This reading was incredibly dense. Reading most of it, I felt as if I lacked the basic knowledge of various art movements and concepts to really understand this text 100%. That being said, I feel as if I managed to glean the main idea Drucker seemed to be trying to convey in this writing.
The point that seemed to be reiterated time and time again was the idea of artistic forms beginning "to be," rather than being used "to represent" (50). This was evidenced in Mallarme's A Throw of the Dice, where "the textual elements forge links of meanin in their visual and verbal relations but those relations function as their own gestalt, not as the trace or image of some other figurative form" (55). This idea appeared over and over in this piece of writing; in fact, the following May Sinclair quote was thought to sum up the main point of this article so well that it was quoted twice within the piece: "Presentation not representation is the watchword of the school" (64).
Of course, this raises the question of what experimental texts, as a work of art, should be. On page 58, Drucker describes Mallarme's A Throw of the Dice as "underscor[ing] the randomness and inadequacy of human thought and action in the face of the Ideal." This description makes sense given the way Mallarme's work utilizes text size, alignment, and spacing. However, given what was said above about the aims of experimental art, it can be supposed that what Mallarme was trying to do was not to write something that imitated human thought, but rather was it.
This was probably the hardest concept for me to grasp, even though it was the most basic and reiterated one in the article. The idea that a poem doesn't just represent thought, but is thought, is really difficult for me to wrap my mind around. It challenges the way I think of poems and words and thoughts. Which is good.
I should have read your post before I read the article so I actually understood what I was reading.
ReplyDeleteI have a hard time thinking of poetry and words as anything other than representations. So, I definitely understand your difficulty in wrapping your head around this idea. And I also agree that it is good to challenge the way you think about poetry and words--it changes the way you view others' work and the way your work develops.
It is frustratingly difficult to try to consider poetry as thought itself and not some simulation of real thought. Platonic ideals like "thought" shouldn't be accessible by humans through any means, though Mallarme apparently felt otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe stream-of-consciousness writing that attempts to mimic legitimate thought processes is vexing to any reader (Just imagine trying to read Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake!) and can be a lot more involving than traditional narratives.
Mallarme's aim almost seems to be inviting you into his psyche to see how he considers poetry to be an extension of human thought and should be written as such. Rather intrusive, welcoming one's self into another's psyche, but if Mallarme is all right with it...
Martha, you are a braver soul than I! Your trimming down of the article into digestible nuggets of art philosophy summed up all the best of the article. Even with your admission that the article was dense, your summation was astute.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about the concept of materialism. I tend to be more idealist in everyday philosophy (a la Descarte's I think therefore I am, versus I am therefore I think) so the opposite can be daunting. But the concept is worth exploring when thinking about poetry. :)
I think that besides the difficultly of this piece you have indeed taken a fair amount of importance out of the text. THere are many concepts that seem to circulate around this text but i think that the idea of poetry expressing more than meets the eye is a valid point. I think that poetry truly is more than the words on the page, and poems do express the subconcious in many ways.
ReplyDelete