Sunday, September 19, 2021
Poetry as Concentration?
Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (1934; rpt. London: Faber and Faber, 1991), p. 36:
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'Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.'There are two different verbs spelled dichten in German. One means "dicht machen" (dicht = thick, dense, compact), and the other means "ein sprachliches Kunstwerk (besonders in Versform) verfassen" (definitions from Duden). The two homonyms are etymologically unrelated and should not be used to support the idea of poetry as concentration.Dichten = condensare.I begin with poetry because it is the most concentrated form of verbal expression. Basil Bunting, fumbling about with a German-Italian dictionary, found that this idea of poetry as concentration is as old almost as the German language. 'Dichten' is the German verb corresponding to the noun 'Dichtung' meaning poetry, and the lexicographer has rendered it by the Italian verb meaning 'to condense'.
Labels: etymology, typographical and other errors
