Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 09:06:57 +0000
From: Allen Scult <allen.scult-AT-drake.edu>
Subject: Re: Archetypes


         Reply to:   Re: Archetypes

Henk van Tuijl wrote:

>Henry Sholar seems to understand poetic "archetypes" in the same >way as Kelkel does. The symbols and images in a poetry are based >on the "archetypes" of Being. Kelkel calls these:
>
>"[...] celles-ci constituent de veritables "archai" dans la
>mesure ou elles sont origine et surgissement d'un Univers >qui n'a rien de commun avec un double du Monde reel, mais
>confere a celui-ci sa vraie figure, sa propre visibilite."
>(Kelkel, 592)
>
>Roughly: These [archetypes] consitute true "archai" in so
>far as they are originated from and come forth from a >Universe which has nothing in common with a "double" of
>the real World but confers to this [real] one its true
>from, its true visibility.
>
>The wording of the "archai" calls forth the world as it truly is. >Heidegger leaves no doubt about the "locus" of the "wording" of
>the "archai". It is the true poet who is a seeer, who is a >half-god, an intermediary between gods and men:
>
>Jetzt aber tagts! Ich harrt und sah es kommen.
>Und was ich sah, das Heilige sei mein Wort.
>(Hoelderlin, _Wie am Feiertage_)       >
>Very inadequatly:
>Now it dawns! I eagerly waited and saw it coming.
>And what I saw, that the Holy be my word.
>
>But although there is truth in these words, they don't explain
>what it is that makes the poet a seeer, who lets us see by >creating the World for us. How does the poet see?
>

The poet ( at least Heidegger's poet) sees by taking on the difficulty of saying what he sees.  His seeing and saying become interwtined such that he confuses his own voice with God's( who according to the poet of Genesis "saw" the world as he "spoke" it into creation and called it "good," all of which happened with a kind of simultanaiety which only God and poets understand)  
The Rilke poem that Gadamer uses as the headpiece for Truth and Method strikes me as being relevant here:

Catch only what you've thrown yourself, all is
mere skill and little gain;
but when you're suddenmly the catcher of the ball
thrown by an eternal partner
with accurate and measured swing
towards you, to your center, in an arch
from the great bridgebuilding of God:
why catching then becomes power--
not yours, world's.

Thanks,

Allen



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