> I wrote the dissertation partly to apply a
> neo-Foucaldian heuristics to the interrogation of
> archaeo-semantic issues around the
> crypto-etymology of CAS's onomatopoesis of tropes
> like "Zothique", "Naat" and "Voum".

I know what all of those words mean separately, but I'll be hog-tied if I can figure out what the hell they mean when strung together like that, i.e., I can't parse your gobbledygook of a sentence, and I sincerely doubt you can either. Humor me.. Just as an exercise, try to translate that into English; bet you can't... And just in case you think I'm not intimately familiar with post-whatever pseudoscholarly obscurantist wordplay, my M.A. thesis was entitled "The Technoculture of Cyberpunk Science Fiction and its Publics: A Grounded Theory Analysis" (see I even included a colon!!!).

> You won't have got that far (and who can blame you?), so I would
> be interested to see your explanation for these forms.

Short answer: CAS made them up. They sounded wicked cool, so he used them in stories as names of, you know, like people and places.

> I'm hoping you, by contrast, will dazzle me with a
> brief but substantive display of scholarly
> pyrotechnics.

I yield the floor to more patient detractors :-).

Well, the problem is that, in the works of Smith, a predominant concept is the distinction between closing and opening. It could be said that Lyotard uses the term "neocultural theory" to denote not discourse as such, but subdiscourse. Smith's antimaterialism consistently subverts, even deconstructs, posttextual Marxism; in "The Double Shadow", however, he reiterates dialectic deappropriation. If one examines textual postcultural theory, one is faced with a choice: Either reject social realism, or conclude that art is a convenient fiction. The feminine/masculine distinction intrinsic to Smith's work is also evident in a more deconstructivist sense.

In any case, if subdialectic libertarianism holds, then works of Smith are postmodern. Recall in this (de)context that Foucault uses the term "social realism" to denote a self-falsifying totality.

The primary theme of the works of Smith is fatalism and loss, and thus the dialectic of subconstructive sexual identity. Further, Debord suggests the use of subdialectic libertarianism to read and attack society. Therefore, we see that the main theme of "The Isle of the Torturers" is an analysis of textual postcultural theory as mythopoetical paradox.

Several narratives concerning the rubicon/aporia, and some would say the collapse, of neocapitalist reality may also be found. It could be said that von Junz holds that we have to choose between subdialectic libertarianism and Foucaultist power relations, even in, say, Naat.

It took you 5 days to come up with a riposte to my 'blog" suggestion? I suppose the "slow, careful thinker" has a place in the hierarchies of intellect, but perhaps you're merely plodding. But I was serious about the blog--not that you would listen to anything not of your own voice, and not that anyone here would read it, but it would relieve us of your periodic infestations of puerile gibberish.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 17 Jul 12 | 08:17PM by Gill Avila.

Gill Avila Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It took you 5 days to come up with a riposte to my
> 'blog" suggestion?

And I needed every spare moment of those five days, too. At least, you can think that if you want.

> I suppose the "slow, careful
> thinker" has a place in the hierarchies of
> intellect, but perhaps you're merely plodding.

Your desire for instant gratification confirms my previous diagnosis. But good to see you kept off your usual theme.

> But I was serious about the blog--not that you
> would listen to anything not of your own voice,
> and not that anyone here would read it, but it
> would relieve us of your periodic infestations of
> puerile gibberish.

Some advice, Absquatch: if you ever discover a creative bone in your body, have it removed immediately, before it triggers some horrific immunological response. After that, find out who or what was responsible for its suddenly appearing there and make sure it never happens again (emphadded).

Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, the problem is that, in the works of Smith,
> a predominant concept is the distinction between
> closing and opening. It could be said that Lyotard
> uses the term "neocultural theory" to denote not
> discourse as such, but subdiscourse. Smith's
> antimaterialism consistently subverts, even
> deconstructs, posttextual Marxism; in "The Double
> Shadow", however, he reiterates dialectic
> deappropriation. If one examines textual
> postcultural theory, one is faced with a choice:
> Either reject social realism, or conclude that art
> is a convenient fiction. The feminine/masculine
> distinction intrinsic to Smith's work is also
> evident in a more deconstructivist sense.
>
> In any case, if subdialectic libertarianism holds,
> then works of Smith are postmodern. Recall in this
> (de)context that Foucault uses the term "social
> realism" to denote a self-falsifying totality.
>
> The primary theme of the works of Smith is
> fatalism and loss, and thus the dialectic of
> subconstructive sexual identity. Further, Debord
> suggests the use of subdialectic libertarianism to
> read and attack society. Therefore, we see that
> the main theme of "The Isle of the Torturers" is
> an analysis of textual postcultural theory as
> mythopoetical paradox.
>
> Several narratives concerning the rubicon/aporia,
> and some would say the collapse, of neocapitalist
> reality may also be found. It could be said that
> von Junz holds that we have to choose between
> subdialectic libertarianism and Foucaultist power
> relations, even in, say, Naat.

© Postmodern Essay Generator

Radovarl, let me put it like this. Whenever I've interrogated onto-algebraic issues around the epistemic status of post-modernism and its co-fraternal/co-sororal ideosystematologies, I've always reached the same conclusion:

po-mo < 0

If you ever meet anyone who has a lower opinion of the modern humanities than I do, congratulate yourself, because you will have defeated long odds. My "optimal" "deployment" of Foucault, Derrida, Freud et al is no "deployment" of Foucault, Derrida, Freud et al at all. The title, quote, and abstract that begin the essay are jokes: the philosophaster Stephen Trombley, who thought Kristeva deserved a place in his Short History of Western Thought, is not someone I quote in earnest.

In other words, there is no po-mo or anything similar in the essay itself. Any obfuscatory obscurity or narcissistic nihilipilification is entirely mine, not Lacan's, Derrida's, Kristeva's, et al 's. This is why I said I thought I might have inadvertently "Purloined" the essay, i.e., (spoiler alert) made it look like something it was not, à la D----'s "concealment in plain view" of a stolen letter in Poe's "The Purloined Letter". If I have little to say, as Canolan claims, I don't attempt to hide it behind a smokescreen of jargon.

Radovarl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> > I wrote the dissertation partly to apply a
> > neo-Foucaldian heuristics to the interrogation
> of
> > archaeo-semantic issues around the
> > crypto-etymology of CAS's onomatopoesis of
> tropes
> > like "Zothique", "Naat" and "Voum".
>
> I know what all of those words mean separately,
> but I'll be hog-tied if I can figure out what the
> hell they mean when strung together like that,
> i.e., I can't parse your gobbledygook of a
> sentence, and I sincerely doubt you can either.
> Humor me.. Just as an exercise, try to translate
> that into English; bet you can't...

Bet what? I took many redundant syllables to say: "I wrote the essay partly to look at how CAS may have drawn on ancient sources (or instincts) to invent names like Zothique, Naat and Voum". That is what po-mo'ers do: wrap up simple (or fatuous) things in pseudo-profundity. The suggestions in the essay may be right or wrong, but they are not obscurantist.

Parsing it: "Neo-Foucaldian" is a joke (as well as a typo). The rest is accurate but inflated. A "heuristics" seeks to discover something. "Interrogation" is the pretentious po-moism for "investigation" or "analysis". "Archaeo-semantic issues" refers to the roots of meaning in older languages. "Crypto-etymology" refers to the hidden processes by which a writer invents names. "Onomatopoesis" is literally "name-making". "Trope" is the pretentious po-moism for word, image, symbol, etc.

> > You won't have got that far (and who can blame
> you?), so I would
> > be interested to see your explanation for these
> forms.
>
> Short answer: CAS made them up. They sounded
> wicked cool, so he used them in stories as names
> of, you know, like people and places.

What's so cool about "Naat" or "Voum", set against "Zothique" or "Namirrha"? My neo-Foucauldian heuristics supplies an answer to that.

