Ueber naive und sentimentalistische Dichtung (was: RE: airships and mellow technologies and fictiona

[Mark Kohut]

Dear Kai,

Thanks. 

Yes, too many years have gone by and I did not fact-check. I thought
I had the right author...

Great quote from it regarding satire vs. the articulated ideal.....'not necessary'
as some on the p-list affirm.  

Glad you also think TRP is a "sentimentalistischer Dichter". But I do worry about
pushing too hard for meanings while trying to 'touch bottom' with all the meanings we can find.

Mark


----- Original Message ----
From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>; monte.davis at verizon.net
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 9:52:31 AM
Subject: Ueber naive und sentimentalistische Dichtung (was: RE: airships and mellow technologies and fictiona


 
      Hi Mark,
 
      actually the essay was written not by Lessing but by Schiller, so it's perhaps not "famous-enough" ...
 
      See "Über naive und sentimentalistische Dichtung" [1795/6], in Friedrich Schiller: Sämtliche Werke V
      (Fricke/Göpfert edition), pp. 694-780.
 
       "In satire reality as non-perfection gets opposed to the ideal as the highest reality. It's by the way 
       not necessary that the ideal in itself becomes articulated, if only the writer is able to evoke it in the
       reader's mind; but this is most definitely a must, otherwise s/he will not reach poetic results at all".
       (p. 722, own translation)
 
       Thought of Pynchon when I read these sentences again. Not so sure about AtD regarding 'poetic 
       results', though. I'd agree with you that its author can be called a 'sentimentalistischer Dichter' in
       the sense of Schiller. 
 
       Greetings, Kai   

       

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 17:48:03 -0800
From: markekohut at yahoo.com
Subject: Re: airships and mellow technologies and fictional ideas (silly ramblings, really)
To: monte.davis at verizon.net
CC: pynchon-l at waste.org



There is a famous-enough essay by Lessing about artists/writers called
 
On the Naive and Sentimental (or close to that)....
 
He writes of the range of artists from one end, the naive  who have a "vision', feel it, embody it and cannot
very easily articulate it, or even describe where it came from within them........much of the great Shakespeare
may be seen this way, maybe Homer, maybe Chaucer, for examples.....and many others.
 
The Sentimental, meaning closer to very self-conscious, artists are very aware of their vision, can articulate it
and describe where it came from. Dante, Milton, Henry James, for examples and many others..
 
I think TRP is at the extreme of the latter and does know his vision. I, with all the help I can get, am trying 
to understand it fully not reduce it, I hope. It all connects. The vision all connects, if with purposely 'rough' edges, is my
working hypothesis. 
 
I do not know the above answer either but there are other circumstantial uses of a vision of basic human 'terror', I think. 
We've found some. I think TRP does work such 'existential' basics into his vision. This is what makes that whole pampas
paragraph--and others--so subtle, so semingly bottomless....every phrase then word opens into more possible human meanings as
you showed with "unregulated wilderness' and as we've all shown in many ways. maybe, anyway. 
 
What I want to suggest, from my back burner, to tie in with your vision of his vision is: as in the Wittgenstein line: 
what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence; as in TRPs way of having an overt metaphor/symbol, such
as V.....yes, he is surely wanting it to mean more than any one or even couple-three things, he wants to point at more
than any 'bourgeoisly literal' meaning all over the place, which we know. I want to follow his pointing words to their bottomless end, so to 
speak.
 
Which is why the open pampas section is SO F'IN' RICH with overlayed and connected meanings, maybe?
 
MK


----- Original Message ----
From: Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2007 8:16:50 PM
Subject: RE: airships and mellow technologies and fictional ideas (silly ramblings, really)


Mark Kohut sez:
 
 >  is this 'existential' terror--this pampas openness--- something we just have to live with in TRPs  vision? 
 
   Damfino. Nor do I insist that he know. It's a vision, not a theory or philosophy or platform, despite our valiant efforts to bonsai it.

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