All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan
"Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all."
John F. Kennedy, May 21, 1963 (676)
In his poem "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace," published in 1968, Richard Brautigan places the reader in a future realm: a sparkling utopia "where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony" (1). He draws us in by juxtaposing images of nature, man and machine that challenge us to imagine this new world. In essence, Brautigan's poem is a supplication for that dream world, but to the modern reader it can be a land of irony.
Imagine a "cybernetic ecology"—a place were silvery electronic wires run along a river, or where mountains are giant mainframes signaling codes to networks stretching along rolling valleys, or, as Brautigan writes, "where deer stroll peacefully/ past computers/ as if they were flowers/ with spinning blossoms." The images presented in this poem of cybernetic, rural landscapes are not only whimsically enchanting and psychedelic, but are also laced with pastoral and biblical symbolism.
Brautigan's poem is written in the pastoral traditions of Theocritus' Idylls and Virgil's Eclogues. According to The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, pastoral refers to "a fictionalized imitation of rural life, usually the life of an imaginary Golden Age, in which the loves of shepherds and shepherdesses play a prominent part; its ends are sometimes sentimental and romantic, but sometimes satirical or political" (885).
Brautigan successfully makes his poem pastoral by transporting the reader into two distinctive rustic areas; a meadow and a forest. He then ceases to imitate the actual rural life within th...
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... ironic, but ironic nonetheless, because it is an archaic statement of hope for a world that did not turn out the way he hoped. Our world seems to be watched over by unfeeling machines and destined to be corrupted by men who propel us towards destruction. Yet, Brautigan's vision of the future is possible and the gift he gives us is the optimism of his words and a place to escape to in our imaginations.
Bibliography:
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