from The Wasteland

IV. Death By Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.

A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as
you.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plato's magnificent Beast Analogy

see 6.493A-C "The image of the Beast conveys a great deal of what Plato wanted to say about democracy. Fundamental is the thought that in a political system of direct popular rule, where key decisions are taken not by an individual or a body with restricted membership, but by the assembled populace itself, the people become the source of all values in the society. As we might put it, democracy is in this regard a totalitarian system. More specifically, the power of public opinion generates a radically corrupt system of values. This is because it is the passions and appetites of the populace which in the end dictate the contents of what passes for wisdom. If they like something, that counts as good (i.e. as what we should truly want), in the teaching of the sophists as for everyone else; if they dislike it, the opposite. Necessity--that is (presumably), political expediency--is what gets dignified by the language of moral approbation: 'just', 'fine'. What has...
Read more

On Medical Analogies in Book 2 of Aristotle's Physics

Writing Assignment for 21 September, 2016 On Medical Analogies in Book 2 of Aristotle's Physics September 21, 2016 In this brief paper, I will examine a set of medical analogies made by Aristotle in Book 2 of his Physics . Taken together, these analogies help to define Aristotle’s concept of nature, and connect it to his other concepts about the workings of the world. An important statement is from the eighth chapter, in which he defends his claim that there are purposes, or final causes, in nature: It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent deliberating. Art ( techn e ) does not deliberate. If the ship-building art were in the wood, it would produce the same results by nature. If, therefore, purpose is present in art, it is present also in nature. The best illustration is a doctor doctoring himself: nature is like that. (Aristotle, Physics 199b26-30) This is just...
Read more

Blood Meridian as critique of Determinism

Learning from Art: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian as a Critique of Divine Determinism by Dennis Sansom [after examples of Voltaire's Candide critiquing Leibniz's optimism, Huxley's Brave New World critiquing Marxism] The artist’s imagination, especially in literature, pictures what can happen. Aristotle may be right in saying that art imposes an ideational form upon matter, but art can also indicate whether an ideational form should be imposed upon matter. In keeping with Aristotle’s terminology, the actuality of the idea may pervert or hinder the potentiality of the matter. Some ideas do not fulfill the potentiality of the human experience and they should be rejected, though they are logical, systematic, and clear. Some philosophical ideas cannot stand the test of the imagination. How does the artistic imagination test an idea? The artistic imagination is not just a fanciful thought experiment or a mirror of experience. In the Critique of Judgement Kant argued that artis...
Read more