Is Matter Holy?

The entanglement of flesh and spirit in Leonard Cohens Beautiful Losers

Omar Majeed

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Introduction Beautiful Losers flesh, spirit, and the new sainthood Cultural Context and Critical Response Historical Context from Donne to MacLennon Biography Poem Songs of Conclusion

1. Introduction Ladies and Gentlemen Mr Leonard Cohen.1 For a household name, little is known about Leonard Norman Cohen. Leonard Cohen, who are you? Are you (1934 )? Is that enough? Are you the patron saint of envy and the grocer of despair?2 Are you the bankrupt monk?3 The patient author of Hallelujah? 4 Are you L. Cohen,5 cuckold.6 Are you Laurence Breavman, apprentice writer?7 Are you the unnamed protagonist in countless trinities of lust?8,9,10,11 Can I study you in my own way? Leonard Cohen may be all of these and more. The adapted paraphrasing above highlights a parallel between this essay and the challenges faced by the protagonist of Beautiful Losers12 the protagonists metastudy mirrors any scholarly attempt to study the book through the mists of time and whispers of second hand information. This essay serves to show Leonard Cohens unconventional marriage of carnality and spirituality in Beautiful Losers, his second and final novel as part of a vision both within a tradition and characteristically his. Beautiful Losers catalogues an anonymous narrators attempts to understand the life of the Native Canadian saint, Catherine Tekakwitha. Here we have a similar issue, to understand the author of this text, still living but not in the incarnation that wrote the book, having been through several guises from morose folkie, to the aforementioned Buddhist monk, and then returning to knowing pop star. There is plenty of

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965) I overheard your prayer that you be this and nothing more the patron saint of envy and the grocer of despair Lyrical excerpt, Field Commander Cohen (from New Skin For The Old Ceremony 1974) 3 Leonard Cohen: Out of the monastery and back on the road Independent online, 15 June 2008 accessed 9/1/12 4 Cohens song Hallelujah was edited from eighty verses down to fifteen in its longest. He told Bob Dylan it took two years to write, which was an understatement. (Telegraph blog http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/3833494/Hallelujah-20-facts-aboutLeonard-Cohens-Hallelujah.html - accessed 9/1/12) 5 Sincerely, L.Cohen Lyrical excerpt, Famous Blue Raincoat (from Songs of Love and Hate 1971) 6 The important thing was to cuckold Leonard Cohen - The Cuckolds Song, from The Spice-Box of Earth 7 and protagonist of The Favourite Game, Leonard Cohen, Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd., 1963 8 When referring to The Master Song (from Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1967), Cohen said its about the trinity. Leave that for the scholars, its about three people. 9 Another song already mentioned, Famous Blue Raincoat, uses an epistolary format to portray a fictionalised love triangle that resembled various experiences he had in his own life. Interestingly, the blue raincoat of the title was worn by Cohen himself and not by a specific third party. These songs will be brought into the essay later to illuminate the central love triangle in Beautiful Losers. 10 In the song, One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong (also from the formidable Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1967) a series of shifting triangles exist between the first-person speaker and an array of Others: doctor, saint, and eskimo. 11 Perhaps countless was an exaggeration, but the extent and focus of the fourth example in the relationship between the central three characters in Beautiful Losers may suffice as an excuse for the extrapolation. 12 The format of the above sentences of introduction and the sentiment of enquiry are appropriated heartily from the opening lines of the first chapter of Beautiful Losers, in a spirit of playfulness and appreciation.
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biography on him, from his roots being raised in a comfortable middle class home observing the Sabbath and attending synagogue on a regular basis13 through the tongue-in-cheek but revealing persona of self-styled Ladies Man,14 up until his distinguished present. As stated, Cohen at the time of writing is very much alive, and he lives within his books, having cheated the Barthesian Death.15 Cohens personality is too large to be eradicated from the page; he is so ingrained in his characters that, like even the dead characters in Beautiful Losers, he lives on doubly through the text. The first novel is thinly veiled autobiography the protagonist burying his fathers bow tie in the same garden as his author. The voice throughout Cohens poetry sounds like his own rather than an unrelated speaker.16 Cohen plays with voice, and content. He is explorative and challenging. He seeks to present his truth, above niceties and pomp, and courts controversy, provokes embarrassed critics into disapproval instead of baiting merit. Technically he was more than capable, exploring and exploiting a variety of styles to great effect, and even virtuosity on his second novel Beautiful Losers. This essay is centred around Cohens second novel exploring in particular the skewed wisdom of the narrators best friend F., his peculiar fixation on a Native Canadian saint, and the presentation of sex as part of a ritual of transcendence, an escape from the tyranny of the ego. The essay continues to look at Cohens blending of the spirit and the flesh in further materials, including poetry and song. The additional works selected will be those which highlight themes that run through a proportion of his work the aforementioned Sacred and the Profane, and the repeated motif of the trinity, what Cohen called the love triangle in the Master Song17. For further evidence I will be drawing on biography cautiously, and considering his place in the history of literature. To add to this context I will touch upon key critical responses from the sixties, of the novels release a decade that saw an extension of the boundaries of what was acceptable to portray in The Novel. Central to Cohens portrayal of sexuality is the answer to a question asked by one of his characters is matter holy? Cohens blend of the Sacred and Profane has its origins long before the controversial 1960s of its genesis, and far from the reflex accusations of blasphemy reveals a peculiar but profound faith, which accounts for the physical realm as equal to the spiritual world that ascetics would divide it from. Furthermore, as well as being co-dependent they are intertwined like the Yin-Yang, the seed of one is existent within the other. In this world of spirit and flesh, matter is indeed holy, and the sacrament can be found in the mystery of the discovery of anothers body; carnal ecstasy a realistic transcendence, and human love a microcosm for the divine. In this life we know spirit and flesh are inseparable. Through examination of

