Thanks for the "satzbau" and the Benn, Martin, and this has been an interesting
discussion, including in particular Mark's post, on this subject of structure and
now syntax. In looking at these particular poems, though, I don't read them as
instances of where syntax is primary, where the only hinge is the last word that
falls at the end of that long German sentence. Mark's poems in Birds of Australia
(and that is a wonderful poem, Mark) also are 'structured' from the title, from
the place names in the left margin, geographically, so that one expects the sort
of wandering, encounter with the unexpected, the shifting in and out of focus,
of a travel piece. Which is not to say that it is a travel diary or log, but that
concept underlies it, at least in some phantom presence. Just as Lezama's poem,
which is terrific, is structured by the idea of the 'allegory', the concept of the
'seven allegories,' or the Koser poem is structured by the idea of defining a
particular word, arguing with different meanings, going past this meaning and
that. So there is, in all of these works, a structure beyond syntax, a sort of
conceptual framework which is established by terms within the poem, title,
particular vocabulary in the first line, etc. The 'seven allegories' of Lezama which
evokes the sacred allegories of various literatures is itself a structure which
allows for the wild and wide intermingling of terms and images that follow; one
is in the realm of the cracked ceiling of the cave in Patmos, and so for all the
wildest of where he goes from flying pigs to the lovebite of a kangaroo, it's still
'within' the structure of the sacred/profane allegory. I'm not sure if these are
what are meant by 'structure,' conceptual framework might be more accurate,
but it seems to me that these three works work on this premise, that there is a
fundamental ordering which is assumed to begin with and which being a
particularly plastic or fluid 'order' can allow both the range, meanderings, wild
flights of what follows.

best,

Rebecca


---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 14:03:36 +0100
>From: MJ Walker <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: syntax
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>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.