Today's Topics:
Because it is irrational
Re: Blake and "madness" -Reply -Reply/
Areweallsemi-divine?-Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply
Re Blake and Madness
Re: Lambeth as Eden
Izak's answer
Re: Izak's answer
Re: Izak's answer
Re: Ralph's questions
Re: Izak's answer
Re: Re Blake and Madness
Because it is irrational -Reply
Re Blake and Madness -Reply
Re: Re Blake and Madness -Reply
Re: Re Blake and Madness
symbolic language
Re: Blake and Madness
Re: Re Blake and Madness
Re: Blake and "madness" -Reply
Re: Izak's answer
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Date: Wed, 09 Sep 98 10:13:29 +0100 ( + )
From: Paul Tarry
To: Blake Group
Subject: Because it is irrational
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If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but
precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to
preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast
the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over
seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving faith.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 09:01:58 -0400
From: Robert Anderson
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and "madness" -Reply -Reply/
Areweallsemi-divine?-Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply
Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980909090157.00b92330@pop.oakland.edu>
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Enough! or Too much
At 09:36 AM 9/9/1998 +0200, you wrote:
>Tim
>
>You claim things that I am sure I didn't say , nor even imply as my
>intention in replying to you was to answer the specific questions you
>posed . What I DID say is that I do not believe anyone has the answers to
>man's enigmatic existence in the universe and that I read literature as
>well as whatever else I think may throw light on the subject.
>
>Of course, in citing a video and my own personal experience of
>apparent contact with the dead, I do not claim what YOU, not me, refer
>to as l `irrefutable evidence of reincarnation'.. I cited a few examples
>which did not seem covered by your citings of scientific fact. ... by way
>of debate. I have no interest in converting anyone, so if you are feeling
>insecure, don't lay the blame on me. I have a very slow computer at
>work, a 386, which presently has a firewall up on Netscape, and a
>full-time job to do from which I steal time to talk online.
>So I insist that I cannot simply fall in line with your taking the argument
>elsewhere. I haven't even had time to look at the major Blake sites, nor
>get my own work up on the web.
>You say you have irrefutable evidence of reincarnation, yet when
>challenged
>it turns out to be so flimsy it disintegrates under the slightest
>examination. There were no controls on this 'experiment' whatsoever,
>and
>claiming the contrary is pure self deception. It was a video produced by
>an
>interested party who presume their findings as part of their basic beliefs.
>Period.
>
>Perhaps someone else is sending you post in my name? I don't recall
>doing the following either: "You attack me for dismissing New Age
>beliefs too lightly, and then again for dismissing them in detail."
>
>Why don't you ask the Theosophical Society re the videotape and who
>financed it? I don't think the Society had anything to do with financing it
>... as showing it does not necessarily mean more than borrowing a
>resource applicable to the Society's interests. I can only answer your
>questions from what I recall seeing as a rare guest of the Society.
>
>
>Thank you Izak for your most recent posting re what Blake would have
>seen as atheism.... I agree with everything you say there.
>Pam
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 15:29:42 +0200
From: Huw Edwards
To: "'blake@albion.com'"
Subject: Re Blake and Madness
Message-Id: <71B7CE499BB9D111909A0060B03C49A115E5A2@netchevy.publicis.co.za>
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Hello. I'm new to this board so please excuse this commentary if it
sounds rather glib.
Regarding this ongoing debate: Isn't Blake's poetry enough to convince
one of the existence of something beyond understanding? Or the man
himself for that matter? Refuting concepts on the basis of a lack of
scientific evidence is not only arrogant, but stupid. (In my opinion.)
We have as much an understanding of science as we do of God. What's the
difference in fact?
