Oops. “PERNE” in a gyre.
Whatever that means…
ck
On Jun 15, 2018, at 9:15 PM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Anthropologists tell us that the first artefacts that conclusively tell us
that the creator or creators were “like us” were the cave paintings, those
paintings described in this article for example:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journey-oldest-cave-paintings-world-180957685/
It seems unlikely that everyone at the time these cave paintings were created
would have seen their value. I don’t recall any anthropologists commenting
on the cave-painters’ contemporaries, but I’m assuming there were such
people, people who did not have the ability to think abstractly, to
substitute one thing for another. I wonder what they thought when they
looked at him (or her) painting. Some perhaps were impressed. Some perhaps
were not.
At what point and why did we become us? Some anthropologists are now
theorizing that we owe our ability to speak to the Neanderthal – some genetic
material we picked up during some interbreeding – that enhanced our ability
to create complex sounds – words which are for the most part abstract (sounds
standing for things), but beyond that sentences.
Anthropologists have no way of knowing when our ancestors began talking to
each other in sentences, or even when they developed a fondness for poetry.
But in pre-literate cultures we know that they told stories and sang songs
around campfires to rehearse their histories, great battles, famous
ancestors, etc.
The earliest poems that have come down to us are closer to what we imagine to
be those camp-fire stories. They were popular narratives, usually involving
rhyme, because rhyme is a memory enhancer as is song.
A modern-day detractor might at this point say that if poets still did that,
did what they did around campfires, told stories that had “clear . . .
arguments . . . open to standard assessments of logical validity and
soundness” then they would have no objection to poetry.
There is no question about modern poetry being more abstract than early
poetic forms. And yet, when our first ancestor capable of abstract thought
first painted in his caves, there should be little doubt that there would
have been nay-sayers who would have objected that these paintings were
“neither clear nor open to standard assessments of logical validity and
soundness” – or whatever equivalent statements these naysayers were capable
making back then.
In regard to modern poetry, most critics are people who cannot themselves
write, and one of them, Trilling perhaps, wrote that critics often forget
that the poem precedes the criticism. The critic does not get to say, “this
is what a poem ought to do, say, or be.” The poem, like a painting, or a
piece of music is an abstract creation. To say that any abstract creation is
subject to a standard assessment would be like those who stood in the cave
watching the first person who was “like us” painting. They didn’t understand
what he was doing, but they felt free to criticize him anyway.
Lawrence
On 2018-06-14 00:19, Robert Paul wrote:
This is the fourth—and last—stanza of _Sailing to Byzantium._
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
—————————————
Robert Paul, Lake Oswego OR
_
_
