Lyfing
06-09-2009, 12:29 AM
What is to think of poetry..??
Here we have Odin who is a god of poetry. He steals it's mead. There is Bragi, and, maybe, Aegir also, with his brews.
Joseph Campbell got me thinking about poetry with this..
A distinction must be drawn, through all our studies of mythology, between the attitudes toward divinities represented on one hand by the priest and his flock, and on the other by the creative poet, artist, or philosopher. The former tends to what I would call a positivistic reading of the imagery of his cult. Such a reading is fostered by the attitude of prayer, since in prayer it is extremely difficult to retain the balance between belief and disbelief that is proper to the contemplation of an image or idea of God. The poet, artist, and philosopher, on the other hand, being themselves fashioners of images and coiners of ideas, realize that all representation—whether in the visible matter of stone or in the mental matter of the word—is necessarily conditioned by the fallibility of the human organs. Overwhelmed by his own muse, a bad poet may imagine his visions to be supernatural facts and so fall into the posture of a prophet—whose utterances I would define as “poetry overdone,” over-interpreted; wherefore he becomes the founder of a cult and a generator of priests. But so also a gifted priest may find his super-natural beings losing body, deepening into void, changing form, even dissolving: whereupon he will possibly become either a prophet or, if more greatly favored, a creative poet.
Three major metamorphoses of the motifs and themes of our subject, therefore, have to be recognized as fundamentally differing even though fundamentally related, namely: The true poetry of the poet, the poetry overdone of the prophet, and the poetry done to the death of the priest. Whereas the history of religion is largely a record of the latter two, the history of mythology includes all three, and in doing so brings not only poetry but also religion into a fresh and healthily vivified relationship to the wellsprings of creative thought. For there is a tendency (“poetry underdone”) to rest in the whimsies of personal surprise, joy, or anguish before the realities of life in a universe poets never made; whereas in religion the opposite tendency may prevail—that of rendering no personal experience whatsoever, but only authorized cliches.
Occidental Mythology, pages 518-519
And Thomas Carlyle put it into a creative perspective with this..
Thought does not die, but only is changed. The first man that began to think in this Planet of ours, he was the beginner of all. And then the second man, and the third man;—nay, every true Thinker to this hour is a kind of Odin, teaches men his way of thought, spreads a shadow of his own likeness over sections of the History of the World.
ON HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP, AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY
Earlier today, I was thinking about the Eddas and how there was an Elder One known as the Poetic Edda and a Younger One known as the Prose Edda which was meant to be a book to teach folks poetry..!! That got me to thinking about the importance of poetry and how it can create worlds of itself.
Going with the distinctions Campbell made above there are drastically differing ways to interpret the magic of life. What he would have called the first function of mythology. There is a poetic way and a dogmatically prophetic way. We have completely rebelled from the latter in favor of the former. It was never in us anyway. Maybe that is why there are periods of our history called the Renaissance, the Reformation, and what we see these days with Heathens in full-bloom.
I got to thinking about memorizing the Poetic Edda again. That was actually the starting point of this thread. A few years ago I thought it was a good idea, and memorized Grimnismal. I chose it because of it's telling of cosmology and the happenings in Valhalla, which into I read a very heroic journey. The only hard copy I have is Hollander's translation. I was thinking of the good parts of memorizing his translation. It is one which is in favor of preserving it's wisdom in a poetic way. It's a translation though and wouldn't the Icelandic be better..?? Not if one was looking to make poetry in their own language in the same spirit. And, wouldn't it be better to make a study of the poetry itself..??
One of the things we don't have so much anymore are poets singing new songs with our gods and goddesses. Rydberg was one with the epic he saw in it. Goethe was too. And, maybe, so was Tolkein. I look forward to the days when such spirits sing again...:thumb001:
Any thoughts..??
Later,
-Lyfing
EDIT: I liken this line of thinking with Psychonaut's threads called..New Gods (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1718) and Contemporaty Heathen Iconography (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2298) and even also..Theological Consistency (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2435) they all play big factors in the realization of this our poetic potential..