Quote:

Some advice, Absquatch: if you ever discover a creative bone in your body, have it removed immediately, before it triggers some horrific immunological response. After that, find out who or what was responsible for its suddenly appearing there and make sure it never happens again (emphadded).

As a musician and composer with several CDs to his credit, and a published poem, I have already survived the dire forecast you inaccurately predict, but many thanks for your kind advice and concern.

As for my use of the PoMo generator, you managed to miss my point almost as spectacularly as I suspected you would. All of which is another way of saying, look up the meaning of the word projection, some time, and then consider taking your own advice.

By the way, recall that I initially praised your effort as a good joke, and am sorry to see you spoil it with your sniffy defensiveness. When you make up your mind about whether we we are supposed to take you seriously or not, please check in again. When you do, you might also want to address the point that your parvum opus should have been submitted for inclusion in the "Criticism" section of the site, where it can be easily ignored, rather than dropped like birdlime into the discussion forum.

So, to summarize (based on what you claim to have been doing): The PoMo parodies were well done and amusing. The "serious" criticism was trivial, overlong, poorly argued and developed, and generally dull. And the entire exercise--especially your replies--has not even been slightly "interesting from a psychological point of view".



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 24 Jul 12 | 07:51PM by Absquatch.

P.S. re. Post-Modernism.

Central to our little essayist's self-defense is the assertion that his piece is relatively jargon free (the parodic bits aside), and therefore is not Post-Modernist in style or structure. This superficial and tendentious reading is understandable, but unsustainable. Post-Modernist "argumentation" actually has many stylistic features beyond mere pretentious and impenetrable jargon. Among them are:

1. Failure to engage in direct, substantive argumentation in favor of an endless series of allusions, digressions, and hand-waving;

2. Deployment of free associated anecdotes;

3. Pointless punning and wordplay;

4. The crossing of disciplinary boundaries for no apparent reason in an attempt to create the illusion of mastery of a body of information, all the while remaining hopelessly superficial in analysis, and hoping that rapid changes of topic will mask unsupported assertions and gross distortions of others' perspectives and arguments.

The careful, or even not-so-careful, reader of the piece that launched this thread will easily see one or more of these aspects of Post-Modern style in it.

Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Some advice, Absquatch: if you ever discover a
> > creative bone in your body, have it removed
> > immediately, before it triggers some horrific
> > immunological response. After that, find out who
> > or what was responsible for its suddenly appearing
> > there and make sure it never happens again
> > (emphadded).
>
> As a musician and composer with several CDs to his
> credit, and a published poem, I have already
> survived the dire forecast you inaccurately
> predict, but many thanks for your kind advice and
> concern.

You need to improve your return of serve. That's not the kind of creativity I was talking about (as you might expect on a forum like this). Music vs language is a v. interesting topic. I touch briefly on it in the essay:

Quote:

Music isn’t indirect: when you listen to it, the experience is immediate, not mediated by words or images. Music is a world of its own, not an invocation of another world like a painting or a text. Literature is, indeed, the least self-contained of the arts. The essence of language is to invoke something other than itself: that is what language is for.

I don't know of many musical greats who have contributed great things to the world beyond music. But literary greats have regularly been great in other fields, or vice versa, precisely because language isn't self-contained like music. Musicians don't have to have much understanding of anything beyond music; great writers (or critics) have to understand lots beyond the strictly literary or linguistic, precisely because etc. I think what CAS achieves in his best stories (or even worst) is far more creative and profound than any music. Which is not to dismiss or disrespect music (or elevate CAS): aesthetically and emotionally it is of huge importance to Hom sap, including me. I just think language is a more complex and interesting phenomenon (and evolutionarily, neurologically and algorithmically related to music anyway).

Poetry is akin to music. Dickens and, say, Wordsworth are both literary giants, but Dickens is far more creative and profound in what he creates. Which is not to dismiss or disrespect poetry: aesthetically and emotionally etc. I just think prose etc.

> As for my use of the PoMo generator, you managed
> to miss my point almost as spectacularly as I
> suspected you would. All of which is another way
> of saying, look up the meaning of the word
> projection, some time, and then consider
> taking your own advice.

Until I see some literary creativity from you, I will stand by my response to your point. I'm quite familiar with projection, thanks. And why do I need to follow my own advice? You accept yourself I have at least one creative literary bone in my body: "The PoMo parodies were well done and amusing..."

> By the way, recall that I initially praised
> your effort as a good joke, and am sorry to
> see you spoil it with your sniffy defensiveness.

Well, I made a mild joke about psychologically interesting responses and you didn't just compare the essay to a Lacanian void, you did so emphaddically. Not so much painting the lily as envenoming the poison dart. The defensiveness, and the projection, seem to be yours.

> So, to summarize (based on what you claim to have
> been doing): The PoMo parodies were well done and
> amusing. The "serious" criticism was trivial,
> overlong, poorly argued and developed, and
> generally dull.

If it's "over-long", it's partly because of my desire not to be po-mo: I wanted to be as clear and comprehensible as I could be. Otherwise, you say and do not show.

> And the entire
> exercise--especially your replies--has not even
> been slightly "interesting from a psychological
> point of view".

Again, work on that return of serve. Of course I'm not psychologically interesting to you. My psychology is an ant-farm, at best. Yours is a zoo! Your finding my psychology interesting would be rather like Al Capone reading Tom Sawyer for tips on outwitting authority or Namirrha taking lessons in malice from a wasp.

You know, Absquatch, I sometimes encounter an interlocutor on the net who makes me wonder whether I've acquired a split personality and created a sock-puppet with my new personality so my old one can have easy victories. Here I go wondering it again. If you are me, I'd like to congratulate me2 on the verisimilitude of my2 creation, e.g. on the cunningly banal screen-name I2 chose to throw myself1 off the scent. You/I2 accuse me1 of sniffy defensiveness, projection, dullness, etc. And here you are, or I2 am, posting two consecutive responses to my1 sniffy defensiveness. The terms "amour-propre" and "wounded" come to mind, for some reason. Or a cunning simulation of the same.

Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> P.S. re. Post-Modernism.
>
> Central to our little essayist's self-defense is
> the assertion that his piece is relatively jargon
> free (the parodic bits aside),

"Little essayist". Cruel, but not as effective as it could be. You/I2 sniff but don't show. When I1 addressed another of my1 detractors as "Li'l Gill", I1 pointed out why the detractor deserved the label. And the piece is not "relatively" jargon-free -- it's entirely jargon-free.

> and therefore is
> not Post-Modernist in style or structure. This
> superficial and tendentious reading is
> understandable, but unsustainable. Post-Modernist
> "argumentation" actually has many stylistic
> features beyond mere pretentious and impenetrable
> jargon. Among them are:

Among them are these things:

Quote:

Any obfuscatory obscurity or narcissistic nihilipilification is entirely mine, not Lacan's, Derrida's, Kristeva's, et al's.

I got there before you, and with some of the word-play you appear to be, or are pretending to be, incapable of. Some of po-mo's "stylistic features" have existed for millennia. I claim to have avoided the characteristically post-modern, not the characteristically postlapsarian. You say I failed to avoid those much older scholarly vices. You never once produce an example. And your logic is risible: you're like someone trying to argue Plato was a Marxist because Platonism and Marxism have "stylistic features" in common. Yes, they do. Look up "anachronism".

> 1. Failure to engage in direct, substantive
> argumentation in favor of an endless series of
> allusions, digressions, and hand-waving;

Produce an example. I claim, for example, that Zothique is French + Greek and produce substantive etymological evidence in support. I claim that the simple-seeming Voum is perfect as the name of a river. And produce substantive etymological evidence in support:

Quote:

First examine “Voum”. The names of real rivers and mountains are often very old and worn-down, because rivers and mountains are long-lasting and obvious features of a landscape. Their names often pass from conquered to conquerers, and sometimes more than once. Many rivers in Anglo-Saxon England have Celtic names, like Avon, Severn, and Thames, but some are believed to be pre-Celtic, like Colne, Ouse, and Wey. CAS’s river-name, Voum, looks ancient and worn-down in just the right, riverine way.[17]

