Sunday 19 May 2002

I found my commonplaces file from my Rutgers days, finally. I am still shaping it up. It was initially done by hand, but then I used Golive Cyberstudio to give me the page justifications; I took that out later, but after a couple of times editing with it I left it in. It hasn’t been updated since I was at Schering-Plough, but I’ll add some other stuff later. I’ll post it presently. 4:34:28 PM    comment [] Roger Kimball on Lichtenberg and aphorisms: G. C. Lichtenberg: a “spy on humanity” Lichtenberg was the faculty of menschenbeobachterisch—human observing—made flesh. The fruit of that passion was a collection of aphorisms united not by theme or tone but by a sensibility that was at once generous and disabused. As a literary form, aphorisms have the liability of their strength. Aphorisms are insights shorn of supporting ratiocination. Sometimes they are arrived at in an instant, in a sudden illumination; sometimes, as Lichtenberg’s draftings and redraftings of the same phrase or idea reveals, they are arrived at through a process of intellectual and rhetorical honing. Bertrand Russell reports that when he told Wittgenstein that he should not simply state what he thought was true but should provide arguments, Wittgenstein replied that arguments spoil the beauty of insights and that “he would feel as if he was dirtying a flower with muddy hands.” Just so, aphorisms are the blossoms of thought. They may depend on stalk and soil, but their beauty is independent of those prerequisites. Whether arrived at instantly or through patient refinement, the defining characteristic of the successful aphorism is what we might call its suddenness. Some good aphorisms are obvious truths stated neatly. “You can make a good living from soothsaying [vom Wahrsagen] but not from truthsaying [vom Wahrheit-sagen].” The best are truths that only seem obvious after they have been stated neatly. (They inspire the thought: “Now why didn’t I think of that?”) Many aphorisms have an enigmatic or double-sided character: they cut both ways and depend upon some essential ambiguity or equivocation for their power, their poetry. Whether they are true often seems secondary or beside the point: they are piquant, they feel revelatory and thought-provoking, and that is enough. “The roof tile,” Lichtenberg says, “may know many things the chimney doesn”t know.” I would hate to part with that mot. But is it true? It would take an intrepid man to say. [By way of The New Criterion online] Note: Kimball does not end with that note. But why should poetry be equated with equivocation and ambiguity? Granted, ambiguity is used in poetry for a great deal of power, but it is not the only tool of language that poetry espouses. (Who wrote that ambiguity book?) 1:24:46 PM    comment []

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