Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino

Logoclasody

ody / ode / aeidein, to sing

of logoclastics and of eidetics and of pannarrativity

Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below,
Words without thoughts, never to Heaven go."

—Shakespeare. Hamlet, III, iii, 97-8.

The mind knows the word in the figure of its substance. 
The mind knows the word in the figure of its substance. 
The mind knows the word in the figure of its substance. 
The mind knows the word in the figure of its substance. 
The mind knows the word in the figure of its substance. 
The mind knows the word in the figure of its substance. 
The mind knows the word in the figure of its substance. 

Or, what is a crash course in eidetic poetry.

For only in eidos do words have the substantiality of things.

`

A response to "Logoclasody," by Scott Wilkerson. 
 

In the turbulent economy of contemporary critical theory, there exists a restrictive and, therefore, regressive distinction between the philosophical and poetical projects.  To be sure, this distinction is more than merely a received view insofar as the philosopher and the poet might imagine differing objectives.  Indeed, there may be real, determinate limitations to what either can accomplish, given the exigencies of form, to say nothing of the tyrannies of tradition. 

For Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, however, these exclusionary principles and boundary conditions are, finally, points of departure and as much open to conjecture as the puzzles they presume to resolve.  Tracing that conceptual arc, "Logoclasody"—his sustained encounter with the question of "poetry as discourse"—delivers an astonishing inter-penetration of logical inquiry and lyrical invention.   It is a major theoretical gesture and, therefore, a significant methodological provocation.  I propose, here, to begin an exploration of the logoclastic synthesis and speculate on its implications for the critical enterprise of textual poetics. 

As an exegetical object, "Logoclasody" documents quite brilliantly an ontological crisis in poetry and is, by design, an exemplar both of the problem and the solution.  St.Thomasino conceives the central aporia of writing as one of recovering, from the ruin of a necessarily incomplete knowledge, the deep-structure(s) of representation.  And by exploiting the tension between grammatical function and the irruptive energies of text itself, the Thomasinian program deploys logos as an expressive motif, through which are diffracted both meaning and its contested relationship to language.  This "reverse nominalism" of logoclasticity authorizes the artifacts of poetic syllogism without invoking or displacing templates of semantic calculus, a delightfully subversive reading of the rules subtending metaphoric logic!   

St.Thomasino's image of "poetry as discourse/the poem as revealer," is an open rejoinder to the instrumentalist motivation in criticism, that odd, reflexive tropism toward zero sum explication.  And if, as he further suggests, passage into "the confidence of the poem" requires a double integration of the poet's "creative intuition" and the reader's "receptive intuition" turning on an axis of "tentative consent," then logoclasticity becomes that sense in which language's triple trajectories converge not upon, but rather, beyond the essentialist horizon of knowledge.  It is on the strength of St. Thomasino's eidetic idiom that we are permitted a glimpse of this exotic space. 

That his system both invites and resists critical interrogation is evidence of a struggle to derive, from the metaphysical expenditures of writing, an exit strategy for the poet in peril: "the mind knows the word in the figure of its substance."  Yet it is precisely at this moment of casting off formal encumbrances that his 'break in discourse" restores, to this aesthetic schema, the mechanism of a complex spatial grammar.  This is perhaps the characteristic logoclastic moment, a stately modulation from the scattered coordinates of phenomenological mapping to the vertex of epistemological triangulation, from place to space, from modes of writing, to nodes of knowing.

"Logoclasody" is, at once, a work of scholarly elegance and poetic gallantry.  St. Thomasino's considerable achievement here is to illumine some of the foundational architectonics that animate the narratives of post-modernity.   Because so much of contemporary poetry and criticism is propagated without risk—and, therefore, surely without revelation—speculative sophistication must become the new exemplar of investigative rigor.   We have now, before us, precisely that object, conjured in the admonition to "make room for that-which-is" and, thus, a celebratory vision of what-might-be. 

Poet and theorist Scott Wilkerson is Assistant Professor, Director of Humanities, at Georgia Military College and a Research Associate at the Halawaukee Studio for the Arts.  This response first appeared in Word For/Word, in the Field Notes column for October 12, 2005.   

´

Logoclasody

What is "logos"?
"Logos" is a principle.
"Logos" is an ordering principle.

It is by virtue of [the] logos that seemingly different things can come together
under a common name.  For instance: I have several different types of chairs in my home,
they are specific but they all come together under the general name / noun "chair."  The
logos is the principle of the noun, by virtue of which the proper is collected under / into
the common.

proper / common
specific / general 

What do words do?  Words stand for things. Words are, in a sense, portable things.  I do not
need to carry things around with me if I can just take out a word and give it to you and thereby
give to you the thing I have in mind to give to you.  And with that I say,

"listen not to me, but to my logos,"

listen to my word.  This is how names, nouns, function — they collect all those things that they
stand for and make them available in a portable, transportable, translatable, word.

logoclastics / the poem is / as a matter [matter] of interlocking, or, rather,
interlocuting (loqui, to speak, inter, between), syntactical elements.  A syntactical
element "is equal to" a single word, a clause, a sentence, a suspension. . . .  (How
much thought [matter / what is the matter?] is represented by a suspension!  How
much grammatical function is represented by a suspension (a suspension is at once
a break, and a connection, a nexus for the radiance that is logos — and thereby,
discourse!).)

poetry as discourse / the poem as revealer.
communication, a passage from the creative intuition [of the poet] to the receptive
intuition [of the reader [a redding] / this requires a sort of previous, tentative
consent — to the poem and to the intentions of the poet — without which we
cannot be taken into the confidence of the poem].

or: the relaxing of the critical intelligence.  for how can you reflect upon an
experience if you have not first had the experience?