Quote from David Sheppards biography, titled imaginatively, Leonard Cohen. My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke that caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone. http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/52060.Leonard_Cohen 15 There is debate around Barthes death of the author, as spoken about by Foster-Wallace in his article Greatly exaggerated from A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill Never Do Again, among other sources. Whether you are set in the pro-or anti- death school, it holds up that reader interpretation generates a proportion of meaning. What I am suggesting here is that when a writers voice is strong enough it exerts itself beyond possible varieties of interpretation. 16 (if such a creation is really possible and does not reflect a facet of the author, if not their primary viewpoint). 17 "I like to sing a song which is called the 'Master Song' and it's about the Trinity. Leave that for the scholars: It's about three people." -- Leonard Cohen, The BBC Sessions, 1968
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context and content of Cohens work, whether in print or song, I intend to show that to Cohen, matter, like everything, is holy. There are no dirty words.18

There are no dirty words. Ever. was Cohens response to a producer asking him to remove any profanity when performing The Spicebox of Earth on air.

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2. Beautiful Losers Flesh, Spirit and the new sainthood In the introduction to Phillip Hoffmans Corporeal Cartographies, it is suggested that Cohen is hard to pigeonhole as a writer, and the corporeal is one of the few constants in Cohens work.19 Hoffman quotes Stephen Scobies observation that flesh is Cohens favourite word. Cohens novels are certainly carnal. The first book, The Favourite Game, is titled around some sex-play in the early stages of the characters development. The book is a bildungsroman, a sort of Canadian Catcher in the Rye20, but with all the David Copperfield kind of crap kept in.21 It maps the coming of age of Lawrence Breavman, or rather, it has been suggested by Hoffman and others, a kunstlerroman, a sort of ironic Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Breavmans writing aspirations serve primarily to ingratiate himself with the series of women he courts, and appears as a self-deprecating reflection of Cohen himself. The novel features relationships with a chain of women, interrupted only by Breavmans pursuit of them. In Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen presents sex to the reader in graphic detail, exploring practices some people would not have even dreamt of. To find what some have described as pornography within the same pages as meditations on sainthood might be surprising enough, but discovering scenes such as the erotic experiences of a Jesuit priest are outright confrontational and demand enquiry. It appears Cohen is of the opinion that nothing is profane, nothing is sacred. In accordance with his interest in Zen, it follows conversely everything is profane, everything sacred. A synopsis of Beautiful Losers is a tall order. Narratives cross broad physical and temporal boundaries, unconstrained by traditional formulae. But it has a structure. Beautiful Losers is a book of three parts. Book one A History of Them All introduces the historian protagonist who when addressing the object of his study, Saint Catherine Tekakwitha, says, I fell in love with a religious picture of you.22 It further sees the narrator recalling events in the interrelationship between him, his best friend F. and his wife Edith, both deceased by the start of the book, though vividly painted in memory, alive enough for him to attempt communication and reserve love and anger for. The narrator is constipated, befitting his role as a historian. He cannot rid himself of the past. He is blocked, and yearns to be, like F., liberated to experience the present in its vibrancy. Instead it is a prison. He dwells on thoughts and memories of his loved ones between chapters recounting the life of Catherine Tekakwitha, the origins of her sainthood, and drifting into lengthy cognitive asides. Book two A long letter from F. is to some extent self-explanatory, consisting in a lengthy correspondence from his friend bequeathing his factory and soap collection, and providing further esoteric

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p.14 Phillip Hofmann Corporeal Cartographies the body in the novels of Leonard Cohen, Berlin 2010

