I agree absolutely, Martin--with you and Paz both on capitalism relative to
the body and poetic power. It's something that's kept me sort of negatively
loyal to Marxism even when _that's_ seemed to let us down. You might find
Victor Wolfenstein's work interesting, especially re sensuality vs.
asceticism, and Robert Miklitch's book with Madonna in the title (sorry, the
exact title escapes me) somewhat salvages consumerism in a rather idealist
fashion, if that makes any sense(?).
Have a good walking holiday!
Candice
on 3/21/02 9:16 AM, Martin J. Walker at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> I love that book too, it takes an honoured place among my small selection of
> writing on poetry, next to the same writer's _Children of the Mire_, where
> he says "Capitalism desecrated the body; it ceased to be a battleground for
> angels and devils and became a work tool. The conception of the body as a
> tool led to its degradation as a source of pleasure. Asceticism changed;
> instead of a means to get to heaven, it became a technique to increase
> productivity. Pleasure is a waste, sensuality an embarrassment. To condemn
> pleasure was to condemn the imagination because the body is not only a
> wellspring of sensations but of images...In the name of the future the
> censure of the body culminated in the mutilation of man's poetic powers."
> One can argue about this (though consumerism is no refutation, being the
> unquenchable though permanently degrading source of un-pleasure.) It would
> explain some of those emails we've been getting... Seriously, though, I find
> a lot of the presentday poetry I've seen lacking in body; that "spiritual
> exercise of comprehension" is pointless if there's nothing palpable to
> "convert into an echo, a shadow, a nothingness". Present company always
> excepted of course!
> Best
> Martin
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