I need to find out more about aphorisms which, to be honest, I hadn't given much thought to up until now. Clearly they have their place in any writer's treasure chest. And, the book within a book... I'd like to chew on that a bit more. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here on Substack. The time you give to your posts is much appreciated.
Intriguing stuff. Love the way you extend the use of tension from fictional form to the essay. After this post I happened to see, in John d'Agata's The Lost Origins of the Essay, an entry on Francis Bacon's aphorisms: "Coming from the Greek roots for 'from'--apo--and 'boundary'--horismos--the word literally means to mark off, to demarcate, to define" (175). Thus in contrast (tension again) to your note on Spirit: "I do not know exactly what I am." Is this tension not also the essence of irony?
Nowick, This is a great comment. Thanks. You are right, I'm sure, that irony is a way of describing what is going on. Of all the prose forms, this is one I keep coming back to in thought because it is so rich. In my remarks, I likened aphorisms to metaphors; in both, two terms are held in contrast, but there is also irony, which is another two-term operation, what I say and what I mean. Also part of the aphorism structure.
Thx. Yes, and I'm thinking also of the ironic tension not only between opposites, but also metaphysically, as between Nature and Spirit, or say, "objectivity" and intention (another form, I suppose, of "what I say and what I mean").
I need to find out more about aphorisms which, to be honest, I hadn't given much thought to up until now. Clearly they have their place in any writer's treasure chest. And, the book within a book... I'd like to chew on that a bit more. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here on Substack. The time you give to your posts is much appreciated.
Intriguing stuff. Love the way you extend the use of tension from fictional form to the essay. After this post I happened to see, in John d'Agata's The Lost Origins of the Essay, an entry on Francis Bacon's aphorisms: "Coming from the Greek roots for 'from'--apo--and 'boundary'--horismos--the word literally means to mark off, to demarcate, to define" (175). Thus in contrast (tension again) to your note on Spirit: "I do not know exactly what I am." Is this tension not also the essence of irony?
Nowick, This is a great comment. Thanks. You are right, I'm sure, that irony is a way of describing what is going on. Of all the prose forms, this is one I keep coming back to in thought because it is so rich. In my remarks, I likened aphorisms to metaphors; in both, two terms are held in contrast, but there is also irony, which is another two-term operation, what I say and what I mean. Also part of the aphorism structure.
Thx. Yes, and I'm thinking also of the ironic tension not only between opposites, but also metaphysically, as between Nature and Spirit, or say, "objectivity" and intention (another form, I suppose, of "what I say and what I mean").