20 T.F. Rigelhof The Favourite Game, The Globe and Mail, January 22, 2000, accessed via http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/rigelhof2.html

p.1 Catcher in the Rye If you really want to hear about it, the first thing youll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap. 22 p.3 Beautiful Losers

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advice from beyond the grave, finally providing a completed history of Catherine Tekakwitha from F.s photographic memory. Book three Beautiful losers, An Epilogue in the Third Person consists of a comparatively short description of the events leading up to a mans dissolution into a cinema screen. Whether the man is I, F., or some conglomeration of the two is open to interpretation. Similarly, Edith and Catherine Tekakwitha appear fused at other points in the book, sharing as they do the A____ tribes blood and the symbolic correlation of the abstracted feminine. At one stage in the novel, Edith requests the narrator to join him in painting their bodies in coloured grease. She wants them to become someone else. He refuses, forging a petty victory and a future regret. Beautiful Losers is a novel of disintegration, and explores the dissolution of the self as opposed to its development. It is an anti-bildungsroman, the story of a personalitys eventual annihilation. The sexuality more flagrant the book is at times pornographic. This is not without purpose, but literary justification did not prevent the raising of eyebrows at the time of print. For Cohen, sex is to be looked at in detail. He does not fear blasphemy, perhaps because he knows the integrity of his intentions. This attitude is summarised in Hallelujah; You say I took the name in vain. I dont even know the name, and if I did, well really, whats it to you?23 When F. and Edith are discovered injecting holy water it is part of their self-exploration; the narrators shock is not necessarily ours nor that of the author. At one point it is proposed fucking is holy, dirty and beautiful. It follows that matter related physical acts are holy, in the view of this writer. Towards the climax of the book is a hallucinatory episode involving a Dutch vibrator that takes on a life of its own, a passage of striking magical realist erotica. Cohen goes to unusual lengths to attempt through poetic prose and Joycean stream of consciousness to express Ediths ecstasy. F. takes on a role of spiritual teacher. The narrator wonders What did F. mean by advising me to go down on a saint? He realises it is an absurdity, but the idea nags him as a Zen koan, its very insolubility a feature of its profundity. Near the beginning of the final section of the book a long letter from F., the narrator is told you have been baptised with fire, shit, history, love and loss. Memorise this. It explains the golden rule. He speaks with authority, from a place between madness and insight. Sometimes his wisdom is unwelcome. Hearing of his wifes infidelity from his friend the narrator exclaimed Oh, F., do you think I can learn to perceive the diamonds of good amongst all this shit? -It is all diamond. -Damn you, rotten wife-fucker, that answer is no comfort. There is a long passage about sainthood

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http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leonardcohen/hallelujah.html

-What is a saint? A saint is a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos, if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His track is the drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance.

This last line deliberately mirrors scripture (for God so loved the world")24 but mutates it for his own intention. This form of sainthood has nothing to do with the self-denial and penance found in the sections on Catherine Tekakwitha. Despite, or conversely, because of their sexual liberation and excess, F. and Edith are presented as saints of this new type. Through a systematic corruption of all that is pure, the completion of which results in the clear vision of a paradoxically pure experience of the now, where everything is diamond and there is no shit (page 9). Through his syphilitic vision, F. has rendered the greatest alchemy, turning the basest matter into the most desired and exalted. In his viewpoint, all matter his holy. Another piece of advice of F.s was Weve got to learn to stop bravely at the surface. Weve got to learn to love appearances (p4). This superficiality is further discovered on p.11, which details Fs decoration of a plaster reproduction of the Acropolis which for some reason he had coated with red nail polish a colour named Tibetan Desire, which amused him since it was, he claimed, such a contradiction in terms. Tibet of course is the spiritual home of Buddhism, a philosophy of mind, which Cohen was particularly interested in. Buddhism teaches to sever attachment to temporal objects and people, and the eradication of desire, which it is taught leads to suffering. The protagonist of Beautiful Losers is far from unattached, and carrying both the baggage of his past and others. Another piece of advice from F. Listen, my friend, listen to the present, the right now, its all around us, painted like a target, red, white, and blue. Sail into the target like a dart, a fluke bulls-eye in a dirty pub. Empty your memory and listen to the fire around you. (p.13) This saintliness in F. and Edith has been observed in several sources, for example Cohens sexual connoisseurs, F. and Edith, are strongly associated with the same state of grace as orthodox saints, but they seek and attain it through unorthodox ways, outside the common experience of not only established religion, but ordinary human life as well. Sex, magic and death become the frontiers of exploration for these redefined saints.25 And- the sainthood of beautiful Losers represents a culmination of the combined quest for spiritual and fleshly fulfilment embarked upon in Cohens earlier works. The saint, as the searcher learns, is one who

