Alison
with you most of this, except that I'm not so much thinking of a Brave New
World as a pressure-point where breakdown opens out what could just as well
be a nightmare as a new dawn. I would argue strongly for the breakdown -
from where I observe things the family is becoming a luxury for those who
can afford, the oikos of current economics being as they are, with an
expanded interanationalised bourgeoisie growing to the marginalisation of
those below, where family structures are collapsing, at least in the
industrialised nations' formerly working-classes.
I certainly don't doubt the persistence of human psychology - I was thinking
only on the focus of prosodies of time.
david bircumshaw
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2000 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: prosody, life, unfreedom
> Hi David - briefly -
>
> Renaissance ideas also embraced things like alchemical notions, which are
> not quite so linear nor so reasonable, and I can't help thinking also of
> Hildegard von Bingen's beautiful circular cosmological drawings although,
> to be fair, she somewhat predates the Renaissance -
>
> but just as Shakespeare was drawing on pre-Renaissance models like
> Medieaval mystery plays, so I would argue for the persistence of rather
> un-Newtonian impulses within much writing of the past few centuries.
> Alchemy in Rimbaud comes immediately to mind, but I'm sure a swift look
> would come up with lots more.
>
> And I'm not so sure that the tropes of societal relations have so
> entirely broken down. The family is still in force, however much the 50s
> ideal of nuclear solidarity has disintegrated - but that was a pretty
> recent invention. And I can still see recognisable human impulses in
> Aechylus, say. I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are we really in a
> Brave New World? It looks rather depressingly like the Same Old World to
> me, just decked out with Bright New Gadgets.
>
> Paz most definitely is not talking of linear time; he has some quite
> interesting ideas about originary time, which I can't quote or quite
> recall. Like my Hill, he's out on loan.
>
> Best
>
> Alison
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