Huw Edwards
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 09:22:25 -0500 (EST)
From: jwatt@thomas.butler.edu (Watt James)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Lambeth as Eden
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Jennifer is, as usual, both correct and polite. Blake was rather more
peremptory. I don't have my Blake back at the office yet so have to
resort to memory, but remember his impatience at "the idiot questioner"
parallels that of Jesus to the Pharisees when they tried to trap him with
the long-winded question about who will be a man's wife in heaven when he
has had seven in "this life." "Do ye not therefore err, because you know
not the scriptures, neither the power of God?" (Mk 12:24). It never seems
to occur to the idiot questioner that his reading if it is correct is not
his reading, but one owing to the power of God. But then if he were not
concerned to deny that power, he'd not be asking the question, would he?
Jim Watt
Butler Univ
Indianapolis, In Yes. I'm back. My Sabbatical was a good one.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 09:45:23 -0800
From: ndeeter
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Izak's answer
Message-Id: <35F6BEB3.FC5@concentric.net>
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Izak Bouwer wrote:
> We have to decode Blake; we can't just take
> him literally. We can only read Blake as poetry, not as prose.
So, is it true that you think poetry can not be taken literally, that it
must be decoded, that it is ONLY composed of symbolic language? Because
I don't agree. We read Blake as poetry because that is where his mind
functioned, that is the genre he created in. We discuss him in prose
because that is where our minds are functioning WHEN WE READ BLAKE, the
genre that most of us feel we can be most analytical in. But there's no
real reason why that should be. We analyze in literal prose and we
create in symbolic poetry simply out of habit. Trained like dogs to
slobber at the bell, we respond to poetry with only prose.
I remember, gods bless him, Mr. Albright responded to Blake occasionally
with original poems, accessing his imaginative mind rather than his
analytical mind. Now, Ill be the first to admit that I didn't "get" a
lot of it, but it is not Randal's fault. He was simply operating under
that false ideology that poetry muct not mean what it says.
If poetry doesn't mean what it says, then why do some people use it to
communicate? Why would Blake not say what he meant? What if poetry is
itself a whole other way of thinking and it lies locked off in a corner
of the brain by the logical, reasoning, analytical part. And the only
way to access it is to practice accessing it, allowing yourself to live
in it everyday, so that all those modes of thinking can co-exist.
To me poetry is not symbolic language substituted for rational language.
To me it is simply language working at 100% of its capacity. And
sometimes, yes, it takes the form of prose.
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@concentric.net
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 13:56:19 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Izak's answer
Message-Id: <98090913561948@wc.stephens.edu>
In Blake's own words, Nathan: "What is Grand is necessarily obscure
to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth
my care. The wisest of the Ancients considered with is not to Explicit
as the fittest for Instruction because it rouzes the faculties to
act."
My guess is that the simple dichotomy you have proposed forces you
to assume that there is something wrong with the idea that poetry
"cannot be taken literally" and forces an either/or argument on you.
Too bad to feel "trained like dogs"--hardly an appropriate image for
the complex mental operations involved in responding to poetry, but
if you really feel that the only proper response is a loud
O ALTITUDO!, it probably is not appropriate to be writing at all.
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 98 00:29:20 +0100 ( + )
From: Paul Tarry
To: Blake Group
Subject: Re: Izak's answer
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Sometimes the things you see can be too much for the words that say them.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 21:34:00
From: Izak Bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Ralph's questions
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980909213400.0a3f4916@igs.net>
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At 06:26 PM 9/8/98 -0700, Ralph Dumain wrote:
>>[Blake:] All the Destruction, therefore, in Christian Europe
>>has arisen from Deism, which is Natural Religion." [_J_52]
>[Ralph:]This, of course, is complete nonsense. It means that
>the Catholic Church is deist, that the protestant cruces are
>all deists, >that every vicious religion that has ever
>existed is deist.
I think Blake might agree with your last sentence, Ralph.
Obviously, he uses “deist” to signify a certain state of mind,
which he also calls “Rahab.” The reality of this state is
independent of time and place. Clearly, any church or person
could find themselves in this state on occasion. However,
neither the Catholic nor the Protestant nor Moslem Churches
could be viewed as monolythically deist for ever and ever.
You’re applying Newtonian rules to a field where entities such
as Catholic and Protestant Churches are but shadows with no
permanence.