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John (3,16) The Saint Figure in Leonard Cohen And Robertsoin Davies, Linda Jade Fong Stearns, Thesis, 1975

finds a balance between the spirit and the flesh such that he is rendered submissive before another person, before the universe, and before God.26 Accordingly, before the start of the book they have both died; Edith crushed in a lift shaft attempting to teach her husband a lesson. There is something of sacrifice in the way they try and reach out to him. They also aim for the transcendent in unusual ways, finding the sound of ordinary eternal machinery through the telephone game inserting fingers in each others ears, and experiencing intimacy outside of what F. describes as genital tyranny, of which the narrator admits culpability. The characteristic entanglement of the Sacred and Profane is exemplified on p.74 the narrator holds infinity in the palm of his hand in the form of, the viscous blob of come in my palm thinning and clearing like the end of creation when all matter returns to water. Cohens formal explorations take shape in different modes of address. At times the narrator speaks in unconventional prayer:

Dear God, It Is Three In The Morning. Aimless Cloudy Semen Becomes Transparent. Is the Church Mad At Me? and elsewhere O God, Your Morning Is Perfect. People Are Alive In The World. The prayer continues over a dense double page, the title case lending gravitas and earnest to his scattershot utterances. Later in the novel, the prayer takes the form of questions, highlighting the uncertainties and struggles of the narrator Is All The World A Prayer To Some Star? May I Pray At All?

26 Flesh And Spirit In The Writing Of Leonard Cohen Richard Knelsen Thesis 1969

3. Cultural Context and Critical Response Leonard Cohen was relatively unknown at the time of writing. He had dropped out of an MA in Literature at the advice of his lecturer to pursue a life in poetry. He only ever aimed to be a minor poet, and was optimistic enough to suppose that this might bring in a living for him. When he got the advance to write Beautiful Losers he was more than pleased. It gave him enough to live on as he wrote on the Greek island of Hydra, for twelve hours a day fuelled by amphetamines in the blazing sun. Cohen wrote a special preface to the Chinese edition, describing his work as more sunstroke than a book. The results are visionary, if you appreciate them; if the contents of Beautiful Losers are not to your taste, perhaps psychotic is as good a description. But experimental work is bound to be divisive, and if the Joyce comparisons below are hard to stomach theres only one Joyce perhaps there is at least a respectable nod to the godfather of modernism in the sprawling narratives, stream of consciousness ecstasies, and fragmented voices. Cohen seems a late heir to the Modernist tradition, though the definitions of these literary traditions always seem flexible enough to accommodate whatever argument is being taken. The same cut-up narratives are seen elsewhere as evidence of post-modernism, so perhaps it is not worth quibbling over definitions. Of course, ordinarily genre is applied to a text retrospectively, to write consciously within a tradition is to court pastiche, or at least risk harbouring a self-reflexivity that alters the meaning of the text. The following quotes are taken from P.S. the notes found in the back pages of the Blue Door publication of Beautiful Losers. They are reprinted here to give contextual contrast in the large part to Michael Ondaatjes quote on the cover describing it as A gorgeous novel.

James Joyce is not dead. He is living in Montreal under the name Leonard Cohen Boston Globe The most revolting book ever written in Canada Toronto Daily Star Verbal masturbation Globe and Mail A tirade of obscene poetry Cambridge Review More psychotic than pornographic Macleans Review Gorgeously written hallucinatory, anguished, overwhelming The Times

