other matter

The demands of blogging are severe, and we must not falter further.

So, how about Guy Davenport, 1969, introducing Ronald Johnson's VALLEY OF THE MANY-COLORED GRASSES: Speaking of 'the ideal western poem,' he says, "the credentials of this [kind of poem] tend to lurk not in the poem but in the personality of the poet. All that Byron wrote is somehow not as great as Byron. This illusion, fostered by the scandal-mongering of professors and the Grundyism of psychology, is a lazy and essentially indifferent view of poetry. The poet, who writes not for himself but to provide the world with an articulate tongue, longs to be as absent from his finished work as Homer."

Well, now, there's a point of view. Anyone care to respond?

Or, how about Wittgenstein: "Philosophy is a battle against the betwitchment of our intelligence by means of language."