What a relief, Alison, actually 2 reliefs: first, someone has written to the
list again at long last (it seems); second, if feeling stupid is a
characteristic of poets, then I'm going to admit that I've been feeling
stupider & stupider for the last couple of years, so...(Please don't shake
any Venn diagrams at me!) Is this stupidity you speak of something like the
job-specific and notorious stupidity of, say, tenors, or even actors (see
Diderot for this observation, I think)? Or even what the Germans call
>Fachidiotie< (professionally induced idiocy, for instance seeing everything
in terms of dentistry, like Martin Amis)? Or is it Holy Foolery, like the
idiot in Boris Godunov bewailing the country's disarray? Is it the higher
tomfoolery, perhaps, or Blake's fool persisting in his folly eventually to
become wise? Or do you mean the stupidity of those who ignore the quickest &
most foolproof route to becoming rich and/or powerful?
Martin
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