The sheer throw-through of these exchanges, no time to be taken
aback, but the point of resistance is that pastoral itself won't
accelerate, soft-focus is the burden of inheritance. I think what i
value about using a term like "pastoral" is the history of
appropriation and contamination from its beginning, so that the work
of innovation/renovation has to be more than a relayed indignation.
Reflection then is on what we are not letting go and why not, how
pastoral is not identical to, but strategically less than such
appropriations. Also, it's a sort of history of our never being
grounded enough - in that sense a certain revisionist radicalism is
another attempt at grounding. But pastoral is also staying in touch
with the terms which are not sufficient, the horizons of "landskip"'s
measure. All this tends to contaminate the tougher wires of bucolic
hands-on also, so many other hands-in, the middle-men.
Irony isn't negative identity and doesn't suffice for its
object, least of all in terms of any pastoral self-irony. So I think
John's N Y pastoral has it right in terms of what is a surface but
situated at (coming from) what is less than a surface: "like paint
soaking through from an/ original". A potential for renewed ground
which if it makes ground is also struck by a point of contamination.
This paradox is only made bearable by pastoral's lightness.
A recent thought from Geoffrey Hartman (spot on for lightness and
burden): "the reflective moment is not just a moment of pastoral
safety and rest but one where you can be equal to your experience".
Peter
Peter Larkin
Philosophy & Literature Librarian
University of Warwick Library
Coventry CV4 7AL UK
Tel: 01203 528151 Fax: 01203 524211
Email: [log in to unmask]
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