Monday, March 28, 2011

Parataxis over metaphor!


What's a metaphor but parataxis with metaphysical pretensions?
What's a simile but parataxis tagged for easy reading?

10 comments:

  1. Why pretensions, maestro? Why not aspirations?

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  2. Oh, because I see the implied grammatical claim as fought with ...

    ...as immediately compromised with a form of irrationality meant to hide its claims in an aesthetic cloak... a conceit as deceit

    ... as the spacial metaphors (layers of meaning, deep insight, inner and outer ... ) are dependent on a 'metaphorical/metaphysical' frame which once might have been universally assumed, but are no longer...and cover over that discrepancy... hiding, rather than revealing the cognitive dissonance.

    A metaphor that isn't ironic or subversive of its claim becomes an aesthetic deceit... decoration over thought.

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  3. ... in which case, why not parataxis? One less word in either case.

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  6. It's this modernist thing I have, ya know? I want to foreground and use the mental, associational process rather than hide it. I want the pulleys and drop screens and props on a stage to be visible, rather than disguised in an effort at 'representation.' & no, that's not a metaphor... apply to poetry as parataxis!
    I want to present what goes into representation.

    I'd rather say right up front, "x made me think of y"... or better, if x did make me think of y... put them out there and see how the reader brings them together. Using that as my aesthetic constraint... the mapping of associational process becomes both a thematic subject, and object for exploration/experimentation...it's the latter than makes it modernist, not post...

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  7. ... as in the case of the stage example... parataxis better preserves the concrete of each side... avoids dissolution of the sensual and concrete into abstractions.

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  8. ... what better example of the latter crime than EBB's awful sonnet, How do I love thee?

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  9. hey, that was fun! More questions! More disagreements! How come Levi's posts get all the long discussion threads in comments?

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  10. ...& shouldn't an aspiration be at least theoretically attainable?

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