Yes, his Poetics is still a good and stimulating read, isn't it! And
not nearly so rigid as it is sometimes considered in interpretation...

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Sheila Murphy <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Alison, I especially enjoy that quotation from Aristotle. Having studied his
> aesthetics so intensively, particularly with respect to music (one of my
> dual majors undergrad), I found much to consider there. Thanks! Sheila
>
> On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Aristotle said - intriguingly, I think - that plot was the "argument"
>> of a play. Which is not quite how people conventionally think of
>> narrative...
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 8:11 AM, Douglas Barbour
>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> > Well, it's unending because people get so confused, Jon. And far too many
>> > end p discussing only what they perceive t be 'meaning' or something,
>> which
>> > ends up being content -- because they're dis-content?
>> >
>> > I agree that the dichotomy form/content does nothing except start
>> arguments
>> > unending(ly).
>> >
>> > I like your take on style/form, although I suspect it might start as many
>> > arguments once we try to get down to details, especially as to who works
>> the
>> > beat best. On the other hand, perhaps I have learned so much from Pound
>> only
>> > at what you're calling the style level, in the micro-, not the macro-cosm
>> of
>> > his work; not sure about that. What bothers me is that limiting, I think,
>> > factor 'plot' which you introduced.
>> >
>> > Alison is right, it's so much easier to get away from teh problem in
>> music
>> > or visual art....
>> >
>> > We're domed to work with words....
>> >
>> > Doug
>> > On 8-Apr-09, at 5:18 PM, Jon Corelis wrote:
>> >
>> >> Two comments orthogonal to how this unending aesthetic dispute is
>> >> usually considered:
>> >>
>> >> 1)  The argument about the relationship between poetic form and
>> >> content assumes that a poem is an utterance, that is, essentially an
>> >> utterance and not some other sort of thing which uses utterance.
>> >> Today this means a text.  A text consists of what is being said, which
>> >> is its content, and how it is being said, which is  its form.
>> >> Aristotle, however, conceived of a poem not as an utterance but as an
>> >> action.  From this viewpoint, the distinction between form and content
>> >> disappears:  the poem's action is not a linguistic one but a mental
>> >> and emotional enactment (existing at the boundary of the conscious and
>> >> unconscious, though A. couldn't have put it that way) which is
>> >> expressed by utterance.  Talking about the content of a poem makes as
>> >> little sense as talking about the content of a religious ritual.  Or
>> >> to put it another way, it's like trying to separate the dancer from
>> >> the dance.
>> >>
>> >> 2)  Which brings us designedly to Yeats, who in a famous passage in
>> >> his introduction to The Oxford Book of Modern Poetry said that Pound
>> >> had more style than anyone, but more style than form.  Yeats seems to
>> >> be talking about a different fundamental dichotomy than form and
>> >> content:  what could the relationship between form and style be?  I
>> >> think the clue might be to consider the issue in visual arts.  Take a
>> >> drawing:  the way the lines look is the style, and the way the picture
>> >> looks is the form.  (This suggests why Pound's verse is so impressive
>> >> examined through a magnifying glass and so frustrating viewed at arm's
>> >> length.)  In poetry, form would be what the poem does (its enactment
>> >> or Aristotelian plot) and style would be how it communicates what it
>> >> does -- a distinction which seems to me more useful to contemplate
>> >> than the posthumously abused equine of form/content.
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> ===============================================
>> >>
>> >>  Jon Corelis    http://jcorelis.googlepages.com/joncorelis
>> >>
>> >> ===============================================
>> >>
>> >
>> > Douglas Barbour
>> > [log in to unmask]
>> >
>> > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/ <http://www.ualberta.ca/%7Edbarbour/>
>> >
>> > Latest books:
>> > Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>> > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>> > Wednesdays'
>> >
>> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>> >
>> > The covers of this book are too far apart.
>> >
>> >        Ambrose Bierce
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Editor, Masthead:  http://www.masthead.net.au
>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>>
>



-- 
Editor, Masthead:  http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com