On the topic of varying readings: it seems to me that the greatest
artists attempt to find and straddle a point in reality where the
perceivable and the unknown that exists beyond what can be perceived
(sensorily or intellectually) are balanced, and hence, with imagination,
describable.
Go beyond that point into the unknown and you are a mystic and no one
really knows what you're talking about (because your inherited words are
inadequate). Fall back too far into everyday life, and you're writing
essays or memoirs, i.e., being an historian, not a creator.
Hence, the only way to lead the reader to an understanding of the
vision a true artist is actually encountering must involve ambiguity --
but crafted ambiguity, because it must contain the highest vision of
what is known and also point to the infinity of the unknown source of
what is today known.
The available modes to accomplish this will of course differ over time
and within languages. Once again, to truly understand what Spenser or
Milton or Dante were attempting to convey requires embodying ourselves
with their entire consciousness and somehow trying to rid ourselves of
what we today are conscious of that they had no awareness of.
Since this is nearly impossible to accomplish, each generation
necessarily reinterprets the artists of the past, reinventing them
within the context of its own consciousness.
--Kevin
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On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:59:54 +0900
"Steven J. Willett" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
> Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
>
> First reading:
>
> 
>
>
> Second reading:
>
> 
>
>
> Steven J. Willett
> [log in to unmask]
> [log in to unmask]
> [log in to unmask]
> US phone/fax: (503) 390-1070
> Japan phone: (053) 475-4714
>
>
>
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