Thursday, December 31, 2015

forth with lies



Sonnet 1

If ever there is anyone who reads
These my neglected poems, don't believe
In their feigned ardors; love imagined in
Their scenes I've handled with emotions false

The Muses' inspirations high I have
Set forth with lies – no less with weasel words –
When my false sorrows sometimes I bewail
Or sometimes sing my spurious delights;

And, as in theatres, in varied style,
I now have played a woman, now a man,
As nature would instruct, and art as well.

The Selected Poems of Isabella Andreini, 2005, ed. Anne MacNeil, tr. James Wyatt Cook. Andreini (1562 – 1604) was a member of the commedia dell'arte troupe I Gelosi (1569 - 1604) so she isn't writing metaphorically when she says she's played "in theatres."




It is always tempting to arrest a form. Form is discourse's temptation. It is in taking form that discourse is developed and then becomes fixed and acknowledged.

Against Architecture: the Writings of Georges Bataille, 1992, by Denis Hollier, tr. Betsy Wing



4 comments:

  1. yes; a viable alternative to archetypes-or maybe how they are/were created originally. and...really?a link between a 16th c. artist and a modern poet? cosa incroyable!

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  2. What is the viable alternative to archetypes? Continuous discourse without "taking form"?

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    1. a form is the structure in which something takes place, conversation, poetry, social activities, wars; an endless list; the point being that human functions might have developed from very early interactions with others and with the environment, which, handed down from generation to generation, took certain predetermined styles, or appearances or accepted rationales. religion is a good example: all religions have different ritual details, but they all entail(except buddhism)the idea of a supreme being. it's difficult to imagine a religion based, say, on color changes in roses. the accepted forms are what normal human information and discourse occur within... archetypes are similar, but have moe to do with how the brain operates, at least that is my, possibly mistaken, understanding.

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    2. Thank you for explaining that. I was thinking of archetypes as forms: as units of discourse within that structure.

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