Michelangelo, #MeToo

Een gedicht op de muur van een Berlijnse hogeschool wordt overgeschilderd, omdat het te seksistisch zou zijn. Ik begin te twijfelen. Als iets té mooi, of té onnozel is om waar te zijn, is het dat vaak ook.
Meer daarover onderaan. Eerst iets belangrijker:

Ik moest denken aan de David Hockney die ik in mijn bezit heb. Ik vind hem schitterend. De ets toont twee vrouwen die naar elkaar toelopen, en op de muur staat:

"In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo". 

Professor Schrickx zaliger noemde dat de 'banalisering van Michelangelo'. (Vreemd dat ik zo'n dingen blijf onthouden, terwijl anders mijn geheugen wel een zeef lijkt.) Deze uitspraak op zich is al een #MeToo-verwensing waard.

Ik kocht 'de Hockney' in de jaren 70 in De Slegte voor een appel en een ei, en twee van de reproducties uit de reeks 'Omaggio a Michelangelo' kregen een plaatsje in onze woonkamer. In deze box zat er ook een gedicht van Michelangelo, in een Engelse vertaling. Het sonnet is helemaal in de geest van Petrarca, en gaat over de verpletterende bewondering voor een onbereikbare vrouw.

Kijk eens naar de tweede terzine in dit sonnet. Michelangelo vraagt God om hem één en al oog te maken, zodat er geen enkel deel van zich lichaam niet kan genieten van het wonder van zijn aanbeden schoonheid.

Michelangelo, Poems, (Gilbert no.164, pp. 108-109)

My eyes, nearby or far away, can truly
See your fair face wherever it may appear
But feet are not allowed to carry there
My arms and either of my hands, O Lady.

The soul, the mind when it is sound and steady,
Rises up through your eyes wider and freer
To your high beauty: yet so great afire
Gives no privilege to the mortal, heavy

Body of man, wingless as well, which thus
Can scarcely follow if an angel fly,
And boasts and praises only are for sight. 

Ah, if you can in Heaven as with us,
Then make my body all one single eye,
No part of me not having your delight. 

Wie dit gedicht op een muur zou willen plaatsen, men weze gewaarschuwd in dit overspannen en naar het ridicule neigende post-MeToo-tijdperk.

Maar: of het verhaal van de Alice Salomon Hochschule echt klopt, weet ik niet.
Een gedicht op de muur wordt overgeschilderd, omdat het te seksistisch zou zijn. Volgens een aantal scholieren degradeert het gedicht vrouwen tot een object voor mannelijke bewondering en herinnert het aan de seksuele intimidatie waar vrouwen elke dag last van hebben, volgens de NOS.

Als je wat verder klikt, zie je inderdaad een open brief van ... april 2016, dus eeuwen voor het MeToo-tijdperk. Enkele studenten hebben die vorlesungsfreie Zeit genutzt, um uns etwas genauer mit dem Gedicht an der Südfassade der Hochschule zu beschäftigen: „avenidas“ von Eugen Gomringer, Preisträger des Alice Salomon Poetik Preises 2011.

Ze hadden dus even niets omhanden, en deden dan maar even aan poëzie-analyse. In een bericht van deze week zegt de school wel dat er een nieuw gedicht op de gevel komt, maar ze verwijst helemaal niet naar het hoogst onnozele studentenprotest van twee jaar geleden. Een hoax? Een studentengrap? Misschien wel. Of het gedicht Avenidas waardevol is, laat ik over aan de poëten onder ons. Maar The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, daar twijfel ik geen seconde aan. De kans dat dit op een schoolmuur komt, acht ik relatief klein.

Klacht van de studenten (2016)
Bericht van de school

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 

BY T. S. ELIOT

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

               So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

               And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

               And should I then presume?

               And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

               That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

               “That is not it at all,

               That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.