Are human beings antithetical in nature? Is there a radical difference between pleasure, efficiency, and moral good, or is the conflict only imaginary? These have traditionally been considered the central questions of Plato's most vivid dialogue, the Protagoras. Many interpreters have seen this dialogue as a confrontation between the moralist and the relativist . This dichotomy is manifest when Plato and Protagoras discuss theoretical questions concerning either knowledge of facts or knowledge of values. Through a careful examination of the text, (...) specifically of practical questions about values, Oded Balaban breaks with tradition by concluding that Plato and Protagoras do not exemplify characteristic moralism or relativism at all. He finds that the issue at the crux of the discussion is instead that of the criterion for knowledge and valuation; the Protagoras thus describes the search for a standard by which anything may be known and valued. Balaban applies the fundamental question of standards to that of the entire field of rhetoric: Should a discourse be short or long, simple or complex? What is the standard for conducting literary criticism? The author's revolutionary approach to the Protagoras also involves a study of the myth of Protagoras and situates the dialogue within its framework. (shrink)

For most of the vast span of human history, economic growth was all but nonexistent. Then, about two centuries ago, some nations began to emerge from this epoch of economic stagnation, experiencing sustained economic growth that led to significant increases in standards of living and profoundly altered the level and distribution of wealth, population, education, and health across the globe. The question ever since has been--why? This is the first book to put forward a unified theory of economic growth (...) that accounts for the entire growth process, from the dawn of civilization to today. Oded Galor, who founded the field of unified growth theory, identifies the historical and prehistorical forces behind the differential transition timing from stagnation to growth and the emergence of income disparity around the world. Galor shows how the interaction between technological progress and population ultimately raised the importance of education in coping with the rapidly changing technological environment, brought about significant reduction in fertility rates, and enabled some economies to devote greater resources toward a steady increase in per capita income, paving the way for sustained economic growth. Presents a unified theory of economic growth from the dawn of civilization to today Explains the worldwide disparities in living standards and population we see today Provides a comprehensive overview of the three phases of the development process Analyzes the Malthusian theory and its empirical support Examines theories of demographic transition and their empirical significance Explores the interaction between economic development and human evolution. (shrink)

How do altruistic links affect allocative behavior and wellbeing? Can the processes of transmission and probable acquisition of parental traits result in a stable equilibrium where all agents are altruists? Why do children furnish their parents with attention and care? Does the timing of the intergenerational transfer of the family's productive asset affect the recipient's incentive to acquire human capital? Why do migrants remit? Altruism and Beyond provides answers to these and related questions. In addition, it traces some of the (...) market repercussions of the intrafamilial, intergenerational, and intragroup transfers and exchanges that it models. (shrink)

In this article I wish to defend hope by arguing that it is a child-like predisposition and that its strength and uniqueness stem exactly from its naïve, infantilizing character. To discuss the concepts of hope and of childhood and the relationship between them, I read in Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest book – Klara and the Sun (2021), using Lyotard’s concepts of the inhuman, development, and infancy (1991, 1998). I argue for an alternative approach to childhood, in which it is not (...) viewed merely as a basic developmental phase or as a lack in maturity but as an irreducible and potent element in human life, further showing that when understood as an event, childhood can be a strong basis for hope, and as such should be recognized by educators. (shrink)

The Straniak Philosophy Prize 1995 awarded by the Hermann and Marianne Straniak Foundation Sarnen/Switzerland This book explores Eastern and Western ideas of freedom and reveals the essential differences, as well as similarities, between Eastern and Western cultural values. Inspired by an ancient Greek myth recounted by Protagoras, the authors suggest that three important values tend to motivate human activity: achieving pleasure, achieving results, and obeying moral law. Then, drawing on intellectual sources ranging from traditional Hinduism to modern existentialism, the (...) authors proceed to show how these values - pleasure, efficiency, and morality - determine the idea of freedom as it appears in various philosophical systems of East and West. In the course of their analysis, the idea of freedom is itself emancipated from the usual kinds of cultural boundaries that have so often limited both its usefulness and its timeliness. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 2, pp 224 - 278 This article discusses the anonymous early kabbalistic work _Sefer Maʿayan ha-Ḥokhmah_, one of the pivotal works of ʿIyyun literature. The first part deals with the book’s historical and literary aspects. The second part interprets a specific formulation in light of the basic ideas of the book itself, presenting the twofold pattern as a mystical type and as a grounding for linguistic-theological theory. The third part discusses the term “positive (...) theology” in the theosophical and religious dimension, from the phenomenological perspective of extrovertive mysticism, and as a linguistic structure that provides the layer of signs as a stable basis for the restrained progress of Tongue. Acquiring the source as hidden but attendant by its constant grounding as a part of linguistic progression, uses the bifocal sight of binary extrovertive mysticism to denote the twofold structure of each being and each part of speech. (shrink)

review of Hila Naot, Raft on the open sea—mand and the world in Jan Patocka.

Human beings seem to have been always aware of something they called consciousness and have not stopped wondering what it is, what it does, where it came from, and why we have it. This book is testimony to the continuous attempts to crack the riddle, in the 21st century no less, if not even more than before. The book expresses two major convictions. One is that consciousness has a multiplicity of aspects, which need to be considered in order (...) to deepen understanding of this phenomenon and of ourselves. These include in the very least biology, philosophy, religion, mathematics, physics, physiology, and psychology. The other is that the next phase of human evolution may well be the evolution of consciousness - its expansion, development, and enhanced ability on our part to recognise and control it, shape it and put it to our use for improving our chances of survival and enhancing our happiness. This book is aimed at contributing towards the attainment of this goal. (shrink)

Though many mistook his intentions as blasphemes, Voltaire meant to defend God’s reality when he wrote, in 1768: ‘If God didn’t exist, we would have to invent h.

The paper aims at reconstructing the influence of Simonides on a contiguous series of Horatian poems . The starting point is provided by the discovery of new Simonidean fragments published by Peter Parsons and by Martin West in 1992. But the research casts a wider net, including the influence of Theocritus on Horace-and of Simonides on Theoocritus-and the simultaneous and competing presence of Pindar and Simonides in late Horatian lyric. The influence of Simonides is seen in specific textual pointers-e.g., a (...) simile on the death of Achilles in 4.6, the idea of caducity in 4.7-as well as in the composite role-model of Simonides, the immortalizing poet, the flexible praise-singer. Some wider questions are put in perspective: As for Horace's approach to the poetic tradition, the Roman poet is able to glance across whole genealogies of models, without necessarily making a choice, but making the invocation of several predecessors, already linked in a tradition, relevant to his new text. "Odes" 4.7, for instance, features a dialogue of Horace, Homer, Mimnermus and Simonides. The oscillation in modern criticism between an "Alexandrian" and a "classicizing" Horace could be better explained by constructing a complex model of intertextuality: "Pindar" plus "the Pindar in Callimachus"; "Simonides" plus "the Simonides in Theocritus." The dominating influence of Pindar in Book IV could be a part of a richer picture of influence, now difficult to reconstruct since all we have is the four Pindaric books of epinicia, not necessarily the only widely read choral lyric in antiquity. The reuse of early-classical praise poetry includes references to social constructs and cultural models of patronage, gift exchange, and poetic addressee: they are important in Augustan lyric precisely because they are felt as distant and impossible to recreate, and become a part of Horace's deft and often ironical negotiations with the problem of being a lyric poet in Augustan Rome. (shrink)

