Azaeroe

Started Nadja because of that, To-To, but I never finished Nadja. The most interesting part of it was the lucid intertextuality.

Phillip Larkin and his Contemporaries

Principles of Art

Literature in Ireland

I would like to understand the return to Romanticism that occurred in England, as well as understand what exactly magic craft is, and understand the history of literature in the Irish language.

2 minutes ago, afhfbr said:

I know what techne means but the way you were using the term suggested you didn't. Heidegger has a very specific way of using it that complicates the relationship between craft and art and collapses to opposition. It's very hard to talk about it in an artistic context in the light of Heidegger without referring to his idea. What precisely is Yeats's middle period? The period around The Tower for example? I am actually a big admirer of Yeats but find it quite reductive to talk about him as though he suddenly picked up the notion of public responsibility (vague term but kind of obvious) when as a writer who was self-consciously engaged with the creation of a national identity, surely he was always engaged with public responsibility?At which stage did I say art and society are unconnected? There is obviously a link, but specifically connecting this to a half-baked idea of verse as you did (and then backtracking by spiralling it out to talking about art in general) is rather different. The question of 'high modernism' dying is much more vexed than you would think, and modernism, postmode rnism and forms that some would consider pre-modernist have overlapped and coexisted a lot too. For example, would you call Beckett a modernist or postmodernist? He started writing in the age of Joyce and ended up writing for television, and doing things that were clearly in the light of postmodernist developments, but a lot of people can see a modernist thread running throughout his work. It's nowhere near as simple as you think.

I am not talking about Heidegger here and don't know why you are bringing that philosopher in to this. Yeats had developed the idea of public responsibility, shortly before meeting with Pound in Sussex, after becoming disillusioned with his previous approaches to verse. I was always talking about art in general. This comes from my reading of Collingwood. Saying things like "It's nowhere as simple as you think." is a cop-out; tell me how complex it is, if you think you can. These terms are general, obviously.

19 minutes ago, afhfbr said:

Not sure what techne has to do with this. Heidegger dealt with teche and although a lot of people find it tricky, it's very important in defining techne in terms of art. What do you mean by Yeats' middle period? I don't get the opposition between public responsibility and aesthetic originality either, never mind public responsibility and techne. Larkin and Ashbery are both following on from modernism in many ways. I'm not sure what this has to do with the deaths of those writers, and the considerable overlap between modernism, postmodernism and romanticism is nowhere near as simple as you make out. Utter nonsense I'm afraid. How can you possibly connect verse and society? There are huge gaps between Homer and modernism that aren't filled in in this theory. Modernism and modernity don't exactly map onto one another and neither do postmodernism and postmodernity?  Half-baked reactionary ideas with nothing to support them other than the deadweight of their own jargon.

Techne means craft. Heidegger is not the only one who deals with the term. It was defined by the Greeks. It is in contrast to art, which did not exist, as a notion, until after Shakespeare. If you don't understand something about Yeats, why even bring it up? Yeats' middle period was one concerned with public responsibility in his art. Larkin was not following on from Modernism at all. He said he wanted to rescind the whole thing.

The fact you think art and society are unconnected suggests more about yourself than I. Do you really think that the ideals of High Modernism emerging and dying at the same time as idiosyncratic political surges was coincidental?

Art which possesses neither public responsibility, nor aesthetic originality, is a very humble form of art. While for much of history, the concept of art did not yet exist, it is clear that there were works of art being produced. It may even be said that art came naturally to the rhapsodes who were later collectively referred to as Homer, when (initially) composing the lyrical interludes of the Iliad, and later making the whole poem lyrical. But these works necessarily laid emphasis on the side of themselves which were τέχνη, until the event of early Romanticism, as defined by Hamann and Herder, in opposition to Kant. It was not until Yeats' middle period that the idea of a unifying system of public responsibility (τέχνη) and aesthetic originality (art) became proper. Since the deaths of Eliot, Pound, Bunting, and others, High Modernism has been reacted against, by the humble Romanticism of gentlemen like Larkin (in England), and the Post-Modernist experiments of gentlemen like Ashbery (in America). My theory is that this is both caused by and contributing to the general downfall of our society, since verse used to, and no longer does, bother to influence society, in any meaningful manner. Until this idea has been revitalised, there may as well be no art at all, considering it simply stands as a kind of cask-monolith, pretending to do what it does not itself even understand.

the searing lantern gold
manifests metallic
midst this the devils dwell
daemonic death-droids gold
with garlands made of gold

arrived at metropolis
it presents just ten teeth-droids
light laurel tied to gold "ears"
next to them tear-shed she-droids
in teeth-towns they moaned white noise
these were the snow-white witches
qur'anic verses were sung
computer-singing death-droids
and there were lip-droids lazing
and then they arrived tower-midst
here were the circus creatures
gold androids with gold dentures
which gold-shone with gold bosom
a single alloy gold curl
a maiden gold-metallic
steam-powered

3 minutes ago, Gesu said:

That's a little vague. What would you change about it?

I think the abolition of classes, for instance, is futile, but think that the abolition of classISM is possible. If people understand themselves within the context of this, and work together in the context of this, they could rebuild a substantial sense of community.

10 minutes ago, Gesu said:

You have a point about instant pleasure; I take it by that, you mean things like drugs and other inherently harmful things that provide a quick thrill? I agree that we can feel personally/communally fulfilled without resorting to such measures. Still, I am curious as to where exactly you would draw the line. What would you consider to be harmful/harmless?

The system as it currently is is what is harmful, as it does not provide anyone, personally or communally, with a genuine and fulfilling sense of selfhood. 

14 minutes ago, Gesu said:

I'm not entirely sure how long the average change in policies takes, but I'll say about a year or so as an example, which actually isn't too long in the grand scheme of things once you consider that a prime minister's term time is four IIRC. Could you explain why you don't think being contended is important, and what you would opt for instead?

If you keep changing policy, how can anything ever be truly achieved, in praxis?

Instead of instant pleasure, I would opt for a system in which people have a sense of fulfilled selfhood, personally and communally.

22 minutes ago, Gesu said:

I think that in order to reach the most widely desired definition of such a thing, we don't really have much of a choice but to talk it out for a while beforehand. It's extremely rare (and as far as I know, undocumented) that you'll find a totalitarian state with contented people living in it.

Define "a while". I don't see how this would change anything. Also, why is it important to be contented? Surely there are a plethora of different reasons to live than one's personal pleasure.

Should we not just act in praxis, toward social utopia?

wieland und die deutsche nation

deutsche geschichte

das nibelungenlied

tarr

i am still learning about germany and would like to learn more about lewis

nadja - breton

i was reading miéville, who references him

das niebelungenlied

irish myth

I would like to understand German and Irish culture.

the essential plotinus - elmer o'brien

mysticism

theoretische werk - novalis

eliade claims philosophy is superior to literature

basic writings - heidegger

too long to explain why

murr - hoffmann

i wanted to read another novel by an occultist

tarr - (wyndham) lewis

I want to read some secondary literature, pertaining to this gentleman, as well.

faerie queene - spenser

There is no particular reason for my reading of this poem.