Poetry

"The dramatic monologue, as perfected by Robert Browning in the Victorian era, represents not merely a literary genre but a distinct philosophical event; a suspension of historical time wherein the speaking subject is caught in a perpetual state of "inoperativity," revealing the fissures between intent and execution, spirit and matter, theology and desire"...This study uses Agamben's tropes and John Caputo's understanding of a weak God to interrogate Browning's 'The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church'. Since this essay is (...) mainly for students; there is provided a glossary of key terms; sudden veerings into Maslow and Lacan. This has been done to provide as much information as is possible within one essay without a candidate having to refer to multiple sources if she has to take her exams at short notice. But the central argument is based primarily on Agamen's works. (shrink)

There is a novel which presents a general scheme for the development of a poet but this paper presents a problem for it. The problem is: can a believer in the scheme both account for the universality of some poets and the association it makes between poetry and revolutions?

From an observation by the poet Paul Valéry, I argue that rhyme schemes, while constraining, also enable the poet to achieve autonomy from various surrounding influences, such as the domestic and the political. The demand to keep to the rhyme scheme takes priority, reducing the likelihood of these dominating.

On October 10th 2024, a two-line poem of mine was selected for publication on Haikuniverse. They publish a brief poem everyday, normally three lines long. But I feel they have not beaten mine yet. However, a few minutes ago I saw a poem there and changed a single word, or misperceived it actually ("Hey, what is going there?" What a surprise, to be chased by you, for economic irrationality), and the altered poem is better, in my eyes at least. The (...) poem is by Kathleen (Kat) Mulvihill. And these are its lines, with "/" signalling a line break (press enter in your word processor): "Solitary grain/ Seep into my oyster bed/ And father my pearl". I changed the opening line to "Solitary gain", if you have not already noticed this from my title. We speak (or write) of solitary gain in the context of elections, when a single seat in parliament has been gained by a party compared to the previous election: there was the solitary gain of one seat. Also we speak or write of solitary gain, in a different sense I assume, when describing a selfish character: he is motivated only by solitary gain. My altered version of the poem will appear paradoxical to some people, maybe to all competent users of English: "Assume solitary gain is an apt description of a person who is not the poem's narrator; it will no longer be should the narrator's wish or instruction be fulfilled." Philosophers: you can devise solutions. (shrink)

My philosophico-poetical system is a highly unlikely creation, given the tradition of philosophy I was educated in and the country I live in and a lot else probably. I would like to say that it is totally my own, but actually it has at its foundation Paul Valéry’s claim, “To write regular verses… destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and unexpected thoughts.” From this, I infer an objection to (...) Locke on language, an objection to specialization, an explanation of how the poet can escape his (or her etc.) time, and an argument for the translatability of true poetry. (I have added an appendix which specifies some extensions to my system: on the unpredictability of the philosophical poet, against Freudian interpretation of rhyming poetry, and on the value of univocalic poetry.). (shrink)

In his 1968 poetry collection „Fadensonnen“, Paul Celan offers a hermetic blend of existentialism and mysticism, which is unusual in two respects. Firstly, the European philosophy of existence, especially with its proponents Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Martin Heidegger, had gone to great lengths to criticize and delegitimize the Abrahametic religions, for the concept of god seemed to be an obstacle to humanity in pursuit of its own humanization. Secondly, in the aftermath of the holocaust, the idea of man wanting (...) to merge with a god that had not prevented this cruelty from happening had lost much of its plausibility. Despite these two objections, Celan's poems address the struggle of togetherness in a world that negates the mere possibility of otherness, trying to salvage the unique identity and dignity of the other. With this in mind, the modus operandi of his poems is that of a butcher: Whatever has previously been alive – before the Shoah – now has to be stripped bare of its layers of individual and collective history, has to become less than body and flesh. In this way, the poems' inherent pain and misery transform the reader into a nobody, for only a nobody has got the prerequisites to encounter other people unbiasedly in their unique wholeness. Within this space of encounter, only the reminiscence of body and sexuality exists, commemorating the other, so that radical corporeality seems to be the prerequisite for togetherness. In this ahistorical sphere there is no room for a god that permitted the holocaust, redefining mysticism as the connection between men instead of one between man and god. Celan's poems act as a catalyst, for they exclude god from the spheres of man, making poetry a memorial site to the dead and the ones living in pain. This way, the poems are trying to save Eros (in the sense of creaturely love) from being mutilated by the crimes of European history while at the same time aiming at rehabilitating mankind in a post-holocaust world. (shrink)