Since the poem of Sappho, which was first published as No. 7 of the Oxyrhynchus series, has been the object of a good deal of attention and ingenuity , it is perhaps not too early to publish a number of new readings, the result of repeated examinations of the papyrus , that may provide a surer foundation for future attempts at reconstruction. I have submitted my suggestions to Professor Hunt, who does not reject them , and I have to thank (...) him and Mr. H. I. Bell, of the Department of MSS., for the readiness of their help whenever and under whatever form I made appeal to it. But, of course, neither of them is in any way committed to any of my readings or deductions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Three Odes HORACE (Translated by Charles Martin) To Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa No fears, Agrippa: your exploits will be Saluted by a bard who will eclipse Homer in singing your command of ships, Your winning use of cavalry. It won’t be us. Gifts far surpassing mine Are to be found in Varius, who sings Achilles’ spleen, Ulysses’ wanderings At sea, or Pelops’ nasty line. Of loftiness, we have (...) a deficit, And so our Muse forbids us to pursue Praising your glory and our Caesar’s too, Lest, overwrought, we lessen it. Varius is fit to sing of Mars arrayed In armor, of Meriones in dust, Or of those gods that Diomedes thrust His lance through, with Athena’s aid. Ours, the wine bar and the local fray, The bachelorettes whose nails leave livid traces We later notice on their boyfriends’ faces And lightly sing of, in our way. (Odes i.6) arion 28.3 winter 2021 74 threee odes To Leuconoe Stop seeking what the gods prohibit us from apprehending, Leuconoe—the date on which it all comes to an ending. Better to toss the Dream Book and accept whatever comes, Whether Jove sends more winters, or the last we’ll know now drums The Tuscan Sea into submission on opposing cliffs. Be wise—decant this evening’s wine, curtail your hopeful ifs: Live in the moment: as we speak, now is becoming then; And insofar as possible, ignore tomorrow’s, “When….” (Odes i.11) To Iccius Iccius, are you hot for Arabian Loot now, devising tactics to subjugate The previously undefeated Kings of Sabaea? Forging new fetters For the ferocious Medes while previsioning Your oriental sex-slave, unguarded by The boyfriend whom you’ve slain in battle? What perfumed page from some royal palace, Whose father taught him Sinoform archery, Will be your Ganymede? Oh, deny falling Rivers the right to scale steep mountains, Tell us the Tiber can’t flow back upstream, When you—who were once so very promising, Rush to exchange your Works of Panaetius AND those Platonic scrolls you scoured bookstalls in search of—for Spanish armor! (Odes i.29)... (shrink)

Epistles 1.20, the last poem of its book, begins with an elaborate joke on the entry of Horace's book of epistles into the world and ends with a well-known σραγς describing the poet himself. It will be argued here that this final poem recalls and subverts the pretensions of two earlier final poems in Horace's own Odes, and that its good-humoured depreciation of Horace himself is matched by a similar attitude towards his previous grand poetic claims as (...) a lyric vates. (shrink)

The introductory ode of Horace's fourth book has been given comparatively little critical attention, although it might have been expected to arouse exceptional interest, being the first-fruits of the lyricist's autumnal harvest. The neglect is due partly to the poem's deceptive simplicity but much more to the unease which it arouses in Horace's admirers: Venus does not seem the most fitting deity for the poet laureate to invoke, and moreover this is not so much an invocation as an appeal (...) to be left alone; the young man who is the subject of Horace's eulogy was hardly a person of much eminence at the time of writing, though he became prominent later and is now prosopographically well endowed; above all, there is the disturbing picture of the elderly poet testily acknowledging an amorous urge and surrendering his dignity in pederastic dreams. (shrink)

A comparative study of the thinkers of China is meant to stimulate philosophical dialogue and not to deliver the observations of the “Man from Mars − the Western reader”. There has been an ongoing debate regarding the validity of interpreting the classical texts of China in the framework of Western philosophical categories and applying classical precepts to contemporary philosophical discussions. While it has been acknowledged that there are differences in cultural traditions, there is also an increasing awareness of the need (...) for sustained and systematic efforts toward formulating philosophical foundations which incorporate diverse intellectual perspectives. Specific topics discussed in the paper are: the parallels between Socrates as a gadfly and Confucius as a wooden bell; “confrontational hermeneutics” (a hermeneutics oriented toward having “a confrontation with a text or a tradition which pays careful attention to otherness of text or tradition”); convergent and divergent evolution of ideas; the parallels between the Book of Odes and Homeric epics; analogical reasoning from India, China, and Greece to Wittgenstein. Reflecting on the continuity of ideas between the philosophical thought of China and the West, we discover a vantage point from which the ideas can be approached with a fresh mind. In the philosophical legacy of China the familiar ideas and problems of Western philosophy are cast in a new light. Philosophical ideas, insofar as they are discoveries and inventions of the human mind, resonate across the ages and across geographical and cultural boundaries. (shrink)

The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic calls for and applies a new model of comparative literature - one that, instead of taking for granted the commensurability of traditions and texts, gives incompatibility and contradiction their due. Exposing contemporary literary theory to the risks of ancient Chinese literature (and vice versa), this book considers a linked series of case studies. To what degree does the translation between languages and texts that we call comparative literature depend on allegory or translation within (...) a single text or language? The author offers an important, new perspective on the reading of the Shih-ching or Book of Odes and the question of allegory and metaphor in the Chinese poetic tradition. (shrink)

Pindar's victory songs teem with divinity. By exploring them within the lived religious landscapes of the fifth century BCE, Hanne Eisenfeld demonstrates that they are in fact engaged in theological work. Focusing on a set of mythical figures whose identities blur the boundaries between mortality and immortality, she newly interprets the value of immortality in the epinician corpus. Pindar's depiction of these figures responds to and shapes contemporary religious experience and revalues mortality as a prerequisite for the glory found in (...) victory. The book combines close reading and philological analysis with religious historical approaches to Pindar's songs and his world. It highlights the inextricability of Greek literature and Greek religion, and models a novel approach to Greek lyric poetry at the intersection of these fields. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:In Search of the ClassicEdward E. FosterIn Search of the Classic, by Steven Shankman; xvi & 331 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, $55.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.“In search of” in the title of a book is often a code warning of lukewarm conviction or academic disingenuousness. In Shankman’s title, however, the phrase is literally appropriate because he forthrightly argues that the classic is, of its (...) nature, something that always exists in quest and tension. The classic is not to be located merely in classical antiquity or in the tastes of a privileged class. Though Shankman grants that these often are associated with the literary classic, he finds the nature of the classic rather in the nature of literature as a state of metaxis or “in-betweenness.” His examinations of classical, neo-classical, and modern works define various aspects of this “in-betweenness,” the state of tension that exists in the truly classic at any point in the history of literature.Although Shankman dismisses Derrida, Foucault, de Man, and others for having mistaken their own destruction of Enlightenment rationalism for a demonstration that rationality is impossible, he is not wildly original. He uses Habermas’s notion of classic literature as enduring and independent of time and Vogelin’s concept of metaxis as foundational for his sprawling, yet lucid, inquiry into the idea of the classic in Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Pindar, Virgil, Dryden, Defoe, Swift, Valery, and others, and in the traditions of the epic, ode, pastoral, and lyric.Fundamental is the view that classic literature has the greatest power to represent human experience. To avoid the hermeneutical conundrum of the subject-object dilemma, Shankman asserts literature to be in “a middle place” from Plato and Aristotle on. He sees a basic agreement between them on how literature stands between the One and the Many. Put negatively, literature is not sparks from the One or compilations of the Many. Rather it is a mediator between these polarities: classic literature accommodates the propositional purity of philosophy to the indeterminacy of thing-reality. Literature is neither an abstract kernelization of truth nor an anthology of the things of experience [End Page 256] but an analogical conjunction of the two extremes—therefore tension, therefore continual quest.Using Plato, especially the Cratylus and the Symposium, and Aristotle, especially the Metaphysics and the Poetics, Shankman describes a rationality that exists in literature that is clearly identified in his chapter on Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels by emphasizing the idea of man as an animal capax rationis. This in itself places man’s literary enterprise in a middle place and Shankman explores its various implications in a variety of works. From this perspective, it is argued that literature must be about something that matters; that pure poetry or reflexive poetry cannot achieve the ambiguity of analogy as the central core that the classic requires. Thus, Plato never rejected poetry—only the debasement of poetry into either the fantastical or literal (or the confusion of the two.)The true classic walks a line between ignorance and knowledge, rhetoric and philosophy, literalism and fantasy, “thing-reality” and “the ideal.” The Aeneid makes a good test case. It is at once a piece of propaganda and a statement of an ideal that is complicated by the duplicity of Aeneas’ abandonment of Dido, the brutality of his killing of Turnus, and his emergence in Book VI from the underworld by the Gate of Ivory (false dreams). Such tension is exemplary of what Shankman sinuously argues is at the heart of “the classic” in a variety of other works.The argument is persuasive and attractive, even if not compelling, in a world where many critics would have us believe that all of literature, canonical or not, is disappearing into nontext. That about half of the chapters are adaptations of previously published articles risks a discontinuity that is largely avoided by recapitulations of where we are in the exposition of our struggle in a continuing and intrinsic state of rational metaxis. I like the idea, but I must reserve judgment on a thesis that attends to the poetry of Yvor Winters and E. V. Cunningham... (shrink)

Early Chinese argumentative texts are full of historical anecdotes. These short accounts of events in Chinese history enhance the appeal of the text, but they also have an important rhetorical function in helping the reader understand, accept, and remember the arguments propounded in the text. In this paper I examine the rhetorical function of historical anecdotes in two argumentative texts of the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE-9 CE): Han’s Illustrations of the Odes for Outsiders and The Master of Huainan. (...) These two texts found creative use for anecdotes, namely as illustrations of quotations from canonical sources. Through case studies of several combinations of anecdotes and quotations, I argue that the combinations serve to present the creators of these texts as beacons of knowledge with profound understanding of historical events and canonical literature, and with the necessary skills to fruitfully combine the two. (shrink)

Holderlin s Ode Empedocles has never before been the subject of a study comparing its intrinsic literary value to dramatic undertakings with the same name. For the first time, this study provides an accurate textual interpretation along with a new edition of the work that includes all original sources. The basic reflections on poetic methods and metrics interconnect with Holderin s theoretical ideas about poetic individuality. ".

The name ‘Chloe’ appears four times in Horace'sOdes, once in Book 1 (1.23) and three times in Book 3 (3.7, 3.9, 3.26). Whether the ‘Chloes’ represent a woman or women from Horace's real life is probably not something we could know. Furthermore, there is no obvious reason to assume that all the ‘Chloes’ are the same person. However, there is likewise no obvious reasonnotto read the odes in which the name ‘Chloe’ appears, as some scholars have done, (...) as referring to the same woman, fictional or otherwise. This article argues both that ‘Chloe’ is a consistent character in theOdesand that the portrayal of Chloe is not only connected across odes but also sequential. Taking the poems in order, we see Chloe grow up from a girl who is inexperienced in the world of men to a mature mistress who plays the dominant role in her love affairs. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 22–28. Jeroen Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene twice. First, in 2005, when he became a strong presence on the nascent Dutch poetry blogosphere overnight as he embarked on his critical project Dichtersalfabet (Poet’s Alphabet). And again in 2011, when to great critical acclaim (and some bafflement) his complete writings were published – almost five years after his far too early death. 2005 was the year in which Dutch poetry blogging exploded. That year saw the foundation (...) of the influential, polemical, and populistically inclined weblog De Contrabas (The Double Bass), which became a strong force for internet poetry in Dutch in the years to follow. In the summer of that year, a lively debate raged in the aftermath of Bas Belleman’s article “ Doet poëzie er nu eindelijk toe ?” (“Does poetry finally matter now?”), on a blog specifically devoted to this question. Up to that point, the poetical debate in the Netherlands had largely been confined to literary reviews (which were often subsidized), having become mostly marginalized in more mainstream media, where poetry could be covered by only a small number of so-called authorities. As a result, literary debate had acquired a rather placid quality. Though a variety of camps with different aesthetics could be discerned, most poetical positions shared a general acceptance of poetry as a form of art somewhat apart from fundamental political concerns. Late modernists would pursue subtlety and density of reference. Others would insist poetry was best understood as a form of entertainment that should ideally be accessible and work well on the stage. Still others would insist that poetry is mostly a play with forms. Linguistically disruptive strategies were valued highly by some, but mostly for their aesthetic effect. Values of disinterested playfulness reigned supreme everywhere. Any idea that poetry could be a field in which one confronts politics and the world was decidedly marginal. This led to a climate in which most attempts at polemics were DOA, often based on far too superficial positioning and analysis. The greatest polemical debates were revolving around the question of whether poetry should be difficult or easy, with both camps defining their ideas of difficulty and accessibility in ways that were so utterly shallow as to make the entire point moot. Debates were performed, rather than engaged with. It was a postmodern hell of underarticulated poetics. Half-consciously, people were yearning for new forms of criticism that could put the oomph back into poetry. Weblogs provided for ways to explore debate directly outside of the clotted older channels of the reviews and the newspapers. Belleman’s essay and the resulting online activity had shown that there was a widespread eagerness to take poetry more seriously as a social art form. It was in this environment that Mettes started his remarkable project Dichtersalfabet . At that moment, Mettes was active mostly in academic circles, having become noted at Leiden University as a particularly gifted student of literary theory. Within the Netherlands, the field of literary theory has a very odd relationship to literature as it is practiced in the country. Academic theory tends to have a mostly international view and engage with international debates of cultural criticism, literary theory, and philosophy, with academics often publishing in English and attending conferences around the world. Literature itself however is much more concerned with domestic traditions. Consequently, in the Netherlands, there exists a language gap between academic theoretical practice (as it is studied in the literary theory departments) and literary practice (which, academically, gets studied in specialized departments of Dutch literature). The Dichtersalfabet can be seen as Mettes’s attempt to close this gap. It is also an attempt to bridge the divide between theory and practice, in which he could apply his theoretical knowledge in a very unorthodox and unacademic critical mode that moreover could reach far beyond the domain of conventional criticism. Mettes’s goal was to trace a diagonal through Dutch poetic culture, to “strangle” what he perceived to be its dominant oppressive traditions of agreeable irrelevance, in order to see whatever might be able to survive his critical assaults. But he could only do so by means of a very serious engagement with poetry itself. To this end, he would go systematically through the poetry bookshelf of the Verwijs bookshop (part of a mainstream chain of booksellers) in The Hague, buying one publication per blog item, starting from A and working his way through the alphabet, reading whatever he might encounter that way in the restaurant of the HEMA store (another big commercial chain in the country). He would subsequently write down his reading experiences, refraining however from trying to write a nuanced book review. Rather, he would write about anything that caught his attention and sparked his critical interest. This way of working would yield vast, at times somewhat rambling, dense, lively, and generally brilliant essays, in which he held no punches. He never hesitated to pull out his entire arsenal of concepts from the international theory traditions, while never degenerating into mere academic exercise and pointless intertextualities. The attempt was rather to live the poetry that he read, and to engage it with the full range of political, academic, cultural, and personal references that he had at his disposal—all that composed the individual named Jeroen Mettes as a reader. Often what he wrote would not be according to the standards of what we usually think of as a critical review of a book of poetry. Sometimes he would even be a little sloppy in his judgments of poets or representations of the books he read, for example by basing an entire essay on the blurb of a book rather than its poetry content. But what he did was always brilliant writing nonetheless—virtuoso riffs on poetic fragments randomly found within capitalist society, exposing an incisive and insistent poetical sensibility. Mettes read poetry for political reasons, to see whether poetry could offer him a way to deal with a political world he detested. The right-wing horrors of the Bush years, the Iraq war, and the turn of Dutch public opinion towards ever more conservative, narrow-minded, and xenophobic views alongside a complete failure of the political left to present any credible alternative, were weighing heavily on the times in which Mettes reported on his reading. Poetry was to measure this world, diagram it, to lay bare its inconsistencies and faults, to indicate where lines of flight might be found. Amid the ruins of a world wrecked by imperialist policies, corporate capitalism, and doctrinal neoliberalism it would have to show the possibility of a new community. And it was, through its rhythmical workings, to release the reading subject from his confinement to ideologically conditioned individuality and lead him into the immanent paradise of reading. The stakes were high. Much higher than anything Dutch poetry had seen for many years. Mettes’s blog was widely read from the start. His posts sparked lively debates. Some of these subsequently led to the publication of extensive essays on a few key poets in some literary journals, particularly Parmentier and the Flemish journal yang , for which Mettes would become a member of the editorial board, a few months after starting the Dichtersalfabet . This could have been the start of a brilliant career, but this was not to be. The initial manic energy that fueled the blog gradually subsided. The Alfabet was updated less and less regularly. Mettes sometimes just disappeared for many weeks, then suddenly returning with a brilliant essay. Until, on September 21, 2006, he posted his final blogpost, consisting of no text whatsoever. That night I learned from his mentor at