☞ The eighteenth-century attention economy

Joseph Addison, The Tatler, No. 224. Thursday, September 14. 1710.

 

It is my custom in a dearth of News, to entertain my self with those collections of Advertisements that appear at the end of all our publick Prints. These I consider as accounts of News from the Little World, in the same manner that the foregoing parts of the paper are from the Great. If in one we hear that a Sovereign Prince is fled from his Capital city, in the other we hear of a Tradesman who hath shut up his Shop and run away. (…) 

But to consider this subject in its most ridiculous Lights. Advertisements are of great use to the Vulgar: First of all, as they are instruments of Ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the Advertisements; by which means we often see an Apothecary in the same paper of news with a Plenipotentiary, or a Running-footman with an Ambassador. An Advertisement from Picadilly [sic] goes down to Posterity, with an Article from Madrid; and John Bartlett (*) of Goodman’s Fields is celebrated in the same paper with the Emperor of Germany. (…)
 

A second use which this sort of writings have been turned to of late years, has been the management of Controversy, insomuch that above half the Advertisements one meets with now-a-days are purely Polemical. The Inventors of Strops for Razors have written against one another this way for several years, and that with great bitterness; as the whole argument pro and con in the case of the Morning Gowns is still carried on after the same manner. I need not mention the several Proprietors of Dr. Anderson’s Pills (…)
 

The third and last use of these writings is, to inform the world where they may be furnished with almost every thing that is necessary for life. If a man has Pains in his Head, Cholicks (†) in his Bowels, or Spots in his Clothes, he may here meet with proper Cures and Remedies. (…)
 

The great Art in writing Advertisements, is the finding out a proper method to catch the Reader’s eye; without which a good thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among Commissions of Bankrupt. Asterisks and Hands (‡) were formerly of great use for this purpose. Of late years, the N.B. has been much in fashion; as also little Cuts and Figures, the invention of which we must ascribe to the Author of Spring-trusses. I must not omit the blind Italian Character, which being scarce legible, always fixes and detains the eye, and gives the curious Reader something like the satisfaction of prying into a secret.
 

But the great skill in an Advertiser, is chiefly seen in the Style which he makes use of. He is to mention the universal Esteem, or the general Reputation of things that were never heard of. (…) Since I am thus usefully employed in writing Criticisms on the works of these diminutive Authors, I must not pass over in silence an Advertisement which has lately made its appearance, and is written altogether in a Ciceronian manner. It was sent to me, with five shillings, to be inserted among my Advertisements; but as it is a Pattern of good writing in this way, I shall give it a place in the body of my paper.
 

The highest compound spirit of Lavender, the most glorious (if the expression may be used) enlivening Scent and Flavour that can possibly be, which so raptures the Spirits, delights the Gust, (§) and gives such airs to the Countenance, as are not to be imagined but by those that have tried it. The meanest sort of the thing is admired by most Gentlemen and Ladies; but this far more, as by far it exceeds it, to the gaining among all a more than common esteem. It is sold (in neat Flint bottles fit for the Pocket) only at the Golden-key in Warton’s-court near Holborn-bars, for 3s. 6d. with Directions.

 

At the same time that I recommend the several Flowers in which this Spirit of Lavender is wrapped up, (if the expression may be used) I cannot excuse my Fellow-labourers for admitting into their papers several uncleanly advertisements, not at all proper to appear in the works of polite Writers. Among these I must reckon the Carminative (¶) Wind-expelling Pills. If the Doctor had called them his Carminative Pills, he had done as cleanly as any one could have wished; but the second word entirely destroys the decency of the first. There are other absurdities of this nature so very gross, that I dare not mention them; and shall therefore dismiss this subject.
 

 

(*) A truss maker. 

 

(†) Cholicks: pains arising from stricture of the intestines as a result of trapped wind.

(‡) The technical term is manicule, a typographic mark in the form of a hand with a pointing index finger: ☞. Originating as a handwritten symbol to indicate passages of interest in the margins of manuscripts, the manicule was a feature of early print advertising, but had begun to fall out of use due to over-familiarity by Addison's time. Since the nineteenth century, the manicule has been seen as quaint, and is now used only where an ironic, faux antique touch is sought. 

 

(§) Gust, i.e., goût, Latin gustus.

