Poetry, Language, Thought PDF

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Analysis on two quotes in the book....

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“Perhaps the world’s time is now becoming the completely destitute time. But also, perhaps not, not yet, not even yet, despite the immeasurable need, despite all suffering, despite nameless sorrow, despite the growing and spreading ceaselessness, despite the mounting confusion”

This, and all my following quotes come from essay III “What are Poets for?” I chose this essay to concentrate on because it thoroughly explains the thought behind many essays. Also, I found the title a little comedic because it is an honest question. This concept that we are currently living in the worlds night I found interesting. Supposedly, the worlds “day” ended years ago at the exit of Herakles, Dionysus and Christ. While I obviously have never considered this myself, I find it to be a compelling thought. That the time of the gods was the day and now we are in the night which will lead to a destitute time of our world. While I was not brought up in a religious house hold, I have learned a lot about the time of the gods through the books we have been reading so far in class. I have learned about Dionysus and about God and what I find so interesting about this idea is how undoubtedly true it feels. In the second sentence of the quote, it mentions all the suffering, sorrow and confusion that is present in our world. While this book was written nearly 50 years ago, it seems like things have only gotten worse. It seems like the world is the most chaotic it has ever been and that it only seems to be getting worse. While this is probably a pessimistic view it adds a lot of weight to the question of whether we have reached the worlds “midnight”, and the inability to know is ominous and pessimistic. Because if we are at “midnight” that means we are in a completely destitute time of the world. That the world is completely lacking and has nothing of that which it needs. On the other hand, if we have indeed not met our “midnight”, this is an even more pessimistic view because it means that things are only going to get worse. And the question is, how much worse? Since we have no way to tell of when this completely destitute time will fall, or what event will be the mark of the midnight, it leads to a bleak view of the future of our world. That there is really no way of knowing and even knowing wouldn’t save us.

“The time is destitute because it lacks the unconcealedness of the nature of pain, death, and love. This destitution is itself destitute because that realm of being withdraws within which pain and death and love belong together.” I chose this second quote from the essay III “What are Poets for?” because it helped explained something I didn’t quite understand about the worlds “night”. The essay introduces the worlds night as a “destitute time”. Many times, while reading the books assigned in this class, I come across words I am not familiar with or words that I do not understand in the context being used, within the book. When I came across the word “destitute” I looked up the definition since it seemed to be a word that was being used frequently and was important to the concept of the worlds night. The definition that came up when I searched it on google was “lacking something needing or desirable”. While this helped me understand what the definition of the word was, I was still confused about the context of how it applied to a destitute time. I wondered what a time that was lacking something needed or desirable was like and what it might be lacking? Is it lacking everything or just something really important? Or was it just in general lacking? And if so, what does that mean for the state of the world? While I’m still not completely sure of what a destitute time signifies, this quote helped the idea be more imaginable. While the quote is a little difficult to decipher because of the double negative, eventually through re-reading I was able to understand. According to the quote, a destitute time is a state in which there is a lack of the evidence of the nature and harmony of pain, death and love. In other words, the inability of mortals to understand pain, death and love and how they belong together is what leads to a destitute time, and eventually to the “midnight” in the night of the world. This makes sense since these three concepts of pain, death, and love dictate a lot of the world. Their importance in this quotes definition of destitute helps answer a few of my questions surrounding a destitute time. What is lacking is the understanding of pain, death, and love. The understanding of these three is needed and desired by mortals.

“At nearly the same time as Descartes, Pascal discovers the logic of the heart as over against the logic calculating reason….Only in the invisible innermost of the heart is man inclined toward what there is for him to love..” Once again, this quote comes from the third essay. I like this quote because it deals with a concept/idea I have heard before. The heart versus the brain is a long-time battle that I have not only seen but also experience in my own life. It is often the topic of many romantic literature and has been a large part of many movies, books and shows I have seen. So, it is somewhat funny that it would show up here in one of my philosophy books. Additionally, I find it kind of silly that this idea of “the logic of the heart as over against the logic calculating reason” is considered to be discovered. It is interesting to think that such a common idea and feeling was once discovered. The general idea that I have dealt with regarding this issue is that what the heart wants is always stronger than what the brain thinks is right. Despite the fact that sometimes the brain is “right” the compelling power is always overwhelming and often makes for a very romantic moment in movies. While I am familiar with the concept of head over heart, it seems to be taking a different context or meaning in this book, as it relates to the “Open”. But it still explains it as we know it and as we see it in ourselves and in literature, that is that the “logic of the heart” is much more powerful and “extends further” than the logic of the mind and of “producible objects”. The logic of the heart, as the paragraph goes on to explain, is the “invisible innermost” desires of the heart, and is what compels man to love those that he loves and is what makes it more powerful than the logic of the mind. This is what is considered the widest orbit because the logic of heart exists beyond numbers and boundaries, there is no limit or restrictions. This is what makes it so much more powerful, that it has no limits and it is not restricted to a matter of numbers. This is why it makes sense that this idea of the logic of the heart is where the “widest orbit” resides. The logic of calculating reason on the other hand is restricted in what is allowable by “the arithmetic of calculation” and therefor limited, unlike the logic of the heart....