Apparently, according to this book on Plato and Borges, Borges was more
specific about his Platonic exegesis of poetic creation not at Harvard in 1967
but a few years later, at Columbia in 1971. But the topic is _pretty_
complex, even if Borges does his best to make it easy and digestible to his
faithful audiences!
In a message dated 12/5/2015 10:25:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: "If as I believe something goes on in the
creation of a poem that is not entirely of the poet then he does himself a
disservice and makes of himself a dishonest man if he claims to have made the
entire poem out of his own "ability" and volition without the aid of any
external force."
Well, not so fast!
Who says that intentions (or 'volitions', if you must) don't have an
external force to them?
Grice played with that in his "Method in philosophical psychology". By
then, he had become an American, and this is his Presidential Address to the
American Philosophical Association ("Pacific Branch!" -- The New Yorkers
won't yield so easily!). The interesting thing, to me, is the subtitle: "From
the banal to the bizarre".
For Grice wants to say that an 'intention' does not really exist. It is a
theoretical postulate by someone who observes someone else (or something
else: his example is himself observing a squirrel before him gobbling nuts.
Grice starts by postulating a NEED on the squirrel's psyche (or soul) to
gobble nuts.
And so the squirrel's need has an external force -- e.g. the squirrel sees
the nuts.
Also, the squirrel's need has a behavioural output: the squirrel's
gobbling.
So the 'need' disappears because it becomes a mere 'function' (alla
'functionalism' in the philosophy of mind) that links a perceptual input (the
squirrel seeing the nuts) and a behavioural output (the squirrel going and
gobbling the nuts).
Mutatis mutandis with 'intention', and 'volition'. The 'can' is different.
It is indeed irrational for, say, a man, to will to fly (as a bird does,
not in a plane). But a man may have this volition, say, and as such, it
should be linked to some perceptual input (perhaps he saw one bird migration
too
many) and behavioural output (he moved his arms as wings).
Helm:
"If as I believe something goes on in the creation of a poem that is not
entirely of the poet then he does himself a disservice and makes of himself a
dishonest man if he claims to have made the entire poem out of his own
"ability" and volition..."
Let's be reminded that 'poet' was 'maker' and that "The maker" is the title
of one of Borges's compilations. Of course, 'poet' is Greek, and trust
them to think it was the Muses who inspired Homer. Indeed, Homer himself
thought so! (I'm less sure about Virgil -- but by THAT time, Greek dictions
had
become merely decorative for the Romans, "Sing, O Muse...").
Helm:
"Perhaps as Djordje Vidanovic implied (if I understood him correctly and
can paraphrase), that it is all someplace in the poets psyche but that he
doesn't have access to it except at the point of creation"
-- or making?
Recall the mediaevalist: ex nihilo nihil. The Graeco-Romans disbelieved in
creation out of nothing. The Judaeo-Christians didn't!
Helm:
"... and then it is either produced by him while "seeming" to come from
some place else or actually does come from some place else. In either case
it seems prudent not to take complete credit for the production and it
wouldn't be false modesty to admit that he isn't sure where everything that
made
up the finished poem came from."
Well, indeed. I think Homer blamed the Muses!
Now, the muses are an interesting lot! Only ONE should correspond to
'poetry', and one of my favourite sculptoric groups is of course Apollo
surrounded by the nine of them! (A cast of them in the Ashmolean, Oxford).
Helm:
"One thinks of Nebuchanezer looking down from a high wall and exclaiming,
"see all I have made," or Shelly's "Ozymandias (no doubt inspired by the
Biblical story) saying ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my
works, ye Mighty, and despair!' This isn't to say that all poets are like
this. Perhaps some produce poetry entirely out of their own conscious
intellects with nothing they need to call a "muse" or external force
assisting."
It's good you use 'muse', since we may elaborate on the etymology of it!
The "Mousa" of the Greeks comes from Proto-Indo-European root *men- "to
think, remember", daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne: I Calliope (epic poetry)
II Clio (history) III Erato (love poetry, lyric art) IV Euterpe (music,
especially flute) V Melpomene (tragedy) VI Polymnia (hymns) VII Terpsichore
(dance) VII Thalia (comedy) and IX Urania (astronomy).
Nine in number -- but three more or less concerned with poetry -- first in
Od.24.60. They are individually named in Hes.Th.75 sqq.
But μοῦσα can also be used in Greek to mean, as appellat., music, song,
“μ. στυγερά” A.Eu.308 (anap.); “εὔφαμος” Id.Supp.695 (lyr.);
“καναχὰν . . θείας ἀντίλυρον μούσας” S.Tr.643 (lyr.); “Αἰακῷ
μοῖσαν φέρειν” Pi.N.3.28; τίς ἥδε μοῦσα; what strain is this ?
E.Ion757; “ἄλυρος μ.” Id.Ph.1028 (lyr.); “διὰ μούσας ᾖξα” Id.Alc.962
(lyr.): in Prose, “ᾁδειν ἀδόκιμον μ.” Pl.Lg. 829d: in pl., μοῦσαι
Σφιγγός, of the Sphinx's riddle, E.Ph.50; esp. liberal arts,
accomplishments, “τὰς μούσας ἀφανίζων” Ar.Nu.972; “ἀπαίδευτον τῶν
περὶ τὰς νυμφικὰς μ.” Pl.Lg.775b: also in sg., “τῆς ἀληθινῆς μ.
ἠμεληκέναι” Id.R.548b; κοινωνεῖν μούσης ib.411c.