 

(¶) Medicament to relieve trapped wind. The term dates from the mid-seventeenth century and derives from the Latin carminare ‘to card (wool)’: ‘A medical term from the old theory of humours. The object of carminatives is to expel wind, but the theory was that they dilute and relax the gross humours from whence the wind arises, combing them out like the knots in wool’ (Hensleigh Wedgwood, A Dictionary of English Etymology, London, 1859). Cf. Swift's advice to the parents of brides in Strephon and Chloe (1731): 

Keep them to wholsome Food confin'd,
Nor let them taste what causes Wind;
('Tis this the Sage of Samos means,

Forbidding his Disciples Beans)
O, think what Evils must ensue;
Miss Moll the Jade will burn it blue:
And when she once has got the Art,
She cannot help it for her Heart;

But, out it flies, even when she meets
Her Bridegroom in the Wedding-Sheets.
Carminative and Diuretick,
Will damp all Passion Sympathetick;
And, Love such Nicety requires,

One Blast will put out all his Fires.

cœnæsthesis (2)

[J]e me sens moi-même assailli par une foule de sensations et d'images que chacun de mes sens m'apporte, et dont l'assemblage me présente un monde d'objets distincts les uns des autres, et d'un autre objet qui seul m'est présent par des sensations d'une certaine espèce, et qui est le même que j'apprendrai dans la suite à nommer moi. Mais ce monde sensible, de quels éléments est-il composé ? Des points noirs, blancs, rouges, verts, bleus, ombrés ou clairs, combinés en mille manières, placés les uns hors des autres, rapportés à des distances plus ou moins grandes, et formant par leur contiguité une surface plus ou moins enfoncée sur laquelle mes regards s'arrêtent : c'est à quoi se réduisent toutes les images que je reçois par le sens de la vue. La nature opère devant moi sur un espace indéterminé, précisément comme le peintre opère sur une toile. 

 

Les sensations de froid, de chaleur, de résistance, que je reçois par le sens du toucher, me paraissent aussi comme dispersées çà et là dans un espace à trois dimensions, dont elles déterminent les différents points; et dans lequel, lorsque les points tangibles sont contigus, elles dessinent aussi des espèces d'images, comme la vue, mais à leur manière, et tranchées avec bien moins de netteté. [...] 

 

Quoique les sensations propres de l'ouïe et de l'odorat ne nous présentent pas à la fois (du moins d'une façon permanente) un certain nombre de points contigus qui puissent former des figures et nous donner une idée d'étendue, elles ont cependant leur place dans cet espace dont les sensations de la vue et du toucher nous déterminent les dimensions; et nous leur assignons toujours une situation, soit que nous les rapportions à une distance éloignée de nos organes, ou à ces organes mêmes.

 

Il ne faut pas omettre un autre ordre de sensations plus pénétrantes, pour ainsi dire, qui, rapportées à l'intérieur de notre corps, et en occupant même quelquefois toute l'habitude, semblent remplir les trois dimensions de l'espace, et porter immédiatement avec elles l'idée de l'étendue solide. Je ferai de ces sensations une classe particulière sous le nom de tact intérieur, ou sixième sens. J'y rangerai les douleurs qu'on ressent quelquefois dans l'intérieur des chairs, dans la capacité des intestins et dans les os même ; les nausées, le malaise qui précède l'évanouissement, la faim, la soif, l'émotion qui accompagne toutes les passions; les frissonnements, soit de douleur, soit de volupté; enfin cette multitude de sensations confuses qui ne nous abandonnent jamais, qui circonscrivent en quelque sorte notre corps, qui nous le rendent toujours présent, et que par cette raison quelques métaphysiciens ont appelé sens de la coexistence de notre corps. 

 

Turgot, Existence (article extrait de l'Encyclopédie)

Possible worlds

Warum wandern die Tschuktschen aus ihrem schrecklichen Lande nicht aus, überall würden sie besser leben, im Vergleich zu ihrem gegenwärtigen Leben und zu ihren gegenwärtigen Wünschen. Aber sie können nicht; alles, was möglich ist, geschieht ja; möglich ist nur das, was geschieht.

 

Franz Kafka, Tagebücher, 5. Januar 1914

 

Why do the Chukchi not leave their dreadful land, anywhere else they would live a better life, in comparison with their present life and their present wants. But they cannot; all that is possible does happen, only that which happens is possible.

