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It is one thing to observe that creative artists are human >beings exercising a human faculty, and another to suppose that all possible >exercises of this faculty are equivalent: one might equally well argue that >because not only Olympic pole-vaulters but in fact all human beings >metabolically transform sugar into kinetic energy, we are all Olympic >pole-vaulters. > >Dom Had I been an Olympian vaulter, I would have been Prometheus, Dom, getting into troubles for men’s sake. But , alas, alas, I am only a minor divinity, a sea nymph, an Oceanid, dwelling in nature, with a body make of water. .......and you, Dom, are you a God or a faunus? In my sincerely egalitarian views, Dom, I also hold the principle that all men are not only equal but exactly the same – an idea normally rejected by men who fight hard to be considered different. In fact, looking closely to a wall of bricks - which from a distance would look rather homogeneous - there are indeed differences to be singled out, in its various components (the bricks): some are in fact scratched, some others darkly shaded – this greened by moss, this other whitened by saline, those in the sun, strengthened with pride, while the others laid down at the basement crumbling with internal uncertainties and irresolvable fragilities (unless one knocks down the entire house). As for the ability of men to create metaphors and therefore potential grounds for poetry, Gian Battista Vico - a truly metaphysical Neapolitan comrade of our best historical period (the Neapolitan Sei-Settecento) - anticipated this theory in Scienza Nuova , (all poets should read Book " and 3, treaties on the poetic knowledge (well, "sapienza", in fact)of the surrounding world, say the creative approach of men to the universe of the matter through the construction of a superstructure rationalizing the unknown (myth-creating processes of the “primitive” minds to unfold , or better saying, interpret, utter the world natural but strangely perceived phenomena, as you are doing here with me, talking of the metaphysics of poetic language. Erminia On Wed, 5 Dec 2001 07:43:46 -0000, domfox <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>Therefore poetry itself coincides with the ability to utter, shape and >conceive languages as systems (of signs and symbols). Meaning (and I do >believe this): every single human being makes poetry while speaking (in fact >the creation of metaphors is a main device for all languages and is an >ability of all minds) > >Although the argument dates back at least to Shelley's "Defense of Poesy", >with its claim that metaphor-making speech is original speech, this also >reminds me somewhat of Raymond Williams' contention that cultural creativity >is intrinsic to human cognition and perception in general, and therefore not >the preserve of the "creative artist": we are all - men, women, bricks - >"men of genius" in this sense. This isn't an empty egalitarian sentiment, >but a (possibly factually true; at least testable, debateable)statement >about the kind of thing that human minds are up to when they attempt to make >sense of their surrounding reality. The odd thing is that it does >nevertheless get elided with an empty egalitarian sentiment that wants to >disallow any specialised sense of "creative" (and is in fact opposed to >specialisation in general - see Williams on, for instance, "culture" and >"education").