We jump from English to Portuguese poetic theory and observe a contrast. In English, rhythmic regularity is valued, when it seems Portuguese theorists agree that variety gives dynamism to poems and is, therefore, preferable to avoid “monotony”. The curious thing is that the latter do not suspect that there is no rhythm without regularity and end up fatally praising the rhythm of poems that do not have it. Any sentence spoken in any language will have an intonation, or a “cadence” of its own when analyzed individually. Poetry, however, arranges phrases in such a way that there is a harmonious link between them, a link determined by rhythm. If, from one verse to the next, everything changes, there can be no rhythm in the composition, unless one makes a creative and non-musical use of this word.
Category: Notes
Although Censorship Is an Unspeakable Cruelty…
Although censorship is an unspeakable cruelty, and although it is very effective in the short and medium term, for some reason it does not seem strong enough to last. So it should be noted that there are limits even to the fullest censorship. Censorship cannot, for example, hide itself completely: there will always be at least one pair of eyes capable of identifying it. And that pair of eyes, even if gagged and punished, will have something with it that censorship cannot corrupt. In this, censorship is also treacherous to the censor, who, however astute and methodical he may be, can never hide his crime, which will be fatally exposed over time, since its effects are too evident. Thus we have that the censor, however delightful the momentary benefits may be to him, will have to face the fact that they are momentary, and eternal the reputation of a scoundrel that he has irrevocably attached to his name.
It Is Curious That Laws Are Widely Respected
It is curious, to say the least, that laws are widely respected, when they are made by the same figures that, every four years, we see smiling on billboards, in electoral advertisements, and that, sporadically, we see in the police news handcuffed and arrested for leading scandals. In other words: the laws, conceived in the midst of the same mud responsible for sending some unfortunate ones to jail, are and must be respected as if they were a moral imperative. Undoubtedly, there is something comical in all this, and the obscenity with which the flock is enslaved and remains passive is laughable, when this pornography called law should more sensibly inspire a perennial state of revolt and insubordination.
Anarchism Is Noble
Anarchism is noble as a manifestation of revolt against the unjust and usurping power relations on which society rests. Men like Stirner, Thoreau, and Proudhon denounce and demolish all the hypocrisy that covers the false arguments that sustain the exploitation of liberties. These are men who flatly refuse to accept as normal a state of systematic abuse in which, on the one hand, a few usurpers enjoy, and on the other, the powerless usurped suffer. Such men are, to say like Nietzsche, free spirits, who would not think twice about preferring death to an existence of dishonor and slavery.