Alison, thanks for the comments and apologies for the delay. First I
have been writing, or more correctly, trying to transpose what I write
with a fountain pen in a notebook, onto at least one of my four
computers, hopefully my laptop.

What you say, I should perhaps anticipate, and am giving it some
thought. Currently, the difficulty is that I am doing things which are
illegitimate and contravene Kantian moral law from a position in which I
am accused of doing that which I have not done. Given that I have
nothing to admit which implicates one in an acceptance of this moral
code, I become effectively silenced and without voice. But is not this
what language poets attempt in a refuting of Kant? As such, voice can
never be entirely refuted. But a refuting of voice is not ever something
which can be refuted but rather a finality without end, to which
Frederick made a nod from Kant's Critique of Judgement (assuming I can
trust my memory.)

So, perhaps to proceed, one needs to examine the crime scene (otherwise
known as deconstruction. Maybe I go back on my word since I once made an
oath that I would not return to deconstruction unless I was being paid
to teach it. Not quite to my liking.) First, I did not say your question
was not true. I was using the prefix non, which according to my style
guide refers to a variation on what it is a prefix to. (The Cambridge
Australian English Style Guide, Pam Peters.) It is not an exact opposite
nor an absolute negation but rather a variation which breaks the assumed
legal status which is established on the classic logical grounds of the
excluded middle and to my delight the grounds of the Aristotelian
categories on which rest Kant's faculties. This effectively makes a
non-question a series which cannot accept the closure of a question
posed as negation of the question and which carries with it the pure
empty form which is already a priori provided as a statement. So, asking
which novels need more lyric effectively asks which novels on an a
priori already decided conform most to an a priori moral law. So, to
make a claim for a true question, in this discursive formation, is to
make a claim that moral law is already able to provide an a priori form
which defines what lyric is prior to the actual creation of such a
lyric. It will then be judged as to whether this lyric is legitimately
able to be considered and hence judged as lyric since an a priori model
of correctness already exists. This is to claim that certain lyric forms
do not a-priori have any rights to exist and as such no moral law which
gives voice the privileged level of a metaphysical being of presence as
provided by the privilege of voice which to be metaphysical excludes the
voice of others thus denying the right to speak of any non-selected
discourse, making discourse a site of political struggle in which the
question now of a generic voice refuses the discourse of a selective
voice grounded on what moral law prohibits. So prohibition grounds what
is not provided by law which carries an imperative moral of right
against all that is excluded from the a-priori.

Feminist and gay poetics come into contact here in the face of what is
denied to both. Perhaps it also demonstrates why there can be no culture
without drug culture as another diversion.

So to ask for specific examples is to ask for what already exists
according to moral law as a priori, since this is the only legitimate
ground provided. This provides several grounds for exclusion. This
aside, since this encounters absolute deviation, the problem can only be
of that which is a non-question that continues a series as questions
without a question. To claim that monologic lyric is a dialogic multi
lyric is effectively to deny voice to lyric.

My wish is to defend both monologic lyric and dialogic lyric. What makes
the difference is point of view. Point of view occurs not as a moral law
but that which is excluded as a middle term according to the
onto-theology of Classical thoughts of the eternal.

On this difference I then can have nothing to admit.

This twisted logic, excluded from Kant as extrusion, cannot also be
finally refuted. Kant, bemused, may shake his head at this encounter
with noumena, with a finality without an end and a purposefulness
without a purpose. It is sublime and Kant demonstrates a blind optic eye
for sublime forces.

With best wishes, Chris Jones.



 





On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 10:27 +1100, Alison Croggon wrote:
> It wasn't a non-question, Chris. It was a real one. Nor was I
> confusing qualitiative and quantitative yric (nor am I convinced that
> lyric in poetry is singular and that in novels multiple or dialogic,
> although I guess you should have a look at Joyce's Nighttown if you
> want some dialogicness). I really want to know where the poverty of
> lyric exists. What kind of novel/s are you speaking of? Stephen King?
> Michele Desbordes? Kathy Acker? They all write novels, fine novels in
> fact, but of very different kinds... Some specifics would be helpful,
> in attempting to follow what you're writing here. But I do have a
> fairly strong personal rejudice that speaking about art without
> reference to artworks makes it far too easy to generalise. Much better
> to generealise about a singular work of art.
>