Comments on: Vast Eternity II

By: Mary Meriam

Mary Meriam — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:32:21 +0000

Surely, Harriet has a separate room in her mansion for Henry Gould to continue his extraordinary historical work on the tragically ignored subject of the Hysterical State? So many more years to go… we’re only in 730 B.C. Bring us up to date, Henry!!!!!!!!! Give Henry a chance, Harriet!!!!!!!!
The particulars of this earth-shaking event have been unaccountably downplayed in the standard historicism of that era, and our own; in fact, I believe the only extensive historical study on the Grand Fenwick Expulsion, as it has come to be known, was published by an obscure scholarly press in the Netherlands in 1963 (T’Hooven Van Dinghen Puhoobliceties) by the late Ernst von Studebaker, titled “The Fenwick Expulsion : an Historical Study of an Hysterical State”.

By: Doodle

Doodle — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:29:21 +0000

2008 OMG!!!

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:36:08 +0000

More essential (& sadly neglected) Fenwickiana :
This is a transcript of a ripped manuscript tipped from a blimp over Luxembourg, on October 31,1970, and picked up by a milkmaid (on her paper route) named Genevieve De Longheboots. Genevieve (being a Girl Scout) promptly delivered the material to Sir Charles (”Dutch”) Van Sluyve, the curator of the Luxembourg Ripped Manuscript Museum at that time, who in turn (as he was a Boy Scout) sent it by Special DeLuxembourg Courier to the Duchy (of Grand Fenwick). Which is why I am able to present it for you here today. The ms. appears to be a partial timeline of Fenwickian literary history for the last 3000 years.
B.C.
1014 Huggicka writes first lyric poem (carved into a chunk of Fenwick Limestone) – now considered a bit of her juvenilia – titled “My Love is Like a Red, Red Chunk of Limestone”.
1014 (a few days later) Officer Togg, assisted by the villagers, performs first recorded “dichter-sloshtigen”, upon – you guessed it – Huggicka.
1014 (same day) Huggicka smashes limestone poem.
1014 (later) Togg apologizes to Huggicka, weeping. Villagers stunned. Togg reveals astonishing fact : Huggicka had written the poem for TOGG.
1015 Huggicka marries Togg.
1022 Huggicka proclaimed Poet Laureate of Grand Fenwick.
742 Steen T’Vistenblatt, early Fenwick historian, writes biography of Huggicka.
741 The Literary Society of Grand Fenwick, an informal group of old fogies, young fogies, and some fogies, organizes historical re-enactment of Huggicka dichter-sloshtingen, which is broken up by the police.
735 F.O.G.F.C. (Fraternal Order of Grend Fenwick Constabulary) submits request to Duke Jan-Jan for permission to dichter-slosh recalcitrant poets as necessary. Request granted by Duke (with proviso that the Duke’s own writings will remain exempt in and for perpetuity and superfluity).
730 Ghost of Huggicka is seen in several locales throughout G.F.
To be continued !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: John Gallaher

John Gallaher — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:09:20 +0000

What I like best about this little on/off switch from Levine is that Levine has been one of the best “Poetry World”-savy poets we’ve had. The most profitable stance for the capital P poet to take is the Poetry Eternal stance, and then to say something snarky about The New Yorker. Very well-done. Nice!

By: Mary Meriam

Mary Meriam — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:30:37 +0000

Henry wrote: I will have more to say about this matter in future postings, I am certain…
I certainly hope so, Henry, as I myself, and several of my closest friends and relatives, have been in the dichter-sploshtinghen boat and we would appreciate learning more about these important, and apparently woefully suppressed, hysterical considerations.

By: Don Share

Don Share — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:52:41 +0000

Me, I’m post-liberal!
Seriously, I wonder whether Socrates wouldn’t find a video game closer to the work of a cobbler than to those ostensibly dangerous poets.
I won’t belabor any of this – not being a philosopher by any means, as you can tell.

By: john

john — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:49:34 +0000

I’m with Michael in seeing video games and poetry as part of a continuum of commodified representation rather than as oppositions (junk v. art), even if, as with Homer, the original poetic production did not occur in a commodified context. (No aesthetic judgment implied in this observation — I prefer Homer too.)
As for Homer’s possible harmfulness — how art affects people is unpredictable. I will say that I was taken aback when, at the same time that ethnic cleansing and rape camps in the region formerly known as Yugoslavia were all in the news, the New Yorker published a piece by a middle-aged upper-middle-class (or upper-class) professional man who went back to school to read The Iliad and found revenge warfare, and the taking of war-prize concubines, quaintly anachronistic.

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:45:24 +0000

Whenever we talk about poery, thought, and representation, it’s extremely vital, as Foucalt once put it so memorably, to “re-read the story”. In this sense I think it is also vitally important to note some of the real historical echoes and parallels to the theoretical-philosophical set of fictional Laws proposed in Plato’s works. I am referring here, of course, to the specific legislation enacted in 1952, and ratified by the Duke, which imposed a sentence of banishment on all practicing peots in the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. The particulars of this earth-shaking event have been unaccountably downplayed in the standard historicism of that era, and our own; in fact, I believe the only extensive historical study on the Grand Fenwick Expulsion, as it has come to be known, was published by an obscure scholarly press in the Netherlands in 1963 (T’Hooven Van Dinghen Puhoobliceties) by the late Ernst von Studebaker, titled “The Fenwick Expulsion : an Historical Study of an Hysterical State”.
The question simply imposes itself : why Grand Fenwick? Why 1952? Why the poets, for crying out loud? We are only at the very preliminary octagons regarding a solution to these chronological-philoligco-sophical cruxes; but one leading line of inquiry involves the local constabulary in the rural regions of G.F. during the early part of the last 700 years, where, apparently, a longstanding tradition of dichter-sploshtinghen, translated roughly as “poet-dunking”, has been veritably underway for perhaps millennia (at least since before tha last Ice Age in Europe, anyway).
I will have more to say about this matter in future postings, I am certain : but for the time being I leave you with this thought : If Socrates was a human being, and you were human being, and Socrates was in Grand Fenwick, and the Duke of Grand Fenwick was a human being, and the Law of Grand Fenwick had a thing about poets…. ?????????

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:18:41 +0000

I’m saying we all “know” Homer isn’t harmful, but we haven’t come to terms with Socrates’ challenges to representation that, if we took them seriously, would cause us to examine what we know, & perhaps to admit we don’t know as much as we think. I’m not at all sure reading Homer can’t be harmful in certain ways. But I believe that the reading of Homer should be encouraged. Reconciling these views leads to considerations of representation tout court, ones that I think Plato meant us to take up. While video games & poetry are not equivalent, the questions they raise about artistic value & the possible harm inherent in art make them, I think, closer forms of representation than we’d like to admit. I don’t believe, for instance, that video games can be dismissed as “commodified corruptions” (as much as I’d like to so dismiss them), & I don’t believe poetry escapes the circuit of commodity & corruption. I also think that we are all liberals now — have internalized liberal values — whether we like it or not (& I don’t).

By: Don Share

Don Share — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:06:01 +0000

Why confuse these things, then? If we all know reading Homer isn’t harmful, then we dispense effectively with Socrates’ point about poetry. If Socrates’ challenges and questions make poetry and the likes of Grand Theft Auto equivalent, then out the poets must go.
If I were a liberal, I’d argue that poetry might counterbalance, in some measure, the likes of video games and other commodified corruptions. It’s surely more reasonable to challenge the latter than the former, unless you are Socrates.