Hey thanks, Alison--this really is funny and much more consistent with the
Muller who wrote all those smart plays and poems. But this would be the
Muller who also knows perfectly well that Plato didn't want to keep the
poets out of his republic because he thought they were stupid. Muller's just
busting some prime Andre-chops here, not making a serious statement upon
which we should reflect (for our sins), right?
Candice
> I didn't take it that David was valorising little r romantic idiocy
> either. The quote comes from a rather testy interview called "Poets
> Have To Be Stupid" published in the Semiotext(e) book "Germania".
> The interview itself is pretty funny.
>
> "HEINER: Now we're back at the abysmal. You're constantly trying to
> unmask me. That's why you're doing this interview. You shine this
> flashlight on someone from your own abyss, and when there is nothing
> you think he is unserious. In the end, your line of thought will
> lead you to Plato's exile of the poet. Plato wished for a
> philosopher state where there would not be any poets.
>
> ANDRE: Because they're too stupid?
>
> HEINER: Exactly, that's what he meant. And he was absolutely right.
> Stupidity is a prerequisite for poets. I am a good example of this.
> I just don't have the compulsion to think about anything. Maybe I
> have too little fear. Philosophy is a product of fear, like
> religion. One attempts to establish values when it isn't a question
> of values at all, but of fear.
>
> ....
>
> ANDRE: Why do you so seldom tell the truth?
>
> HEINER: Because the truth requires the most imagination. And I am
> no documentarist. What I write is always fiction and truth. A
> combination between document and fiction. I find something and raise
> it to a poetic form to create a distance. When I read it, it seems
> like a dead man's text to me."
>
> If anything, it shows that Muller is not himself stupid, whatever he
> says - but he rejects outright a number of things (his favourite
> phrase is "I'm not interested"). He does however value something
> else, which I cogitate as a kind of freedom. A bit like that quote
> of Pasternak's - "a poet must be free of opinion, especially his own".
>
> Best
>
> A
>
>
>>
>> But who knows what Muller meant, absent original context and language.
>> (Alison, can you fill those in?)
>>
>> Candice
|