Re: unicorn

From: Ana Marjanovic-Shane (anamshane@speakeasy.net)
Date: Mon Aug 04 2003 - 21:13:07 PDT


Hi Willow,
How interesting that your daughter mentions the mirror and "Through the
looking glass". My favorite books are both Alice's books. One of my
favorite poems is "Jabberwocky".
But I was also profoundly influenced by Jorge Louis Borges. His story
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is not just an ordinary satire.
The story is about this man who decided to recreate Cervantes's novel by
"total identification" with him. ("He did not want to compose another
Quixote - which is easy - but the Quixote itself..") However, the voice
of the literary critic that Borges uses is the incredible part of this
story. I have to give you all just a tiny bit of it:

" It is a revelation to compare Menard's Don Quixote with Cervantes's.
The latter, for example, wrote (part one, chapter nine):
'... truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds,
witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the
future's counsellor.'
Written in the seventeen century, written by the 'lay genius' Cervantes,
this enumeration is a mere rhetorical praise of history. Menard, on the
other, writes:
'... truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds,
witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the
future's counsellor.'
History, the mother of truth: the idea is astounding. Menard, a
contemporary of William James, does not define history as an inquiry
into reality but as its origin. Historical truth, for him, is not what
has happened; it is what we judge to have happened. The final phrases -
exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counsellor - are
brazenly pragmatic..
The contrast in style is also vivid. The archaic style of Menard - quite
foreign, after all - suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of
his forerunner, who handles with ease the current Spanish of his time. "

The idea that the "same" words, spoken (written) by someone else, may
actually change their meaning -- is not so far from what we are
discussing in this group...

Ana

Willow Brown wrote:

> Relating to connections with literature and art, I wonder if someone
> will find this response from my daughter interesting. She was a
> childhood "unicorn expert", and is now an artist. (She was excited
> about this poet because she is going to marry a man from Czech and has
> recently visited Prague.) Willow Brown, UNBC, Prince George, BC, Canada
>
> Hi Mom,
>
> Ranier Maria Rilke was a Czech poet raised in Prague! He was born
> in 1875 and married a student of Rodin (my fav sculptor). I would say
> the mirror is most likely a reference to the intellect/imagination,
> i.e. through the looking glass, being the only place a unicorn can
> exist in our world... although I would have to check the time frames
> of Lewis Carroll and Rilke. I just checked... the Alice books were
> pulished about 10 years before Rilke was born... he would have read
> them. He would have also been influenced by the pre-Raphaelite painter
> and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. After I read the poem I actually
> thought he was a contemporary of Rosetti but Rosseti died when Rilke
> was about ten, I think.
> As for the rest... it may be both a sexual and non sexual
> reference. Women were considered to be emotional beings with
> tendencies towards flights of imagination/fantasy th! erefore a woman
> as well as a looking glass were places in which a unicorn could
> reside. I don't think it was meant as a sexual reference...
> considering the time Rilke was writing in. A sexual reference like
> that would have been quite scandalous. Although... since only virgins
> were supposed to be able to touch a unicorn it may still be a sexual
> reference. Of course when it is read in our time, and by our
> standards it becomes a little more overtly sexual. I did enjoy the
> poem, and I think one interpretation would be the value of
> creativity. Without it we cannot allow for the existence of beautiful
> things, be they works of art or a map of the human genome. Funny how
> neither science nor art(s) can exist without creativity!
>
>
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