Here we have Odin who is a god of poetry. He steals it's mead. There is Bragi, and, maybe, Aegir also, with his brews.
Joseph Campbell got me thinking about poetry with this..
A distinction must be drawn, through all our studies of mythology, between the attitudes toward divinities represented on one hand by the priest and his flock, and on the other by the creative poet, artist, or philosopher. The former tends to what I would call a positivistic reading of the imagery of his cult. Such a reading is fostered by the attitude of prayer, since in prayer it is extremely difficult to retain the balance between belief and disbelief that is proper to the contemplation of an image or idea of God. The poet, artist, and philosopher, on the other hand, being themselves fashioners of images and coiners of ideas, realize that all representation—whether in the visible matter of stone or in the mental matter of the word—is necessarily conditioned by the fallibility of the human organs. Overwhelmed by his own muse, a bad poet may imagine his visions to be supernatural facts and so fall into the posture of a prophet—whose utterances I would define as “poetry overdone,” over-interpreted; wherefore he becomes the founder of a cult and a generator of priests. But so also a gifted priest may find his super-natural beings losing body, deepening into void, changing form, even dissolving: whereupon he will possibly become either a prophet or, if more greatly favored, a creative poet.
Three major metamorphoses of the motifs and themes of our subject, therefore, have to be recognized as fundamentally differing even though fundamentally related, namely: The true poetry of the poet, the poetry overdone of the prophet, and the poetry done to the death of the priest. Whereas the history of religion is largely a record of the latter two, the history of mythology includes all three, and in doing so brings not only poetry but also religion into a fresh and healthily vivified relationship to the wellsprings of creative thought. For there is a tendency (“poetry underdone”) to rest in the whimsies of personal surprise, joy, or anguish before the realities of life in a universe poets never made; whereas in religion the opposite tendency may prevail—that of rendering no personal experience whatsoever, but only authorized cliches.
Occidental Mythology, pages 518-519
And Thomas Carlyle put it into a creative perspective with this..
Thought does not die, but only is changed. The first man that began to think in this Planet of ours, he was the beginner of all. And then the second man, and the third man;—nay, every true Thinker to this hour is a kind of Odin, teaches men his way of thought, spreads a shadow of his own likeness over sections of the History of the World.
ON HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP, AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY
Earlier today, I was thinking about the Eddas and how there was an Elder One known as the Poetic Edda and a Younger One known as the Prose Edda which was meant to be a book to teach folks poetry..!! That got me to thinking about the importance of poetry and how it can create worlds of itself.
Going with the distinctions Campbell made above there are drastically differing ways to interpret the magic of life. What he would have called the first function of mythology. There is a poetic way and a dogmatically prophetic way. We have completely rebelled from the latter in favor of the former. It was never in us anyway. Maybe that is why there are periods of our history called the Renaissance, the Reformation, and what we see these days with Heathens in full-bloom.
I got to thinking about memorizing the Poetic Edda again. That was actually the starting point of this thread. A few years ago I thought it was a good idea, and memorized Grimnismal. I chose it because of it's telling of cosmology and the happenings in Valhalla, which into I read a very heroic journey. The only hard copy I have is Hollander's translation. I was thinking of the good parts of memorizing his translation. It is one which is in favor of preserving it's wisdom in a poetic way. It's a translation though and wouldn't the Icelandic be better..?? Not if one was looking to make poetry in their own language in the same spirit. And, wouldn't it be better to make a study of the poetry itself..??
One of the things we don't have so much anymore are poets singing new songs with our gods and goddesses. Rydberg was one with the epic he saw in it. Goethe was too. And, maybe, so was Tolkein. I look forward to the days when such spirits sing again...:thumb001:
Any thoughts..??
Later,
-Lyfing
EDIT: I liken this line of thinking with Psychonaut's threads called..New Gods (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1718) and Contemporaty Heathen Iconography (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2298) and even also..Theological Consistency (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2435) they all play big factors in the realization of this our poetic potential..