From a Marxist perspective, literature that eyes at aesthetic effect alone and underplays or divorces itself from promoting the causes of the majority and worse still fails to drag into light the exploitation or oppression of the majority is as good as dead.
When this fact dawned on her, at a certain point in her life, making a 180-degree twist from ‘Art for art’s sake’ Salomeja Neris (Lithuanian poet) got on board ‘Art for life’s sake’. Reading her selected works one can easily trace the evolution in her muse.
It is the reeling revulsion, the oppression of her countrymen by feudal lords and the bourgeoisie as well as the occupation of her country by the expansionist Nazis, created on her that nudged Salomeja out of the luxury of turning a blind eye to the lot of the masses.
Consequent to this, Salomeja began to muse on the socio-economic and historical realities of her time. The social hurdles impounding at the grassroots of the society grabbed her attention. Her poem Advisers attests her bold decision to muse on socio-economic facts on the ground than on fancy-packed issues. But as it is natural to expect a fair number of skeptics in any situation she did face both opposition and appreciation for the radical twist she made in her style of writing poems.
Her poems in the above-mentioned poem though permeated with colorful metaphors as those written ‘art for art’s sake’ or high art, as popular art, they are in keeping with the calling of the majority true to Lenin’s words and that of Gorge Lukas. In her poems Salomeja doesn’t apply the modernist way (Brecht’s theory) of baring the device, fragmentation, de-familiarization or subjectivity.
True to Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony S.Neris had managed to transcend false consciousness and attack the dominant ideology that used to reflect the ideologies of the ruling class of her era.
Advisers
Those wiseacres keeps scolding me
For everything I sing.
They grumble, picking viciously
At every single thing.
“What do you paint those pictures
from storms and heroes’ wounds?
Forget your stupid fantasies
And draw our fields and mounds
I try in vain, it seems
One thing,
fed up with such advice
I would like to do-no joke!
To draw a life-size picture
of such irritating folk.
In her poem ‘Advisers’ Salomeja dubbed irritating folks and wiseacres the skeptics that directed the butt of their severe criticism at her when she shifted her attention from the imaginary to the realistic issue. They condemned her for condemning neo-romanticism to embrace ‘art for life’s cause’.
Wiseacre means persons who wish to seem wise. She disclosed how they futilely made a frantic effort to abuse her work.
Observe that the extracts in the poem ‘Advisers’ attest this fact. Scold me, grumble, picking, viciously, everything I sing, stupid fantasies. What do you- – ? Forget- – ? The excerpt hero’s wounds could mean the exploitation of the masses. It is not without a reason she adopted the word hero’s wounds it is intended to implicate the exploitation of the masses.
To my poor brother
My poor brother,
Slave of evil fortune,
Happiness evades you,
Shuts its eyes upon you.
Look how rough your hands are!
They were meant for ploughing,
Forging red-hot iron,
Winnowing, or mowing.
Weary, never resting,
You from dawn to sunset
Over the black plough field
Back and forth go pacing.
Every spring you sow there
White hope in the furrows.
All that ever sports, though,
Is despair’s black harvest.
Black, it grows and bunches,
Black, it gives off branches.
Brother, gray stones fill the earth
Dark for lack of sunshine.
In the poem ‘To my poor brother’ living up to the set objective, of Marxist Criticism that a good work of art should expose the exploitation of the toiling masses, with picturesque language, Salomeja did manage to portray the condemnation of the toiling class to laboring to death without a stalemate for air. To grasp the message, below are supplied the strokes by the word painter’s brush employed to shed light on the ordeal of the working class and the seemingly everlasting tribulation they were meted out by fate.
(Brother my poor brother, Slave of evil fortune, Weary, never resting, You from dawn to sunset, Over the black rough field, Back and forth go pacing, Every spring you sow—(Hope) ever sprout, though ,Is despair’s black harvest. )
The poem also shows, as tied hand to foot by the drudgery of hard work, members of the working class are foreign to earthly joy. See the following extracts (Happiness evades you, shuts its eyes upon you, dark for lack of sunshine. )
When one adds this sad episode to the first two extracts given immediately above and that hints about slavery the oppressed class’s lack of happiness becomes conspicuous.
