Fantastic quote from Levinas in an interview with Robert Sheppard on
Edmund's blog "Intercapilliary Space":
'Man can give himself in saying to the point of poetry - or he can withdraw
into the non-saying of lies. Language as saying is an ethical openness to
the other; as that which is said - reduced to a fixed identity or
synchronized presence - it is an ontological closure of the other."
Lying as non-saying, fixity, is a less definitive and yet more precise
definition than anything else I can think of. And the quote opens
beautifully into a thinking of what poetry is.
The interview itself is well worth reading - at
http://intercapillaryspace.blogspot.com/2006/06/signature-ethics.html
Best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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