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I think, wrapped in the joke, is a perfectly serious statement: his point about philosophy being a product of fear, for example. So he is demanding from poetry a total fearlessness, which can be, in fact, totally stupid, whatever semantics you want to play with. Muller does have an aversion to a kind of intellection, quite a severe one: pace his comments on Sassure in the same book. Robert Musil wrote an essay on stupidity too, which I remember also being quite funny, but I can't remember it very well. I might go and look it up... Best Alison >Hey thanks, Alison--this really is funny and much more consistent with the >Muller who wrote all those smart plays and poems. But this would be the >Muller who also knows perfectly well that Plato didn't want to keep the >poets out of his republic because he thought they were stupid. Muller's just >busting some prime Andre-chops here, not making a serious statement upon >which we should reflect (for our sins), right? > >Candice > > >> I didn't take it that David was valorising little r romantic idiocy >> either. The quote comes from a rather testy interview called "Poets >> Have To Be Stupid" published in the Semiotext(e) book "Germania". >> The interview itself is pretty funny. >> >> "HEINER: Now we're back at the abysmal. You're constantly trying to >> unmask me. That's why you're doing this interview. You shine this >> flashlight on someone from your own abyss, and when there is nothing >> you think he is unserious. In the end, your line of thought will >> lead you to Plato's exile of the poet. Plato wished for a >> philosopher state where there would not be any poets. >> >> ANDRE: Because they're too stupid? >> >> HEINER: Exactly, that's what he meant. And he was absolutely right. >> Stupidity is a prerequisite for poets. I am a good example of this. >> I just don't have the compulsion to think about anything. Maybe I >> have too little fear. Philosophy is a product of fear, like >> religion. One attempts to establish values when it isn't a question >> of values at all, but of fear. >> >> .... >> >> ANDRE: Why do you so seldom tell the truth? >> >> HEINER: Because the truth requires the most imagination. And I am >> no documentarist. What I write is always fiction and truth. A >> combination between document and fiction. I find something and raise >> it to a poetic form to create a distance. When I read it, it seems >> like a dead man's text to me." >> >> If anything, it shows that Muller is not himself stupid, whatever he >> says - but he rejects outright a number of things (his favourite >> phrase is "I'm not interested"). He does however value something >> else, which I cogitate as a kind of freedom. A bit like that quote >> of Pasternak's - "a poet must be free of opinion, especially his own". >> >> Best >> >> A >> >> >>> >>> But who knows what Muller meant, absent original context and language. >>> (Alison, can you fill those in?) >>> >>> Candice -- Alison Croggon Home page http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/ Masthead http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/