The poem reveals peasants and artisans, who bear hard labor roughened hands, work a lot. It depicts the demanding manual task, with little return, is brushed aside to the exploited class. It also reveals the farms are sweatshops. Here to drive home the working class’s fate in the readers’ mind Salomeja used enumeration of tasks of the oppressed: ploughing , forging(red hot iron),winnowing and mowing. Salomeja in this poem showed, even if they wished to improve their lot, evil fortune rocks down the oppressed class’s aspiration to change their fate.
It condemns the working class’s forced alienation from the means of production, their labor as well as the fruits of their labor. It is not difficult to decipher the melancholic mood the poet entertains towards the exploited class as she recurrently uses the word images (dark, black (4 times), lack and also the epistle: poor, evil, rough. ) The verbs (shuts and evades) also tell on the melancholic mood of the poet towards the toiling class.
Salomeja’s adoption of the address marker, brother, to the character, from the working class portrayed in the poem, shows she did second the cause of the working class. It as well shows her mournful disposition to the working class. Drawing the attention of the public to the deplorable situation of the working class and sensitizing people on the need to backup with an all-out support any aspiration of the working class in breaking the chains, the poem summons them to be progressive.
Though this poem exposes the socio- economic disparity between the exploiting and the exploited classes in the poet’s era and country (early 20th centuries in Lithuania) and as such could prove momentous in the lens of Marxist Criticism, like Critical Realism, it is confined to revealing the despondency that permeated the working class. The first three stanzas reveal the exploitation of the working class while the last two show hopelessness. (Every spring you sow there, White hope in the furrows, All that ever sprouts, though, Is despair’s black harvest.- -, Brother Grey stones fill the earth Dark for lack of sunshine.)
This poem thus seem ideologically conflicted as it doesn’t show how the exploited could circumvent the problem.
In a Viennese bar
In that bar dance lusty harlots,
Pretty, slender, slim as mermaids,
All because despair is weeping
In the garret where their home is.
Full of promise is their glances,
Lips daubed thick with carmine garish.
But their hearts in threadbare garrets
Moan and groan with hungry anguish.
Pity them their youth they squander,
And their laughter is not funny.
Their caresses, through are paid for
With hard coins, with ready money.
Red as blood, the wine keeps flowing,
Dance, poor harlots, willy-nilly;
Soon a river bridge awaits you
And the Danube waters chilly.
When pushed to the edge of penury by the turbulent tide of social life, to keep their soul with their body or for a lack of a better alternative people could be coerced to engage in immoral activities such as crime. Even no less immoral, members of the fair sex, who naturally faces double-fold oppression including the gender-based one, willy-nilly get drowned into commercial sex work, a manifestation of social decadence.
But, more often, the fact that it is social decadence or wrong-headed administration accountable for the tragic scenario is overlooked, for the popular belief of the debased nature of ignoble women sells itself as ideology. But if women are entitled the right for education, equal chance for work, there is no reason why they yield to prostitution and debase their soul and befoul their body for the sake of subsistence. It is this sad episode that the poet Salomeja witnessed during her era she dragged into light in her poem. In this poem she rams home that it is to get inured to their deplorable condition commercial sex workers cut affectation of the contented and get tipsy taking alcohols.
Red as blood, the wine keeps flowing. But in the heart of their hearts, the poet conveys that misery resides. See below the word images that throw light on the deplorable condition of such women ostracized by the public and compelled to barter sex for a daily bread. (Despair is weeping in the garret (watchtower) where their home is. But their hearts, threadbare (shabby) garrets, moan and groan with hungry anguish.)
The metaphor mermaids show the stigma the society attaches with harlots. The poet also talks readers into being considerate to these victims of ill fate. It implores readers not to look down them as mermaids as they engage in such activity for lack of alternative (willy-nilly). Dance, poor harlots, willy-nilly.
BY ALEM HAILU G/KRISTOS
The Ethiopian Herald may 1/2024