Earlier semioses (implicating at least sometimes political forces to establish a sign) enabled by anonymous intentions permeate later semioses and shape the structure of language. The same way earlier neuroses shape the epistemically embattled structure of unconscious.---Contingent but primordial relations of power semiotically implicated, on both sides of inter-translation of distant languages, so effectively permeate language and literature that there is ever an ineradicable textual residue in the translation reminiscent of the political contexts.---Every belated text a corollary to the primordial (...) proof of establishment of precursor texts. (shrink)

Poetry, it is said, can reveal truth. Yet despite the best efforts of philosophers and poets to describe this truth, very few understand what kinds of truth poetry can convey.* One fact seems clear: only a few of the truths of poetry can be captured equally well in prose. Poetry also conveys truths of a different kind — truths that seem to exist on a level entirely different level from that of ordinary, factual truth. Some poems try to teach moral (...) or practical lessons that also could be stated in prose.* But this is not the kind of truth that puzzles philosophers and critics. Poetry also can tell another kind of truth — a truth that may be mystifying to scholars, but that is well known to anyone who becomes acquainted with poetry in an intimate way. This kind of truth cannot be spoken of or contemplated on the same terms as ordinary fact. What is the nature of this strange, yet familiar kind of knowledge that poetry can bring to the human mind? (shrink)

These Principles establish the general foundations for the analysis of poetic works from the perspective of the Philosophy of Reality. Their purpose is to define the object of a philosophically grounded analysis of a poem, to establish the principal categories of such analysis, to reveal the internal structure of a poetic work, and to determine the grounds for concluding the degree of its artistic validity. The analysis of a poetic work must not be reduced either to a retelling of the (...) text, to the communication of an impression, or to arbitrary interpretation. It must proceed from an understanding of the poem as an artistic reality internally organized through the unity and reciprocal transition of its objective and subjective sides. The object of analysis is the poetic work itself as an internally organized artistic whole. These Principles do not treat as the object of analysis the presumed state of the reader, the psychological effect of perception, or the force of the text’s impact upon the perceiving consciousness. (shrink)

A retelling of Plato's famous cave allegory. Inspired by Dōgen, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.

In this essay, after a brief decolonial analysis of the concept of “poetry” in Indigenous communities, I will investigate the poetic-philosophical implications of Cherokee culture, more specifically the poetic essence of the Cherokee language, the poetic aspects of Cherokee myth (pre-history) and post-myth (history), and the poetic-philosophical powers of Cherokee ritual. My first section analyzes the poetic essence, structure, special features, and historical context of the Cherokee language, drawing on Ruth Holmes and Betty Sharp Smith’s language textbook, Beginning Cherokee. My (...) second section considers poetic aspects of the pre-history and history of the Cherokee Nation considered as a text, using Robert J. Conley’s The Cherokee Nation: A History. And my third section investigates the poetic nature of the Cherokee rituals’ myth-ontological background and its existential psychological implications, via J. T. Garrett & Michael Tlanusta Garrett’s The Cherokee Full Circle: A Practical Guide to Ceremonies and Traditions. Collectively, these analyses will suggest that, just as the Cherokee and other tribes are the slandered, disenfranchised, suppressed and covered-over Indigenous peoples of the North American continent, so poetry writ large (including Indigenous philosophy) is the slandered, disenfranchised, suppressed and covered-over arche of western philosophy (as I have previously explored via a new interpretation of Nietzsche). In short, I will argue that both poetry and Cherokee culture can be understood as indigenous “absences” which are in truth vital and enduring presences. (shrink)

Lee A. McBride III urges us to analyze the epistemological boundaries and intervening logics that ensnare us in this order of things and breach them. This powerful and eye-opening approach takes its impetus from Leonard Harris's philosophy born of struggle. -/- By connecting different philosophical perspectives, McBride offers fresh ways to think about philosophies of struggle. He helps us to size up and challenge those existing epistemological systems that reinforce and reproduce oppression; he proffers a tenable pragmatic naturalized epistemology from (...) which one can make assertive fallibilist claims; he helps us to reenvision our bonds and ties to other beings and the land; he describes the role of immersive affective experiences, poetry, and Dionysian poiesis (making) in leaving the existing systems of knowledge. Each foray develops a way of (re)imagining our ways of being and the norms and structures within which we live. They allow McBride to draw out conceptual and imaginative tools that may assist us in creative rebelliousness, in leaving and shaping a future beyond the asylum walls. -/- Beautifully written, McBride's book extends the insurrectionist philosophical project in an important direction, expanding the conception of how and where insurrection needs to happen. (shrink)

Mendelssohn and Cavell both use Shakespeare’s Othello to motivate and illustrate their thoughts about skepticism. This striking parallel, philosophically unexplored thus far, receives its first in-depth treatment in this paper. It delineates their differences and commonalities in thinking about skepticism and human self-alienation. It also brings out their joint metaphilosophical vision in opposition to a current trend. That trend casts traditional philosophical problems as artificial or unreal, and thus as avoidable. A prime example, particularly on debates about truth and skepticism, (...) is Rortyian ironism: it proposes to move beyond such debates and towards an “ironic” outlook that privileges literature over philosophy in finding the right “vocabulary” no longer beset by skeptical doubts. Mendelssohn and Cavell conversely insist on the pervasiveness of skepticism and philosophical problems in the everyday: they see us human beings as always vulnerable to skeptical worries that render us alien unto ourselves. What is more, both agree that literature serves to bring out rather than escape these pervasive problems. The upshot of the paper is a better understanding of this Mendelssohnian-Cavellian parallel, and of the stakes of skepticism as dependent on our human vulnerability to self-alienation. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the potential of writing and performing poetry to empower young people from marginalized backgrounds to participate in the political life of their communities. Our method combines philosophical analysis with the design and implementation of a poetry workshop in Coventry. Drawing on Cavell’s notion of ‘acknowledgement’, we begin with a philosophical account of the pedagogy that informed the workshop’s design. We then explore how this account informed implementation of the workshop. Finally, we present the results. To (...) unpack the significance of our findings, we examine two poems performed by young people at the project’s concluding event. On empirical and philosophical grounds, we argue that writing and performing poetry can play a role in political education, for it opens space for what we call ‘the acknowledgment of voice.’. (shrink)

«So too the words of this dense book arrange themselves into sudden and unexpected forms—lines, filaments, verses drawn by an invisible attractor, a pivotal voice which, in motion, draws everything to itself: ideas, fragments of memory, sensations and captured desires, fixed in the very instant of their dispersal; thoughts calling to one another, flows of impressions—at last, a living voice crossing the light thickness and the roughness of the world, making the experience of dwelling within it, in the affirmation of (...) habience (poem I).» [From the preface by Carlos Poças Falcão]. (shrink)

This paper examines the complex relationship between metaphysics, poetry, and mathematics through Heidegger’s reading of Plato. Plato’s dialogues reveal a deep ambivalence toward poetry: he recognizes its divine origin but condemns its irrationality. Heidegger challenges traditional readings of Plato to critique philosophy’s concealment of Being. Poetry remains tied to nature’s unpredictability, while mathematics becomes a self-grounding access to the Forms. This shift marks the rise of a metaphysics of technicity, which suppresses the chthonic nature of poetry in favor of rational (...) control and abstraction. (shrink)

Psychology poetry can transform a person and help us see what we already feel. Through verse, we can explore the Self. Art allows us to express deep feelings that remain unspoken, especially the ones related to the abysmal foundation of our being. There is science backing all this, but the best argument to use poems comes always from within.

