The idea of genius, odd notes from Danny Langton’s class

3/7/2000 The word genius did not exist during Shakespeare’s time. It is a modern concept. The idea of genius, that people who are divinely blessed, was an anathema to 30 centuries of art. It is the death of art. It puts artists on a pedestal. We know nothing about Shakespeare, other than a meager handful of facts. In France they paint what they feel; in England they paint what they see; in Russia they paint what they hear. Or is it what they fear? Literature is an accretion of culture, literature collects barnacles. As in Nora Barnacle? We do not speak through language, it speaks through us. The subject is dissolved. The symptoms count, not the theory. The US is the only country to have slaves and expound freedom. At one time horses were necessary, but invisible. What am I doing invisibly that will be insensible 30 years from now? I write music the way a cow pisses said Mozart. When the railroad came, we had to shape time to fit a standard. No one can agree what metaphor is. The poorest way to read Finnigan’s Wake is in decipherment mode. Our imagination participates in poetry. Poetry is a special mode of discourse with a foreseen end. Poet as maker. As truth sayers. As liars. Poets can think literally, and are in touch with a primitive part of the brain. they have pictures in their heads long before they have the words for it. Poets shape moral reality into a moral world, said Picasso. And so we lie and lie and lie until you see the truth.


A poem should surprise and delight the senses. Listening to a craft lecture by Danny Langton was like falling down the rabbit hole into the creation of one of his poems. I was easily sidetracked. I guess these could be considered found poems of sorts.

Poetry and art, odd notes from Danny Langton’s class

3/7/2000 If poetry is a relationship between the subject and the poem, what is criticism? Did you get it right? A preoccupation with something in artistic puts poets on the defensive. Aristotle objected, although poems are imitations, that is, mimicry, it’s more than just history. However, if poetry is imitation, then what is it? A lie?A tiger is easier to grasp than a star. I miss the children I never had, especially the dumb one, said Aristotle. Cicero replied, the poet does not imitate nature. Stendhal interjected, a novel is a mirror riding along the highway. So, where does that put Baudelaire’s mirror of art. If art is the imitation of nature, then the primary way of looking at art is through nature. A syllogism. Is the goal of art truth? Is truth beauty? Art is about power. Literature has become an image rather than a meeting of the influence of art and thought.

Journal entry, 2/9/2000, Dan Langton notes

Utile dulce. Learning should be useful and sweet. What came first, the big bang, or the big tear theory? The stars are older than the universe. Then there’s the theory of inevitability. It will never happen because it’s never happened before. it’s inevitable. On 2 July in 1776, women could vote. Then they couldn’t. Then 29 years later when women could finally vote again, it was defeated. What goes around comes around again. Did you know that we share 90% of our genes with primates? And we also share 60% of our genes with bananas. The theory of commonality, literature is an artificial language which deals with ordinary circumstances. metaphor in literature. Metaphor is for what ails you, Metaphor: to diagnose. Symbols go from material to immaterial. Writers see symbols as obscure defeats, connects to an image with an idea or conception. Our emotional investment in symbology. It’s chalk on a chalkboard. A mark. Symbols gain strength with associative value.

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Literary ancestors, odd notes from Danny Langton’s class

2/15/2000 Literary ancestors. Words, in English, are losing their positive meanings. Shirts were worn by men and women of questionable character. Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi: I entreat thee not to leave me… Wherever thou goest, I will go… Ruth was someone with extremely desirable characteristics. And we all know the meaning of ruthlessness. History tells you what happened. Poetry tells you what ought to have happened. So said Herodotus. Only ten people in the world understand Ulysses. So said Crane. English soaks up other languages. Arabic words: zero, zenith, mattress, sherbet, paradise, alcohol, sugar, assassin, hashish. And Sputnik means fellow traveler. French babies are trained on mild cheese to sharp. Writing is like that.