from Humboldt's Gift
“There are a few things I have to get off my chest about Humboldt. Why should Humboldt have bothered himself so much? A poet is what he is in himself. Gertrude Stein used to distinguish between ‘a person who is an ‘entity’ and one who has an ‘identity.A significant man is an entity. Identity is what they give you socially. Your little dog recognizes you and therefore you have an identity. An entity by contrast, an impersonal power, can be a frightening thing. It's as T, S. Eliot said of William Blake. A man like Tennyson was merged into his environment or encrusted with parasitic opinion, but Blake was naked and saw man naked, and from the center of his own crystal. There was nothing of the ‘superior person’ about him, and this made him terrifying. That is an entity. An identity is easier on itself. An identity pours a drink, lights a cigarette seeks its human pleasure, and shuns rigorous conditions. The temptation to lie down is very great. Humboldt was a weakening entity. Poets have to dream, and dreaming in America is no cinch. God ‘giveth songs in the night,the Book of Job says. I've devoted lots of thought to all these questions and famous insomnia. But I think that Humboldt's insomnia testified mostly to the strength of the world, the human world and all its wonderful works. The world was interesting, really ;nteresting. The world had money, science, war, politics, anxiety, sickness perplexity. It had all the voltage. Once you had picked up the high‐voltage wire and were someone, a known name, you couldn't release yourself from the electrical current. You were transfixed. Okay, Renate, I'm summarizing: the world has power, and interest follows power. Where are the poets’ power and interest? They originate in dream states. These come because the poet is what he is in himself because a voice sounds in his soul which has a power equal to the power of societies, states, and regimes. You don't make yourself interesting through madness, eccentricity, or anything of the sort but because you have the power to cancel the world's distraction, activity, noise, and become fit to hear the essence of things. I can't tell you how terrible he looked last time I him.”
—Viking Press New York, 1975
No comments:
Post a Comment