Friday, January 28, 2005
From the very dense, philosophical book by Jacques Maritain, "Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry:"
"Art and poetry cannot do without one another. Yet the two words are far from being synonymous. By Art I mean the creative or producing, work-making activity of the human mind. By Poetry I mean, not the particular art which consists in writing verses, but a process both more general and more primary: the intercommunication between the inner being of things and the inner being of the human Self which is a kind of divination (as was realized in ancient times; the Latin *vates* was both a poet and a diviner). Poetry, in this sense, is the secret life of each and all of the arts, another name for what Plato called *mousike*. (p.3)
"I am not trying to discuss now what poetry is. I am only concerned with the effects that poetry produces." (p. 72)
"Rational language is not cut out to express the singular, it is burdened with social and utilitarian connotations, ready-made associations, and worn-out meanings, it is invaded by the inevitable insipididty which results from habit. So it does not only interfere with poetry, it perpetually sidetracks it and makes poetry say something other than what poetry wants to say. The same observation can be made with regard to that intelligible discursus--organizing together, according to the accustomed patterns or pleasure of the eyes or the ears, the movements of the design or th sounds of the melody--which is the rational language of painting and music. Why should we be surprised by the fact that modern artists struggle to free themselves from rational language and its logical laws? Never did they pay more attention to words, never did they attach more importance to words: but in order to transfigure them, and to get clear of the language of discursive reason. Joyce creates with all the words of the earth a new language conveying an intelligible sense, but intelligible to himself alone. As a rule the other searchers conceal the logical or intelligible sense in a language made up of images, to the evocation of which the words are dedicated. The Impressionists and Neoimpressionists on the one hand, Cezanne, Gaugin, van Gogh on the other, are also more concerned than ever with the elements of the painter's language, its "words"--but in order to discover a new pictorial language liberated from that intelligible external consistency, that immediate rational legibility of visible aspects which was still present even in the drawings of a William Blake. Be it a poem or a painting, the work speaks: it speaks no longer in terms of logical reason. (p. 74)
"The poetic sense gleams in the dark. This poetic sense, which is but one with poetry iself, is the inner ontologic entelechy of the poem, and gives it its very being and substantial significance." (p. 75)
"Thus it is that poetry captures the secret senses of things, and the all-embracing sense, still more secret, of subjectivity obscurely revealed: in order to throw both into a matter to be formed." (p. 129)
"I should like to observe, in addition, that it is not surprising...that the utterances of painters about the peculiar poetic intuition of their own are poorer than those of the poets. They confess themselves in their canvas, not in their words. And they use as a rule, in point of introspection, a humble vocabulary, in which they choose quite modest (sometimes all the more moving) words that convey in reality a deeper meaning for which they have no expression. They speak in this way of their 'little sensation,' as Cezanne put it, of their 'impressions,' their 'feelings,' their 'interior promptings,' their 'vision'--this word 'vision' is probably for them a very close equivalent of what in a philosophical perspective we call poetic intuition. (p. 131-32)
"It is not in order to 'communicate ideas,' it is in order to keep contact with the universe of intuitivity that the poem must always, in one way or another, be it in the dark, convey some intellible meaning. (p.260)
"Other poems are obscure in essence--though the reflective analysis of the critic can still bring out, more or less painfully, the trace at least of intelligible sense which, as we have seen, is necessarily there. They are obscure in essence--I would say 'nocturnal'--because they are obscure with the obscurity of feeling. Here the poet is not concerned with the intellectual mystery of the significative and constructive power of the Wrod, but with the mysterious screen or obstacle that thwarts in every sign the function of signification. He wants to get free from this inherent screen by humbling and dislocating the words, so as to make them more flexible and transparent (though in darkness) instruments of intuitive emotion" (p 262)
In response to the line by Melville--"There you lie like the one warm spark n the heart of an arctic crystal."--"That is what I call the *immediately illuminating image*, without the intermediary of any concept--illuminating because it is illuminated both by the Illuminating Intellect and by poetic intuition or spark of intuition....Two things are not compared, but rather one thing is made known through the image of another. One thing already known is not brought near to another thing already known. One thing which was unknown--only contained in the obscurity of emotive intuition--is discovered, and expressed, by means of another already known, and by the same stroke their similarity is discovered." (p. 329
