Apollonian vs. The Dionysian: Sharon

¶ … Apollonian vs. The Dionysian: Sharon Olds and Yusef Komunyakaa

The Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy is derived from two opposed concepts coming from the Ancient Greek mythology. Thus, in the Greek mythology Apollo was the god of light, poetry and music, while Dionysus was the god of wine, drunkenness and everything that meant excess and celebration. Hence, the two concepts, Apollonian and Dionysian evolved describe two opposite states: the tendency towards individuation vs. The tendency towards integration of the self into the whole or the erasing of the boundaries of selfhood. The two poems by Sharon Olds and Yusef Komunyakaa have both Apollonian and Dionysian elements in their structure. In fact, in both cases, the authors meditate upon the relationship between their individuality and the others, attempting to cross the line that separates their own selfhood from the others.

Sharon Olds' poem is thus centered on a key image: the author is on the porch, watching a hair flying off from her comb, over the earth. The image clearly intimates the idea of uprooted selfhood, the individuality that cuts its own roots and drifts away. This idea is supported by the juxtaposition of the image representing the uprooted hair with the poet's affirmation that she was born similarly of the soil that surrounds her: "This is the soil I came from, sour / tang of resin and baked dust."(Olds) Up to this point, the poem obviously describes an Apollonian state, in which the self, like the hair that drifts away in the wind crouches onto itself: It is curled on itself, it folds, kneels, / bows and buckles over onto our earth." (Olds, 33) in the next part of the poem however, the poet confesses to always desiring to "cross over into the other person," that is to surpass the limits of the individuated self, and merge with the other: "I have always wanted to cross over / into the other person, draw the / other person over into me."(Olds, 33) the Apollonian- Dionysian dichotomy is developed even further in the next lines, when, seemingly someone joins the author at the porch rail, coming surreptitiously from behind. The author renders the sensation of this shift from being alone to being with someone. The quick approach of someone else makes the author feel even more insecure of her own self, and her own individuality becomes "like a dream of matter / looking for spirit": "Fast are the naked palms to the breasts / from behind, at the porch rail, fast / is a look. Slow is / the knowing where I come from, / who I might be, like a dream of matter / looking for spirit."(Olds, 33) the context of the poem shifts once more, and the focus comes back to the hair that seems to roll back toward the poet standing on the porch: "Now the hair / rises on an updraft, wobbling, reddish, / in a half-circle, it wavers higher-- / the jelly head of the follicle has the tail of the hair in its mouth, it rolls back / up, toward me, through the morning, as if / someone, somewhere, were saying, to me, we are one now."(Olds, 33) These last lines of the poem clearly imply that the poet has somehow surpassed the limits of the self in this brief moment of companionship on the porch, and has passed from the pure consciousness of the self, that is from an Apollonian state to a Dionysian state. Thus, Sharon Olds' poem progresses through a series of interesting images, which analyze the relationship between the Apollonian and the Dionysian states, that is, from the pure individuality to a state of merging with the other and overstepping the boundaries of the self.

Yusef Komunyakaa's poem has a similar structure. In his Facing it, the author rememorizes an experience from the Vietnam War. The poem starts abruptly with the image of the poet's black face that fades "hiding inside the black granite: "My black face fades, / hiding inside the black granite. / I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. / I'm stone. I'm flesh. / My clouded reflection eyes me / like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning."(Komunyakaa, 129) the image that opens the poem is thus already very representative: the author seems to lead a tense struggle with his own self. The black face that fades inside the black granite is obviously a symbol of the war as a transforming experience that throws a shadow over the self or the individual, merging it with the others. In the war, there is obviously no distinction between one person and the other, the individuality cannot be preserved. When he tries to recollect his experience, the poet finds that he can hardly distinguish his own self from the others, and he even starts to look for his own name on the huge list of the victims registered at the Memorial Hospital: "I go down the 58,022 names, / half-expecting to find / my own in letters like smoke."(Komunyakaa, 129) Another image completes this idea: the poet feels that he is like a window, that is he feels transparent, as if his own self were reflected in the selves of all the others participants in the war. All the other comparisons of the self with shadows and smoke, emphasize this idea that the author is in a desperate search for his own individuality. Thus, contrary to Sharon Olds' poem, Facing it seems to follow the opposite trajectory of the self from a Dionysian state in which the individuality is unmarked and merges with all the other individualities, to an Apollonian state. The poet even feels that his own self is the same with that if a "white vet," who has lost his right arm: "The sky. A plane in the sky. / a white vet's image floats / closer to me, then his pale eyes / look through mine. I'm a window. / He's lost his right arm / inside the stone."(Komunyakaa, 129) the title of the poem is also symbolic: the phrase "facing it" clearly refers to the fact that the poet has to deal with the recollection of the painful experience of the war, but more than that, the phrase is derived from the key word "face," which can also stand for individuality.