T.S. Smeliot

Personally I found Eliot a huge relief; the romantics were starting to cause my brain to cloud up with all this discussion of the world beyond our own and reaching divinity through poetry. Eliot’s perspective puts humanity back on the ground for me. Here are a few of my favorite passages:

” No poet, no artist, of any art, has his complete meaning alone.  His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.”

I don’t think there’s anything dangerous in imitating our favorite artists, poets, etc; to “stand on the shoulders of giants” and let their genius guide us in a way to find our own. Further, I really liked this sentence, “…and suggested the conception of poetry as a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written.”

I don’t know if I buy the idea that art takes us closer to the divine, because that makes some people in a sense “better” than others because they can create this catalyst or more in tune with their art to reach the divine. Instead I think creating art should be seen as an act of worship or a recognition of humanity, not a recognition that certain artists are moere than human.

one last note in emerson

“This is the reason why bards love wine, mead, narcotics, coffee, tea, opinum, the fumes of sandalwood and tobacco, or whatever other procurers of animal exhilaration…the spirit of the world, the great calm presece fo the Creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine…so the poet’s habit of living should be set on a key so low that the ocmmon influences should delight in him” (733-744).

I’m wondering what everyone thinks about the topic of drug use to enhance creative ability. A friend and I had a recent conversation about how certain drugs cause parts of the brain to function that normally are never used.  Then we discussed whether or not this temporary opening aids or harms the creative mind; whether or not the breif moments of “enlightenment” are worth the long-term,  irreversible damage to the brain that these drugs cause.  Emerson clearly thinks that these external additives are a false and cheating way to find creativity. The true poet operates with  a clear and perfectly clean mind.  I think that some people use drugs to find that clearness in a loud and busy world. What would Emerson think of Jimi Hendrix’ live performance at Monterey, where he is reputadley on acid? What do you think of it? See below, and enjoy.

Emerson “The Poet”

Here are few quotes & my comments/questions:

 pg. 724 “But the highest minds of the world have never ceased to explore the double meaning, or shall I say the quadruple…of every sensuous fact”

pg. 725 “The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.”
pg. 278 “Since everything in nature answers to a moral power, if any phenomenon remains brute and dark it is because the corresponding faculty in the observer is not yet active.”

pg. 735 “The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative men.”

To Emerson, poets and writers are those that are ordained to illustrated the world to everyone else, to give name and label to all things material and immaterial that otherwise would be unknown and uncomprehended.  He believes that all people have the desire to express what is within, but not necessarily through art or writing, and those compelled to the arts are the artists and poets. For some reasons these certain people want to be the namers and labelers, want to find the quadruple meanings in words and connotations.  I would argue against Emerson that the existence of things doesn’t rest quite so heavily on human understanding of it, yet maybe the opposite, that our existence depends on the discovery of our surroundings that have been there all along.

As far as his take on religion, Emerson could be right, and he could be wrong. I think many religious thinkers would argue that something well beyond their imaginations inspire them and couldn’t begin to take full credit for the religions they follow.

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