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The Seamless Web: Language-thinking, Creature-knowledge, Art-experience
It's a shame that no-one more qualified has up to now posted a review on this outstanding book. Still, I'm gratified to be able exhibit esteem for a work that provided so much mental stimulation & which has contributed inspiration to continue my own explorations of poetry & the arts in general. It's hard to fathom why Burnshaw's book has fallen into such evident obscurity.
Perhaps Burnshaw, a very independent thinker, refused to conform to the mold of post-modernism & thus hasn't been promoted by the academic establishment; or, perhaps mainstream readers have a natural antipathy to poetry because of the perception that it's artificial & remote from real life. That was once my perception, but some critical studies of poetry have opened up insights that make me think poetry can impact us in a very relevant manner if we find the proper approach to it.
"The Seamless Web" is the latest &, so far, the best of these kinds of studies I've come across. "The Seamless Web" is truly an apt title, for tho it includes an immense amount of scholarly learning from many different sources, all these pieces of information are welded together in such a cohesive construction that it seems hard to break into this web & extract discrete bits for purposes of description. The most concise thumbnail description I can give is that it's an investigation of the way in which artists (which includes creative inventors of all sorts, but with the emphasis on poets) achieve their creations on the transmitting side & how readers or other users are able to appreciate these creations on the receiving end.
Several light bulbs lit up while reading the author's insights about these two different phases: creation & appreciation. I'd previously thought that a poet formed some concept or insight & then went about devising a poetic framework which would fit a preconceived notion. I'd also thought that any intelligent person should be able to pick up on the poems of acclaimed poets without having to have them explained.
Burnshaw effectively discredits both of those conceptions. He shows thru argument & from the confessions of many of the greats, such as Goethe, Eliot, Whitman & Valery, that poets don't control the creative process. In many cases they act more like stenographers who take dictation from an inner, mysterious author. Then, to the degree necessary, they edit & arrange the received creation into a finished form. As for the prerequisites which the reader must bring to the task, there's some great poetry which can be appreciated simply for the striking beauty or strangeness of its imagery, but to really appreciate the great poets, the reader is usually going to need outside help.
Burnshaw shows at length that poets, in their quest for purity & conciseness of expression, cover up or remove the recipe that would reveal how they arrived at a final product. It's often necessary to look to mythology, classical civilization, Shakespeare & other literary figures, or circumstances peculiar to the author's personal life.
Why bother with so much effort? There are many reasons: The effort of piecing together the puzzle of what the poet is trying to convey will bring a more forceful revelation when you get the Aha! from having participated. By not presenting their visions in simple one-to-one correspondences, poets are able to convey multiple layers of meaning which provide readers a rich associative fabric of images, some of which may give them insights into their own experience. There are sensations or emotions so ineffable that language cannot adequately describe them. Thru the proper words used in the proper combinations & sequences, the poet may be able to suggest those feelings by, in essence, creating a language.
Burnshaw's conception of the poet's need to create, which seems unique, is that it arises from an irritation, like a pearl in an oyster. It's a deep organic need of the body to return to the seamless web of placental rhythm & security. Only when this irritant is expelled as a work of art can the organism return to its inner rhythm & harmony--that is, until the next irritant develops. What I've said about this book is but the merest scratching of the surface. In over 300 pages I noted no repetition or dullness. It's a one-of-a-kind performance well worth the effort. Hopefully books of this level of originality & scholarship will not disappear from the scene.--Ted Byrd (edited)
Perhaps Burnshaw, a very independent thinker, refused to conform to the mold of post-modernism & thus hasn't been promoted by the academic establishment; or, perhaps mainstream readers have a natural antipathy to poetry because of the perception that it's artificial & remote from real life. That was once my perception, but some critical studies of poetry have opened up insights that make me think poetry can impact us in a very relevant manner if we find the proper approach to it.
"The Seamless Web" is the latest &, so far, the best of these kinds of studies I've come across. "The Seamless Web" is truly an apt title, for tho it includes an immense amount of scholarly learning from many different sources, all these pieces of information are welded together in such a cohesive construction that it seems hard to break into this web & extract discrete bits for purposes of description. The most concise thumbnail description I can give is that it's an investigation of the way in which artists (which includes creative inventors of all sorts, but with the emphasis on poets) achieve their creations on the transmitting side & how readers or other users are able to appreciate these creations on the receiving end.
Several light bulbs lit up while reading the author's insights about these two different phases: creation & appreciation. I'd previously thought that a poet formed some concept or insight & then went about devising a poetic framework which would fit a preconceived notion. I'd also thought that any intelligent person should be able to pick up on the poems of acclaimed poets without having to have them explained.