This isn't mathematics. There is no proof. But my suggestions are at least CASean in spirit. I've noticed that people who are interested in literature are often not interested in language. Perhaps you're one of them. I'm interested in both and I think there is something very CASean about a simple name like "Colne" or "Wey" representing an entire, long-vanished race. I also like the way "York" represents the worn-down remnant of Celtic Eburakon, “stand of yew trees” (see note 17). If you're not interested in language and etymology, things like that won't move you, but they certainly moved CAS and they certainly move me.

> 2. Deployment of free associated anecdotes;

Again, produce an example.

> 3. Pointless punning and wordplay;

All puns are pointless to the humourless and puritanical, or those pretending to be so. I think the only point they need is that they're entertaining. But e.g. "Power of Babel" is more than simply an attempt to entertain: it's a memorable way of encapsulating the way foreign languages have influenced and enriched the writing of CAS, among many others.

> 4. The crossing of disciplinary boundaries for no
> apparent reason in an attempt to create the
> illusion of mastery of a body of information,

I'm not a "master" of any body of knowledge (a better term), but I've demonstrated more knowledge of, say, etymology than you've shown so far.

> all the while remaining hopelessly superficial in
> analysis,

You're being far too kind to po-mo: see the Sokal affair. The analysis is often entirely nugatory, not merely superficial. If you think my "deployment" of etymology is superficial, please show how. I can't see any any way to be more "profound" about the possible influences on CAS's creation of a name like Zothique. You could, I suppose, claim some kind of supernatural origin, à la Aiwass and the Liber Legis, but that's not profounder in any proper sense, though it might be more awe-inspiring.

> and hoping that rapid changes of topic
> will mask unsupported assertions and gross
> distortions of others' perspectives and
> arguments.

Again, produce examples. Like Canolan, you say and don't show. E.g., let's see your explanation for the way CAS chose to create simple-seeming names like Voum and Naat beside complex ones like Zothique and Namirrha. If you can't produce an explanation, show how mine is inadequate.

> The careful, or even not-so-careful, reader of the
> piece that launched this thread will easily see
> one or more of these aspects of Post-Modern style
> in it.

If they're so easy to see, produce some examples. You're happy to play the detractor at some length and throw terms like "illusion" and "superficial", but haven't produced a single concrete example of what you claim to see.

Since you've already declared victory and decided that you're talking to yourself, there's not much left to add, except for a couple of points directly from Echo to Narcissus:

1. Has it occurred to you that perhaps the reason why I and others haven't gone to great length to discuss your misplaced essay with you is because we feel it simply isn't important, interesting, or worth our time? (Parenthetical: I actually find language in general, and nuances, etymology, etc. fascinating--and that's precisely why I found your own efforts so uninteresting).

2. It isn't up to others to prove a negative; it's up to the proponent of a proposition to demonstrate why what he says is of significance. The clear consensus here is that your posted essay isn't. What else need be said?

Finally, here's some advice for you from Byron (sorry I couldn't find a quotation from a novelist for you, maybe Thackeray or Zola, since they are infinitely more profound and creative in your eyes than poets):

Quote:

[I]n this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of resistance before he goes into the arena.

Now, signing off.


P.S. For all your (too loudly) self-proclaimed language interest and knowledge, I doubt you have even the slightest idea of the actual derivation of my screen name.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2 Aug 12 | 07:35PM by Absquatch.

Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Since you've already declared victory and decided that
> you're talking to yourself

No, I've wondered it, not decided it. I've also wondered not so much whether English is your mother-tongue as whether you had a mother rather than a manufacturer. But I think the banal truth is that you're just not very bright: not magisterial mega-mind, but munchkin Mencken manqué. If I were you or Calonlan or Li'l Gill, I'd leave it at that. But I like to show as well as say. Here's my claim about poetry and prose:

Quote:

Poetry is akin to music. Dickens and, say, Wordsworth are both literary giants, but Dickens is far more creative and profound in what he creates. Which is not to dismiss or disrespect poetry: aesthetically and emotionally it is hugely important to Hom sap, including me. I just think prose is a more complex and interesting phenomenon (and evolutionarily, neurologically and algorithmically related to poetry anyway).

