The spoken word is always less direct , as it comes through the shield that is our face. The written word is more complex and revealing, as it comes directly from the brain and heart, always internal and silent, as it jumps to the page.
Dec 23, 2023·edited Dec 23, 2023Liked by Librarian of Celaeno
I agree and would add that speaking is to the external world what writing is to the internal one. To write is to cogitate and contemplate interpretations, exercise willful imagination, and written communication is very much more like magic and Alchemy. This also requires a command of symbology, syntax, dialectic, and a grasp of the phenomenology of human experience. I think perhaps as a writer I spend more time "in my mind", and this for me is an opportunity to practice mindfulness.
This was truly excellent, as always! Your descriptions of "Lonely Places" and of the distinction between sadness and melancholy are poetic in their own right, as is so much of your writing. Capturing a mood or experience with mere words is supremely challenging, but you do it so well!
The same places often somehow manage to be both, at the same time. Full of meaningless noise and busyness, yet entirely devoid of any kind of Joy or Meaning.
"Translation is very much a high art." I quite agree. That Umberto Eco's and Haruki Murakami's works, though I can only read the English translations (My mastery of Japanese is good enough to get me a beer and my Italian, to get me in a bar fight.) continue to amaze and delight me even in, especially in translation, makes me realize such is high art!
Melancholy, lonely places; Swinburne's The Garden Of Proserpine has long been, for well over six decades has been, my both to seek and to escape from such.
Just read some more of your thoughts yesterday. Conversations about a great many things, but your reflections resonated. In this sacred space of a season, it seems God moved the furniture of man to reorder perspective, the way only He can. Thank you for your words and the speaking of your thoughts.
Beautiful, Librarian. And I understand what you mean when you make the distinction between melancholy and sad, for one of my sons is a big like that. He certainly is not sad; yet, he’s also all the things you describe about yourself.
As far as the French goes, I believe you did a great job. I, of course, read it in French first and when I then read it in English, I got almost the same feeling. Wonderful!
I really enjoyed the post. The poem is beautiful and I enjoyed it in both languages. For me it's the kind of poem best read slowly and several times, to bring out its delicate beauty. And perfect for setting to music. Something about it reminds me of the poems set to music by Mahler as https://www.lieder.net/lieder/assemble_texts.html?SongCycleId=291 Das klagende Lied.
Like you, I'm not a native speaker, and what I have to say should not be regarded as a final ruling, but I read "sa mort belle" as "his beautiful death." My reasoning is that mort with no E is the spelling of the noun; as an adjective applied to "sa belle", it would have to be morte. Nonetheless, I think your rendering of the poem is beautiful. Translation is indeed a high art!
I think you are correct. I looked up other English translations just now, and one has the line as "he died a fair [beautiful] death," which I think is a more literal rendering and better. Good work.
Max Picard and Levinas have written about the human face. Here a short summary about his work. Analysis of Max Picard's 'Human Face' With Implications for Portraiture and Its Exhibition
The original paper contains 0 sections, with 6 passages identified by our machine learning algorithms as central to this paper.
Paper Summary
SUMMARY PASSAGE 1
Section 1
First Approximation to the Human Face in Life and Death. The plan of the world is in the human face; the face stands there as an inventory of the world (151). Thus, around the true human face there is a silence (16) and repose best portrayed in stone (17).
SUMMARY PASSAGE 2
All Eternity Exists But To Suffice For The Presentation Of God'S Being In Human Guise
'Plan of Face Derived and Explained,' 2014.] At any moment, in any face, the divine may manifest itself; the True Face seems only to be concealed beneath (217). Even the lowest face is more than ! of !
SUMMARY PASSAGE 3
A Soul Not In Relation With Other Souls Is Incapable Of [Accurately] Expressing Its Nature Pictorially In The Face
(96), greatly limiting the type-forming [imagistic] power of influential faces (97). At one time, the human face referred only to God (101). Today it may have merely chance [or dysrelational] meaning (101).
SUMMARY PASSAGE 4
Natural Communities Have [Mostly] Disappeared And People Today [In The End Time] Form Only Psychological Or Sociological Groups
In Man, the line of the profile transforms or transmutes the rhythm of the plane into linear form (42). The full face is thus the face of the to be; the profile the face of the to do (48). When they are in harmony, the face "sees" in all directions at once (cf.
SUMMARY PASSAGE 5
Race Has [Had] No Greater Influence On The Form Of [Racial] Man Than Has
has a formative effect on it, as long as it be very distinct and sculptural (75). This, then, is what can happen when the picture of the human face can no longer renew itself from the clean picture in the soul: the human face surrenders itself to the action of powers that are foreign to the human soul (76). More usual is for the face to become fixed, mask-like, and when in motion [see discussion on mobility above] sometimes revealing "the real [featurally destroyed] face"-drawn, distorted, desperate to escape: between rest and motion is as between two different men within them (76).
SUMMARY PASSAGE 6
Gradual Is The Ascent Of Faces [With Greater And Greater Realism] According
Only a mechanical average appears (61). Formerly, only a single realization appeared in the face (that of God) "and it was for that alone that the human face was here at all" (61). In the animal face there is neither capability nor possibility-every aptitude and every possibility is fully realized (61).
From The Grass, bohemian, archaic and melancholic. Iconic perhaps, the undercurrents are some what familiar, just a little bit. Reality takes shape from such things, coagulates even. Perhaps it is this language that we can speak of the philosopher's stone. A language so subtle as to be vague to the uninitiated. Posted a note this morning where in an interview, Max Igan aptly uses the metaphor of magical winged beings, having had their wings clipped, now run and jump in the Grass because they can no longer fly. And resultantly cannot see the wood for the trees. It makes me sad to contemplate myself in such a light, but Light is preferable to dark, after a long night of the soul. All the things that I could have said and done, that I never did, that made my life unbearable, to the point of simply speaking for the sake of speaking, or writing as is the case, becomes an imperative, to evolve low entropy consciousness. To become the distillate essence of myself. Convention holds back free speech simply because it restrains our natural impulse to evolve our consciousness. Censorship begins with the way that we censor ourselves. Follow that to its truth.
I can do that. But I'm not convinced that I have the audience's attention just yet. And I'm not convinced that it's that kind of attention I want to attract. These matters are as alchemical as they are practical.
The spoken word is always less direct , as it comes through the shield that is our face. The written word is more complex and revealing, as it comes directly from the brain and heart, always internal and silent, as it jumps to the page.
I agree and would add that speaking is to the external world what writing is to the internal one. To write is to cogitate and contemplate interpretations, exercise willful imagination, and written communication is very much more like magic and Alchemy. This also requires a command of symbology, syntax, dialectic, and a grasp of the phenomenology of human experience. I think perhaps as a writer I spend more time "in my mind", and this for me is an opportunity to practice mindfulness.
Very true, could not agree more.
This was truly excellent, as always! Your descriptions of "Lonely Places" and of the distinction between sadness and melancholy are poetic in their own right, as is so much of your writing. Capturing a mood or experience with mere words is supremely challenging, but you do it so well!
Thank you very much. I hope I can help others frame their own thinking about such things.
You have certainly helped me with mine!
There's a lot of empty spaces on the earth. Full ones too thou ;)
The same places often somehow manage to be both, at the same time. Full of meaningless noise and busyness, yet entirely devoid of any kind of Joy or Meaning.
"Translation is very much a high art." I quite agree. That Umberto Eco's and Haruki Murakami's works, though I can only read the English translations (My mastery of Japanese is good enough to get me a beer and my Italian, to get me in a bar fight.) continue to amaze and delight me even in, especially in translation, makes me realize such is high art!
Melancholy, lonely places; Swinburne's The Garden Of Proserpine has long been, for well over six decades has been, my both to seek and to escape from such.
Profound and thought provoking.
Une autre article magnifique mon ami, je vais falloir investiguer la dame Marie-Louise et ses poèmes! Merci pour l'avoir recommender.
Merci aussi.
Just read some more of your thoughts yesterday. Conversations about a great many things, but your reflections resonated. In this sacred space of a season, it seems God moved the furniture of man to reorder perspective, the way only He can. Thank you for your words and the speaking of your thoughts.
And thank you for the kind response.
Most certainly.
Beautiful, Librarian. And I understand what you mean when you make the distinction between melancholy and sad, for one of my sons is a big like that. He certainly is not sad; yet, he’s also all the things you describe about yourself.
As far as the French goes, I believe you did a great job. I, of course, read it in French first and when I then read it in English, I got almost the same feeling. Wonderful!
That is very high praise.
Peaceful, meditative thoughts for a peaceful morning.
Also, you single-handedly reawakened my opera obsession...
I really enjoyed the post. The poem is beautiful and I enjoyed it in both languages. For me it's the kind of poem best read slowly and several times, to bring out its delicate beauty. And perfect for setting to music. Something about it reminds me of the poems set to music by Mahler as https://www.lieder.net/lieder/assemble_texts.html?SongCycleId=291 Das klagende Lied.
Sleep well
Like you, I'm not a native speaker, and what I have to say should not be regarded as a final ruling, but I read "sa mort belle" as "his beautiful death." My reasoning is that mort with no E is the spelling of the noun; as an adjective applied to "sa belle", it would have to be morte. Nonetheless, I think your rendering of the poem is beautiful. Translation is indeed a high art!
I think you are correct. I looked up other English translations just now, and one has the line as "he died a fair [beautiful] death," which I think is a more literal rendering and better. Good work.
The French do love their word play, lol.
I missed this when you published it; thanks for and compliments on a truly wonderful piece.
Thank you. It always means a lot to me when people revisit my older stuff.
Max Picard and Levinas have written about the human face. Here a short summary about his work. Analysis of Max Picard's 'Human Face' With Implications for Portraiture and Its Exhibition
The original paper contains 0 sections, with 6 passages identified by our machine learning algorithms as central to this paper.
Paper Summary
SUMMARY PASSAGE 1
Section 1
First Approximation to the Human Face in Life and Death. The plan of the world is in the human face; the face stands there as an inventory of the world (151). Thus, around the true human face there is a silence (16) and repose best portrayed in stone (17).
SUMMARY PASSAGE 2
All Eternity Exists But To Suffice For The Presentation Of God'S Being In Human Guise
'Plan of Face Derived and Explained,' 2014.] At any moment, in any face, the divine may manifest itself; the True Face seems only to be concealed beneath (217). Even the lowest face is more than ! of !
SUMMARY PASSAGE 3
A Soul Not In Relation With Other Souls Is Incapable Of [Accurately] Expressing Its Nature Pictorially In The Face
(96), greatly limiting the type-forming [imagistic] power of influential faces (97). At one time, the human face referred only to God (101). Today it may have merely chance [or dysrelational] meaning (101).
SUMMARY PASSAGE 4
Natural Communities Have [Mostly] Disappeared And People Today [In The End Time] Form Only Psychological Or Sociological Groups
In Man, the line of the profile transforms or transmutes the rhythm of the plane into linear form (42). The full face is thus the face of the to be; the profile the face of the to do (48). When they are in harmony, the face "sees" in all directions at once (cf.
SUMMARY PASSAGE 5
Race Has [Had] No Greater Influence On The Form Of [Racial] Man Than Has
has a formative effect on it, as long as it be very distinct and sculptural (75). This, then, is what can happen when the picture of the human face can no longer renew itself from the clean picture in the soul: the human face surrenders itself to the action of powers that are foreign to the human soul (76). More usual is for the face to become fixed, mask-like, and when in motion [see discussion on mobility above] sometimes revealing "the real [featurally destroyed] face"-drawn, distorted, desperate to escape: between rest and motion is as between two different men within them (76).
SUMMARY PASSAGE 6
Gradual Is The Ascent Of Faces [With Greater And Greater Realism] According
Only a mechanical average appears (61). Formerly, only a single realization appeared in the face (that of God) "and it was for that alone that the human face was here at all" (61). In the animal face there is neither capability nor possibility-every aptitude and every possibility is fully realized (61).
From The Grass, bohemian, archaic and melancholic. Iconic perhaps, the undercurrents are some what familiar, just a little bit. Reality takes shape from such things, coagulates even. Perhaps it is this language that we can speak of the philosopher's stone. A language so subtle as to be vague to the uninitiated. Posted a note this morning where in an interview, Max Igan aptly uses the metaphor of magical winged beings, having had their wings clipped, now run and jump in the Grass because they can no longer fly. And resultantly cannot see the wood for the trees. It makes me sad to contemplate myself in such a light, but Light is preferable to dark, after a long night of the soul. All the things that I could have said and done, that I never did, that made my life unbearable, to the point of simply speaking for the sake of speaking, or writing as is the case, becomes an imperative, to evolve low entropy consciousness. To become the distillate essence of myself. Convention holds back free speech simply because it restrains our natural impulse to evolve our consciousness. Censorship begins with the way that we censor ourselves. Follow that to its truth.
That’s great and insightful. You should expand on this into a full newsletter.
Sounds like an idea I could explore. Where do you suggest I begin? Thank you by the way 🙏🖖🙏
I would take what you have here and flesh it out more. Build on this comment and the Max Egan note to create an original and more elaborate synthesis.
I can do that. But I'm not convinced that I have the audience's attention just yet. And I'm not convinced that it's that kind of attention I want to attract. These matters are as alchemical as they are practical.
Write things because they need to be written, not because of who will read it. Those people will come.
Ever read Illusions by Richard Bach? Mate, It's complicated.
You can peer behind masks, your written words alongside the poem bring forward emotions.
Thank you. This was a very personal piece and I’m happy so many people got something from it.