Poetry and Language

In search of the human voice – human language

The association fields behind languages differ.

"You have stated the right thing. Poetry relies a lot on associations rather than direct statements. In Sanskrit aesthetics the word used for this is DHWANI. It also means sound but indicates indirectness and suggestion.

It will be simpler to state this in the words of Rilke in his sonnets to Orpheus part 1 no. 3

Though your ringing voice may have flung your dumb mouth open thus

learn to forget these fleeting ecstasies

Far other is the breath of real singing

An aimless breath, a stirring in the god, a breeze...

From aimlessness in the beginning of the poem, there emerges something to reach godlike perfection, but then turns into transparent lightness in the end. This is perhaps the true attribute of great poetry. It may not happen in every poem but should always be the aim.

In spite of differing associations in languages, great poems have been able to seize what transcends time and space and that is always here and now.

Mighty Agamemnon, his strength, his greed (the quarrel with Achilles ), his hubris, his generosity (allowing Priam to carry back Hector’s body ), his accommodativeness ( in accepting the advice of Odysseus for the wooden horse ) and his inglorious death are the elements of many stories that Homer tells. Since there were several poets contributing to Iliad and Odyssey the differing associations were smoothed over and the epic became universal.

But where is poetry in all this? It is in between the lines. Just one example will suffice. The quarrel with Achilles was because of Briseis and Chryseis who were taken as concubines in spite of their being daughters of priest. And now they were to be freed reluctantly, to remove the impediments from a victory still far off and illusive as well. The war was about a woman again! The tragic and hypocritical transcends details and finds associations in every language.

But the poet does not rise to sermonise, he remains down to the earth. That gives him freedom to scatter more seeds of stories. But you can see the space he gains by these juxtapositions. The space provides occasion to bring about various traits of the characters.

Hatto, you had mentioned Virgil in one of your mails in comparison with Homer. Even though he sought royal patronage by fabricating the lineage of the Roman ruler to Hellenic Aeneas, he asserted his loyalty to Muse (and Latin) by siding with Dido. The route he takes is through Venus guiding Aeneas to Carthage. Love and tragic are so close! And again a woman symbolises this truth!

Will the feminists re-read the classics? Ramayan and Mahabharat are actually epics of women while the male chauvinistic rulers are conferred with praises of profusely porcine proportions. The subtlety of this literature surpasses nations, cultures and language differences.

Even when the 'red' of Hatto, Gabriel and Dileep differ from the 'red' of Sartre and which is never the same, it is still always red. And that is why the literature of Sartre retains admiration of a German, Irish or Indian writer who may view his philosophy differently.

In a light vein, the difference between Art and Philosophy is the same as between Being and Nothingness!"

- Dileep Jhaveri (5.10.2012)

The search for the human voice and language was a topic by Ernst Bloch and Th.W. Adorno. For both philosophers referred to people not talking free of masks or of the 'slave language' in which a curse means a praise and a praise a curse (Bloch). This search became a motivation for Savinna Yanatou to interact with her voice with the voices of poets like Katerina Anghelaki Rooke, Lia Sakelliou-Schulz, Baptiste Marray, Anne Born etc.

http://poieinkaiprattein.org/poetry/poetry-and-philosophy/in-search-of-the-human-voice/

Over time, and since 1945 with linguistic studies like Jean Pierre Faye's about 'Totalitarian Languages', there was ever more rejected the claim of universal truth and therefore of an universal language. Still Noam Chomsky would say by learning to speak well one language, one develops an universal structure which enables the person to learn to speak other languages.

This does not yet go so far as to claim such a structure would allow comprehension - 'understanding' - of what is being said in another language. Understanding of the other still requires imagination and what Piaget called 'extrapolation': the ability to oneself into the position of the other and therefore take into consideration his or her terms of references.

This is why of interest in economic debates is what Louis Baeck pointed out, namely in the Islamic world globalization does mean something else than what is being referred to when used in the Western world.

hatto fischer

16.10.2012

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