Here's your response:

Quote:

Finally, here's some advice for you from Byron (sorry I couldn't find a quotation from a novelist for you, maybe Thackeray or Zola, since they are infinitely more profound and creative in your eyes than poets):
Quote:
In this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of resistance before he goes into the arena.

I'm sure your study of literature has been much more profound than mine, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but that advice looks a lot like prose to me. Your fascination with language, nuance, etc apparently didn't help you to understand the difference between "poetry" and "poets". To sneer at my claim and then quote Byron's prose at me is not what I'd have done, in your place. Or rather, it IS what I'd have done. See why I start to wonder about sock-puppets? As I said, your grasp of logic is risible. N.B. This is not to say one can't find poetry that makes the same point. It's not a particularly profound one, after all.

BTW, A.E. Housman is another poet who wrote significant prose. His poetry has been dismissed by some as "adolescent", "fake", "dangerously thin", etc. His prose has never attracted the same labels and never will. Housman's formidable intellect is much more easily discernible in his prose. His heart, on the other hand, is rarely discernible there at all. One Hom sap, two quite distinct forms of literary activity. See above for what I say about poetry vs prose. And see below for some literary creativity at Housman's expense:

What still alive at twenty-two,
A clean, upstanding chap like you?
Sure, if your throat 'tis hard to slit,
Slit your girl's, and swing for it.

Like enough, you won't be glad,
When they come to hang you, lad:
But bacon's not the only thing
That's cured by hanging from a string.

So, when the spilt ink of the night
Spreads o'er the blotting-pad of light,
Lads whose job is still to do
Shall whet their knives, and think of you.

Hugh Kingsmill.

I don't think anyone could ever mock Housman the scholar so effectively.

See how one says AND shows? You ought to try it some time, though perhaps it's a case of "Those who can, do; those who can't, snipe."

> since they [novelists] are infinitely more profound and creative
> in your eyes than poets

Again, the distinction between "prose" and "prose-writers" seems to have escaped you. The "infinitely" is either clumsily sarcastic or dishonest, but I'd hate to see you change your spots at this late stage of our interlocution. And your fascination with language etc again failed to help you understand what I meant by "profound". The Iliad and Odyssey are poems composed in a pre-alphabetic oral tradition. And I hope you're not surprised to learn that I think they are very profound and important works of art -- arguably the most important in European literature. But I still think they are less complex and interesting than the prose that followed them at a more advanced, i.e. post-alphabetic, stage of culture. And I mean the prose both as a strictly linguistic phenomenon and for its semantics (e.g. Euclid, Aristotle).

> Has it occurred to you that perhaps the reason why I and
> others haven't gone to great length to discuss your
> misplaced essay with you is because we feel it simply isn't
> important, interesting, or worth our time?

You and Calonlan have both dismissed the essay. Fine. So I invited you to address CAS's creation of simple-seeming names like Voum with complex names like Zothique. If, as you claim, you're fascinated by language, why no interest in CAS's onomastics? The question doesn't become unworthy simply because a little essayist like me has raised it. But my unworthiness is, I suspect, not the issue.

> It isn't up to others to prove a negative

Yes, but it can be effective as polemic.

> As a musician and composer with several CDs to his
> credit, and a published poem, I have already
> survived the dire forecast you inaccurately
> predict, but many thanks for your kind advice and
> concern.

I didn't predict a forecast: I made one. And if you've survived a forecast of doom, it was indeed inaccurate. So, for weary de haut en bas dismissal, I'd suggest "...I have already survived your dire forecast, but..." would have been more effective. Like your return of serve, your grasp of nuance and logic is in dire need of improvement. Or rather: the former is weak precisely because of your deficiencies in the latter.

