Re: How Did CAS Work?
Posted by:
calonlan (IP Logged)
Date: 13 October, 2009 10:19AM
The rhythym you describe is, I believe very close to the pregnant heartbeat, mixed with the fetal -- if you were nursed by your mother, and in my day (though not myself) nursing to age 5 was common, I believe that body rhythums inhere -- some of my own earliest games with words (not to dignify it with the hallowed name) are of similar structure - I have pondered this matter before but not seen anyone else pose the subject - it is rare for a child not to fall into the "roses are red..."silliness.
Very interenting indeed. Clark was very sensitive to the rhythms of nature and life - while he studied previous writers intensely, and greatlly admired the Spenserian Stanza (though I don't recall his attempting it), he was keenly aware of the onomotopoetic "itch" all poets feel.
On one occasion, we were discussing various ideas on the Nature of divine, in that context, and I pronounced the Hebrew tetragram, commonly spelled JHVH going backwards from the Hebrew, as Yah-huh-veh, and Clark immediately said, "that's thunder!" - That comment set me on a course of thought which after all these years is yet convinced that he was right - the earliest names of many of the ancient deities is a representation of what is often "his voice" - the sound of thunder - "he speaks on the mountain" -- One of the things I have admired about Clark's work has been that, while using the rich Latinized vocabulary of the 19th century often, he nevertheless seemed able to retain the essential rhythms of ENGLISH - by that I mean, anglo-saxon power - "beornas gearwe an stefan stigan...", Hopkins -"brute beauty and act, or air, pride, plume, here buckle...", Thomas - "brandy and ripe in my bright base prime... CAS, - "The sunset gonfalons are furled..." or, "...where time shall have none other pendulum that the remembered pulsings of thy heart." The pulse, plus the elegance - remarkable.