Leiden University that he had committed suicide. Mettes and I had had some fruitful exchanges on poetry, rhythm, music, and form, mostly on the blogs, but also by email. Three weeks before his death was the last time I heard from him: a very sudden, uncharacteristically curt note saying “My old new sentence epic.” Attached to that message I found a DOC-file of a work so major that I felt intimidated. This was N30 , a text he had been working on for over five years. After his death, it took me a long time before I dared to read it in its entirety. In the meantime, the work of preparing the manuscript for publication was entrusted by his relatives to his colleagues at yang magazine. It took them a few years to brush up the text and to edit the Dichtersalfabet -blog (which, apart from the Alphabet project itself, incorporated many other fragments of political, polemical, and theoretical writing) into book form along with the essays. The result of this labor was finally published in 2011 as a two-book set, and Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene for the second time. The work was widely reviewed, on blogs, in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Many critics who had not followed the blogs in 2005 showed themselves surprised, baffled even, by the intensity of Mettes’s critical writing. But for those who had read the blog, the main surprise was in the poetry. During Mettes’s lifetime, some of his poems had already been published in Parmentier . Although these were strong texts by themselves, in no way did they prepare readers for N30 . Nothing like it had been written in Dutch before. Instead, N30 explicitly follows the American tradition of Language Writing, directly referencing Ron Silliman and his concept of The New Sentence. However, it would seem that much of the poetical thinking around his use of this technique puts him closer to a writer such as Bruce Andrews. For Mettes, using non sequiturs as a unit of poetic construction was not only a way of reinventing formal textual construction, but it was another way of finding the fault lines in the social fabric. From the perspective of the Language tradition, one may put N30 somewhere between Silliman and Andrews. N30 shares an autobiographical element with Silliman’s New Sentence projects, and as in Andrews, there is a concern for mapping out social totality within text—what Mettes refers to as a “textual world civil war.” Again this shows a formal textual strategy for allowing the person “Jeroen Mettes” to be absorbed by the world, which here appears as a whirlwind of demotic and demonic chatter, full of violence, humor, intensity, beauty, disgust, sex, commerce, and strife. Influenced as it may by American precursors, Mettes’s tone and form end up quite different from his American counterparts, consistently referencing a world that is Dutch, all too Dutch, taking on the oppressive orderliness of Dutch society with its endemic penchant for consensus by introducing chaos into its daily life and laying bare its implicit aggressions. The work’s 31 chapters each have a different feel and rhythmical outline, but none of them follow a predetermined pattern. Rather, Mettes would consistently edit and reedit the text, randomly rewriting parts of it, as he explains in his poetical creed Politieke Poëzie (Political Poetry). N30 – referring to the 1999 antiglobalist protest in Seattle – was to be the first text of a trilogy. The work itself was written “in the mode of the present.” A second text was to be written in the mode of the future, and a third one, in the mode of the past, was going to be an epic poem about the Paris Commune, and to form an alternative poetic constitution for the European project. I still deeply regret that Jeroen Mettes never got to complete those projects, just as I would be very keen on knowing what he might have had to say about more recent political developments. Instead, in 2006, he remained stuck in the horrors of the present, that ended up consuming him completely. He left Dutch literature with some of its most piercing criticism and its most profoundly moving, exciting and powerful poetry. Excerpts from N30 Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "N30." In N30+ . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. Chapter 1 1999. A day is a space too. And another man, who had chained himself, had his ribs crushed, and a motor has driven over somebody’s legs. Dutch health care system spends ±145 million guilders per year on worriers. A spiderweb vibrates as I pass by. Randstad renovating. She slaps her bag against her ass: “Hurry up!” OPINION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP Your skin. It doesn’t express anything. “But the use of the sword, that’s what I learned, and you’ll need nothing more for the moment.” Just try to interrogate a guy like that. Gullit in Sierra Leone. Codes silently lying all around. But that’s simply what belongs to “that it’s just allowed”: that sigh of “world” (a word expressing that the trees are now standing along the water like black men with white bags in their hair); that’s nothing else right? And you see how everything has to move, and first of all what cannot do so. Without Elysium and without savings, barbarians lashing out, horny for an enemy, staring across the water, staring into the air—staring to get out of it. “You’ve never showed me more than the mall,” she said. All those “dreams” in the end—and now? It was lying on the stairway, so I picked it up and took it upstairs. Chapter 3 “You know what?” Telecommunication. For love… I don’t really like that cheap cultural pessimism, but… The holy city is on pilgrimage in the earthly bodies of the faithful until the time of the heavenly kingdom has come. The end of an exhausting autumn day behind the computer, my eyes filled with tears of fatigue. KITCHEN / INSTALLATION / SPECIALIST. Network integration. In the sun, stretched out on a sheet. (…) I don’t believe what I’m reading, because I want to believe something else. An illusion? Suits me. There’s a variety of shapes and tastes… “So what?” you may think. 102 dalmatians can’t be wrong. But I want more, dear… A feel good movie. I’m smashing the burned body. So what? We continue to save the European civilization. What’s there to win? Plato with poets = Stalin without gulag? Ball against the crossbar. No wonder. She comes straight to her point. She’s standing in the kitchen eating an apple. (…) The godless Napoleon had used her as a stable and wanted to have her taken down. “Our” Rutger Hauer. Ready or not here I come. Psst… are you also wearing a string? Nobody understands our desire. Cliffs breaking the waves and shattering the sunset. I used to be a real romantic (as a poet). A typical fantasy used to be the one in which I brutally raped mother and daughter Seaver from the sitcom Growing Pains . Nevertheless you only contain bad words. Eyelashes. Automatic or manual? That your skin always in the afternoon. Integration. The air is empty. Too bad! Hand in hand on their lonely way. Alaska! Chapter 12 May 5, 2001 [10:00-10:30] A dust cloud on a hill. Globe. Indian (British) (tie) / pope. Damascus. Rape. We’re carrying the ayatollah’s portrait through the streets. At the moment the girl is mostly suede jacket with white ribbons on her sleeves. A small explosion flares up/impact. Camouflage. Close up. We’re analyzing the situation. He’s dead right? Dead dead. Dead. Everything without, these, and only with the body. Indices signal death. Dollar bills are printed in factories. Holes. Light patch. Globe in a box. Microphone. What’s the situation? Grey impact on a green hill (field?). The water is blue. He has no lips. Interns on the background with skirts that are too long. This is an example of a sonnet. An Islamic woman pushes against the door of an electronics shop. Arrows (percentages (prices)). Is this what awaits the American? Touch screen interface. The word, an island, can only be a sign in that situation. We pull up a chair, join in on the fun. On the shelves only books about computers. One glance in the distance is enough to lighten up a luna park in the distance. She’s really desperate, especially when she laughs. Click. Ah. Next. And now it’s raining, but that’s ok. Yellow stains sliding over the south. Shallow caves light: clothes, boots, electrical equipment. 45. 22:10. Nothing gives you the right to eat more than people starving to death. The Hague. Slam dunk. Traffic light. Two H’s, one L (standing for the L (little prick)). We’re happy to say something. Clouds, small suns, temperatures, cities. The truth is never an excuse. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Green. Yellow. Will you email me? Skeleton: “No.” Ex-nerds in brand-new and brightly red sport cars. $$$. I love. Shihab. Hooves in the sand. Skinny senior with over-sized sunglasses; old jockey (cap, trophy) smiling in slow motion. And there I am again, flashback, crying with my head in between my hands. Sometimes I’ve got the feeling that cannibals. Eyes: blue. Cancer. Why would I wait until tomorrow? Golden beams protruding from the lifted/lit earth. May 5, 2001 [11:30-12:45] You’ll remember this for the rest of your life. Graphs, diagrams. Bu$ine$$. Blue shirt, white collar, no neck (porn star). A name lights up. I’m hysteric. Will you join us? Letters falling in their words. Fingers set up a tent and start to dance. Young entrepreneurs from poor neighborhoods (read: black) guided by Microsoft. Kinda makes me happy, that sort of kitsch. A sense of exhaustion/impotence to see anything but the present. (…) Wouldn’t you like to? Orange explosion in an industrial zone. YOU’RE DOING THIS FOR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Would you. A familiar face. Clouds and blossom. Sunflowers. Supermodels. Mountainous area in a rectangle: shades of brown, from dark to beige, more green toward the south. Tents and next to them (it’s all a blur) people. Plane. Stadium. Geometrical block of people. No, I ain’t crying. I don’t speak no more. I just want. Quote + photo. (Positive:) screaming crowd. Three-piece suit, seen from the back, before entering the arena. On the back: “Daddy abused me.” Oh, bummer. State of emergency has been declared and everyone has to cooperate. She’s cut her wrists. What we do know (…) is that there’s never been a unique word, an imperative name, nor will there ever be. [Click here for work that suits you.] Barefooted children are watching it (coherent pieces revelation of what’s lying below). Who knows how she’s changed during those two years. “Everything used to be better” + sigh. And here we are. An empty field of parquet. A city lying behind it. Explosion. Blue. A rain drop falling in my coffee. May 5, 2001 [14:30-15:30] A young Arafat on video speaking with raised finger. “I’m calling from my convertible.” Names on walls, victims, numbers… Tourists. Yellow. Yellow. “Your own child! Really, what kind of human are you?” I don’t want to hear it no more. A woman jumping out of the water in a yellow bikini against a background of fireworks and the Cheops pyramid. Thy sorrow shall become good fortune, thy complaints laudation. All planets will float and wander. Wo die Welt zum Bild wird, kommt das System (…) zur Herrschaft. It is something, but is it? May 5, 2001 [18:30-19:00] Iris. Leaves. NASDAQ. Open / and white and. For the one who’s doing nothing, just waiting. (…) NO DEFEAT is made entirely up of defeat -- since / the world it opens is always a place / formerly / unsuspected. October 2002. “Jeroen, I’m leaving for the cemetery, byeeee.” The rise of the middle class. My entire oeuvre is an ode to the. My entire head is a fight against the. God always demands what you cannot sacrifice. You may take that the easy way, but… “The state hasn’t made us, but we make the state” (Hitler). A stork exits the elevator. Skeletons of. Moscow. Helsinki. Palermo. Paris. Chapter 30 Like your paradises: nothing. United Desire, as only remaining superpower. And even though the sea is now calmer and the wind is blowing pleasantly in my face… Heart! Who determines whether a tradition is “alive”? The yellow leaf or the white branch? Mars. This sentence is a typical example. Most Dutch people are happy. No consolation. When I see a girl sitting at a table with a book, a notepad, a pen, a bottle of mineral water, her hand writing in the light—then I consider that one thing. “Presents,” “poetry,” “classics.” We are what we cannot make from ourselves. “Left”: mendicant orders, missionaries. Saint-Just: “A republic is founded on the destruction of its enemies.” She crosses the street with a banana peel between her fingers. (…) We chose our own wardens, torturers, it was us who called all this insanity upon ourselves, we created this nightmare… But “no”? Girl (just like a beach ball) talking rapid Spanish (Portuguese?) in a mobile phone. Do I have a chance now that her boyfriend is getting bold? CLIO, horny bitch. What else do you want? An old woman, between the doors of the C1000, is suddenly unable to go on; her husband stretches out his hand, speaking a few encouraging words. Selection from. Der Führer schenkt den Jüden ein Stadt. How can it reach us if we haven’t been already reached somehow? It doesn’t “speak.” No problem. Each word she uses is a small miracle, as if she doesn’t belong to it, to language, but wanders around with a pocket light looking for the exit; she’s never desperate (maybe a little nervous), lighting up heavy words from the inside. But indeed, we’re free. But the predicate is not an attribute, but an event, and the subject is not a subject, but a shell. That’s why also samurai, knights, and warriors raised the blossom as emblem: they knew how to die. Locked up in a baby carriage with a McDonald’s balloon. Blue helicopter, the blue sky. Whether you want to refer? The point is. How / Motherfucker can I sing a sad song / When I remember Zion? You’ll feel so miserable and worthless that you think: “If only I were dead!,” or: “Just put an end to it!” “So you’re an economist?” Her card—two little birds building a nest, her handwriting shaking—is still on the mantelpiece. Guevara: “No, a communist.” A straw fire, such was our life: rapidly it flared up, rapidly it passed. I’m fleeing, coming from nowhere. (…) Eazy-E drinking coffee with the American president. If I’d scream, would that be an event? Drown it: the cleaner it will rise up from the depths. No! The night, so fast… As if there’s something opened up in that face. Come on, we may not curse life. He shows me his methadone: “If you drink that all at once, you’ll die instantly.” The last one dictates how we should behave to deserve happiness. One shine / above the earth. “I want to go to Bosnia,” I said bluntly. I don’t even know the name of the current mayor. Let’s despise our success! “There is no future; this is the future. Hope is a weakness that we've overcome. We have found happiness!” Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I feel like a bomb about to explode at any moment. Makes a difference for the reconstruction right? The decor moves forward. Daughter of Nereus, you nymphs of the sea, and you Thetis, you should have kept his tired head above the waves! Alas! This sentence has been written wearing a green cap. I receive my orders from the future. A frog jumps into it. Her husband has turned the Intifada, which he follows daily on CCN, into his hobby, “to forget that he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet." Suddenly the sun slides over the crosswalk. Her (his?) foot is playing with the slipper under the table. Is this how I’m writing this book now? I’m not a fellow man. I hate you and I want to hurt you. These are my people. Their screaming doesn’t rise above the constantly wailing sirens which we've learned to ignore. My whole body became warm and suddenly started to tremble. Unfortunate is he who is standing on the threshold of the most beautiful time, but awaits a better one. Arafat’s “removal” is contrary to American interests. Jeep drives into boy. What you can do alone, you should do alone. A food gift from the people of the United States of America. Two seagulls. [...]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On Wu-wei as a Unifying MetaphorChris FraserEffortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. $60.00.This provocative work is the most ambitious general study of pre-Qin thought to appear in more than a decade. It deals with what is increasingly recognized as one of the period's key themes, the ethical ideal of perfected (...) action and the processes of cultivation, or uncultivation, by which it might be achieved. The book has two specific aims, one substantive, one methodological (p. vii). The substantive aim is to show that the notion of wu-wei, which Slingerland renders as "effortless action," functioned as a shared ideal and problematic for both Daoists and Confucians and that internal tensions in this ideal motivated much of the development of Warring States thought (p. 5). The methodological aim is to illustrate the fruitfulness of conceptual-metaphor theory, familiar from the work of Lakoff and Johnson, by employing it to articulate and support the book's substantive theses (p. vii).For Slingerland, wu-wei is "a state of personal harmony in which actions flow freely and instantly from one's spontaneous inclinations... and yet nonetheless accord perfectly with the dictates of the situation at hand, display an almost supernatural efficacy, and (in the Confucian context at least) harmonize with the demands of conventional morality" (p. 7). Slingerland expands on this characterization in various ways, without making it entirely clear how all the features he identifies fit together. On the one hand, he explains that wu-wei is a phenomenological feature of the agent's subjective mental state: "wu-wei properly refers not to what is actually happening (or not happening) in the realm of observable action but rather to... the phenomenological state of the doer" (p. 7), primarily one of effortlessness and unselfconsciousness (pp. 29-33). But wu-wei is also "action that... accords in every particular with the normative order of the cosmos" (p. 5), so beyond its phenomenological features, it must include an objective normative component as well. Another remark suggests that wu-wei fundamentally is not a phenomenological state after all, since "it represents not a transitory state but rather a set of dispositions" (p. 7). Probably these various statements are meant to emphasize that the crux of wu-wei is to achieve and sustain a certain sort of psychological state, which then reliably generates effortless, normatively appropriate, efficacious action.The phrase 'wu-wei' plays essentially no role in Confucian texts and is absent from large chunks of the Zhuangzi. So Slingerland's thesis that wu-wei is the joint [End Page 97] ideal of both Daoist and Confucian thought faces a daunting justificatory challenge, which he proposes to meet by applying conceptual metaphor theory (p. 10). On his interpretation, wu-wei is not to be understood literally, as "non-doing," since in the state denoted by wu-wei, the agent is not actually inactive, doing nothing at all (p. 11). This gap between literal meaning and actual reference indicates that the term 'wu-wei' functions metaphorically, referring to "a metaphorically conceived situation" in which an action occurs even though the agent exerts no effort (p. 11). Slingerland hypothesizes that wu-wei became a technical term for effortless action because it is the most general of a network of conceptual metaphors for effortlessness and unselfconsciousness, including families of metaphors for "following" (p. 29), "ease" (p. 30), and "forgetting" (p. 33). This network expresses a unified, "deeper conceptual structure," appeal to which justifies the claim that "apparently diverse ideals of perfected action" are in fact articulations and developments of a single metaphorically conceived ideal, though the term denoting it—'wu-wei'—may not appear in a particular text (p. 11).Once we have a grip on the conceptual structure of wu-wei through the families of metaphors that constitute it, we can identify wu-wei as a central problematic of pre-Qin thought and trace its development by examining the use of these metaphors in texts from the Book of Odes and the Book of History (chapter 1) through the Xunzi (chapter 7). Each... (shrink)

In the poem which sets the seal on his three books of odes, Horace declares that his monument to himself will be more durable than bronze and higher than the pyramids. As T. E. Page noted in his commentary, aere can suggest not only bronze tablets, but also commemorative statuary, although tablets seems more to the fore here, given the reference to monumentum As for the pyramids, they are a fine example of grandiloquent architecture, but of a kind which (...) is nevertheless subject to the destructive natural forces from which Horace exempts his own commemoration. (shrink)

In the poem which sets the seal on his three books of odes, Horace declares that his monument to himself will be more durable than bronze and higher than the pyramids. As T. E. Page noted in his commentary, aere can suggest not only bronze tablets, but also commemorative statuary, although tablets seems more to the fore here, given the reference tomonumentumAs for the pyramids, they are a fine example of grandiloquent architecture, but of a kind which is nevertheless (...) subject to the destructive natural forces from which Horace exempts his own commemoration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 313-333 [Access article in PDF] Vestige of the Third Force: Willem Bilderdijk, Poet, Anti-Skeptic, Millenarian Joris van Eijnatten One of the unfortunate consequences of Babel is that only the Dutch read Dutch poetry. 1 Although English-speaking historians may have heard of the seventeenth-century poet Joost van den Vondel, who generally qualifies as the greatest literary artist of the Netherlands, virtually no (...) one outside Holland knows Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831), poet, jurist, and man of learning. Robert Southey, having met the poet at his home in Leiden in 1825, lamented several years later the fact that Bilderdijk's fame had not traversed national boundaries: "And who is Bilderdyk?" methinks thou sayest: A ready question; yet which, trust me, Allan, Would not be asked, had not the curse that came From Babel, clipt the wings of Poetry. 2When Southey sojourned in the Netherlands, Bilderdijk had already established his reputation as one of the few unconventional figures in Dutch history, comparable, in this sense, to Coornhert and Spinoza. The most outstanding poet of his age, he dominated nineteenth-century Dutch literature through his versatility, rhetorical prowess and sheer output. He is reputed to have written 300,000 lines of verse, not counting his unpublished poems. He practiced virtually all literary genres, from Pindaric odes and erotic rhyme to didactic poetry. Versed in the classics, he wrote numerous translations of, among many others, Homer, Sophocles, Anacreon, Callimachus, Horace, and Ovid. Bilderdijk was a prolific [End Page 313] writer of essays on subjects ranging from moral philosophy, epistemology, and natural law to aesthetics, architecture, and botany. He translated theological and devotional works, including Thomas Chalmers's Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, Chrysostome's sermons, and books on freemasonry and pneumatology. Besides contributing to perspective drawing, he wrote the first geological study in Dutch. His History of the Fatherland appeared posthumously in thirteen volumes. He himself regarded his linguistic studies and literary essays as his main achievement. Bilderdijk filled thousands of pages with his idiosyncratic views on the gender of nouns, the alphabet, grammar, spelling, medieval manuscripts, tragedy, and drama in general.Not surprisingly, Bilderdijk's varied interests and comprehensive mind have led to different interpretations of his thought. Most are one of two kinds. Writers subscribing to the first interpretation regard him as a somewhat strange but devout apologist for Calvinist orthodoxy. They stress the fact that Bilderdijk was the only intellectual who, in the midst of the soul-destroying rationalism propounded by a complacent liberal establishment, dared to cry out against Revolution and Enlightenment, thus revivifying the religious heart of the nation. 3 Those who follow the second interpretation emphasize the Romantic nature of his thought. This group tends to look upon Bilderdijk as the only true Dutch Romantic, a Wordsworth and Coleridge combined, a metaphysical if rather erratic genius who outgrew the intellectual marshlands of his native country. Writers in this tradition stress his definition of poetry as a spontaneous overflow of feeling, his linguistic achievements, his preoccupation with geology, and his visionary view of Dutch history. 4 One major interpreter, commenting on Bilderdijk's "real position as a philosopher," has stated that "to me there can be no doubt that Bilderdijk should be placed among the post-Kantian idealists like Fichte and Schelling (cf., again, Coleridge!)." 5Such statements are largely products of wishful thinking. Bilderdijk was not a devout Calvinist. He hardly ever went to church, his theology exhibits suspiciously heterodox leanings, and his professed adherence to the doctrine of predestination had less to do with a profound knowledge of the articles of Dort than mystical resignation. Similarly, the depiction of Bilderdijk as a post-Kantian idealist is sympathetic but lacks any evidence. Some literary historians have [End Page 314] tried to salvage the "Romantic" nature of his poetry, but the result is not particularly convincing. 6"And who is Bilderdijk," to echo Southey, if he was neither a Calvinist nor a Romantic? How should one interpret his thought? What should one do... (shrink)

Thinking of Death places Plato's Euthydemus among the dialogues that surround the trial and death of Socrates. A premonition of philosophy's fate arrives in the form of Socrates' encounter with the two-headed sophist pair, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who appear as if they are the ghost of the Socrates of Aristophanes' Thinkery. The pair vacillate between choral ode and rhapsody, as Plato vacillates between referring to them in the dual and plural number in Greek. Gwenda-lin Grewal's close reading explores how the (...) structure of the dialogue and the pair's back-and-forth arguments bear a striking resemblance to thinking itself: in its immersive remove from reality, thinking simulates death even as it cannot conceive of its possibility. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus take this to an extreme, and so emerge as the philosophical dream and sophistic nightmare of being disembodied from substance. The Euthydemus is haunted by philosophy's tenuous relationship to political life. This is played out in the narration through Crito's implied criticism of Socrates-the phantom image of the Athenian laws-and in the drama itself, which appears to take place in Hades. Thinking of death thus brings with it a lurid parody of the death of thinking: the farce of perfect philosophy that bears the gravity of the city's sophistry. Grewal also provides a new translation of the Euthydemus that pays careful attention to grammatical ambiguities, nuances, and wit in ways that substantially expand the reader's access to the dialogue's mysteries. (shrink)

Examines allegory in H lderlin's later work, exploring subjects such as Freud and Derrida's views of mourning, and offering original readings of works including Impossible Ode, Mnemosyne, and The Churchyard. Originally published in German as Laub voll Trauer: H lderlins spSte Allegorie in 1991 by Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Annotation c. by Book News.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 313-333 [Access article in PDF] Vestige of the Third Force: Willem Bilderdijk, Poet, Anti-Skeptic, Millenarian Joris van Eijnatten One of the unfortunate consequences of Babel is that only the Dutch read Dutch poetry. 1 Although English-speaking historians may have heard of the seventeenth-century poet Joost van den Vondel, who generally qualifies as the greatest literary artist of the Netherlands, virtually no (...) one outside Holland knows Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831), poet, jurist, and man of learning. Robert Southey, having met the poet at his home in Leiden in 1825, lamented several years later the fact that Bilderdijk's fame had not traversed national boundaries: "And who is Bilderdyk?" methinks thou sayest: A ready question; yet which, trust me, Allan, Would not be asked, had not the curse that came From Babel, clipt the wings of Poetry. 2When Southey sojourned in the Netherlands, Bilderdijk had already established his reputation as one of the few unconventional figures in Dutch history, comparable, in this sense, to Coornhert and Spinoza. The most outstanding poet of his age, he dominated nineteenth-century Dutch literature through his versatility, rhetorical prowess and sheer output. He is reputed to have written 300,000 lines of verse, not counting his unpublished poems. He practiced virtually all literary genres, from Pindaric odes and erotic rhyme to didactic poetry. Versed in the classics, he wrote numerous translations of, among many others, Homer, Sophocles, Anacreon, Callimachus, Horace, and Ovid. Bilderdijk was a prolific [End Page 313] writer of essays on subjects ranging from moral philosophy, epistemology, and natural law to aesthetics, architecture, and botany. He translated theological and devotional works, including Thomas Chalmers's Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, Chrysostome's sermons, and books on freemasonry and pneumatology. Besides contributing to perspective drawing, he wrote the first geological study in Dutch. His History of the Fatherland appeared posthumously in thirteen volumes. He himself regarded his linguistic studies and literary essays as his main achievement. Bilderdijk filled thousands of pages with his idiosyncratic views on the gender of nouns, the alphabet, grammar, spelling, medieval manuscripts, tragedy, and drama in general.Not surprisingly, Bilderdijk's varied interests and comprehensive mind have led to different interpretations of his thought. Most are one of two kinds. Writers subscribing to the first interpretation regard him as a somewhat strange but devout apologist for Calvinist orthodoxy. They stress the fact that Bilderdijk was the only intellectual who, in the midst of the soul-destroying rationalism propounded by a complacent liberal establishment, dared to cry out against Revolution and Enlightenment, thus revivifying the religious heart of the nation. 3 Those who follow the second interpretation emphasize the Romantic nature of his thought. This group tends to look upon Bilderdijk as the only true Dutch Romantic, a Wordsworth and Coleridge combined, a metaphysical if rather erratic genius who outgrew the intellectual marshlands of his native country. Writers in this tradition stress his definition of poetry as a spontaneous overflow of feeling, his linguistic achievements, his preoccupation with geology, and his visionary view of Dutch history. 4 One major interpreter, commenting on Bilderdijk's "real position as a philosopher," has stated that "to me there can be no doubt that Bilderdijk should be placed among the post-Kantian idealists like Fichte and Schelling (cf., again, Coleridge!)." 5Such statements are largely products of wishful thinking. Bilderdijk was not a devout Calvinist. He hardly ever went to church, his theology exhibits suspiciously heterodox leanings, and his professed adherence to the doctrine of predestination had less to do with a profound knowledge of the articles of Dort than mystical resignation. Similarly, the depiction of Bilderdijk as a post-Kantian idealist is sympathetic but lacks any evidence. Some literary historians have [End Page 314] tried to salvage the "Romantic" nature of his poetry, but the result is not particularly convincing. 6"And who is Bilderdijk," to echo Southey, if he was neither a Calvinist nor a Romantic? How should one interpret his thought? What should one do... (shrink)

Agamben is slowly entering the English academy. This review shows how Agamben's understanding of poetry can and should inform the eschatological nature of the lyric. The review does its cultural work by rethinking poetry and the poetic impulse. The book under review by Claire Colebrook and Jason Maxwell, prepare us for messianic times and shows how Agamben critiques the Spinozist-Marxist project. This book's weaknesses lie in Agamben's hubris in glibly going on to write on Hinduism. & Colebrook and (...) Mason have been excused for not bothering with the religion of a poorer nation than theirs. After all, this reviewer never said that Hinduism is India's state religion. Leave it to others to state that. LOL. Agamben's onto-theology is brought out in this review as has been by Colebrook and Maxwell. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 313-333 [Access article in PDF] Vestige of the Third Force: Willem Bilderdijk, Poet, Anti-Skeptic, Millenarian Joris van Eijnatten One of the unfortunate consequences of Babel is that only the Dutch read Dutch poetry. 1 Although English-speaking historians may have heard of the seventeenth-century poet Joost van den Vondel, who generally qualifies as the greatest literary artist of the Netherlands, virtually no (...) one outside Holland knows Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831), poet, jurist, and man of learning. Robert Southey, having met the poet at his home in Leiden in 1825, lamented several years later the fact that Bilderdijk's fame had not traversed national boundaries: "And who is Bilderdyk?" methinks thou sayest: A ready question; yet which, trust me, Allan, Would not be asked, had not the curse that came From Babel, clipt the wings of Poetry. 2When Southey sojourned in the Netherlands, Bilderdijk had already established his reputation as one of the few unconventional figures in Dutch history, comparable, in this sense, to Coornhert and Spinoza. The most outstanding poet of his age, he dominated nineteenth-century Dutch literature through his versatility, rhetorical prowess and sheer output. He is reputed to have written 300,000 lines of verse, not counting his unpublished poems. He practiced virtually all literary genres, from Pindaric odes and erotic rhyme to didactic poetry. Versed in the classics, he wrote numerous translations of, among many others, Homer, Sophocles, Anacreon, Callimachus, Horace, and Ovid. Bilderdijk was a prolific [End Page 313] writer of essays on subjects ranging from moral philosophy, epistemology, and natural law to aesthetics, architecture, and botany. He translated theological and devotional works, including Thomas Chalmers's Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, Chrysostome's sermons, and books on freemasonry and pneumatology. Besides contributing to perspective drawing, he wrote the first geological study in Dutch. His History of the Fatherland appeared posthumously in thirteen volumes. He himself regarded his linguistic studies and literary essays as his main achievement. Bilderdijk filled thousands of pages with his idiosyncratic views on the gender of nouns, the alphabet, grammar, spelling, medieval manuscripts, tragedy, and drama in general.Not surprisingly, Bilderdijk's varied interests and comprehensive mind have led to different interpretations of his thought. Most are one of two kinds. Writers subscribing to the first interpretation regard him as a somewhat strange but devout apologist for Calvinist orthodoxy. They stress the fact that Bilderdijk was the only intellectual who, in the midst of the soul-destroying rationalism propounded by a complacent liberal establishment, dared to cry out against Revolution and Enlightenment, thus revivifying the religious heart of the nation. 3 Those who follow the second interpretation emphasize the Romantic nature of his thought. This group tends to look upon Bilderdijk as the only true Dutch Romantic, a Wordsworth and Coleridge combined, a metaphysical if rather erratic genius who outgrew the intellectual marshlands of his native country. Writers in this tradition stress his definition of poetry as a spontaneous overflow of feeling, his linguistic achievements, his preoccupation with geology, and his visionary view of Dutch history. 4 One major interpreter, commenting on Bilderdijk's "real position as a philosopher," has stated that "to me there can be no doubt that Bilderdijk should be placed among the post-Kantian idealists like Fichte and Schelling (cf., again, Coleridge!)." 5Such statements are largely products of wishful thinking. Bilderdijk was not a devout Calvinist. He hardly ever went to church, his theology exhibits suspiciously heterodox leanings, and his professed adherence to the doctrine of predestination had less to do with a profound knowledge of the articles of Dort than mystical resignation. Similarly, the depiction of Bilderdijk as a post-Kantian idealist is sympathetic but lacks any evidence. Some literary historians have [End Page 314] tried to salvage the "Romantic" nature of his poetry, but the result is not particularly convincing. 6"And who is Bilderdijk," to echo Southey, if he was neither a Calvinist nor a Romantic? How should one interpret his thought? What should one do... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On Wu-wei as a Unifying MetaphorChris FraserEffortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. $60.00.This provocative work is the most ambitious general study of pre-Qin thought to appear in more than a decade. It deals with what is increasingly recognized as one of the period's key themes, the ethical ideal of perfected (...) action and the processes of cultivation, or uncultivation, by which it might be achieved. The book has two specific aims, one substantive, one methodological (p. vii). The substantive aim is to show that the notion of wu-wei, which Slingerland renders as "effortless action," functioned as a shared ideal and problematic for both Daoists and Confucians and that internal tensions in this ideal motivated much of the development of Warring States thought (p. 5). The methodological aim is to illustrate the fruitfulness of conceptual-metaphor theory, familiar from the work of Lakoff and Johnson, by employing it to articulate and support the book's substantive theses (p. vii).For Slingerland, wu-wei is "a state of personal harmony in which actions flow freely and instantly from one's spontaneous inclinations... and yet nonetheless accord perfectly with the dictates of the situation at hand, display an almost supernatural efficacy, and (in the Confucian context at least) harmonize with the demands of conventional morality" (p. 7). Slingerland expands on this characterization in various ways, without making it entirely clear how all the features he identifies fit together. On the one hand, he explains that wu-wei is a phenomenological feature of the agent's subjective mental state: "wu-wei properly refers not to what is actually happening (or not happening) in the realm of observable action but rather to... the phenomenological state of the doer" (p. 7), primarily one of effortlessness and unselfconsciousness (pp. 29-33). But wu-wei is also "action that... accords in every particular with the normative order of the cosmos" (p. 5), so beyond its phenomenological features, it must include an objective normative component as well. Another remark suggests that wu-wei fundamentally is not a phenomenological state after all, since "it represents not a transitory state but rather a set of dispositions" (p. 7). Probably these various statements are meant to emphasize that the crux of wu-wei is to achieve and sustain a certain sort of psychological state, which then reliably generates effortless, normatively appropriate, efficacious action.The phrase 'wu-wei' plays essentially no role in Confucian texts and is absent from large chunks of the Zhuangzi. So Slingerland's thesis that wu-wei is the joint [End Page 97] ideal of both Daoist and Confucian thought faces a daunting justificatory challenge, which he proposes to meet by applying conceptual metaphor theory (p. 10). On his interpretation, wu-wei is not to be understood literally, as "non-doing," since in the state denoted by wu-wei, the agent is not actually inactive, doing nothing at all (p. 11). This gap between literal meaning and actual reference indicates that the term 'wu-wei' functions metaphorically, referring to "a metaphorically conceived situation" in which an action occurs even though the agent exerts no effort (p. 11). Slingerland hypothesizes that wu-wei became a technical term for effortless action because it is the most general of a network of conceptual metaphors for effortlessness and unselfconsciousness, including families of metaphors for "following" (p. 29), "ease" (p. 30), and "forgetting" (p. 33). This network expresses a unified, "deeper conceptual structure," appeal to which justifies the claim that "apparently diverse ideals of perfected action" are in fact articulations and developments of a single metaphorically conceived ideal, though the term denoting it—'wu-wei'—may not appear in a particular text (p. 11).Once we have a grip on the conceptual structure of wu-wei through the families of metaphors that constitute it, we can identify wu-wei as a central problematic of pre-Qin thought and trace its development by examining the use of these metaphors in texts from the Book of Odes and the Book of History (chapter 1) through the Xunzi (chapter 7). Each... (shrink)