The polarisation of these responses is likely due to the controversial and extreme portrayal of sex, which Andrew Lesk describes as Cohens literary destabilisation of socially acceptable expression.27 More complimentary feedback is found in Linda Hutcheons account citing Sandra Djwa that Cohen has been compared not only to Baudelaire, Wilde, and Beardsley but also to their various Black Romantic heirs D.H. Lawrence, Jean Genet, William S. Burroughs, Henry Miller, Gunter Grass, and Joseph Heller.28 Critical reception aside, there have been more thorough and considered responses to Cohens work, whether from champions, apologists, or upset puritans. In one book The Immoral Moralists we get a genuine Puritan response, which is refreshingly open-minded and discursive, and does not dismiss the artistry of Cohens work on account of personal delicacies. In this exploration there is a proposed placement of Cohen within a narrative of gradual sexual liberation, the groundwork of which was lain by a litany of writers historically and worldwide, and at a more geographically and temporally local level by a fellow Canadian MacLennon. Beautiful Losers was written in 1966, a time of greater freedom and experimentation in general following the acquittal of D.H. Lawrence in which he was judged not guilty of obscenity. The deciding evidence in the trial concluded a surprising verdict, which was that Lawrences novel Lady Chatterlys Lover was a puritan one The most brilliant witness, many observers thought, was Richard Hoggart, senior lecturer in English at Leicester University. He insisted D.H. Lawrence was a puritan, in the original sense of one heavy with conscience.29 It has been further suggested in The Immoral Moralists that Cohen also was writing in a puritan tradition, albeit an even more unorthodox one. Cohens voluntary exile in Hydra would have contributed to the sense of freedom to write as he wished, unencumbered by queries as to what he was writing by peers, or the interruptions of contemporary culture upon the meandering of his thought processes. While a few applauded and championed Beautiful Losers, there were many detractors who viewed it with scorn as a work of obscenity and incoherence. The same sections that offended some delighted others, as Cohens novel challenged literary preconceptions by breaking down narrative conventions and pastiching pornographic writing to poetic effect. As seen, critics were divided, or even overlooked the book entirely, as did academics in the majority. It wasnt until his music career took off that it received wider attention and acclaim perhaps because of the credibility that his stardom leant to his early work. Theorists considered his work through the lenses of post-colonial and feminist theory, finding much of respective interest and offense. Post-colonialists were interested in the portrayal of the displacement of Canadian natives and their conversion to Christianity. The text also presents a new colonisation by English speakers as a continuation of the tradition of colonial tyranny. In this instance it was the French Quebecoise who were in turn oppressed. Feminists on the other hand were largely affronted by objectification of the female characters and in their view the two-dimensionality of these central female figures.

Leonard Cohens Traffic In Alterity in Beautiful Losers p.3 Leonard Cohen and His Works Linda Hutcheon, Toronto 29 http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2010/11/01/lady-chatterley-celebrates-50thanniversary-of-her-acquittal/
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4. Historical Context Donne to MacLennon Since the birth of the written word we have themes of the Sacred and Profane in combination. Even in the first mechanically printed book the Gutenberg Bible, we have the Song of Songs, which reads as a peculiarly modern poetic of romantic longing to those with only a passing knowledge of scripture. In the early days of literature, we have Chaucer, whose bawdiness was as prominent as his faith. But it was John Donne who really combined the two to startling effect. Cohen was aware of John Donne. As Cohen was a sometime poet and student of literature, this may be almost self-evident, but it helps the thrust of this essay that Cohen quotes Donnes The Sun Rising, in which a lover chastises a celestial body for interrupting his lie-in with his beloved. There are other John Donne poems more aligned with Cohens themes, but it follows that he knew those too. A better example is Donnes Holy Sonnet 14, in which the speaker beseeches the three-personed God to batter my heart and ravish me. Strong, physical; words when relating to a resolutely non-corporeal divine force. This physicalisation of the spiritual is textbook Cohen, as in his line that asks, does Gabriel trip a burglar alarm30, and like Cohen, Donne does the reverse exalting human love towards the transcendent. The Ecstasy describes a riverside fumble in highfaluting language that makes it sound like a mystical experience. Sex becomes a communion in a way Cohen uses in Hallelujah, as we shall see later. The word soul appears 15 times in a poem only a few verses longer. Cohen shares a symbolic vernacular with John Donne, but not a stylistic one. The themes are congruent but the language contrasting. Patterns of speech and modes of written vocabulary alter over time. Some themes endure. In accordance with the times, Cohen portrays similar ideas and sentiments in a more extreme fashion. While Donne would write sucked on country pleasures with a printers s (a long s which looks like an f), Cohen confidently spoke of the cunt of now no coding necessary. There is not time here to cover the span of literature that mingles flesh and the spirit. Donne is a potent example, but these pertinent themes are covered by a lot of writers, if not always simultaneously. Somehow, despite sex running nude through the libraries and syllabi even Shakespeare had his rude bits written in for those standing at the front there have been accusations of obscenity for those attempting to present sex in any detail. Joyce was tried for it, as famously was D.H. Lawrence. Gradually we have seen an opening of minds as far as what shocks us has become more extreme, but there are still boundaries. We have seen here that Cohen is by far not alone in writing a book too daring for the times. He only got away with it as much as he did because he was building on the works that came before. Lawrences acquittal certainly led the way for many of the beat writers that followed. While not being closely affiliated, Ginsberg and Burroughs were contemporaries of Cohen, and Ginsberg was present in New York at the same time as Cohens stay. These writers all wrote about sex in new ways, each unique while still dependent on the writers on whose shoulders they stood. Further illumination is seen through his longstanding interest in Zen There is precedent for Cohens Zen impiety: Ikkyu, the 14thcentury master of Japanese poetry who scandalized his contemporaries (and, likely, ours ) by cavorting with prostitutes,

