So, can we say it is not the greatest
> of suffering that produces a great poet/writer but one's ability to
observe
> and articulate that experience? If so, can we say that literary writing in
a
> way celebrates suffering, however trivial sometimes it can be (to other
> people)?
> Yiyan Wang
>
Hum, made me think a lot...
Let's see:
In "Brecht's Saint Joan of the slaughter-houses",
the phrase "Had I lived quietly as a beast, but brought
to destination the letter which I took in my care.".....
implies that one could accomplish moral duties or undertake
tasks of responsibilities without engaging necessarily in suffering.
At the same time, the same phrase also seems to allude to the fact
that mankind, unlike beasts, do have to suffer the weight of those duties
and responsibilities,
(a suffering that beasts are supposed ignore).
Now, about the distinction between sorrow, suffering, melancholy...
In these states the individual, as I see it , experience at different levels
, of course,
a degree of impossibility to communicate (whether for his own choice of
because inhibited by
the circumstances). Gramsci's I Quaderni dal Carcere seem to be a good
expression of
the need to create philosophy-poetry out of the communicative confinement
imposed by segregation
(in this case, a real prison).
I do feel that when one is simply melancholic has more chances to find a
mean of
communicating ones' unease with internal?external ? realities, a way-out
which can be narrow
but which still exist. Both Elegiac, and metaphysical-meditative poetry is
written under this mood.
What it needs is a unhappy discomfort with the world, a mildly mannered
pose of despondency.
To me, pain and suffering are spiritual dimensions which are less easily
communicable
to the external world. I think poetry of intense pain (for those who suffer
and are able at the same time to produce
creative writing) it the attempt to determine, in the solitude, the
coordinate of ones' pain.
Writing in that case in a strong cry for communication when communication
is made impossible.
It can also be added that poetry in general is created by out of an
exhibitionist-communicative need -
so, in a way, suffering - more than joy - makes writers acquire a form of
structured exhibitionism.
One enter the communicative-exhibitive disposition of conferring a tangible
shape to one's sorrow.
Maybe joy does not need to communicate itself so urgently in writing: first,
it meets on its way other
occasion for its expression. We first laugh, jump, run, make love, kiss,
hold hands,
- in the case of a joy caused by love - and later sit and write about it
(when the psychic -physical energies
have already been partly wasted). The same is valid for joy and fulfillment
caused by political-ideological enthusiasms, ect.
(The last stanza of Pier Paolo Pasolini's poem "A desperate vitality", ends
with these lines:
(IX)
"Good Lord, but what at the end
can you tell you have to your credit?..."
"Me? - [A awful stuttering,
I have not take my sedatives today, my voice
of a sick young man is trembling]-
Me? A desperate vitality."
(PierPaolo Pasolini)
(These notes have been put down too early in the morning to be totally
coherent.
But this time I did take the bore to
do the spelling check before posting... so it shouldn't be too
unreadable...)
Erminia
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