Of course.
How about, also, Philip Sidney's sly sexual pun on the word, more a
metaphor, really:
Your fair mother is a-bed,
Candles out and curtains spread;
She thinks you do letters write;
Write, but let me first indite:
Take me to thee, and thee to me.
No, no, no, no, my dear, let be.
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "MJ Walker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: What is poetry?
> 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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