Parasitic worlds within worlds (2)

Jan Ruyter, Three pieces of wood from the piles on the sea-dikes showing how they were eaten through by the worms, 1731. Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam

 

Quodsi porro in immensum animalculorum, quæ Teredinem inhabitant, numerum contemplationem nostram dirigamus, novum ecce detegimus illius finem, licet omnes imaginationis nostræ limites transcendentem. Ordo, locusque, concinna quam maxime ratione, singulis velut assignati animalculis Teredinem nobis marinam repræsentant, ceu mundum, illis particulariter creatum, in quo domicilium, vitæque sustentationem inveniant: neque hoc solum; sed, velut Teredine, ad parandum sibi cibum, opus habent animalcula; ita et his, ad propagationis opus, indigere rerum illa sicque, quod ajunt, manus manum lavare videtur. 

 

Godofredi Sellii, J.U.D. ex Societate Regia Londinensi, Historia Naturalis Teredinis seu Xylophagi Marini, Tubulo-Conchoidis Speciatim Belgici: cum tabulis ad vivum coloratis. 

Trajecti ad Rhenum Apud Hermannum Besseling, 1733.

If we further consider the vast number of animalcules that dwell within the ship-worm,(*) then, behold, we discover a new purpose to it, albeit one that passes beyond all the bounds of our imagination. So elegantly conceived, the order and place that are as if assigned to the animalcules show us that the ship-worm is like a world created specifically for them, in which they find a home and life's sustenance. But this is not all: as the animalcules need the ship-worm in order to furnish themselves with food, so too the ship-worm needs the animalcules in order to propagate and thus, as they say, one hand washes the other.

(*) Teredo navalis (Linnaeus, 1758), a marine bivalve mollusc that bores into the wooden hulls of ships, underwater piles, submerged timber, and which lives in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria—the animalcules described by Sellius—whose enzymes help the ship-worm to digest the cellulose on which it feeds. 

    In the winter of 1731, the dikes along the Dutch North Sea coast collapsed, flooding villages inland, and it was subsequently discovered that they had been undermined by a ship-worm infestation that left their wooden piles riddled with holes. The worm-engendered calamity was seen by the fanatical ministers of the Reformed Church as divine punishment for the depravity then supposed to be flooding the Dutch Republic: 'The worm had been, it was said by the authors of The Worm a Warning to the Feckless and Sinful Netherlands and The Finger of God, Or Holland and Zeeland in Great Need from this Hitherto Unheard Plague of Worms, custom-made by the Almighty for the express purpose of punishing a stiff-necked people steeped in filth and sin' (Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches. An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, Vintage Books, 1997, p. 607).

 

Parasitic worlds within worlds (1)

Sollte nicht eine Naturmythologie möglich sein? — Mythologie hier in meinem Sinn, als freie poetische Erfindung, die die Wirklichkeit sehr mannigfach symbolisiert.

Genialische, edle, divinatorische, wundertätige, kluge, dumme usw. Pflanzen, Tiere, Steine, Elemente usw. — Unendliche Invididualität dieser Wesen, — ihr musikalischer und Individualsinn — ihr Charakter — ihre Neigungen usw. Es sind vergangene geschichtliche Wesen.

Wir leben eigentlich in einem Tiere als parasitische Tiere. Die Konstitution dieses Tiers bestimmt die unsrige, et vice versa. Die Bedingungsverhältniße der atmosphärischen Bestandteile sind vielleicht sehr mit den Bedingungverhältnißen derselben Bestandteile im organischen Körper übereinstimmend. 

— Novalis

Why should a nature mythology not be possible? — I here take mythology to mean free poetic invention, which symbolises reality in a highly multifarious way. 

Ingenious, noble, divinatory, miraculous, stupid etc. Plants, animals, stones, elements etc. — endless individuality of such beings — their musical and individual meaning — their character — their tendencies etc. They are past historical beings. 

In actual fact we live as parasitic animals within another animal. This animal's constitution determines ours, and vice versa. The interdependent relations between the constitutive parts of the atmosphere are perhaps highly congruent with the interdependent relations of the same constitutive parts in the organic body.

The allotted world

So, to our business, now—the fate of such

As find our common nature—overmuch 

Despised because restricted and unfit

To bear the burthen they impose on it—

Cling when they would discard it; craving strength

To leap from the allotted world, at length

They do leap,—flounder on without a term,

Each a god's germ, doomed to remain a germ

In unexpanded infancy, unless . . . 