Burnshaw effectively discredits both of those conceptions. He shows thru argument & from the confessions of many of the greats, such as Goethe, Eliot, Whitman & Valery, that poets don't control the creative process. In many cases they act more like stenographers who take dictation from an inner, mysterious author. Then, to the degree necessary, they edit & arrange the received creation into a finished form. As for the prerequisites which the reader must bring to the task, there's some great poetry which can be appreciated simply for the striking beauty or strangeness of its imagery, but to really appreciate the great poets, the reader is usually going to need outside help.
Burnshaw shows at length that poets, in their quest for purity & conciseness of expression, cover up or remove the recipe that would reveal how they arrived at a final product. It's often necessary to look to mythology, classical civilization, Shakespeare & other literary figures, or circumstances peculiar to the author's personal life.
Why bother with so much effort? There are many reasons: The effort of piecing together the puzzle of what the poet is trying to convey will bring a more forceful revelation when you get the Aha! from having participated. By not presenting their visions in simple one-to-one correspondences, poets are able to convey multiple layers of meaning which provide readers a rich associative fabric of images, some of which may give them insights into their own experience. There are sensations or emotions so ineffable that language cannot adequately describe them. Thru the proper words used in the proper combinations & sequences, the poet may be able to suggest those feelings by, in essence, creating a language.
Burnshaw's conception of the poet's need to create, which seems unique, is that it arises from an irritation, like a pearl in an oyster. It's a deep organic need of the body to return to the seamless web of placental rhythm & security. Only when this irritant is expelled as a work of art can the organism return to its inner rhythm & harmony--that is, until the next irritant develops. What I've said about this book is but the merest scratching of the surface. In over 300 pages I noted no repetition or dullness. It's a one-of-a-kind performance well worth the effort. Hopefully books of this level of originality & scholarship will not disappear from the scene.--Ted Byrd (edited)
333 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 7, 2014
There were fad books in college just like there had been in high school. In high school they had been books by authors such as Vonnegut, Cohen, Brautigan and Hesse. At Grinnell College they were books like Graves' The White Goddess, Lawrence's The Man Who Died, Kinser and Kleinman's The Dream That Was No More a Dream and Burnshaw's The Seamless Web.
During my senior year there was a non-tenured member of the German faculty who achieved an exceptional level of popularity. Although I never took him, I did, like many others, attend some of his lecture performances. Although a friend recommended Burnshaw, the source of that was one of those lectures.
I normally read little poetry. A lot was required in school certainly, enough for a sense of the thing, but the act of reading a poem on assignment, silently and in a hurry, always felt wrong. Poetry, like drama, should be read aloud. Although I did manage all of Goethe's Faust this way and a collection of Dylan Thomas while in college, the time demands were generally unsupportable except in those too rare occasions when a friend would want to make the reading of such a social event. Fortunately, I had a friend or two like this.
So, too, a book like Burshaw's requires time, time for reflection and occasionally time to pause to read a section aloud. This, sadly, I did not allow myself to do. Instead, to satisfy perceived social demands, I read this book through quickly, just like another assigned reading, and so obtained little from the experience.
During my senior year there was a non-tenured member of the German faculty who achieved an exceptional level of popularity. Although I never took him, I did, like many others, attend some of his lecture performances. Although a friend recommended Burnshaw, the source of that was one of those lectures.
I normally read little poetry. A lot was required in school certainly, enough for a sense of the thing, but the act of reading a poem on assignment, silently and in a hurry, always felt wrong. Poetry, like drama, should be read aloud. Although I did manage all of Goethe's Faust this way and a collection of Dylan Thomas while in college, the time demands were generally unsupportable except in those too rare occasions when a friend would want to make the reading of such a social event. Fortunately, I had a friend or two like this.
So, too, a book like Burshaw's requires time, time for reflection and occasionally time to pause to read a section aloud. This, sadly, I did not allow myself to do. Instead, to satisfy perceived social demands, I read this book through quickly, just like another assigned reading, and so obtained little from the experience.
October 11, 2020
In the three main sections of the book, Burnshaw moves from the psychological-linguistic context to cultural-existential perspective and on to the artistic components (object, reader, and encounter) to present his case for a literary-philosophical analysis of poetry. The existential component is central to his thesis of the human organism in all its evolutionary scale responding a whole to the poem. In Burnshaw’s work, a poem is not just words and language but a more complete package of meanings that address the entirety of being.
Read the complete review at https://www.ernestdempsey.com/the-sea....
Read the complete review at https://www.ernestdempsey.com/the-sea....
March 23, 2014
I think this guy meant to write Hofstadter's Surfaces and Essences...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews