(no subject)
Sep. 28th, 2006 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyI'm currently researching piano teachers in Southampton, because I'm pretty sure my grade 5-ness is completely invalidated by having not played for the past... what, eight years? XD I miss playing and it's something I'd really like to do well, so. We'll see how long this lasts. I'm also going to look for a driving instructor; since I've started actually achieving things, I've also started assessing what it is I actually want to achieve. And man, knowing how to drive would be sweet.
I also want to find out some more about T'ang dynasty poetry. Because I'm looking at postmodernism (bear with me, eventually there is a link) and the guy who's explaining it in layman's terms says that postmodernism is basically the same as modernism - looking at what's created in terms of what's come before. Postmodernism is all OOH SHINY about it whereas modernism is more... woe. Things used to be so good. Anyway, yes, very BASIC understanding and explanation, but you do not read my journal for the smarts, let's be honest. I'm reading more. So anyway, yes.
I was reading some Shlovsky, leading figure in Russian formalism, apparently.
[incidentally, he quotes Tolstoy: "why, if people have an affinity of souls, must they sleep together?" Heh.]
He was speaking of imagery, and said "...images change little; from century to century, from poet to poet, they flow on without changing. Images belong to no one: they are 'the Lord's'. The more you understand an age, the more convinced you become that the images a given poet used and which you thought his own were taken almost unchanged from another poet. The works of poets are classified or grouped according to the new techniques that poets discover and share, and according to their arrangement and development of the resources of language; poets are much more concerned with arranging images than with creating them*. Images are given to poets; the ability to remember them is far more important than the ability to create them."
This brought to mind T'ang poetry I'd read when I was working in the bookshop; I really wish I'd picked up the volume. More to the point, I wish the boss'd told me the shop was shutting, but never mind. I'm not bitter.
Anyway, yes -
from Untitled by Li Shang-yin: The wick of the candle turns to ash before its tears dry.
And from Farewell Poem by Tu Mu: The wax candles feel, suffer at partings:
Their tears drip for us 'til the sky brightens.
It made me wonder how much of it was actually formalised, whether they were teacher and student or if that sort of metaphor was a part of the general cultural database, how the poetry worked then. So yeah, mental note to take a look around.
Finally, and completely unrelatedly, although this fic will make more sense if you've actually seen Stargate:Atlantis, I don't think it's necessary to really bloody enjoy reading it.
Hands-On Science by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nindulgence.
Puts forward the possibility that Rodney and John met before Antartica, which is possibly one of my favourite scenarios ever, and does it in an absolutely fabulous and absorbing way. I totally fell in love with this story.
Heh. This one-post thing is going to make things even more eclectic around here.
*Hunh. Interesting from a fanficcer's perspective, really.
I also want to find out some more about T'ang dynasty poetry. Because I'm looking at postmodernism (bear with me, eventually there is a link) and the guy who's explaining it in layman's terms says that postmodernism is basically the same as modernism - looking at what's created in terms of what's come before. Postmodernism is all OOH SHINY about it whereas modernism is more... woe. Things used to be so good. Anyway, yes, very BASIC understanding and explanation, but you do not read my journal for the smarts, let's be honest. I'm reading more. So anyway, yes.
I was reading some Shlovsky, leading figure in Russian formalism, apparently.
[incidentally, he quotes Tolstoy: "why, if people have an affinity of souls, must they sleep together?" Heh.]
He was speaking of imagery, and said "...images change little; from century to century, from poet to poet, they flow on without changing. Images belong to no one: they are 'the Lord's'. The more you understand an age, the more convinced you become that the images a given poet used and which you thought his own were taken almost unchanged from another poet. The works of poets are classified or grouped according to the new techniques that poets discover and share, and according to their arrangement and development of the resources of language; poets are much more concerned with arranging images than with creating them*. Images are given to poets; the ability to remember them is far more important than the ability to create them."
This brought to mind T'ang poetry I'd read when I was working in the bookshop; I really wish I'd picked up the volume. More to the point, I wish the boss'd told me the shop was shutting, but never mind. I'm not bitter.
Anyway, yes -
from Untitled by Li Shang-yin: The wick of the candle turns to ash before its tears dry.
And from Farewell Poem by Tu Mu: The wax candles feel, suffer at partings:
Their tears drip for us 'til the sky brightens.
It made me wonder how much of it was actually formalised, whether they were teacher and student or if that sort of metaphor was a part of the general cultural database, how the poetry worked then. So yeah, mental note to take a look around.
Finally, and completely unrelatedly, although this fic will make more sense if you've actually seen Stargate:Atlantis, I don't think it's necessary to really bloody enjoy reading it.
Hands-On Science by
nindulgence. Puts forward the possibility that Rodney and John met before Antartica, which is possibly one of my favourite scenarios ever, and does it in an absolutely fabulous and absorbing way. I totally fell in love with this story.
Heh. This one-post thing is going to make things even more eclectic around here.
*Hunh. Interesting from a fanficcer's perspective, really.