But that's the story—dull enough, confess!

 

Robert Browning, from Sordello (1840), Book the Third

A pluralitie of worlds

Angels, who do not propagate, nor multiply, were made at first in an abundant number; and so were starres: But for the things of this world, their blessing was, Encrease; for I think, I need not aske leave to think, that there is no Phoenix; nothing singular, nothing alone: Men that inhere upon Nature only, are so far from thinking, that there is any thing singular in this world, as that they will scarce thinke, that this world it selfe is singular, but that every Planet, and every Starre, is another World like this; They finde reason to conceive, not onely a pluralitie in every Species in the world, but a pluralitie of worlds.

 

John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes: digested into 1. Meditations upon our Humane Condition. 2. Expostulations, and Debatements with God. 3. Prayers, upon the severall Occasions, to him. London. Printed by A.M. for Thomas Jones. 1624

A labyrinth made of labyrinths

The Universe is a labyrinth made of labyrinths. Each leads to another. And wherever we cannot go ourselves, we reach with mathematics. Out of mathematics we build wagons to carry us into the inhuman realms of the world. It is also possible to construct, out of mathematics, worlds outside the Universe, regardless of whether or not they exist. And then, of course, one can always abandon mathematics and its worlds, to venture with one's faith into the world-to-come. 

Stanisław Lem, Fiasco (1986), trans. Michael Kandel, Chapter 4

Infinite divisibility

Nothing is more pleasant to the fancy, than to enlarge itself, by degrees, in its contemplation of the various proportions which its several objects bear to each other, when it compares the body of man to the bulk of the whole earth, the earth to the circle it describes round the sun, that circle to the sphere of the fixed stars, the sphere of the fixed stars to the circuit of the whole creation, the whole creation itself to the infinite space that is every where diffused about it; or when the imagination works downward, and considers the bulk of a human body, in respect of an animal, a hundred times less than a mite, the particular limbs of such an animal, the different springs which actuate the limbs, the spirits which set these springs a-going, and the proportionable minuteness of these several parts, before they have arrived at their full growth and perfection. But if, after all this, we take the least particle of these animal spirits, and consider its capacity of being wrought into a world, that shall contain within those narrow dimensions a heaven and earth, stars and planets, and every different species of living creatures, in the same analogy and proportion they bear to each other in our own universe; such a speculation, by reason of its nicety, appears ridiculous to those who have not turned their thoughts that way, though, at the same time, it is founded on no less than the evidence of a demonstration. Nay, we might yet carry it farther, and discover in the smallest particle of this little world, a new inexhausted fund of matter, capable of being spun out into another universe. 

Joseph Addison, The Spectator, No. 420

Realism

Qu’il soit fondé sur un fait ou librement inventé, de toute façon ce n’est pas le sujet qui fait le roman, à plus forte raison ne peut-on lui demander de débrouiller les relations du « vrai » et du « feint », dont la complexité outrepasse de beaucoup l'opposition tranchée admise par les articles des dictionnaires. A strictement parler, en effet, tout est « feint » dans un monde créé de toutes pièces pour être écrit : quelque traitement qu'elle subisse et sous quelque forme qu’elle soit suggérée, la réalité romanesque est fictive, ou plus exactement, c’est toujours une réalité de roman, où des personnages de roman ont une naissance, une mort, des aventures de roman. En ce sens on peut dire qu’il n’y a ni plus ni moins de réalité dans les Voyages de Gulliver que dans Madame Bovary, dans le Château que dans David Copperfield, dans Don Quichotte que dans un roman des Goncourt ou de Zola. Le Prague de Kafka n’est pas plus irréel que le Londres de Dickens ou le Saint-Pétersbourg de Dostoïevski, les trois villes n’ont que la réalité empirique des livres où elles sont créées, celle d’objets dont rien ne tient lieu et qui ne remplacent rien, mais qui viennent un jour s’ajouter réellement aux autres objets réels du monde. Le degré de réalité d’un roman n’est jamais chose mesurable, il ne représente que la part d’illusion dont le romancier se plaît à jouer.

