1.02.2003

Still here, what a gabby day for me even!

On the discussion of "ear" underway:

Read an interesting book on Chretien de Troyes recently by Roger Dragonetti (Vie de la lettre au Moyen Age). Plays on the undertones (puns etc) created by sounds of individual letters; links it to the ornamentality of medieval illuminated books (the elaborate filigree around initial letters, & so on).

Poetry inherently double, incestuous (sound+sense). How would we characterize the conscious artifice, the contriving, of this doubleness? The embodiments of sound - ie. the "actual" presence of the poet in the physiognomy of the sounded words.

The "ear" senses a kinship. Kinship not granted lightly (since perhaps we have this subconscious sense of the actual presence of a speaker); so the most acute hearing would recognize mere imitation, mere mellifluousness, for what it is. Journey-work, not communication.

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