Luciano Duarte | Literature and philosophy

ABC of Reading, by Ezra Pound

I read ABC of Reading, by Ezra Pound and I find, between a virtuous exhibition and lucid passages from a great intellectual, the obvious apparently ignored:

Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music.

What to say? The search for originality and new means of expression in literature has often given way to a disfigurement of literary art itself or, in other words, a worse aesthetic. Much as a result of an obsessive vision in the establishment of laws, the guidelines, the tools capable of endowing literary construction with an artistic character fell into contempt, became “antiques”. The problem, however, only makes one flee from the essential: why the arc of action in dramaturgy? Why metrics in poetry? Because they are instruments that, if used with dexterity, differentiate literary art from the spoken discourse, making it aesthetically superior; they are instruments capable of giving unity to artistic construction, capable of producing interesting expressive effects. The artist who does not know them will not be able to establish qualitative criteria for his art, that is, he will not be able to improve it, even to evaluate its aesthetic quality, handling something that he ignores the substance. Obviousness, obviousness, while extremely necessary.

The bad draughtsman is bad because he does not perceive space and spatial relations, and cannot therefore deal with them.

The writer of bad verse is a bore because he does not perceive time and time relations, and cannot therefore delimit them in an interesting manner, by means· of longer and shorter, heavier and lighter syllables, and the varying qualities of sound inseparable from the words of his speech.

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The “Motivational Therapy”

It is amazing to see that exactly in the century immediately following the eruption of the geniuses of modern psychology, the so-called “motivational therapy” is so successful. “Overcoming problems”: this is the impossibility—when we consider real psychological traumas—transformed into a product in the marketing era. When the means for a drastic deepening in the understanding of the psychology of the human being, of the origin of traumas arise, and when there is the possibility of using cognition to alleviate their unwanted effects, reduce their means of action—and never overcome them, eliminate them—man turns his back on knowledge and opts for the path of childhood, exchanges analytical prudence for happy psychology, psychology whose practice is summed up in “thinking positive” and acting like a child in the face of the traumas that overwhelm, sometimes without emitting a signal. Everything seems evidence that geniuses, when they appear, do it in vain…

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The Human Being Does Not Change His Essence

“Becoming a better person” demands a merciless and continuous inner annihilation, a humility and a self-denial that borders on repugnance, a superhuman effort to silence the insistent and natural voice of vanity, which manifests itself as soon as the being recognizes his capacity to think. Since this is an almost unfeasible task, since it demands the confrontation of hard battles that never end, it is wise to say that, after adulthood, the human being does not change his essence, even if he wants to, even if he tries, even if he believes.

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What Is Called “Society” Requires the Representation of a Role

What is called “society” requires the representation of a role from everyone. And freedom begins after this refusal. Brilliantly exposed by Jung is the irreconcilable clash between the collective and the individual psyche, which leads the human being to one between two alternatives: either to repress his individuality and become a socially accepted sheep or to break with society and suffer the consequences of this decision. There is no escape, the existence of “society” induces an active posture, if not of acceptance, of refusal. So we can see which decision is the easiest and infinitely more profitable. On the other hand, it remains evident which human beings are intellectually worthy of respect—and which are not.

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