>Metaphor and imagery, as opposed to abstract language, is
>much more >inclined to draw attention to itself and hence
>veil the covert, underlying >meanings.
This topic of literal vs transcendent meaning is very
interesting. I believe that there is a faculty in us that
can respond to symbolic language aimed at spiritual truth,
but for this to be allowed to happen the discursive
intellect must be stilled, e.g. through meditation. It is
widely accepted that abstract language alone simply cannot
do the trick (some of the old guys were very sophisticated
in their reasoning techniques, and would have found
a way for sure).
You seem to criticize Blake’s method of using symbolic
language, whether in poetry or prose, as the medium for
transmitting his insights. In today’s world of “semantic
universes” you seem to expect that it should be possible to
express the same insights in abstract language. Now I don’t
think that can be done easily, if at all, for the reason
that the ‘spiritual truths’ can be recognized and allowed
to come forward and take on substance in one’s being
only if “mental chatter” is sufficiently stilled.
When language use is symbolical, the immediate layer of
literal meaning, at least, is removed and should therefore
not draw down associated “principles” of the discursive
thinking machine, usually acting to further obscure
spiritual meaning.
Izak
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 21:55:06 -0800
From: ndeeter
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Izak's answer
Message-Id: <35F769BA.3CF2@concentric.net>
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> We have to decode Blake; we can't just take
> him literally. We can only read Blake as poetry,
> not as prose.
I apologize for attributing these words to Izak, they were, instead,
Ralph's.
Tom Dillingham wrote:
> In Blake's own words, Nathan: "What is Grand is necessarily obscure
> to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth
> my care. The wisest of the Ancients considered with is not to Explicit
> as the fittest for Instruction because it rouzes the faculties to
> act."
> My guess is that the simple dichotomy you have proposed forces you
> to assume that there is something wrong with the idea that poetry
> "cannot be taken literally" and forces an either/or argument on you.
> Too bad to feel "trained like dogs"--hardly an appropriate image for
> the complex mental operations involved in responding to poetry, but
> if you really feel that the only proper response is a loud
> O ALTITUDO!, it probably is not appropriate to be writing at all.
Certainly I'm not suggesting that the only proper response to poetry is
in the form of jubilant kudos. What I am suggesting is that perhaps
Blake was wrong when he said that "what is Grand is necessarily obscure
to Weak men" and that "that which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is
not worth my care." A genius citing only himself can argue his way out
of a strait jacket with locks and chains in a diving tank submerged in
10,000 leagues of ocean water. His System involves him being a devout
zealot when it came to his work. The only answer he seems to give when
questioned about whether or not the meaning of the poem is derivable
from what's on the page is: "I don't concern myself with such
trivialities." What would happen if a teacher answered the same when
asked what he means to do by teaching poetry to students?
Perhaps there is more than one way to respond to a poem. Perhaps the
readership is different now. Blake's general readership would have been
his peers and his intellectual equals. But poetry nowadays is reaching
across class boundaries, or should be and if a powerful poem is in the
hands of both a learned scholar and an underclass steel worker with only
a GED, then by gum, it should retain its power and its accountability.
The steel worker may not have the technical language of the scholar's to
say why he likes or dislikes it, but he should feel that his opinion is
just as valid.
And I hope it is not an either/or argument I take, but if it is, then I
guess I will accept that we need both "both/and" arguments and
"either/or" arguments.
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@concentric.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 07:55:47 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re Blake and Madness
Message-Id: <199809100656.HAA16830@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Regarding this ongoing debate: Isn't Blake's poetry enough to convince
>one of the existence of something beyond understanding? Or the man
>himself for that matter? Refuting concepts on the basis of a lack of
>scientific evidence is not only arrogant, but stupid.
Not the point at issue: faith is (rightly) a matter of personal conviction,
and pretty much by definition requires no rational explanation. It is in any
case not Science's job to explain or refute that which by it's very nature
cannot be observed, nor would it ever claim to do so - indeed there are
plenty of scientists with deeply held religious beliefs. To claim the
contrary shows a fundamental, and I would say inexcusable, ignorance of the
scientific method.
