The ancient quarrel continues:

Are poetry and philosophy inseparable or irreconcilable?

26 February 2003

intoduction by: Micah Stover

Plato:

*poetry is a product of emotions and born of divine inspiration; thus at odds with rationality

*poetry is the third remove from the Truth; poetry as imitation (mimesis)/ Republic X: {the Form} 1) our recollection of the form; 2) the made thing; 3) the artists rendition

*poetry is not a skill (techne) which can be learned or from which we can learn

Aristotle:

*philosophy acts judiciously in relation to poets/poetry

*poetry is a skill (techne) which can be learned with rules comprehensible by reason

*poetry is imitation (mimesis), but useful rather than destructive

*poetry does appeal to the emotions; catharsis

Nietzsche:

*denunciation of Forms; the focus of the ancient quarrel is no longer a moral one, but one pertaining to human existence

*poetry/art as necessity

*Apollonian/Dionysian

Questions & Quotations:

“….a new language which in turn expresses the very inseparability of intellect and emotion. After all emotional experiences are expressed in intellectual correlatives, and the intellect interprets the emotional event!”….Richard Exner.

“Here when the danger to his will is greatest, art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live” Nietzsche (Birth of Tragedy)

”The sphere of poetry does not lie outside the world of fantastic impossibility spawned by a poet’s brain: it desires just the opposite, the unvarnished expression of the truth…” Nietzsche (Birth of Tragedy)

“For a genuine poet, metaphor is not a rhetorical figure but a vicarious image that he beholds in place of a concept. A character is formed out of particular traits, picked up here and there, but an obstrusively alive person before his very eyes, distinguished from the other wise identical vision of a painter only by the fact that it continually goes on living and acting” Nietzsche (Birth of Tragedy)

1) Can we really separate intellect from emotion?

2) What is the benefit of isolating reason from emotion? What is the detriment?

3) Must something be articulated to be agreed that is learned?

4) If poetry/art are not philosophical, then what are they??