It is a rather silly notion that, with each new poem, the author must “invent” something new. And it goes hand in hand with this other idea that the greatest poet is the one who has employed the greatest number of formulas, who has explored the widest range of compositional possibilities, who, in short, “has not repeated himself.” That is why versification manuals, after a certain point, begin to grow tiresome. The same is true of treatises on stylistics. There comes a point where the essential seems long since surpassed, and the text begins to dwell on the irrelevant. The student is left with the feeling that his noble interest is being trivialized, and that art itself is of little value.
Tag: literature
It Would Undoubtedly Be More Fruitful…
It would undoubtedly be more fruitful, rather than speaking of “styles” and “schools,” to classify writers by types of artistic motivation. Curiously enough, however, there are many cases in which, based on the work itself, one can barely discern what motivated the writing. Or rather, such a classification would reveal that the most trivial of motivations were responsible for the bulk of what was written. On the other hand, however, there would be no doubt that a writer like Proust belongs to a specific family of writers. And that Antero, Vigny, Leopardi, and Unamuno are all, in their respective countries, representative of a similar motivation. It would not be difficult to demonstrate that these latter, through their artistic form, sought nothing more than to give the most refined expression to the issues they deemed fundamental. But in literature, unfortunately, not everyone is driven by motivations so simple and of such clear significance.
Some Complain That Contemporary Literature…
Some complain that contemporary literature lacks life, and that it resembles a castle of empty words and ideas. Well, that is the practical and predictable result of Saussure’s idea, according to which the meaning of a word is nothing more than the difference between it and all the others. I myself, when I think a little about this modern linguistics, feel that I am slowly ceasing to be a man and turning into a word. With such advances in this new science, I imagine that, after a graduate degree in linguistics, a subject should already be able to see his name instead of his face in a mirror. There is nothing surprising about this.
There Are Scholars Who Do Not Consider Farias Brito…
There are scholars who do not consider Farias Brito a philosopher; there are literary critics who consider Lima Barreto a minor writer. And yet, it is possible to read the works of both with tears in the eyes. When the texts are taken out of context and reduced to objects of technical and structural analysis, much of their meaning disappears. It should be somewhat obvious, but there are always those who ignore the dimension that the author’s person can lend to his work. Perhaps this is a consequence of modernity. And the result is very simple: if you ignore it, you will be unable to discern the sincere from the feigned, authenticity from affectation; the text will be nothing more than a jumble of words; the depth of the discourse will never be grasped. There will be no difference, after all, between reading a comic book and reading Osamu Dazai.