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BL p.106 Does Gabriel set off burglar alarms

getting drunk and railing against the institutional hierarchy of Zen Buddhism all as a fully enlightened Zen teacher. Dont hesitate to get laid thats wisdom, he wrote in one short poem (translated here by Stephen Berg). Sitting around chanting? What crap. There are fewer of these holy sinners in the Jewish tradition, but arguably Ginsberg is among them, and perhaps Philip Roth, too, in his own way.31

Leonard Cohen: poet of the holy sinners, Jewish Daily Forward http://www.forward.com/articles/10535/#ixzz1jfAM9mHw

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5. Biography A certain amount of biography is useful in understanding a text. If this were a study of Cohens first novel, The Favourite Game, then biography would be crucial. The book is drawn to a large extent from his life. Words from the text are overlain seamlessly on footage of his life in the film Ladies and Gentlemen: Mr Leonard Cohen. As it stands, the book can serve beside the accounts of other biographers as the closest thing to autobiography we have. Beautiful Losers contains perhaps as much Cohen as The Favourite Game. But it is his thoughts rather than his acts that impose themselves through the narrative. There is much of Cohens psyche laid bare, exaggerated and distorted perhaps, filtered through the texts that inspired the work, but him nonetheless. Although not peculiar to him, the intermingling of the Sacred and the Profane, the insertion of flesh into spirit is characteristic. Also, the love triangle in the book is prevalent enough throughout his work to be worth investigating. Therefore, this biography shall be limited to that which illuminates his thematic concerns. What are they? In Elizabeth Anne Kerwins view they are the predominant theme of an escape to grace and preoccupation with religious and sexual affirmations and their frequent juxtaposition as escape vehicles.32 Her dissertation maps the stage of protagonist as pawn moving through a quest that is spiritual seeking, and the games played in attempt to reach the final escape. In clearer terms, Cohen is interested in transcendence, whatever form it takes. He is interested in the power of the moment over the burden of history. A few notes on Cohens burden Cohen was brought up in comfortable surroundings in a middle class Jewish environment. His father died when he was young and he was looked after by a loyal Irish nanny who Cohen once hypnotised and undressed, as detailed in The Favourite Game, his first novel. His nanny used to take him to the Catholic church, an early introduction to the variety of expressions of religion. He was well educated and embarked upon a course of study in English Literature at McGill as a postgraduate, which he did not complete at his tutors recommendation, pursuing instead the life of a poet. He went on to publish his first volume through a university imprint in 1956 at the age of 22. There were only 400 copies, which sold out quickly. Despite continuing success publishing and selling his poetry, Cohen wasnt to make a living out of it. From economic necessity he was driven first to novels then finally and successfully to music at the age of 30. He left his refuge in Hydra for New York City, where he pursued a career in music, met the Warhol Factory crowd, and was scouted for Columbia by John Hammond.

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p.2 Themes of Leonard Cohen Elizabeth Anne Kerwin, Thesis, Acadia University, 1969

6. Poem

Celebration33 When you kneel below me and in both hands hold my manhood like a sceptre, When you wrap your tongue about the amber jewel and urge my blessing, I understand those Roman girls who danced around a shaft of stone and kissed it till the stone was warm. Kneel, love, a thousand feet below me, so far that I can barely see your mouth and hands perform the ceremony, Kneel till I topple to your back with a groan, like those gods on the roof that Samson pulled down.

In the above poem, the character being addressed by the speaker treats him and his manhood, described as a sceptre, with reverence appropriate to a ceremony. The first stanza presents her on her knees and leads through an idealised portrayal of fellatio to a comparison of an ancient Roman act of worship, equally phallocentric. The final verse shows the speaker topple like those gods on the roof that Samson pulled down. Those gods is dismissive of these apparent deities, the lack of capitalisation notable in comparison to Samson. The deities, such as they are, were toppled by a mere mortal, mirroring the power the girl has over him. She can bring him down while kneeling below. The sexual act in the centre of the poem is juxtaposed with the ceremony portrayed in the surrounding verses for comparison.

