“The poet takes us straight into the presence of things. Not by explanation, but by indication”
The Usurpation Of Language (1910)
Context: The poet takes us straight into the presence of things. Not by explanation, but by indication; not by exhausting its qualities, but by suggesting its value he gives us the object, raising it from the mire where it lies trodden by the concepts of the understanding, freeing it from the entanglements of all that “the intellect perceives as if constituting its essence.” Thus exhibited, the object itself becomes the meeting-ground of the ages, a centre where millions of minds can enter together into possession of the common secret. It is true that language is here the instrument with which the fetters of language are broken. Words are the shifting detritus of the ages; and as glass is made out of the sand, so the poet makes windows for the soul out of the very substance by which it has been blinded and oppressed. In all great poetry there is a kind of “kenosis” of the understanding, a self-emptying of the tongue. Here language points away from itself to something greater than itself.
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L. P. Jacks 26
British educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister 1860–1955Related quotes
On Dramatic Poetry (1758)
Undated
Source: Published in the Divine Times, March 1978, page 5
Apocalypse Descending (2002)
Context: I have to say (regretfully) that I've seen very little in my real life to indicate the presence of either the supernatural or the divine.
As for apocalypse, I was imprinted at an early age with the idea of The End of the World (this also courtesy of the Catholic Church). I can remember being terrified of thunderstorms — I'd think, Uh oh, THIS IS IT. I was born in 1957, and grew up in the metropolitan New York area with the Cold War as a backdrop. In kindergarten and first and second grade we had constant air raid drills, sirens going off and that whole "Duck 'n Cover" drill when you cower under your desk or else hide in the classroom cloak closet, waiting for the Atomic Bomb to drop. I had nightmares about that well into my twenties. For a while in the 1970s I lived near a fire station in D. C., and when the fire sirens would go off at night I'd wake up terrified — again — that THIS WAS IT.
Of course it never was, but it was good practice at being scared and thinking about scary stuff.
“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass