There have been two hundred pages of this “Papus” and I confess to having no idea what was in them. From the very beginning, the endless analogies, the creative mathematics, the subliminal semantics, the pantacles, the tables that follow tables and tables, and I put myself to size up the boredom of the god who planned all this for an investigator like “Papus” to unravel his creation. If this is so, it is certain that this god must have exploded with joy at this “Papus” who, by putting the puzzle together, has freed him from loneliness. It is as if he had found a companion to play with. However, with the impartiality of a psychologist, I would diagnose that this god is one step away from suicide.
Category: Notes
Modern Occultism
I start in Helena Blavatsky,—again, thanks to Pessoa,—I follow on Éliphas Lévi, Max Heindel, A.P. Sinnet, and I arrive now in Gérard Encausse, that “Papus”. What can I say? It is amazing how resistant I am. My enthusiasm for so-called modern occultism has lasted only a few pages. And yet I continue to give credit to the authors, pretending not to be fed up with this vocabulary full of “mysteries,” “keys,” “secrets,” incredibly tedious analogies—not to say stupid… I read them and feel the physical presence of Voltaire, instigating me to sneer at the revelators who hide their own name. No, my friend, I will not… It is interesting to remember that I said recently that I have never experienced the sensation of being in front of the revelation of a truth. Of a lie, however… calm down, very calm down, because we would be committing the injustice of mixing them all in the same bag.
Poetry Is a Musical Construction
Poetry is a musical construction in which the melody of the letters is interwoven into the rhythm of the verses. Without rhythm, there is no poetry. Take away the rhyme, build in irregular verses, invent whatever you want—but without rhythm, there is no poetry. “If that’s so, what is so-called concrete poetry?” Anything but poetry. How can one call an unreadable, unpronounceable construction a poem? If they wanted to invent, let them also invent a name for the creation—”concrem”? From this, of course, it does not follow that this so-called concrete poetry is not art; in fact it is, but it is a visual art, an art to be contemplated, not to be read or recited. Let the stones be cast! I admit to being thrilled to come across a concrem in which the word “love” is genially arranged in the shape of a heart; but I will continue to judge the concretist as a visual artist, and not as a poet.
There Seems to Be a Consensus that a Poem Should Be Recited as Prose
There seems to be a consensus that a poem should be recited as prose or, rather, as dramatic interpretation. Where does this idea come from? It is true: by declaiming “dramatically,” one can express emotion, one can make a passionate declamation—what one definitely cannot do is convey to the listener the rhythm of the poem. The reason is very simple. What is rhythm, in music? It is the relationship between musical notes and silence in a metre. What is a metre? It is a regular interval that repeats itself for as long as the composition lasts. In music, play the same notes disrespecting the relationship between them, and the rhythm is gone, the music itself is gone. If we wish to speed up the execution of a piece, we alter the so-called tempo, which is the duration of each unit of the metre—that is, we proportionally alter the relationship of all the musical notes within the composition. If we intend a slower performance, we simply do the opposite process. What we can never change—at least, without disfiguring the music—is the rhythm of the composition; and rhythm, as said, requires regularity. Why should poetry be any different? In fact, it is not. If the verses of a regular poem are recited in varying lengths, if the intonation of the syllables does not follow a regularity, if the obligatory and standard pause at the end of each verse is disrespected, there is no way to convey the rhythm of a poem. It is impossible! Listening to what we are calling “dramatic declamation,” one cannot identify where the verse begins and ends, or which feet compose it—which does not occur when we listen to someone singing a poem. And if we consider that rhythm is the essence of a poem, how can we justify this way of declamation? Who invented this rule that a poem should not be sung? Did not the lyre, to the Greeks, support singing? I am sorry, I am sorry in several languages: but for those who consider a poem a melodic construction, to recite it without musicality seems unnatural—no matter how many diplomas the reciter collects.