Can a ruthlessly amoral villain embody the height of philosophical authenticity? This paper investigates the existential dialogue between Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing in the xianxia epic Reverend Insanity, presenting a radical reinterpretation of Heideggerian ontology within a brutal fantasy realm. While Bai Ning Bing is initially paralyzed by the terror of finitude, Fang Yuan embodies a chillingly perfect Being-towards-death, transforming the acceptance of mortality into a weapon of absolute freedom. By dissecting their collision, this study reveals how Fang (...) Yuan's 'Uncanny Trajectory' (Unheimlich) serves not as a rejection of meaning, but as the ultimate assertion of Dasein's autonomy against the 'They' (das Man). It challenges the reader to witness how a conversation on a snowy peak can dismantle the fear of death and ignite the terrifying pursuit of one's own True Self. (shrink)

Schlegel’s philosophical thought is characterized by opposition to the thought of Fichte. Schlegel constructs an anti-foundationalist philosophy against Fichte’s foundationalist philosophy which claims to reach inevitable conclusions from a first principle. He develops a conception of philosophy that has no definite starting point and no absolute first principle. In this approach, each principle supports and validates the others. Much like poetry, philosophy starts from the middle. Schlegel argues that the principles are not one but many and that they mutually establish (...) themselves in interaction. He emphasizes that everything, including all principles, is in a constant state of change and transformation. This highlights the awareness of the impossibility of ultimately reaching the Absolute. The Absolute will shape all our efforts, even though it will never be attainable. Nevertheless, the effort to reach the Absolute will not be abandoned and philosophy, which acquires a literary/poetic character, will become the center of this effort. Schlegel's use of literary forms can thus be seen as a challenge. Aiming to erode the ways of philosophizing of his contemporaries, notably Fichte, Schlegel intends to establish a philosophy that gives life the respect it deserves. This new kind of philosophy will not remain a purely intellectual activity, but will be the central element in the effort to transform life and restore its lost enchantment. (shrink)

This essay follows how three different texts (one prose, and two poems) each reflect the narrative arc of St. Paul's struggle with sin and his overcoming of it. It begins by following a parallel between the experience of Paul's conversion in the biblical book of Acts with the anagnorisis of Charlotte Bronte's protagonist, Jane Eyre. I compare how both literary agents wrestle with inner conflicts and arrive to a united conclusion that where humankind fails, God always represents the solution. Following (...) this, in light of analysing Paul's religious experience, I turn to Seamus Heaney's poem 'Miracle.' In this, the effect of sin, interpreted as death and suffering is underscored in the same way that Paul underscores it in his letters. Finally, I conclude by deepening an understanding of Paul's anthropology in analysing Edwin Muir's poem, 'Adam's Dream.'. (shrink)

This essay explores the relationship between philosophy and the tradition and metaphors used by the poets and storytellers and its potential in the future. ‘Cherry blossoms’ is a stand-in term for ‘being’ that was once used by Richard Rorty to describe Heidegger’s project and reframing of the entire ontotheological tradition.

Ingmar Bergman: el arquitecto de las sombras humanas, el poeta del silencio y la luz, y uno de los más grandes visionarios del séptimo arte de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Su cine hace de lo narrativo un todo viviente, un espacio de introspección existencial, donde cada encuadre y cada diálogo son una meditación sobre los abismos del alma, la fragilidad de las relaciones humanas y la búsqueda incesante de sentido en un universo indiferente. Con una paleta visual de (...) sombríos contrastes y una gramática que oscila entre lo íntimo y lo metafísico, Bergman transforma la pantalla en un espejo cruel y bello que reflecta la contradicción de la condición humana. A los trece años, caminaba por las aulas de una escuela privada en Estocolmo, pero su verdadero aprendizaje era otro: una sombra, un silencio, un eco perdido entre las palabras. La investigación realizada propone un análisis ontológico de la matriz ética de la producción cinematográfica del guionista y director de teatro y cine sueco. El cine de Bergman representa uno de los mejores ejemplos de lo que se denomina “cine de autor”. Poseedor de un estilo único y desgarrador, Bergman se aferró a los oficios de la representación con toda la vehemencia de un investigador radical de los asuntos de la vida y de la Muerte. Se inserta en una corriente de cine intimista que utiliza los elementos de la nueva imagen-cine y resalta en primer plano, por un lado, la constitución de la subjetividad de los diferentes sí mismos que conforman los personajes, como, por otro, un intento por expresar el tránsito del devenir subjetivo hacia la otra orilla (la Muerte), la relación con el Gran Otro (los otros y Dios), y en hacer visible lo invisible mediante la escenificación de los diferentes mecanismos que rigen las conductas humanas, tanto con la intimidad del sí mismo, como con la exterioridad. (shrink)