Can music, poetry and art be true?

[Florestan]

It's not a question of scratching heads, it's a question of going deeper and deeper. It's like great music in that respect. All of these things are there -- lamp, sunset, sex. They're not incompatible, the poem contains multitudes.

Have you read Eco's Foucault's Pendulum? Therein is a mysterious, obscure document which is interpreted in two ways: either as a blueprint for the Knight Templars' future actions after the arrest of Grand Master Jacques de Molay, or as a laundry list. Both make perfect sense and are equally convincing. 

[Florestan]

I took this subject of a null sonnet reflecting itself

A-ha! Told you so, @Mandryka ! 

[Mandryka]

A-ha! Told you so, @Mandryka ! 

What did he say in French? "Null sonnet" doesn't work quite in English.

It certainly is about absence -- the poet lover has gone, the sun has gone - and the ptyx is so absent it doesn't even exist!

[Florestan]

What did he say in French?

@pjme, please quote the original French.

"Null sonnet" doesn't work quite in English.

I interpret it as a sonnet which is a purely intellectual game with words, rhymes and rhythms referring to nothing but itself. IOW, a poetic mumbo jumbo. 

[Florestan]

It certainly is about absence -- the poet lover has gone, the sun has gone - and the ptyx is so absent it doesn't even exist!

The most conspicuous absence is that of meaning. 

[Mandryka]

@Florestan Ah yes I see it now. He said ""un sonnet nul...se réfléchissant de toutes les façons", presumably a moment of modesty -- "a worthless sonnet" but anyway he's not speaking about Ses purs ongles très haut dédiant leur onyx, but rather  about the earlier La Nuit approbatrice allume les onyx

[Mandryka]

The most conspicuous absence is that of meaning. 

You remind me of someone I used to work with who fancied himself as an expert on music because he enjoyed Rossini and Haydn. He, for reasons I can't remember, went to see Die Frau Ohne Schatten and after I asked him what he thought. "Terrible," he said. "There are no tunes in it!" In my opinion Die Frau Ohne Schatten is full of tunes -- one tune after another.

Ans similarly for Ses purs ongles très haut dédiant leur onyx. It's full of meanings! I've already given you three!

[Mandryka]

Have you read Eco's Foucault's Pendulum? Therein is a mysterious, obscure document which is interpreted in two ways: either as a blueprint for the Knight Templars' future actions after the arrest of Grand Master Jacques de Molay, or as a laundry list. Both make perfect sense and are equally convincing. 

This is like the stone which Mr Pickwick finds

[Florestan]

You remind me of someone I used to work with who fancied himself as an expert on music because he enjoyed Rossini and Haydn. He, for reasons I can't remember, went to see Die Frau Ohne Schatten and after I asked him what he thought. "Terrible," he said. "There are no tunes in it!" In my opinion Die Frau Ohne Schatten is full of tunes -- one tune after another.

A man of taste, if you ask me. 

The only Richard Strauss opera I've listened to is Der Rosenkavalier and I enjoyed it greatly. Tune after tune indeed.

Ans similarly for Ses purs ongles très haut dédiant leur onyx. It's full of meanings! I've already given you three!

Meanings, yes. Meaning, no. Think about it.

[AnotherSpin]

A proper undefined answer to an undefined question.

Correct. But is an answer needed for those trapped in the concepts of the mind and unable to break free into the expanse of freedom?

And, there is always an answer, no matter how undefined the question may be. This is the power of truth.

[pjme]

pjme, please quote the original French.

Sorry, Andrei, I read this only today and Mandryka checked the French text anyhow... en effet: "un sonnet nul"...(and yet, for me, very strangely poetical in a mysteriously, wacky way)   

Anyway, I had to take care of my lampadophore while listening to Offenbach's Rheinnixen and cooking my Phenix in water of the Styx...
in my little GarnierFlammarion pocketbook "Mallarmé - Vers et Prose", i read : "Toute chose sacrée et qui veut demeurer sacrée, s'enveloppe de mystère".
However, about Vers et prose , Mallarmé claims, to "se mettre en rapport aisé avec le lettré amateur de publications courantes"...

May Christmas be as "Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui"..... 

Sinçèrement, Peter

[ritter]

...
May Christmas be as "Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui".....

...

And let's hope qu'il ne nous déchire pas avec un coup d'aile ivre........ 

Bien amicalement,

Rafael

[Mandryka]

Here's my Christmas challenge - I may have to read Huysmans first.

(pour des Esseintes)

Hyperbole ! de ma mémoire
Triomphalement ne sais-tu
Te lever, aujourd'hui grimoire
Dans un livre de fer vêtu :

Car j'installe, par la science,
L'hymne des coeurs spirituels
En l'oeuvre de ma patience,
Atlas, herbiers et rituels.

Nous promenions notre visage
(Nous fûmes deux, je le maintiens)
Sur maints charmes de paysage,
Ô soeur, y comparant les tiens.

L'ère d'autorité se trouble
Lorsque, sans nul motif, on dit
De ce midi que notre double
Inconscience approfondit

Que, sol des cent iris, son site,
Ils savent s'il a bien été,
Ne porte pas de nom que cite
L'or de la trompette d'Eté.

Oui, dans une île que l'air charge
De vue et non de visions
Toute fleur s'étalait plus large
Sans que nous en devisions.

Telles, immenses, que chacune
Ordinairement se para
D'un lucide contour, lacune
Qui des jardins la sépara.

Gloire du long désir, Idées
Tout en moi s'exaltait de voir
La famille des iridées
Surgir à ce nouveau devoir,

Mais cette soeur sensée et tendre
Ne porta son regard plus loin
Que sourire et, comme à l'entendre
J'occupe mon antique soin.

Oh ! sache l'Esprit de litige,
A cette heure où nous nous taisons,
Que de lis multiples la tige
Grandissait trop pour nos raisons

Et non comme pleure la rive,
Quand son jeu monotone ment
A vouloir que l'ampleur arrive
Parmi mon jeune étonnement

D'ouïr tout le ciel et la carte
Sans fin attestés sur mes pas,
Par le flot même qui s'écarte,
Que ce pays n'exista pas.

L'enfant abdique son extase
Et docte déjà par chemins
Elle dit le mot : Anastase !
Né pour d'éternels parchemins,

Avant qu'un sépulcre ne rie
Sous aucun climat, son aïeul,
De porter ce nom : Pulchérie!
Caché par le trop grand glaïeul.

Just learned the word glaïeul . Unfortunately it makes me think of Dame Edna