Random Thoughts

[F Michael Lee 0]

I must admit to being a touch behind in reading. Sadly, I am also behind in basic understanding. This class is certainly broadening my horizons.  That said, I finally read The Harmas and am currently reading Chapter 3. On page 70, Taylor asserts: "Poetry, and poetic knowledge, discovers the invisible principles in real things without destroying the thing itself, which is, by the way, exactly how intentional knowledge operates and thus its poetic character." Thus Fabre is Brother James's example of this statement? 

Further, can one have poetic knowledge of a thing, but also a rational knowledge too? They are different and yet there is place for both, no? 

There is so much going in this book and with all that I am reading on my own and in preparation for my kids' next school year that seem to be commingling in my brain. I am assuming that is only natural. Yes? 

Finally, "words, words, words, I'm so sick of words". Actually I am not really, but I cannot even read a word like 'discover' without looking at it in a whole new light and thinking about what it really means. I feel as if I have been misusing words all my life and am now under a heavier conviction about it. 

Does any of this make sense?

[Anne Rowland 1]

I'm just a student like you, but I think it makes sense.

I really liked at the beginning of Chapter 3, in the discussion about "gymnastic," Dr. Taylor says, "In spite of distinct treatments of the acts of the intellect and the modes of knowledge here, they are in reality never separate, but more like the n otes of the musical scale... notes of knowing that can be sounded distinctly but have no meaning outside their relation to the others. To sound the gymnastic note strikes the sympathetic reverberation of the poetic, up to the highest notes of metaphysics" (p. 59-60, emphasis mine). I LOVE that gorgeous sentence! And I love what it means! (And I think it agrees with what you're saying.)