Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 14:38:36 -0700
From: Mike Staples <mstaples-AT-argusqa.com>
Subject: language!


I'm sitting here listening to Glenn Gould hammer out a series of finger
exersizes on his piano, and am reminded in my quIestion as to what
language is, of George Steiner's statement that, "In music, being and
meaning are inextricable." And as I think about this statement, and
reflect upon another Steinerism that asks, "Where, in the phenomenon
"music", do we locate the energies which can transmute the fabric of
human consciousness in listener and performer?"

If by "Poetry" Heidegger means to point to something ineffible yet
common to both poetry, and art, and music, then it seems as though I
understand what poetry is better than I understand what language is.
Unless perhaps that which is common to poetry and art and music is also
common to the essence of language.

I am able to understand language as a system of signs and signifiers.
Got your nouns. They point at things. got your verbs, the point at what
things do. Got your rules. But that isn't what we mean by language, is
it? Instead, there is something else there, somthing decisive. But when
we seek to articulate it, as Heidy points out, "it is alwayss though we
were reaching into the void."

Michael Staples



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