11-05-2013, 04:33 AM
Here's a quote that I love, from my favorite of the German Idealists, FWJ Shchelling:
"[The Godhead] is not divine nature or substance, but the devouring ferocity of purity that a person is able to approach only with an equal purity. Since all Being goes up in it as if in flames, it is necessarily unapproachable to anyone still embroiled in Being."
I can appreciate that few people on here will have much of an idea of what Schelling is talking about, and that fewer, perhaps, will care. Even so, something is gnawing at me to talk about this, and how it relates to our work as poets.
I'm a huge fan of Bloom's Anxiety of Influence. For all its genius, though, the book basically is an idealized catalog of the ways in which poets, insofar as they write, do so by winning an internalized struggle to overcome their poetic predecessor(s). Recent discussion on this forum has helped me to put the model into question.
Blooms' idea of a poet, then, in relation to the quote above from Schelling, is of a person who is terribly embroiled in Being. A poet who overcomes his predecessor, effectively steals the limelight from the same, and becomes THE poet, at least for a time. But does poetic creation have to hinge on such iconoclastic violence?
I'm led to wonder, now, if instead, a poet can approach the Godhead - in the sense of a "devouring ferocity of purity" - by somehow abandoning his or her embroilment in Being. What would it mean for a poet to not aspire to overcome anyone who came before him or her? Is this possible?
I know for me, that I use writing poetry as a medium of expressing experiences, insights and ideas that seem to intrude on my consciousness, and insist that they be given some kind of memorialization or cathartic release. Invariably, all of this is done in concert with, or against, some tradition or another. Sometimes, I am good at concealing these origins. Other times, my work has been transparent to the point of it constituting self-humiliation, particularly when read aloud. I think this is consonant with what Plato called the enthousiasmos, the "divine madness" characteristic of all poetry. When I write a poem that people react to, whether with strong opinions of approval or distaste, it is usually preceded by this very sort of intrusive obsession or craving or discontent. It is a painful and often bewildering process to try and make these thoughts articulate; they only come out in broken images, at first. Revision generally helps to render them more intelligible and palatable.
Still, I wonder if the basic truth of Bloom's idea can't be generalized from TAOL, and applied to this same process. Maybe all poetic composition is just a revolt, a defense against the anxiety that is endemic to human life, a scream in the dark towards one's own finitude, a rally cry against the inevitability of death. With this, I'm brought back to the thought that writing creatively is, and must always be, some sort of a compensatory gesture. I suppose, however, insofar as that gesture is designed - like every human act and deed - to be self-transcending, all writing must be viewed as an effort to give birth to something that is somehow more significant than little old me. It may only succeed in doing this by virtue of the fact that it reaches the mind of another. But if it does even that, like any communication - however garbled, inappropriate, envious, or false, to name a few potential deficiencies - there is some sense in which it still succeeds.
If you made it to the end of that, thanks for reading. Anyone who wants to comment is welcome to.
"[The Godhead] is not divine nature or substance, but the devouring ferocity of purity that a person is able to approach only with an equal purity. Since all Being goes up in it as if in flames, it is necessarily unapproachable to anyone still embroiled in Being."
I can appreciate that few people on here will have much of an idea of what Schelling is talking about, and that fewer, perhaps, will care. Even so, something is gnawing at me to talk about this, and how it relates to our work as poets.
I'm a huge fan of Bloom's Anxiety of Influence. For all its genius, though, the book basically is an idealized catalog of the ways in which poets, insofar as they write, do so by winning an internalized struggle to overcome their poetic predecessor(s). Recent discussion on this forum has helped me to put the model into question.
Blooms' idea of a poet, then, in relation to the quote above from Schelling, is of a person who is terribly embroiled in Being. A poet who overcomes his predecessor, effectively steals the limelight from the same, and becomes THE poet, at least for a time. But does poetic creation have to hinge on such iconoclastic violence?
I'm led to wonder, now, if instead, a poet can approach the Godhead - in the sense of a "devouring ferocity of purity" - by somehow abandoning his or her embroilment in Being. What would it mean for a poet to not aspire to overcome anyone who came before him or her? Is this possible?
I know for me, that I use writing poetry as a medium of expressing experiences, insights and ideas that seem to intrude on my consciousness, and insist that they be given some kind of memorialization or cathartic release. Invariably, all of this is done in concert with, or against, some tradition or another. Sometimes, I am good at concealing these origins. Other times, my work has been transparent to the point of it constituting self-humiliation, particularly when read aloud. I think this is consonant with what Plato called the enthousiasmos, the "divine madness" characteristic of all poetry. When I write a poem that people react to, whether with strong opinions of approval or distaste, it is usually preceded by this very sort of intrusive obsession or craving or discontent. It is a painful and often bewildering process to try and make these thoughts articulate; they only come out in broken images, at first. Revision generally helps to render them more intelligible and palatable.
Still, I wonder if the basic truth of Bloom's idea can't be generalized from TAOL, and applied to this same process. Maybe all poetic composition is just a revolt, a defense against the anxiety that is endemic to human life, a scream in the dark towards one's own finitude, a rally cry against the inevitability of death. With this, I'm brought back to the thought that writing creatively is, and must always be, some sort of a compensatory gesture. I suppose, however, insofar as that gesture is designed - like every human act and deed - to be self-transcending, all writing must be viewed as an effort to give birth to something that is somehow more significant than little old me. It may only succeed in doing this by virtue of the fact that it reaches the mind of another. But if it does even that, like any communication - however garbled, inappropriate, envious, or false, to name a few potential deficiencies - there is some sense in which it still succeeds.
If you made it to the end of that, thanks for reading. Anyone who wants to comment is welcome to.
“Poetry is mother-tongue of the human race; as gardening is older than agriculture; painting than writing; song than declamation; parables,—than deductions; barter,—than trade”
― Johann Hamann
― Johann Hamann
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