Sometimes it is difficult to control the strong disinterest in literature and its devices, which arises after contact with the extraordinary in a real story. Come to mind all the criticism of Northrop Frye, systematizer of a wide variety of creative possibilities, divisions into genres, modes, particular uses of symbols, myths, etc., etc. All of this, in short, is quite interesting, but seems insignificant in the face of a simple real experience. The question arises: for what purpose do we read and study? And then we realize that literature, like any science, the more we study it from a strictly technical perspective, the more we leave aside what truly justifies a creation. It is very, very difficult not to want to send all these expedients to hell and retreat forever into silence and meditation.
Category: Notes
As Intense as the Desire to Study…
As intense as the desire to study and learn is the anguish experienced on those days when possible knowledge seems irrelevant, possibilities extremely limited, and the means of learning insufficient. And it seems that time only intensifies them, as death approaches and conclusions must be reached quickly. At the same time, the urgency and sense of lost time worsen, at a stage when one thought it could be appeased. There is no solution: one must let the fleeting nature of it all pass and make the most of the positive, stimulating, perhaps somewhat illusory impulse, but one that does not run out and always provides a reason to want to wake up.
As Can Be Seen in Individual Personalities…
As can be seen in individual personalities, it seems very appropriate to make a distinction in literature between authors whose spirit is inclined toward knowledge and authors whose spirit is inclined toward pleasure. Poetry, more than other genres, shows that these are very different types, in which the years bring about different transformations, so that, for the former, the work seems to be much more dependent on this evolution. Thus, the tendency is for the former to produce their best work at the end, with their early books taking on a somewhat preparatory character, of greater interest to the biographer than to the ordinary reader. For the latter, it is not uncommon for maturity to spoil that youthful verve on which their best compositions depend.
Merely Living in Different Environments…
Merely living in different environments can produce men with such different experiences that, if they try, they will realize that it is not possible to establish mutual communication. None of them will be able to correctly grasp the meaning of what the other says, and will end up judging it as inappropriate before suspecting that the problem may lie in their own understanding. Reality, identical for all, has aspects revealed only to some. And if, not of free will, but out of some unforeseen and uncontrollable necessity that prevents deviation and demands confrontation, some of those aspects end up being revealed, the man who has to confront them will know from experience that they are real, and his personality may be transformed forever; but even so, he may never be able to put into words and convince another man of what he has experienced.