 Marthe Robert, Roman des origines et origines du roman, Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1972

 

Mundus mortuorum

When you get to the end of this book [The Third Policeman] you realise that my hero or main character (he's a heel and a killer) has been dead throughout the book and that all the queer ghastly things which have been happening to him are happening in a sort of hell which he has earned for the killing. Towards the end of the book (before you know he's dead) he manages to get back to his own house where he used to live with another man who helped in the original murder. Although he's been away 3 days, this other fellow is 20 years older and dies of fright when he sees the other lad standing in the door. Then the two of them walk back along the road to the hell place and start going thro' all the same terrible adventures again, the first fellow being surprised and frightened at everything just as he was the first time and as if he'd never been through it before. It is made clear that this sort of thing goes on forever - and there you are. It's supposed to be very funny but I don't know about that either. If it's ever published I'll send you a copy. I envy you the way you write just what you want to and like it when it's finished. I can never seem to get anything just right. Nevertheless, I think the idea of a man being dead all the time is pretty new. When you are writing about the world of the dead - and the damned - where none of the rules and laws (not even the law of gravity) holds good, there is any amount of scope for back-chat and funny cracks. 

 

Flann O'Brien to William Saroyan, 14 February 1940

The dark star

Quare ex particulis hic mundus constat, ac ille


Ex totis, vivis per se, distantibus a se,


Singula nonnulli credunt quoque sidera posse


Dici orbes, terramque appellant sidus opacum,


Cui minimus divum praesit: quia nubibus infra


Imperium teneat, producatque omnia solus,


Corpora, quae aequor habet, tellusque infimus aër:

Umbrarum dominus, simulacraque viva gubernans, 

Cui data sit rerum cura et moderamen earum:

Quae quia non durant, sed tempore corrumpuntur


Exiguo, prope nil possunt, umbraeque vocari.


Hic reor est Pluton, a quo tenebrosa teneri

Regna canunt vates: namque infra nubila nox est,


Supra autem lux clara nitet, splendorque perennis:


Huic igitur, tanquam minimo, Deus ille deorum

Rex genitorque dedit vilissima regna, aliosque


Ut quisque est melior, melioribus addidit astris,


Imperiumque suum natis divisit habendum.

Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus,  Zodiacus vitae (1536), Liber VII

By reason of the fact that this world consists of parts, and that world(*) of wholes, living through themselves, separate from each other, some believe that each star may be said to be a world, and they call the Earth the dark star, over which reigns the least of the gods,(†) for he wields power underneath the clouds, where he alone generates all things, the lord of shadows, governing the living simulacra that are the bodies which exist in sea, on land, and in lower air. To him is given the care and management of these things which, since they do not last, but waste away in a short time, scarcely deserve to be called even shadows. I deem him to be the same Pluto who, so the ancient bards sing, rules the dark kingdom, for underneath the clouds it is night, whereas up above pure light and eternal splendour shine. To him, therefore, as the least of them all, the God of gods, King and Creator, gave the basest realms. The other gods, in order of which was the better, He joined to better stars, dividing the rule of his kingdom among his sons.

* The preceding lines lay out a Platonic hierarchy of Being in descending order, from the higher world of the noumenal to the lower world of the phenomenal, from light to darkness, from indivisible wholes to sundry parts.

† Quoted by Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1.1.2.2): 'The air is not so full of flies in summer as it is at all times of invisible devils: this Paracelsus stiffly maintains, and that they have every one their several chaos; others will have infinite worlds, and each world his peculiar spirits, gods, angels, and devils to govern and punish it. Singula nonnulli credunt . . .  Cui minimus divum praesit.'

Au cœur du rêve

Au cœur du rêve, je suis seul. Dépouillé de toutes mes garanties, dévêtu des artifices de langage, des protections sociales, des idéologies rassurantes, je me retrouve dans l’isolement parfait de la créature devant le monde. Plus rien ne subsiste du moi construit ; c’est à peine si, en cet instant où je ne suis plus que moi-même, j’ai encore la conscience d’être quelqu’un. Je suis un être humain, n’importe lequel, semblable à mes semblables. Mais il n’y a plus de semblables dans cette solitude. Il ne reste de moi que la créature et sa destinée, son inexplicable et impérieuse destinée. Avec stupeur, je découvre que je suis cette vie infinie : un être dont les origines remontent au delà de tout ce que je puis connaître, dont le sort dépasse les horizons où atteint mon regard. Je ne sais plus autour de quelles pauvres raisons j’ai organisé la petite existence de cet individu que j’étais. Je suis seulement que m’apparaissent maintenant les raisons de ma vie véritable : elles demeurent innomées, mais présentes ; elles sont ce que j’éprouve, l’immensité de mon étendue réelle. 

