirmation of an existential contradiction in 
man/woman with a tendency to degeneration opposed by an almost divine-like 
essence and potential that with altruism and solidarity can again green the 
desert of life. The wreckage we have made of society we can reconstruct! Rational self-criticism, beyond catastrophe reveals inextinguishable human 
potential. Rational consciousness of social reality and of human potential is at once, 
cause of deep suffering and of the firing of hope for the future. It propels us 
to positive battle. 7. Inevitably, but thankfully not too frequently and never significantly, aspects 
of unpleasant theological dogma have begun to seep into what remains in its 
essence a humanist epic. •       As if he has forgotten everything he asserts about the dignity and 
nobility of man and woman, we see Narek in instances of humiliating, slavish 
prostration, of surrendered independence, of pleading, beseeching, begging and 
even groveling for mercy and salvation. Occupying the margins of a broader 
breathless glorification of the free human being, such demeaning postures can 
be seen as expressions of passing moments of impotent pessimism, always 
overcome in Narek’s conscious, self-active and self-determining endeavor to 
attain the peaks of independent human possibility. •       The Christian notion of original sin also makes its appearance. However 
this cruel claim of vice inescapably inherited by every generation has no 
determining role in Narek. Our weakness, faults and failures are not caused by 
original sin but by the abandonment of the reason and rationality we are born 
with. Narek does not offer a social, historical explanation for human failure 
to live rationally. But neither does he attribute it to a view that emerged 
perhaps as an alternative for our inability to understand and explain the 
social causes of human vice and barbarism. •       Narek is not immune from deeply unpleasant, often misogynist instances 
of life-hating, life-denying asceticism. However on occasion and only when free 
of misogyny, delivered in fine poetry this asceticism serves a positive 
critical purpose. The ascetic rejection of social life is often a refuge from 
the toxic world we ourselves have created. Looking at this world from the 
outside, as a bystander as it were can bring into clearer relief the flaws, 
cracks and defects that require repair. But the critical function of the 
ascetic is of course conditional on a return to battle in the social world. And 
this Narek certainly does! •       The belief in the after-life of eternal paradise or inferno as reward 
or punishment for performance in secular life also features distinctly. But joy 
or terror about the after-life is never defining. Most telling and evocative, 
always more forceful and persuasive are images of reward in the form of the 
emancipation of man/woman in their terrestrial social life. The overwhelming 
ambition is always ‘to become one and indivisible with’ God (‘միանամ քեզ հետ 
անբաժանելի’ – p72) in this life and thus escape a life of inferno on earth! --
Eddie Arnavoudian holds degrees in history and politics from
Manchester, England, and is Armenian News's commentator-in-residence on
Armenian literature. His works on literary and political issues have
also appeared in Harach in Paris, Nairi in Beirut and Open Letter in
Los Angeles. *******************************************************************
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