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from The Spicebox of Earth

7. Songs of Leonard Cohen has an expansive repertoire of music stretching back to the latter half of the sixties. His pet themes of love, sex, and religion run threadlike through his work. As further affirmation of his thematic interests some analysis might be useful, especially of the Master Song, which has similarities with Beautiful Losers. The Master Song is the story of three people, the aforementioned trinity. There is The Master, The Prisoner, and a girl to whom the song is addressed. I believe that you heard your master sing while I was sick in bed the introductory sentence shows the difference in health (perhaps emotional?) between Master and Prisoner. One sings while the other is sick in bed. The Master went travelling, an act of freedom, while the speaker is a prisoner. The implication in the song is a prisoner of love, and the sickness that comes with longing and loss. She brings the prisoner wine and bread, the Christian sacrament, a symbolic scrap of flesh. You met him at some temple where they took your clothes at the door. This sentence gives some context. They are in an ashram, but rather than being about abstinence has implications of sex throughout. The taking of the clothes hints at it, and the verse goes on to describe her wrapping his tired face in [her] hair echoing Mary Magdalene perhaps, and Hemingways nurse in A Farewell to Arms maybe coincidentally. There is a delicacy in this act and a commitment. And then he touches your lips now so suddenly bare of all the kisses we put on some time before. An unconventional relationship between Master and Student. The following verse reveals your love is a secret all over the block. Then after shows him taking her up in an aeroplane that he flew without any hands a sexual metaphor, for the master now an ape with angel glands a strange combination of the spiritual and bestial, before he is transformed again his body is a golden string that your body is hanging from an image of Classical perfection, and physical reliance. Meanwhile the prisoners body by contrast has grown numb on his bed of snow. The relationship between these figures is revealed finally I loved your master perfectly, and I taught him all that he knew and I taught him how you would long for me, no matter what he said the prisoner was once master, until his final lesson of jealousy and ownership backfired leaving him alone. The Stranger Song tells the story of a dealer who is looking for shelter. Cohen uses a combination of imagery, from the card playing pun of the dealer who is an addict with golden arm despatching cards for the holy game of poker, romanticising and making sacred the act of heroin use through metaphor, which removes it from the literal argot of the spike, perhaps this is what he means by the game of poker. When Cohen intones he was watching for the card that is so high and wild hell never have to deal another; he was just some Joseph looking for a manger he both shows the dealer looking for the next trick and compares him to Jesus earthly father a striking contrast. Here the profane is found in the rituals and transformations of drug use rather than sex. It is worth noting that Cohen was not anti-drugs, having earned the nickname Captain Mandrax as well as being reported to have used opium, hashish and other mind-altering substances. Drugs appear in Cohens work, a reflection of the times. One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong is a portrayal of another unconventional saint figure, who in the spirit of F. taught the duty of lovers is to tarnish the Golden Rule. It is in the realms of mysticism that searchers end up questioning even the holy foundations of their faith to find a greater truth. But like F. came to a sorry

end just when I was sure that his teachings were pure, he drowned himself in the pool. It is also a story of jealousy, magic and various love triangles, mirroring Beautiful Losers quite strongly. The Sisters Of Mercy finds the singer telling that they brought me their comfort. This comfort is not as spiritual as you might expect from sisters they are not nuns, but prostitutes. The song was used in McCabe and Mrs Miller, a Western largely scored by Cohen, which tells the story about the building of a brothel. He continues you wont make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night, we werent lovers like that and besides it would still be alright. This suggests the speaker spends time with prostitutes for company, or some reason other than to sleep with them, echoing slightly Jesus New Testament association with painted ladies that got him in trouble with the religious establishment. Suzanne is an old song, transposed from an older poem. Suzanne is presented as something of a saint, and is like F. half-crazy. There is something Buddhist in the bringing of tea and oranges that come all the way from china And her showing where to look among the garbage and the flowers appears a more delicate metaphor than F.s diamonds and shit parable. The repeated line that she touched your perfect body with her mind shows a flexibility of corporeality where the intangible mind is able to touch the body. Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free. The second simile from this opening line of Bird on the Wire, of the drunk in the midnight choir shows in stark contrast a clumsy freedom unfettered by abstinence. The drunk clashes with the choirs purity. In his song The Butcher, Cohens title character says in explanation to the young speaker I Am What I Am and you are my Only Son (capitalisations my own) implying both God the Father and Son. The song echoes scripture, I Am Who I Am and the Only Son is separate to the Lamb that was being slaughtered earlier, mirroring the sacrifice. Lover Lover Lover from New Skin For The Old Ceremony marks a possible beginning of what Bob Dylan said was his songs becoming more like prayers.34 In the song he beseeches father, change my name, the one Im using now its covered up with fear and filth and cowardice and shame. And lover, lover, lover come back to me. His interchangeable use of father and lover in address mirrors different modes of addressing God, the traditional Christian voice he often adopts, and the language of the mystic, where the lover is the Beloved the Almighty. The song continues a dialogue between the speaker and his god. In this direct conversation, He (God) said, I have locked you in this body, I meant it as a kind of trial, you can use it for a weapon, or to make some woman smile. The meaning of life is in the correct use of the body, which it is implied is to please the opposite sex. Generally though the song is a devotional one, and contains little that might be considered profane, though is well worthy of its mention for the potentially dual resonance of romantic and spiritual love. Last Years Man is an earlier Cohen song that talks about an awkward marriage between Bethlehem the bridegroom and Babylon the bride that is characteristic of the differing instincts within the songwriter, and in the human condition in general. If it be your Will is the song that sounds most like a prayer, in its delivery and content. Yet, Hallelujah (from the suggestively titled Various Positions) is arguably equally spiritual, but contains a potentially problematic spirituality that is not somebody whos seen the light and says maybe theres a God above as part of the songs cold and broken hallelujah. The honesty of the song portrays a faith which