An ode to Schopenhauer by one of France's most famous living authors.

Creative adoption of the antic heredity by the 18th century Russian poetry has been studied in the article. An episode of the hidden polemics between A.P. Sumarokov and M.V. Lomonosov about the moralizing value of the anacreontic ode genre is the main subject of the analysis. The system of Sumarokov’s methods for russification of the traditional story lines (or the motives) and for the parallel recording of the same story line into the anacreontic ode and into the anacreontic parable has (...) been described. Sumarokov’s artistic experiments in the poems from his book «Pritchy» (1762) have proved high moral-didactic validity of the anacreontic poetry. (shrink)

Existing explanations of political intolerance and partisanship highlight how individuals’ ideological commitments and the homogeneity of their political environments foster intolerance toward other political groups. This article argues that cultural, interactional conditions play a crucial role in how personal and environmental factors work – or do not work – in local groups. Based on a four-year ethnographic study and 12 focus group discussions with two culturally distinct civic associations of American libertarians, I show how groups’ varying patterns of interaction, or (...) “styles,” establish distinct cultural settings, in which different attitudes and behaviors seem sensible and appropriate, particularly regarding other political groups. Thus, when libertarian groups established a “community style” of interaction, viewing the relationship among members in terms of friendship and community bonds, they also opened their social activities to non-libertarians, collaborated with them in political projects, and viewed politics as a matter of advancing shared interests with people from other political groups. Comparisons across and within field sites show how this relationship between style and political tolerance works in different libertarian groups and different social environments. These findings highlight the role of local factors in explaining variations in groups’ levels of political tolerance and present a key mechanism—centered on interaction patterns—to supplement existing analyses of the relationship between political intolerance and changing forms of civic organizing in the US. (shrink)

The tradition of poets presenting eulogy to the sultan, being common in Turkish-Islamic societies, has strong religious backgrounds. According to the people, the sultanate is of divine origin and obedience to the sultan is obedience to Allah and his Messenger. The people respected the sultans because the Ottoman sultans were seen as the last guardians of the order with their justice. There are many examples of this in literary works such as odes, masnavis, and historical, religious-mystical works. Therefore it (...) is a very shortsighted approach to think that every poet presenting an ode to the sultan only expects rank and material gain. Sultan Bayezid II is an artist and an art-loving sultan who generously patronized scholars, artists and especially poets from all over the world during his princedom of in Amasya and his thirty-one-year reign (1481-1512). Being as an important calligrapher, composer and poet, Sultan Bayezid II is popularly known as "saint" in public. An inâmât book including registers of the gifts given to the poets during the reign of Sultan Bayezid II are an indication of the importance that the sultan gave to the poets. However most of the poets patronized by Sultan Bayezid II are unknown. Jauhari who is one of these poets, also his life and works are unknown. In this article, the newly found poems of Jauhari and the findings about his life are introduced. (shrink)

A joke is amusing if and only if it’s fitting to be amused by it; an act is regrettable if and only if it’s fitting to regret it. Many philosophers accept these biconditionals and hold that analogous ones obtain between a wide range of additional evaluative properties and the fittingness of corresponding responses. Call these the _fit–value biconditionals_. The biconditionals give us a systematic way of recognizing the role of fit in our ethical practices; they also serve as the bedrock (...) of various metaethical projects, such as fitting-attitude analysis of value and the ‘fittingness first’ approach. Yet despite the importance of the biconditionals, there is very little discussion of their proper interpretation. This paper argues that any plausible interpretation of the fit_–_value biconditionals must disarm several kinds of apparent counterexample. For instance, that an achievement is pride-worthy doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to take pride in it because the achievement might not be mine or that of anyone close to me; that a joke is amusing doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to be amused by it for six straight months; and that a person is loveable doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to love him romantically because that person might be my sibling. We consider possible responses to such counterexamples and develop what we consider the most promising interpretation of the biconditionals. The upshot is that certain widespread assumptions about fit and its relation to value and reasons should be reconsidered. (shrink)

This article explores the ascetic tendencies of Naḥmanides as reflected in his oeuvre as a whole, including his halakhic, kabbalistic, exegetical, and philosophical output. A close examination of Naḥmanides’s kabbalistic commentary to a talmudic sugiya concerning the differences between oaths and vows uncovers the austere and ascetic ethos in his teaching and its central place in his religious world. This perspective is linked to the nature of human beings and the human soul, the relationship between body and psyche, the meaning (...) of life and the overcoming of death, and the status of the Torah and the connection between observance of the commandments and the voluntary hasidic ethos. (shrink)