tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post3321339639916767494..comments2023-08-29T02:42:23.063-05:00Comments on ¡Bemsha SWING!: Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-20108329682927072132010-04-02T21:44:06.820-05:002010-04-02T21:44:06.820-05:00One of the impressive things about the Baudelaire-...One of the impressive things about the Baudelaire-and-Mallarme book I recommended was Abbott's attention to the <i>contradictory</i> uses to which both poets put their "music" comparison, contradications which wouldn't have come so naturally to lyricists who literally wrote words-for-songs. As regards translation, Mallarme's frequently mentioned fantasy of <i>silent</i> music seems useful: that poetry is not just song-without-notes but somehow song-without-sound. And it's <i>that</i> music, the silent music, which might be silently re-approximated within a different noise.Ray Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15998321016748928251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-1740554299352947322010-03-29T09:06:11.154-05:002010-03-29T09:06:11.154-05:00On the contrary -- poetry in translation is the in...On the contrary -- poetry in translation is the invaluable imaginary other, the excluded term that makes poetry in one's own language possible. Without it, poetry is only the boring power struggles of wastrels. The church, basically.Jordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10451174274596699645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-37496447752449461662010-03-26T15:03:48.248-05:002010-03-26T15:03:48.248-05:00Yes, a lot of sense, I think. Integritas, the way...Yes, a lot of sense, I think. Integritas, the way Stephen Dedalus explains it in Portrait of the Artist. All the arts are one, in my view. I think dance is close to architecture too.Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3759353.post-85776095493655195662010-03-26T14:13:00.678-05:002010-03-26T14:13:00.678-05:00I understand the desire to emphasize the poetry/mu...I understand the desire to emphasize the poetry/music affinity, being something of a hack musician myself.<br /><br />But lately reading some critical writings of Russian poet Nikoai Gumilev, I'm leaning toward the idea that poetry is at least as close to architecture as to poetry.<br /><br />Gumilev emphasizes what he calls the "integrity" of words, and of languages as a whole (the bundle of meanings words have within fairly ordinary vernacular usage). He says the integrity of poetry is based on the poet's care for the integrity of words.<br /><br />His integrity has a lot to do with Aristotle's concept of "wholeness". The art work has integrity - it is "integral" - because it exhibits an organic unity (beginning-middle-end), within which the individual elements also retain their integrity. Coleridge emphasizes this too. It is a basic principle of harmony (proportion of parts ot wholes).<br /><br />This of course is where music also meets architecture...<br /><br />& maybe there is a window from here onto translation, too. If words & languages exhibit wholeness/integrity of sound/meaning - and if the human mind shares some universal DNA relating variations of sound in language to meaning - then perhaps the translation of poetry DOES carry over some fraction of the real substance of the original...<br /><br />making any sense?Henry Gouldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06763188178644726622noreply@blogger.com