The problems start when claims for the existence of the invisible are
supported by suggestions that they are manifested in objective reality as
events 'unexplained' by Science, and 'evidence' produced as backup. As soon
as this happens, the claims can be investigated using proper scientific
methods, and in point of fact the 'unexplained' events such as NDEs and past
life regression have perfectly good physiological and psychological
explanations. The positive 'evidence' invariably turns out to be anecdotal,
highly debatable, and never subject to proper experimental controls. The
overwhelming balance of probability is therefore that it is spurious, and so
if is used to replace faith as the basis for beliefs, one has to say that
the balance of probability is the beliefs themselves are spurious too.
Unfortunately the explanations and real evidence hit the brick wall (or
perhaps I should say firewall) of credulous belief, and there are none so
blind, etc.
A quote from Pam (or her mysterious alter ego, since she denies saying at
least part of it), which illustrates the point:
"In response to Tim Linnell's rather too-easy dismIssal of New Age ideas,
if some of these happen to resonate with Blake, this is not because I am
responsible for creating them ex nihilo or vapidly assimilating them ... I
simply am there to witness that many of the ideas brought forth by
new data in the fields of regression of patients with problems into past
lives, etc, seem to have a bearing on Blake's ideas" (2nd October 1998)
Well it doesn't, because there isn't any.
However, this certainly does not deny the possibility of a divine presence,
and I would never do so on the basis of purely scientific arguments. As a
naturalist, my denials are just as much based on convictions of faith as
Pam's assertions; the difference is I search simple solutions to the
problems of creation without having to postulate an entire other existence.
Which seems reasonable, but others may have other views.
When I stood in my garden a few weeks ago watching a meteor shower above the
whispering trees that surround my house, wondering at the wonderful scale,
beauty, and majesty of it all, I felt no need for anything more than nature.
I often feel that yearnings for a spiritual otherness are rather like
yearning for an ideal partner, and forgetting what a wonderful and beautiful
person one is already married to. Certainly such view are not incompatible
with a love of Blake and his work, as I think his friendship with my own
great grandfather (who held very similar views to my own) demonstrates.
But let's return to your remarks. With respect, your first statement is
empty rhetoric. There is no evidence in Blake's work of the existence of
anything other than Blake's wonderful imagination (even if the work itself
is sometimes beyond understanding!). Much of the symbolism and imagery is
similar of effects that you can bring about yourself by taking drugs, or
even just by dreaming. Friedlander suggests that they are common to some of
the effects of Schizophrenia. Unless one is blinded by a sort of fan
worship, these are avenues well worth exploring to understand Blake, his
work, and his relation to objective reality (which is where I live).
But who is to say that Schizophrenia or the effects of LSD are not the
projections into objective reality of the poetic muse? All I say is that
this cannot be other than conjecture, since as Blake himself explains, we
are limited by our senses and cannot measure the infinite (attempting this
was Newton's great folly). To claim otherwise is, to borrow your own words,
'not only arrogant, but stupid'.
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 09:39:09 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Because it is irrational -Reply
Message-Id:
I find your statement truly beautiful... enough to make the `kingly lion'
gambol around `O'er the hallowed ground'.
Pam
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 09:51:45 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re Blake and Madness -Reply
Message-Id:
Yes, Huw, one would certainly think that the immortal worlds Blake
dramatised so fully would be the subject most taken for granted and his
enthusiasm for the upliftment of man's spirit. If he could participate in the
debate, he might have responded, with typical vigour:
But go, merciless man! enter into the infinite labyrinth of another's brain
Ere thou measure the circle that he shall run. Go ... into the fires
Of another's high flaming rich bosom, and return unconsum'd, and write
laws.