 

 Albert Béguin, L’Ame romantique et le rêve, 1939

 

At the heart of the dream, I am alone. Stripped of all my guarantees, disrobed of the artifices of language, social protections, comforting ideologies, I find myself in the perfect isolation of the creature before the world. Nothing more remains of the constructed self; in the instant when I am no more than I myself, barely am I aware of being someone. I am a human being, any human being, a fellow to my fellow men. But there are no more fellow men in this solitude. All that is left of me is the creature and its destiny, its inexplicable and imperious destiny. With bewilderment, I discover that I am this infinite life: a being whose origins go back beyond all that I am capable of knowing, whose fate extends farther than the  horizons of my gaze. I no longer know the paltry reasons around which I organised the petty existence of the individual that I was. I have being only because it is now that the reasons of my true life appear to me: they dwell unnamed, but present; they are what I experience, the vastness of my real expanse. 

 

Worlds concealed

En värld är varje människa, befolkad
av blinda varelser i dunkelt uppror
mot jaget konungen som härskar över dem.
I varje själ är tusen själar fångna,
i varje värld är tusen världar dolda
och dessa blinda, dessa undre världar
är verkliga och levande, fast ofullgångna,
så sant som jag är verklig. Och vi konungar
och furstar av de tusen möjliga inom oss
är själva undersåtar, fångna själva
i någon större varelse, vars jag och väsen
vi lika litet fattar som vår överman
sin överman. Av deras död och kärlek
har våra egna känslor fått en färgton.

Som när en väldig ångare passerar
långt ute, under horisonten, där den ligger
så aftonblank. – Och vi vet inte om den
förrän en svallvåg når till oss på stranden,
först en, så ännu en och många flera
som slår och brusar till dess allt har blivit
som förut. – Allt är ändå annorlunda.

Så grips vi skuggor av en sällsam oro
när något säger oss att folk har färdats,
att några av de möjliga befriats.

 

Gunnar Ekelöf, Färjesång, Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm, 1941

 

Every human being is a world, peopled

with blind creatures in dark revolt

against the self, the king that rules over them. 

In every soul a thousand souls are imprisoned,

in every world a thousand worlds are concealed

and these blind, these nether worlds 

are real and alive, albeit unfulfilled,

as genuinely as I am real. And we kings

and princes of the thousand potential creatures within us

are themselves subjects, themselves imprisoned

in some vaster creature, whose self and being

we understand as little as our master

does his master. Their death and their love

imbue our own feelings with their tint.

 

The same as when a huge steamer passes

out at sea, below the horizon, which spreads

so evening-bright. — And we know nothing of it

till the swell reaches us on the shore,

first one wave, then another and many more,

which breaks and crashes, till all returns

to what it was before. — Yet all is different.

 

So too are we shadows seized by a strange unrest

when something tells us that they are on the move,

that some of the potential creatures are set free.   

The mind of Nature

© Alistair Ian Blyth

"Language is the means of human communication. In human awareness, it is language that limns the outer and the inner world to an equal extent. It is with the help of language that I talk to people. Outside of human communication language loses its meaning, it becomes dispensable.

 

"I am a human being, a part of the world, a product thereof. I am the mind of Nature, its understanding. I am a part of human society, a unit thereof. With my help both Nature and Humanity transform themselves, perfect themselves, improve themselves. But just as the understanding has not yet grasped all the secrets of the microcosm, in the domain of the macrocosm it is still only a talented child embarking on its first marvellous discoveries.

 

"I, the poet, live in a world of enchanting mysteries. They everywhere surround me. Plants in all their multiformity—grass, flowers, trees—the mighty realm of primitive life, the foundation of all living things, my brothers, feeding me with both their flesh and their air—all of them live alongside me. How can I reject kinship with them? The variability of the vegetal landscape, the combination of leaf and branch, the play of the sun on the fruits of the earth—all these are a smile on the face of a friend bound to me by ties of blood kinship."

Nikolai Zabolotsky, 1957

 

Слово есть средство человеческого общения. Слово рисует в чело­веческом сознании мир внешний и мир внутренний в одинаковой степени. С помощью слова я обращаюсь к людям. Слово вне челове­ческого общения теряет свой смысл, оно делается необязательным.