"Art and poetry cannot do without one another. Yet the two words are far from being synonymous. By Art I mean the creative or producing, work-making activity of the human mind. By Poetry I mean, not the particular art which consists in writing verses, but a process both more general and more primary: the intercommunication between the inner being of things and the inner being of the human Self which is a kind of divination (as was realized in ancient times; the Latin *vates* was both a poet and a diviner). Poetry, in this sense, is the secret life of each and all of the arts, another name for what Plato called *mousike*. (p.3)
"I am not trying to discuss now what poetry is. I am only concerned with the effects that poetry produces." (p. 72)
"Rational language is not cut out to express the singular, it is burdened with social and utilitarian connotations, ready-made associations, and worn-out meanings, it is invaded by the inevitable insipididty which results from habit. So it does not only interfere with poetry, it perpetually sidetracks it and makes poetry say something other than what poetry wants to say. The same observation can be made with regard to that intelligible discursus--organizing together, according to the accustomed patterns or pleasure of the eyes or the ears, the movements of the design or th sounds of the melody--which is the rational language of painting and music. Why should we be surprised by the fact that modern artists struggle to free themselves from rational language and its logical laws? Never did they pay more attention to words, never did they attach more importance to words: but in order to transfigure them, and to get clear of the language of discursive reason. Joyce creates with all the words of the earth a new language conveying an intelligible sense, but intelligible to himself alone. As a rule the other searchers conceal the logical or intelligible sense in a language made up of images, to the evocation of which the words are dedicated. The Impressionists and Neoimpressionists on the one hand, Cezanne, Gaugin, van Gogh on the other, are also more concerned than ever with the elements of the painter's language, its "words"--but in order to discover a new pictorial language liberated from that intelligible external consistency, that immediate rational legibility of visible aspects which was still present even in the drawings of a William Blake. Be it a poem or a painting, the work speaks: it speaks no longer in terms of logical reason. (p. 74)
"The poetic sense gleams in the dark. This poetic sense, which is but one with poetry iself, is the inner ontologic entelechy of the poem, and gives it its very being and substantial significance." (p. 75)
"Thus it is that poetry captures the secret senses of things, and the all-embracing sense, still more secret, of subjectivity obscurely revealed: in order to throw both into a matter to be formed." (p. 129)
"I should like to observe, in addition, that it is not surprising...that the utterances of painters about the peculiar poetic intuition of their own are poorer than those of the poets. They confess themselves in their canvas, not in their words. And they use as a rule, in point of introspection, a humble vocabulary, in which they choose quite modest (sometimes all the more moving) words that convey in reality a deeper meaning for which they have no expression. They speak in this way of their 'little sensation,' as Cezanne put it, of their 'impressions,' their 'feelings,' their 'interior promptings,' their 'vision'--this word 'vision' is probably for them a very close equivalent of what in a philosophical perspective we call poetic intuition. (p. 131-32)
"It is not in order to 'communicate ideas,' it is in order to keep contact with the universe of intuitivity that the poem must always, in one way or another, be it in the dark, convey some intellible meaning. (p.260)
"Other poems are obscure in essence--though the reflective analysis of the critic can still bring out, more or less painfully, the trace at least of intelligible sense which, as we have seen, is necessarily there. They are obscure in essence--I would say 'nocturnal'--because they are obscure with the obscurity of feeling. Here the poet is not concerned with the intellectual mystery of the significative and constructive power of the Wrod, but with the mysterious screen or obstacle that thwarts in every sign the function of signification. He wants to get free from this inherent screen by humbling and dislocating the words, so as to make them more flexible and transparent (though in darkness) instruments of intuitive emotion" (p 262)
In response to the line by Melville--"There you lie like the one warm spark n the heart of an arctic crystal."--"That is what I call the *immediately illuminating image*, without the intermediary of any concept--illuminating because it is illuminated both by the Illuminating Intellect and by poetic intuition or spark of intuition....Two things are not compared, but rather one thing is made known through the image of another. One thing already known is not brought near to another thing already known. One thing which was unknown--only contained in the obscurity of emotive intuition--is discovered, and expressed, by means of another already known, and by the same stroke their similarity is discovered." (p. 329
// posted by Scoop @ 11:09 AM 
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