If thou canst not do this, doubt thy theories; learn to consider all
men as thy equals,
Thy brethren, and not as thy foot or thy hand, unless thou first fearest
to hurt them. (The French Revolution, 142-43)
Pam
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 10:39:07 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re Blake and Madness -Reply
Message-Id:
"Is the body diseas'd when the members are healthful? can the man be
bound in sorrow
WHose every function is fill'd with its fiery desire?"
Would Blake not answer as above to imputations of his being schizoid or
having taken drugs because he believes passionately (with fiery desire)
in an eternal world ...? This does not rob anyone of their right to enjoy
the beauty of this world, with expanded senses , in harmony with one
another. Those who do passionately love this world should, equally, not
rob those who believe in our divine origins and return, AND who
respond to the beauty of this world passionately , from talking freely
about what they perceive in Blake since his whole being responds
metaphysically to his dreams. As he himself says:
"Fear not dreams, fear not visions, nor be you dismay'd with sorrows
which flee at the morning ...."
(FR R., 180)
I enjoy reading about NDE's and hypnotic regression because both
indicate that Blake may have been right in his passionate belief in our all
being , ceaselessly , part of god's divine humanity, though rather
occluded in this world because of the hindrances of solid/sullied flesh
(such as noted by Hamlet, too.) The `firewall' , Tim, in my case, also
guards `Heaven's Gate built in Jerusalem's wall' . I have no problem with
your love of nature. I love it too, and paint it and take my dog for walks in
it so I can admire it daily. I also write poems about it. Here is a very
short, unintellectual example not meant to be impressive,
Wonderful afternoon when the wind
Is a soft presence in the house
Causing a door to close quietly
Or, simply shift position;
When the leaves quiver in moving shadows
And the tall cypresses sway left and right,
And there is little to do, except note
That time is space, and both are slow and bright.
So, Tim, stop being snide at my expense and putting me in enemy camp.
Let's talk about Blake , not ourselves.
Pam
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 98 10:32:55 +0100 ( + )
From: Paul Tarry
To: Blake Group
Subject: Re: Re Blake and Madness
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> All I say is that this cannot be other than conjecture, since as Blake
>himself explains, we are limited by our senses and cannot measure
>the infinite (attempting this was Newton's great folly). To claim
>otherwise is, to borrow your own words, 'not only arrogant, but
>stupid'.
>Tim
Surely Blake's whole work is telling us we are not limited by our
senses ? The splendour of a reading that has WB explaining to us
"we are limited by our senses" is quite magnificent.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 12:05:49 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: symbolic language
Message-Id:
Blake himself believed in Minute Particulars rather than abstractions -
particularly in upholding the minute particulars of man's humaneness and
his liberty to act in accord with his own imaginative bent. . Thus, he
satirises URizen and `his brazen book' , covering the heavens from
`North to South' , in which laws are inscribed (in clear prose) and
which prosy `Kings and Priests copied on earth'.
In his Songs, the natural world is clearly reflected while at the same
time, the poems have metaphysical and spiritual implications. In doing
so, perhaps he was influenced by Swedenborg's Proposition in 1788
'That the Word of the Lord is Holy, and that it containeth a threefold
sense, namely Celestial, Spiritual and Natural which are united by
Correspondences'.
Perhaps this could lead to some interesting insights into the Songs?
Pam
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 16:09:13 +0200
From: Huw Edwards
To: "'blake@albion.com'"
Subject: Re: Blake and Madness
Message-Id: <71B7CE499BB9D111909A0060B03C49A115E5A9@netchevy.publicis.co.za>
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I must admit, I feel a little out of my depth amongst all this
intellectualizing. I'm just a lowly copywriter with a copy of "The
Tyger" pinned up to my wall to remind me of the virtues of simple
writing. God is simple. Man is complex. I don't even know who said that.
But hey, it's great to be able to exercise our egos on the net. You poem
was sweet Pam I like nature too:
Liberation
Monochrome outline
Elephantine
Ripening...Ripening...
"Hullo Babar!"
Pomegranate head split
Image of a flower
Huw
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 15:42:57 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re Blake and Madness
Message-Id: <199809101443.PAA23829@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Surely Blake's whole work is telling us we are not limited by our
>senses ? The splendour of a reading that has WB explaining to us
>"we are limited by our senses" is quite magnificent.