> I actually find language in general, and nuances, etymology,
> etc. fascinating--

Glad to hear it. However, though you may indeed be fascinated by language, nuance, etymology, etc, whether you're intellectually equipped for them is another matter.

> --and that's precisely why I found your own efforts so uninteresting.

So you say. I have other explanations. See above for some of them. The rest I will leave as an exercise for the psychologically interested reader.

> P.S. For all your (too loudly) self-proclaimed language interest
> and knowledge, I doubt you have even the slightest idea of the
> actual derivation of my screen name.

No, no, Absquatch: you proclaim; I prove. See above. Reading comprehension:

Quote:

I'm not a "master" of any body of knowledge (a better term), but I've demonstrated more knowledge of, say, etymology than you've shown so far.

That isn't a loud proclamation of expertise. In fact, as the essay suggested to you, I am an inter-disciplinary butterfly (Styxygos narcissoides), flitting from bloom to epistemic bloom and dipping my proboscis to my own satisfaction, if no-one else's. But I'm sure that, from whatever profound well of "information" you drew your nom de guerre for this little arena, it represents your powers of intellect, creation and nuance entirely as they deserve.

Have pity!

Central to your little munchkin Mencken manqué 's snipe-and-sneer has been the unsubstantiated assertion that my deeply profound, and profoundly deep, ideas are "trivial". His reaction to my comments on prose and poetry was entirely typical. I was, of course, greatly hurt and upset (and not for the first time), but I think it is worth raising this interesting and important topic in a thread of its own, even if the response is a chorus of crickets or further sniping-and-sneering. Some inter-disciplinary flit-and-sip, then:

Poetry vs prose is rather like music vs language: it could be called emotion vs meaning, or emotion vs information. As an art, poetry lies somewhere between music and prose: somewhere on a continuum between, say, Arvo Pärt and James Joyce. The art of the former has very little "meaning"; the art of the latter has, some would say, rather too much meaning. Pärt offers little scope for commentary and anotation; Joyce offers unending scope ("keeping the critics busy for three hundred years").

One crude but effective test of the meaning or information in a text is its "filmability". Novels, plays and stories are often turned into films; poems rarely are, because poems generally do not have much information in them. (Music accompanies, and heightens, film rather than inspiring it.) It is easy to imagine CAS's stories being turned into films, but not his poems. OTOH, poems (or scenes within plays) have often been the basis of paintings, i.e. static single frames. And if one were seeking to learn a text of CAS's by heart, one of his poems would be far easier -- and far more rewarding -- than one of his stories.

Other examples and ideas to consider:

Literacy vs the oral.

The instinctive and unbidden nature of poetry.

The Muse.

Poetry's ability to say multum in parvo. But is there a law of diminishing returns?

The antiquity of the Odyssey and Rig Veda.

Poet is an ancient and honorable word (poeta in Latin: cf. propheta or German Dichter). There's no simple single equivalent for prose.

CAS regarded himself primarily as a poet. The world generally sees him as a prose-writer.

Compare Shakespeare, Poe, Lovecraft, Howard, Joyce, Chesterton, Wilde, Housman, Crowley, et al in their roles as poets and prose-writers, playwrights, etc. (Wilde is particularly interesting: he wrote some very good prose and some nigh-on McGonagallic poetry.)

Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" vs Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Wordsworth's "Daffodils" vs Tolstoy's War and Peace, or Darwin's Origin of Species.

Darwin's Origin of Species vs Erasmus Darwin's "Zoonomia", or the evolutionary speculation in De Rerum Natura.

Interrelated fields like neurology, information theory, mnemonics, etc all bear on the above, but I am "master" of none and do not claim otherwise.

N.B. These are generalizations, suggestions, flits-and-sips, etc, and I am NOT seeking to extol any art over another. They have different roles and different strengths and weaknesses. But the topic IS of particular relevance to CAS and perhaps, then, to those interested in CAS.

This one has had its day, feel free to continue on any other forum you like (there are millions).

I'm sure there's no need to ask that no further threads In the same vein be opened.