Language is the problem.

The idea of order is imposed on matter by language, so without it, nothing would make sense, but nothing would not make sense.

nostalgia in scholarship

When did scholars stop thinking “then” and start thinking “now”? There are so many books published every year about contemporary culture and linguistics and so on and so on, and at the same time, most educated people agree that it’s never really possible to see one’s own time clearly.

So maybe we’ve abandoned much of the old idea of what “scholarship” is as mere nostalgia and (in literature) exercises in authorial or poetic appreciation rather than textual analysis. But I could use some nostalgia right now. I think of Henry Liddell, who did what now we are supposed to scrupulously avoid believing we could do–every night he thought himself into another world, a culture removed from himself by immense spaces in time and geography. But as a result, he created the dictionary that every undergraduate, graduate, and PhD in Greek uses to-day.

Ultimately, I’m afraid that if all we can do is think our limitations, our work, and our legacy, will reflect that.

hey!

Everyone, every person I can think of, everyone I know and everyone I know anything about, is hungry for poetry. Poetry is the only way we are able to reconcile ourselves with these lives we lead. Without poetry, any language is stripped of its sense, and if it were possible to speak words entirely ignorant of poetry, they would also be completely devoid of meaning. Likewise with our lives.