Well, no, Anny, no luck there :-P - "dichten" is cognate with "dictate"
but closer to "compose" semantically, as in the rather oldfashioned
"endite" (Joanna will recognise "My heart is Inditing").
mj
Anny Ballardini wrote:
>Dichter, the one who dictates, is that right Martin?
>
>On 8/25/07, MJ Walker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>>However much I love Uncle Ez coming on all po-faced etymological, I
>>cannot help pointing out that there is no such verb as "dichten" =
>>condensare in German, which has "verdichten" for the latter, whereas the
>>former is derived from the Latin "dictare", cognate with our "dictate".
>>Speaking of Poe-faced: E.A.P. also had a go back in the 19th C: >the
>>German terms Dichtkunst, the art of fiction, and Dichten, to feign,
>>which are used for "poetry" and "to make verses"< (review of
>>Longfellow). He confused it with lat."fingere", which again (relief!)
>>has nothing to do with vulgar German "fingern".
>>mj
>>Barry Alpert wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>"dichten=condensare" - Ezra Pound
>>>
>>>Read his account of the process of composition of "In A Station of the
>>>Metro". Though that arch-imagist poem seems positively baroque compared
>>>with Aram Saroyan's on a rather similar subject:
>>>
>>>
>>>eyeye
>>>
>>>
>>>Barry Alpert
>>>
>>>PS. For further elaboration on related matters:
>>>
>>>
>>><http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2007/05/of-my-reluctance-in-1970-to-
>>>include-bob.html>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>--
>>We went down to the sea
>>all the poets together
>>and gave ourselves up to the waters
>> in various positions of loss:
>>Nathaniel Tarn
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
--
We went down to the sea
all the poets together
and gave ourselves up to the waters
in various positions of loss:
Nathaniel Tarn
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