No: Blake explains quite clearly in 'There is no Natural Religion' that use
of the senses alone limits us: "The desires & perceptions of man untaught by
any thing but organs of sense, must be limited to objects of sense.".
He then goes on to explain that it is by use of imaginative perception that
these limitations can be overcome: "Mans perceptions are not bounded by
organs of perception. he percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can
discover"
Elsewhere (I forget precisely where) he explains the natural world as being
that portion of the infinite admitted by the five senses (this is a
paraphrase).
So, the infinite lies mostly outside Nature and is accessed through
imagination and vision. He who relies on the 5 senses alone is limited to
'seeing himself only', not God.
Now I don't happen to agree with him, but the reading is very
straightforward and not in the least splendid, really.
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 10:58:03 -0400
From: bert@kvvi.net (Bert Stern)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and "madness" -Reply
Message-Id:
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Here's this, to muddy the waters:
Everything leads me to believe that there exists a certain point, a state
of mind in which life and death, the real and imaginary, the past and the
future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be
perceived as contradictions. It would be useless to seek in Surrealist
activity any impulse other than the hope of determining this point.
--Andr=E9 Breton
Bert Stern
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 09:55:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Izak's answer
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980910124843.0e2fd962@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 09:45 AM 9/9/98 -0800, ndeeter wrote:
>So, is it true that you think poetry can not be taken literally, that it
>must be decoded, that it is ONLY composed of symbolic language? Because
>I don't agree. We read Blake as poetry because that is where his mind
>functioned, that is the genre he created in.
I think you're losing your mind.
>We discuss him in prose
>because that is where our minds are functioning WHEN WE READ BLAKE, the
>genre that most of us feel we can be most analytical in. But there's no
>real reason why that should be.
There isn't? Then you try to carry on a discussion in poetry, and I don't
mean like rap. It is rather difficult to analyze a poem by writing another
poem, though not impossible. I've tried it a few times; it's like inventing
aphorisms and proverbs, it takes work. How many of us could write a MILTON
and how often? The point is, you still have to have the smarts to find the
best way to say what you want to say, and that is a far cry from the
doggerel in verse one finds on this list.
BTW, I doubt our minds are functioning in prose when we read Blake or any
other poem. I don't think that is possible to read a poem in such a way,
unless you are reading it for the 50th time.
>We analyze in literal prose and we
>create in symbolic poetry simply out of habit. Trained like dogs to
>slobber at the bell, we respond to poetry with only prose.
Speak for yourself. I am not a trained literary critic, so the bells I
slobber at are not academic ones.
>I remember, gods bless him, Mr. Albright responded to Blake occasionally
>with original poems, accessing his imaginative mind rather than his
>analytical mind.
Albright has neither kind of mind. Both require mental discipline and depth.
>If poetry doesn't mean what it says, then why do some people use it to
>communicate? Why would Blake not say what he meant? What if poetry is
>itself a whole other way of thinking and it lies locked off in a corner
>of the brain by the logical, reasoning, analytical part. And the only
>way to access it is to practice accessing it, allowing yourself to live
>in it everyday, so that all those modes of thinking can co-exist.
Did I ever give the impression of being a cold-blooded number-cruncher?
Sometimes poetry is the only way to say what you mean. But you;be got to
have something in you to say and as a reader got to have something to with
which to grasp the meaning, and that something is intelligence. It's the
ability to see beyond surface appearances and see deeper patterns in the
organization of the world you live in. But that something is organized,
it's not the vaporous slop that some people on this list think is spiritual.
How could I forget how desperate people in this world are, that their minds
are dangling at the end of a rope?
>To me poetry is not symbolic language substituted for rational language.
>To me it is simply language working at 100% of its capacity. And
>sometimes, yes, it takes the form of prose.
You should endeavor to draw the appropriate conclusions from your own
statements.
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End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #62
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