Arquivo de literature | Page 94 of 111

Perseverance and Nothing More…

All my still tiny literary production is the fruit of a perseverance that I never had for any other activity. I must, I admit, pay honors to the ear plugs and muffs, an invention infinitely more useful than, for example, the telephone: when units of different models overlap, they produce peace and solve a large part of my problems. However, if I analyze more carefully, I find all reality hostile to my act of writing. It is Saturday: the day of alcohol and socialization. I find myself, at this very moment, with my computer on top of a shoebox, and it, in turn, is on a bedside table at the end of my room; I sit on a chair that looks more like a stool: low, uncomfortable, with no support for my back; and my legs are immobile, each one embedded in a space of no more than fifteen centimeters in the gap that opens, on one side, between the wall and the bedside table and, on the other, between this one and my bed. “This is a joke. From a place like this, no art will ever come out…”—but it’s not over: a car, in the street, plays loudly any sertanejo music; a neighbor screams on the phone—obstinate, she wants to penetrate my mind, but I smile, for I know she will not…—I thought a few months ago: “In my present condition, it is impossible to write”. But from here, from this tight, uncomfortable, and noisy space came almost all my few hundred pages, in poetry and prose. There is no silence—never!;—there is no waterfall rumbling pleasantly close to me; the view, from my window, is of a vandalized grey, electric and spiral fences, tangled wires hanging from poles, windows broken for years and never restored, among other unpleasant details. To write, to concentrate on writing, to produce art, is an act of rebellion against all that surrounds me; it is, essentially, a definitive and complete refusal. And I have, in this short time of work, paid the price in different currencies. There is no reward, no favorable prospect, and the time employed along these lines would be infinitely better employed, in the eyes of the world, in any other activity. Well, stupid world: I have never felt my efforts as honorable as now!

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The Poetic Principle, by Edgar Allan Poe

In radical opposition to a non-fictional text in prose, whose object is usually rationality, lies poetry, whose purpose is often rewarded with incomprehension.

The poet never sits concerned with the logical exposition of an idea or feeling: what he seeks is the power of expression, the beauty. And it is better the poem whose meaning is suggested, – and not lucidly demonstrated, – making room for interpretation, in total opposition to the character of a scientific text.

Well. Edgar Allan Poe, in this essay entitled The Poetic Principle, discusses his conception of poetry. Let us comment on some passages:

I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, “a long poem,” is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

Controversial. But if we understand a long poem as the concatenation of minor poetic units, Poe’s reasoning makes sense.

A poetic construction needs to be loaded with the same tone, with a well-defined goal, otherwise it will be less powerful. The poem, in this logic, boils down to a single movement of ascension.

Poe goes on to say where he thinks the value of a poem is:

The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length.

Just. Any rapture is, by definition, transitory. It is impossible to sustain excitement for long without losing its strength.

But what about the great epic poems?

Poe is categorical, referring to the Iliad:

In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very good reason, for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but, granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect sense of Art.

Here, a note.

The apex of several of the great poems is subordinated to the construction of a preparatory atmosphere—at times, it can be said, unnecessary but often fundamental, and several of the best poetic constructions have their unity as a qualitative and fortifying character.

To waste verses to build as one does in prose will certainly damage the quality of a poem. But how can we deny, for example, that Paradiso, even composed in smaller chants, as suggested by Poe, does not have the effect amplified by being where it is in the Commedia?

Other interesting passage:

It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of Passion, or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they may subserve incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the work: but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.

Morality, truth, and judgment are, for the poet, chains. What the poet feels or thinks must necessarily be in the background in the act of poetic construction.

That is to say: when composing a poem, the poet must turn his spirit to the construction of a supreme, harmonious, and full beauty, even if this requires a detachment of his own essence: a poem, if great, goes beyond the concepts of the artist who generated it.

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Do the Diplomas Confer Indispensable Quality for Literature?

The day is likely to come when a diploma will be needed to formally publish a poem. And so the question will be even more exposed: do diplomas confer indispensable quality for literature? or, rather: do diplomas confer indispensable quality for anything? Of course, the obvious answer will come to light: no, houses have always been built by those who never had a diploma. And I imagine clandestine sonnets infinitely superior to those bearing the stamp of academic quality, showing that the academy has become much more of a bureaucratic institution, a business that generates employment and revenue, an obligatory prerequisite for performing any function than an entity that teaches what is relevant to exercising a professional activity. In the use of time, independent study is radically more profitable in the face of academic bureaucracy and the many hours employed in nothing when studying at a university—it is enough to evaluate, for example, the time spent moving to the institution and its weight in the equation, not to mention the quality of what is taught or the absolutely useless subjects. Laboratories, expensive physical structures, will probably continue to be monopolized by universities. For the activities of the intellect, however, the conclusion cannot be different: if one day they are rewarded for their merit, the world will be of the self-taught, and the gigantic and costly academic structure will be fatally doomed to collapse.

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Perhaps There Has Never Been a Profession as Prostituted as That of Writer

Being a man of letters is almost always a thankless task. And perhaps there has never been a profession as prostituted as that of writer. It is true, the distinction between the qualities of the great writer and the successful writer has always seemed very clear. But today, in a world where success is a sovereign qualitative criterion, it seems more than ever that the man of letters must adapt to the terrible reality that drives him to be, as well as an artist, a salesman—and refusal seems to be the certainty of oblivion. Well, it has never been so honorable to be ignored in life and to follow, obstinately, in the opposite direction of contemporary conventions. Penury! Contempt! And the unsubmissive spirit will know, alone, what it is to think out of chains.

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