 

Я — человек, часть мира, его произведение. Я — мысль при­роды и ее разум. Я — часть человеческого общества, его едини­ца. С моей помощью и природа и человечество преобразуют самих себя, совершенствуются, улучшаются. Но так же, как разум еще не постиг всех тайн микрокосма, он и в области макрокосма еще толь­ ко талантливое дитя, делающее свои первые удивительные от­ крытия. 

 

Я, поэт, живу в мире очаровательных тайн. Они окружают меня всюду. Растения во всем их многообразии — эта трава, эти цветы, эти деревья — могущественное царство первобытной жизни, основа всего живущего, мои братья, питающие меня и плотью своей, и воз­духом, — все они живут рядом со мной. Разве я могу отказаться от родства с ними? Изменчивость растительного пейзажа, сочетание листвы и ветвей, игра солнца на плодах земли — это улыбка на ли­це моего друга, связанного со мной узами кровного родства. 

 

Н. А. Заболоцкий.  «Почему я не сторонник абстрактной поэзии» Метаморфозы / Николай Заболоцкий; сост., подгот. текста, вступ. статья и коммент. И. Е. Лощилова. — М.: ОГИ, 2014. С. 606

 

 

Die Selbstsprache

Gerade das Eigentümliche der Sprache, daß sie sich bloß um sich selbst bekümmert, weiß keiner. (...) Wenn man den Leuten nur begreiflich machen könnte, daß es mit der Sprache wie mit den mathematischen Formeln sei – Sie machen eine Welt für sich aus – Sie spielen nur mit sich selbst, drücken nichts als ihre wunderbare Natur aus, und eben darum sind sie so ausdrucksvoll – eben darum spiegelt sich in ihnen das seltsame Verhältnisspiel der Dinge. Nur durch ihre Freiheit sind sie Glieder der Natur, und nur in ihren freien Bewegungen äußert sich die Weltseele und macht sie zu einem zarten Maßstab und Grundriß der Dinge. 

Novalis, Monolog, 1798

Precisely what is peculiar to language, the fact of its being concerned only with itself, is known to no one. (...) If only one could be made to understand that with language it is the same as with mathematical formulae – they make up a world of their own – they play only with themselves, express nothing but their own wondrous nature, and this is why they are so expressive – this is why the strange interplay of things is mirrored in them. It is only through their freedom that they are elements of Nature, and only in their free movements does the World-soul manifest itself and make them a delicate measure and outline of things. 

The Big Lie

Unwahrheit hat von einem höhern Gesichtspunkte noch eine viel schlimmere Seite als die gewöhnliche. Sie ist der Grund einer falschen Welt, Grund einer unaufloslichen Kette von Verirrungen und Verwicklungen. Unwahrheit ist die Quelle alles Bösen und Üblen. (Absolutes Setzen des Falschen. Ewiger Irrtum.) Eine Unwahrheit gebiert unzählige. Eine absolut gesetzte Unwahrheit ist so unendlich schwer auszurotten. 

 

Novalis, Fragmente

From a higher point of view, Untruth has a far worse side than it would ordinarily. It is the foundation of a false world, the foundation of an inextricable chain of aberrations and confusions. Untruth is the fount of all wickedness and evil. (Absolute positing of falsehood. Eternal error.) One untruth gives birth to countless others. An absolutely posited untruth is thus infinitely difficult to eradicate.

The way inwards

Die Phantasie setzt die künftige Welt entweder in die Höhe, oder in die Tiefe, oder in der Metempsychose zu uns. Wir träumen von Riesen durch das Weltall: ist denn das Weltall nicht in uns? Die Tiefen unsers Geistes kennen wir nicht. -- Nach Innen geht der geheimnisvolle Weg. In uns, oder nirgends ist die Ewigkeit mit ihren Welten, die Vergangenheit und Zukunft. Die Ausenwelt ist die Schattenwelt, sie wirft ihren Schatten in das Lichtreich. Jetzt scheint es uns freilich innerlich so dunkel, einsam, gestaltlos, aber wie ganz anders wird es uns dünken, wenn diese Verfinsterung vorbei, und der Schattenkörper hinweggerückt ist. Wir werden mehr geniessen als je, denn unser Geist hat entbehrt.