34

http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/zollo.html, accessed 4th January 2012

allows for doubt, allows for the inclusion of the sexual into what is worthy of praise, and even as an act of worship remember when I moved in you, the holy Dove was moving too Cohen commented on the late popularity of the song saying with humbleness it has a good chorus. The chorus is solely the word hallelujah. The merging of the story of King David from the Old Testament and Torah with the story of Samson shows a religious awareness and is used delicately to contrast with the singers flawed but sincere faith. The Future is an even more recent song from the album of the same name, and is apocalyptic. I have seen the future brother, it is murder is the refrain. In this future, the speaker requests nihilistically give me crack and anal sex and also demands contrasting extremes give me Stalin and St Paul, give me Christ or give me Hiroshima. In this coming future, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and its overturned the order of the soul. There is a ray of hope amidst this destruction Ive seen the nations rise and fall but loves the only engine of survival. The redemptive power of religion as a survival tool is put into question when they said repent I wondered what they meant.

8. Conclusion Rather than feigning piety, Cohen employs a mixture of the physical and the spiritual to express his truth, a vision characterised by this blend of spirit and flesh, where one is not elevated above another. This runs through his novels, poetry and songs, and shows an integrity in which he is prepared to look at the baser instincts along with more obvious sketches of beauty. Any contradictions within it are in fact contradictions that he sees in the human condition and articulate his refusal to simplify life into mutually exclusive dichotomies such as good and evil. In a tradition that stretches back to scripture as well as early literature, the Sacred and Profane appear both within the same pages and songs, and even in the same sentences. In fact, little distinction is made between the two. One is indistinct and inseparable from the other. Furthermore a new sainthood is proposed, where the road to enlightenment is through excess and rejection of the burdens of the past and social conventions. Sex is part of this vision, and is a method of transcendence as well as an act of devotion. In the search for the mystical contradictions abound, a saint is an object of lust. All of this is preparation for the unpicking of lifes mystery. We must stop bravely at the surface is an example of a counter-intuition where being aware of the fire around us is the vehicle for escape from lifes fetters and the chains of the ego, rather than trying to understand internally and intellectually. Matter is as holy as spirit in a belief system where all is accepted as part of life, a life we are to love from head to toe, warts and all.

Bibliography Beautiful Losers The Favourite Game Let Us Compare Mythologies The Spice Box of Earth Parasites of Heaven Selected Poems Flowers for Hitler The Energy of Slaves The Book of Longing The Book of Mercy Corporeal Cartographies Phillip Hoffman, Berlin, 2010 Intricate Preparations: Writing Leonard Cohen ed. Stephen Scobie, Toronto, 2000 Leonard Cohen David Sheppard Leonard Cohen: A Life in Art Ira Nadel Leonard Cohen and His Works Linda Hutcheon, Toronto The Immoral Moralists Patricia A Morley, 1972 The Saint Figure in Leonard Cohen and Robertsoin Davies, Linda Jade Fong Stearns, thesis, 1975 Flesh And Spirit In The Writing Of Leonard Cohen, Richard Knelsen Thesis 1969 "Strange Bedfellows: Sacred and Profane Love in the Poetry of John Donne and Leonard Cohen. Canadian Poetry: Journals Studies, Documents, Reviews 65 (Fall/Winter 2009): 43-64. Greatly Exaggerated p.138, A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill Never Do Again, David Foster-Wallace, 1997

Filmography Bird on the Wire Im Your Man Ladies and Gentlemen: Mr Leonard Cohen Discography Songs of Leonard Cohen Songs from a Room Songs of Love and Hate New Skin for the Old Ceremony Greatest Hits

Live Songs Recent Songs Field Commander Cohen Death of a Ladies Man Im Your Man Various Positions Dear Heather Live in London Articles Waiting for the miracle On Leonard Cohen http://www.thenation.com/article/waiting-miracle-leonard-cohen?page=0,1 Sincerely, L. Cohen: through the works of Leonard Cohen we are reminded of a kind of humanity too often forgotten in modern existence http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6469/is_72/ai_n29118725/ Covered Up: Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2011/09/covered-up-leonard-cohens-hallelujah.html