One of Gottfried Benn's later effusions on the subject of art, mentioned
by me recently, early 50s I'd guess. Pre-Chomsky, in any case. "We" of
course is male artists in this case (ingenium nobis ipsa puella fecit) -
but Benn knew Elsa Lasker-Schüler well, sexism is not the point here.
"Satzbau" in German is of course more explicit than "syntax", but the
primary definition of the latter is indeed "a. The arrangement of words
(in their appropriate forms) by which their connexion and relation in a
sentence are shown. Also the constructional uses of a word or form or a
class of words or forms, or those characteristic of a particular
author." (SOED, 1969).
"It will pass" - has Benn's prophecy come true, substantially?
MJ
Syntax
Everyone's got the sky, love and the grave,
let's not bother ourselves with that,
it's all been talked over and worked through for our culture.
But what is new is the question about syntax
and that is urgent:
why do we express something?
Why do we rhyme or draw a girl
directly or as a mirrorimage
or sketch on a narrow scrip of handmade paper
countless plants, treetops, walls,
the latter as fat caterpillars with turtle heads
drawing themselves along uncannily low
in a definite order?
Overwhelmingly unanswerable!
It's not the prospect of royalties,
many starve on the job. No,
it's an impulse in the hand,
remote-controlled, a brain disposition,
perhaps a belated redeemer or a totemic animal,
a formal priapism at the expense of content,
it will pass ,
but today syntax is
primary.
"The few who had some understanding of it" - (Goethe) -
of what exactly?
I suppose: of syntax.
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