Just a couple more thoughts on this. . .
the moral authority or the religious aspect of poetry. . . a printed book
spins off separate from its author; it's read in private, at leisure. . .
whereas the poet stands up here, now, & brings everything into immediacy,
presence & music - the poet's presence implying the listener's presence
too. . .
compare, say, Dante & Boccaccio. . . the aura of mystery & grandeur &
access to religious truth emanates from the intricate form of the poem, and
that form stems directly from the performative art of the troubadours & the
chansons de geste, going back to archaic folk epic. . . what I'm saying is
that the discipline of poetic measure comes down from the group-carnival
experience of oral poetry & the enthusiasm generated by intense song &
music of prehistoric times.
so Nadezhda Mandelstam's insistence on the poet's distance from "fiction &
literature" & the poet's reliance on the "imperative command" of the
inspired word - this has a lot to do with a late form of the archaic
charismatic & communal presence of oral poetry. . .
not that the inspiration is simply a function of archaic FORMS. . . but
that, for one reason or another, Mandelstam "incarnates" what he
understands as truth's imperative command in a "traditional" performance. . .
Henry
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