THE SCHOLAR GYPSY

THE SCHOLAR GYPSY

In the 19th century, Matthew Arnold wrote about The Scholar Gypsy who left his privileged status as a student in Oxford for a life of wandering, seeking answers to questions that the University would not or could not deal with. Arnold's poem is:

The story of the Oxford scholar poor
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
Who, tired of knocking at Preferment’s door,

One summer morn forsook
His friends, and went to learn the gypsy lore,
And roamed the world with that wild brotherhood,
And came, as most men deemed, to little good,
But came to Oxford and his friends no more.

Years later, he met some of his old college friends and explained to them that The gypsy crew, his mates, had arts to rule, as they desired, the workings of men’s brains.
He went on to explain that he was still a novice, trying to imbibe the secret of their art,--- But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill.

His critique of Victorian England, with its stress on knowledge acquired through science and reason, as opposed to intuition or religion, resonates today with many spiritual writers. They point to the materialism that dominates our culture, where success is measured by the size of the car or house or boat, with scant regard for the deepest human cravings for stable communal support and spiritual values.

Arnold explores these themes with some memorable lines:
This strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
Its heads o’ertaxed.
He describes his contemporaries as bereft of the imaginative power that prevailed with previous generations:
Light half-believers of our casual creeds,
Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed, ---
Who hesitate and falter life away.

The hippy movement in the 60’s tried to deal with the same issues. The many young people who were part of the Woodstock generation condemned their parents’ lifestyle because they sold their souls for the company’s gold.

Dropping out became popular as kids tried to construct their own “natural” communities with value systems that rejected the stress on acquisitiveness and one-up-man-ship. Mind-altering drugs, condemned outside of the communes, were welcomed for offering a heightened consciousness.

In The Year of the Hiker, John B. Keane explores sympathetically the plight of a man who leaves his family for the open roads, because he can’t cope with all the demands and pressures of his home situation. In the play, Keane gives the Hiker, his central character, every opportunity to explain himself, but, in the end, his leaving, dropping out, is seen as a selfish act. While the Hiker explored the life of the rover, his family suffered the harsh consequences of abandonment.

The idea of a higher, more fulfilling life outside of the humdrum demands of everyday experience is utopian. The Greek origin of that word suggests a perfect place but also a place that doesn’t exist. We have to make our way in the real world with all its limitations and challenges.

I love The Scholar Gypsy because of the many haunting lines and descriptions. Also, one has to admire the young man who rejects the conventional wisdom of his day and goes off to follow a higher calling, a pursuit of a more profound truth that can only be glimpsed by embracing the gypsy lifestyle.