6/23/10

Unrelated interlude

Hi! Here's a passage from Breton's Surrealist Manifesto:
If in a cluster of grapes there are no two alike, why do you want me to describe this grape by the other, by all the others . . . ? Our brains are dulled by the incurable mania of wanting to make the unknown known, classifiable . . . It is pointless to add that experience itself has found itself increasingly circumscribed. It paces back and forth in a cage from which it is more and more difficult to make it emerge . . . Forbidden is any kind of search for truth that is not in conformance with accepted practices . . .
Groovy. 
Here's Rilke's "The Panther"
His gaze is so wearied from the bars 
Passing by, that it can hold no more. 
It’s as if a thousand bars were given him: 
And behind the thousand bars, no world.

The soft pace of his powerful, supple stride, 
That draws him round in tightened circles, 
Is like the dance of force about a centre, 
In which a greater will stands paralysed.

Only, at times, the curtain of his pupils 
Silently rises – Then an image enters, 
Rushes through his tense, arrested limbs, 
And echoing, inside his heart, is gone.
Yesterday evening, I wasted a lot of time reading many, many translations of that poem. Most were bad.

img credit

4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous24/6/10 09:31

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Had to delete some more Chinese spam comments. According to googletrans, it said: "Hey, nice blog you yeah ~ ~ just want you to say hi ! !"

    ReplyDelete
  4. That IS a nice blog you yeah, Jason.

    That Rilke poem sounds like a typical day working the satellite concession stand at the Topeka Zoo during my high school summers.

    ReplyDelete

eXTReMe Tracker