Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 11:35:20 -0700
Subject: Re: poetry, language and music


At 08:42 AM 5/14/98 +0000, Allen Scult wrote:


>>>         Reply to:   Re: poetry, language and music

In the Symposium, Diotoma is also thinking about the ambiguity of
poiesis, which she suggests is analogous to the ambiguity of  of Eros. 
In contemporary idiom, we could say there is eros and there is EROS, EROS
being what all those other pale imitations mean(intend?) to be, but then
miss the mark.  And then to poiesis:


"You know that making ( poiesis) is something manifold: for surely the
cause of passing from not being into being for anything whatever is all a
making, so that the practitioners of them are all  makers ( poietai)


" But nevertheless, you know that they are not called makers (poietai)
but have other names, while from all making one single part has been
subtracted, that concerned with music and meter, and given the name of
the whole.  For this alone is called poetry(poiesis), and those who have
this part of making are called poets (poietai)."


Sounds very Heidegger to me!<<<<<<


Interesting translation of the passage, Allen. Could you share the
citation? In the _Origin of the Work of Art_ H. says similar things about
the relations of work, making, caft (techne) and art (poesis); language
(as naming) and poetry, and I had not considered the Symposium (one of my
favorite Platonic dialogues) very closely in a 'Heideggerian light' until
you pointed this passage out.


I always find it so revealing to compare the manner in which various
translators interpret a given text. Consider the difference in emphasis
in this rendering from Alexander Nehamas & Paul Woodruff (Hackett,
1989):


<paraindent><param>left</param>"Well, you know, for example, that
'poetry' has a very wide range, when it is used to mean 'creativity.'(*)
After all, everything that is responsible for creating something out of
nothing is a kind of poetry; and so all creations of every craft and
profession are themselves a kind of poetry, and everyone who practices a
craft is a poet.


"Nevertheless, as you know, these craftsmen are not called poets. We have
other words for them, and out of the whole of poetry we have marked off
one part, the part the Muse gives us with melody and rhthym, and we refer
to this by the word that means the whole. For this alone is called
'poetry,' and those who practice this part of poetry are called poets."


Note in text: "'poetry' translates poiesis, which means any kind of
production or creation. Greeks used the word poietes, however,
exclusively for poets -- writers of metrical verses that were actually
set to music."

</paraindent>

Now, it is my understanding that the Nehemas/Woodruff translation was
purposely tuned to the modern english reader's ear, and may be open to
some criticism as a 'pedestrian' interpretation, but interestingly, both
translations place emphasis on "music and meter" and "melody and rhythm,"
implying an importance about musicality in poetry and 'the poetic' that
is lacking (as I remember) in OWA. However, in OWA H. does say:


<paraindent><param>left</param>"Poetry is thought of here in so broad a
sense and at the same time in such intimate essential unity with language
and word, that we must leave open whether art in all its modes, from
architecture to poesy, exhausts the essence of poetry."

</paraindent>

and, in "What Are Poets For," (PLT, Harper, 1971) reflecting on Rilke, he
writes:


<paraindent><param>left</param>"The more venturesome are those who say in
a greater degree, in the manner of the singer. . . . The song of these
singers is neither solicitation nor trade.

The saying of the more venturesome which is more fully saying is the
song. But

</paraindent><paraindent><param>left,left,left,left,left</param>Song is
existence,

</paraindent><paraindent><param>left</param>

says the third of the Sonnets to Orpheus, PartI. The word for existence,
Dasein, is used here in the traditional sense of presence and as a
synonym of Being. To sing, truly to say worldly existence, to say out of
the haleness of the whole pure draft and to say only this, means: to
belong to the precinct of beings themselves. This precinct, as the very
nature of language, is Being itself. To sing the song means to be present
in what is present itself. It means: Dasein, existence."

</paraindent>

Thnaks, Allen, for provoking thinking, and taking me back to peices of
Heidegger's work I have been too long removed from.


Best regards,



Bill Devlin

Portland, OR

<<bdevlin-AT-teleport.com>


     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---