Picking up on this new issue again, which is already threatening to become
an old one, having read through the article Prynne contra Handke some
half-dozen times now, and linking in on some remarks in Alison's last on the
subject : "though I guess
here the sin is upon entering a condition of language.", I can't help but
feel that what is presented in it is another version of the Fall, with
language as the Mark of Cain.
In the closing peroration Prynne offers the only options as 'sainthood
(model now discontinued) or the intense cultivation of dialectical
consciousness. ' a telling pairing in my mind. The latter phrase, which
Prynne effectively declares The True Way, has the whiff of a body-mind
dualism about it, insofar as I can extract a juice from it. For sure we are
being Called Upon, but I find the effects of this call profoundly
depressing, with a suggestion of a kind of hidden Calvinism of a
neo-Marxism, as it were. Where poetry will only be possible for the Elect.
I'd still defend the piece, for its engagement and rhetorical power, but I
also fear its will towards totality.
But, you guys, I failed to notice the lads, Heiddegger and Derrida, out
there in Prynnesville tonight, and ain't quite sure what they're doing in
the debate.
david bircumshaw
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