2. αὕτη ἡ Σωκράτους μ. that was Socrates's way, Gal.UP1.9.
The Romans were v. ready to borrow the 'muse':
Aus. Idyll. 20; Cic. N. D. 3, 21, 54; Hor. Ep. 2, 2, 92: Musarum delubra,
Cic. Arch. 11, 27: hic Musarum parens domusque Pieria, Mela, 2, 3, 2:
crassiore Musā, in a plainer, clearer manner, without too much refinement,
Quint.
1, 10, 28:
sine ullā Musā, without any genius, wit, taste, Varr. ap. Non. 448, 16.—
In Roman times, 'musa' had a 'transferred' usage from the literal one
that they believed (and rightly) to be Greek. A musa could be a song, a poem:
musa procax, as in Hor. C. 2, 1, 37: pedestris, a style of poetry bordering
on prose, id. S. 2, 6, 17.—
In Plural, sciences, studies: quis est omnium, qui modo cum Musis, id est
cum humanitate et cum doctrinā habeat aliquod commercium, qui, etc., Cic.
Tusc. 5, 23, 66: agrestiores, id. Or. 3, 12: mansuetiores, philosophical
studies, id. Fam. 1, 9, 23.
Autenrieth notes that the muses originally sing for the gods, and inspire
the bard (The sources: Il. 1.604, Il. 1.1, Od. 1.1, Il. 2.484).
--- end of interlude on the "Muse".
Helm:
"Then it would indeed be false modesty for such a poet to deny that the
poem comes entirely from his own ability. I can't frankly tell what sort of
poet Borges is. I have his Selected Poems and have read a number of them.
He claimed that he worked his short stories over and over until they came
out right, but he does say they started with an idea he had. Did his poems
start the same way? And this "idea," what was it like I wonder?"
I too wonder!
Yes, he used to say that for a short story, he had the beginning and the
end; and it was all a matter of finding the 'in-between'. He recounted how
his mother helped him end one of the stories, about a woman who comes to be
loved by two brothers. They end up killing her!
I'm less sure what the motivations for his poems were. Apparently, he
started pretty young, and from those two references I gave in previous posts,
I
seem to recall that his first poem was called "The Sea". He started
writing poetry in Switzerland I think inspired mainly by Whitman.
When in Spain, he would socialise with the avant-garde, and back in his
native Buenos Aires, he found it just amusing. His "Autobiographical Essay"
recalls how he and his fellow avant-garde poets would ruin the walls of
elegant Buenos Aires with their modernistic posters which for them were
'poems'
themselves! His sister Norah would illustrate these early poems, many of
which had Buenos Aires as subject-matter.
Borges's, "I write what I can" is modest. And it should be pointed out that
he is not referring to his poems especially, "As you are aware, I have
written": his claim to fame were his stories, never his poems.
He is just proposing a dichotomy between ENJOYING art (where one can choose
what art to enjoy) and being an artist oneself. In the former, one enjoys
the art one LIKES (is this tautological?); in the latter, one produces the
art one merely can; hoping that it may please others!
A poet may just write not to please others -- I don't think Homer sang the
"Iliad" to please the Greeks! -- so there may be more diversity than Borges
is allowing for!
One source seems to be:
"Borges and Plato: A Game with Shifting Mirrors"
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=8484895955 -
Shlomy Mualem - 2012 - Literary Criticism
Contrary to Poe, Borges insists that inspiration is the only genuine prima
causa ... he conceives external inspiration as the genuine origin of any
literary creation. ... as 'mysterious': This is a kind of central mystery —
how my poems get written.
According to Mualem, Borges admits preferring Plato's theory of the muse
to that of Poe, since he conceives EXTERNAL inspiration as the genuine
origin of any literary creation. ... Plato's inspiration is the generating
force of the entire process.
According to Mualem, Borges was most specific about this not at Harvard,
but Columbia in 1971, where he speaks of 'a mystery'. "We should let the
Muse, or the subconscious if you prefer modern mythology" to do the work
forya.
"Poetry is GIVEN to the poet," Borges said at Columbia. "I don't think a
poet can sit down at will and write." Borges goes on to say that once he has
WRITTEN or 'made' the poem, he 'lets it rest,' as Horace did, for ten days
or so. He says he only publishes it when he finds that any further variant
or correction will only spoil or damage the thing!
Borges goes on to say that one can speak of 'revelation' here, but
'modestly and not ambitiously.' (Actually in his dialogue with Ferrari).
Next should be: Grice and Plato: A Game with Shifting Mirrors".
Grice was fascinated by Plato's 'topos ouranos', not to much Plato's
account of the poet's creations. He was fascinated by the idea that we call
'circle' something that is not a circle, since a circle exists only in a
Platonic 'topos ouranos' -- and that was Grice's creed, to stick with the
subject
header!
Borges's recollections on how he got to make a poet reminded me of Sir Noel
Coward when he recalled how he came with the tune for "I'll see you again,
whenever spring breaks through again":
According to Coward himself, the catchy waltz
"came to me whole and complete in a taxi when I was appearing in New York
in This Year of Grace...
my taxi got stuck in a traffic block on the corner of Broadway and Seventh
Avenue,
klaxons were honking, cops were shouting, and suddenly
in the general din there was the melody, clear and unmistakable.
By the time I got home the words of the first phrase had emerged."
and the rest is Getrude Lawrence!
So, if there is a muse, she oversees creators from above, on the corner of
Seventh and Broadway, too!
Cheers,
Speranza
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