Novalis,  Blütenstaub, 16

The imagination places the world of the future either far above us, or far below, or in a relation of metempsychosis to ourselves. We dream of traveling through the universe--but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us--the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds--the past and future--is in ourselves or nowhere. The external world is the world of shadows--it throws its shadow into the realm of light. At present this realm certainly seems to us so dark inside, lonely, shapeless. But how entirely different it will seem to us--when this gloom is past, and the body of shadows has moved away. We will experience greater enjoyment than ever, for our spirit has been deprived. 

trans. Margaret Mahony Stoljar

The strange mine workings of the soul

. . . der Seelen wunderliches Bergwerk . . . Felsen waren da und wesenlose Wälder. Brücken über Leeres . . . 

. . . the strange mine workings of souls . . . Cliffs were there and spectral forests. Bridges over vacancies . . .

  

'"Orpheus. Euridice. Hermes" (...) has the quality of an uneasy dream, in which you gain something extremely valuable, only to lose it the very next moment. Within the limitation of one's sleeping time, and perhaps precisely because of that, such dreams are excruciatingly convincing in their details; a poem is also limited by definition. Both imply compression, except that a poem, being a conscious act, is not a paraphrase or a metaphor for reality but a reality itself. (...) a poem generates rather than reflects. So if a poem addresses a mythological subject, this amounts to a reality scrutinising its own history.'

Joseph Brodsky, 'Ninety Years Later' (Torö, Sweden, 1994), On Grief and Reason: Essays (1995)

The Land of Papagosse

Ils sont prins s'ils ne s'envolent,(*) ces pourceaux qui vestus à la Turque,(†) le Turban sur la teste, le halebarde sur l'espaule, vont s'embarquer dans un panier percé, pour faire une grande guerre navalle(‡) sur l'aisle d'un moulin à vent, aux pays de Papagosse,(§) où les chiens chient la poix, les chats gosillent(‖) le diamerdis,¶ les femmes enceintes pissent un pucelage gros comme le bras, & les grenoüilles crachent les oysons touts cuits & farcis.

Bruscambille, "En Faveur du Galimathias", Les Plaisants paradoxes de Bruscambille, & autres discours Comiques, 1617

They're snared if they don't fly away, these swine dressed up Turkish-style, with turbans on their bonces, halberds over their shoulders, who are off to board a holey basket so that they can wage a big naval war, on the windmill isle in the lands of Papagosse, where the dogs shit pitch, the cats disgorge pulvilio of turds, the pregnant women piss virginity as thick as your arm, and the frogs spit out goslings ready stuffed and roasted.

* Ils sont prins s'ils ne s'envolent - Antoine Oudin, who in his Curiositez françoises, pour supplement aux Dictionnaires, ou Recueil de plusieurs belles proprietez, avec une infinité de Proverbes & Quolibets, pour l'explication de toutes sortes de Livres (1640) draws heavily on the works of Bruscambille, defines this expression as "une façon de parler, pour desapprouver ce qu'un autre dit."

† pourceaux - possibly an allusion to the Pugna Porcorum per Publium Porcium Poëtam (1530), a comic epyllion whose every word begins with the letter p, which for more than two centuries was widely reprinted in Latin collections of facetiae.

‡ grande guerre navale - possibly an allusion to the Battle of Lepanto (1571), thitherto the largest naval battle since Antiquity, in which the Holy League defeated the Ottoman fleet.

§ Papagosse - imaginary region whose origin lies in mediaeval Provençal folklore, also called Pampérigouste, by which name it can be found in Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de mon Moulin (1869), and Papeligosse, which Randle Cotgrave, in his A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611) defines as the "countrey of the Butterflyes".

‖ gosillent - the verb gosiller derives from gosillier, gosier 'gullet, gorge', and means 'to vomit', figuratively 'to talk, speak' (see: Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française). Bruscambille's series of images encompasses all the possible bodily evacuations: defecation, vomition/regurgitation, urination, sputation.

¶ Diamerdis - Cotgrave defines this as a "confection of turds, pilgrims salve". Desiccated and blanched faeces (album graecum)  were widely used as medicinal preparations up until the eighteenth century. See, for example, Christian Franz Paullini, Heilsame Dreck-Apotheke: Wie nemlich mit Koth und Urin Fast alle ja auch die schwerste gifftige Kranckheiten und bezauberte Schaden vom Haupt biß zun Füssen inn- und äusserlich glücklich curirt worden (1696), a textbook on the pharmaceutics and curative properties of human and animal faeces and urine. In Rabelais, Pantagruel, Chapter 30, Panurge revives the decapitated Epistemon using diamerdis.