Thomas Aquinas’ "id quod visum placet," or, [the beautiful is] that which, being
seen, pleases. [the body — the bloc? — of words / text]

integrity
proportion (consonance) / ratio [e · ratio — postmodern "proportion"?]
radiance / clarity [causes intelligence to see] [logos / in itself]

if the poets cannot act authentically in the way of logos . . . who, then?   Who,
then?

The Latin, vates, was both a poet and a diviner, a bard and a seer.

Abstract Poetry?

if nouns are as "concrete word pictures"

[Think: The meanings of those nouns, the meanings which are shared by all those
things collected beneath the noun.  E.g., the noun "chair."   All chairs share similar
characteristics.  These "similar characteristcs" are the structures underlying the
noun "chair."] 

[This is, in effect, a reverse Nominalism: Whereas the Nominalist says "only
names exist," think: "only meanings exist."]

if the meanings are as "abstract word pictures"

from Russell [and then the early Wittgenstein]:  Russell’s philosophy of Logical
Atomism, here is where the "atoms of meaning" come from.  These "atoms of
meaning" are in essence the similar characteristics, or grammatical structures,
underlying the nouns (the names of things).  Each part of a proposition, say of the
proposition "chair," is an atom of meaning.  If the atom of meaning "seat" is
absent, then the proposition is false, because a chair must have a seat to be a chair.
And so on.  Each atom can be split into more atoms. . . .  So, again, it’s a matter
of the leap of analogy: If the nouns are "concrete word pictures," then, by
analogy, the meanings are "abstract word pictures."

what is the eidos, or form, of a noun?  is not a noun a picture?   do we not "see"
nouns?

[in what way does language "show"?]

eidos = concretely: actual shape, the visible
eidos = abstractly: conceptual intelligibility

concrete is to the senses as abstract is to the mind.
concrete is to what shows as abstract is to what tells.
[an analogue clock will show you the time / a digital clock will tell you the time.]

* * *

this statement is both presentative and re-presentative
this statement is both an end in itself and a means to another end

language is both communication and self-expression

* * *

the mind knows the word in the figure of its substance.
the mind knows the word in the figure of its substance.
the mind knows the word in the figure of its substance.
the mind knows the word in the figure of its substance.
the mind knows the word in the figure of its substance.
the mind knows the word in the figure of its substance.
the mind knows the word in the figure of its substance.

For only in eidos do words have the substantiality of things.

Or, what is a crash course in eidetic poetry.

* * *

Or, think of eidos in the sense of outline. Think of the instrument we call

the eidograph.

eidos, "form, figure" / graphein, "to write" 

The eidograph traces an outline, a figure. 

If I ask of you: Say, would you give me an "outline" of that novel?  What would
"outline" mean to you?  How would you think of "outline"?   What would you be
giving me?

outline [eidos] / synopsis / blueprint / profile.

Could you make of this sense of outline a guiding principle for a sort of poetry?

The eidograph is a visualizing, a making concrete of an eidos. 

The eidos is both the idea and the form of the visualization of the idea. 

eidos = concretely: actual shape, the visible
eidos = abstractly: conceptual intelligibility

Eidetics studies the visualization of the idea. 

Eidetics is the visualization of the idea. 

Think: complementarities.   

eidetic / synoptic  (syn, "together")  

syn · optic | syn, together, opsis, of sight  Seeing the whole together.  

Nietzsche said, philosophy is biography. It may be the same can be said for
poetics. Or: What happened when concrete poetry deserted signification for the
materiality of the letter? This is not the biography of concrete poetry, but of the
"visual poet." Calling what he does "poetry," the visual poet enables his work to
be thought of as a form of literature. But is it not really typography? One thinks of
the decorative swash letter. A flourish [or, elongation of the kern] here, a flourish
[or, elongation of the kern] there. . . .

Or, and in a most general sense, is it not simple graphic symbollurgy? 
Or ideography?  (But . . . less the sounds that form its name [as in a phonetic
system], less a name, less an idea or object. . . .) 

Eidography? 

Symbollurgy?

Draw for me the hieroglyphic of the world.  [By necessities a griphos?]

Eidography is the symbollurgy of the hieroglyphic of the world.

What does the hieroglyphic of the world look like?  [By necessities a griphos?]

When we say of the calligraphy, "this is visual poetry," what do we
mean / what are we really saying?

Some abstract ratio in common is implied.
We ask, in relation to what?
We answer, in relation to visual poetry.

calligraphy = "beautiful writing"
kalli, kalos, "beautiful" / graphein, "to write"

When we say "calligraphy is visual poetry," we are speaking
analogically / we are saying "calligraphy is visual poetry analogically."

analogy = ana, "according to" / logos, "ratio, proportion"

We must distinguish between visual poetry and what is visual poetry
analogically. They are not the same thing — one is visual poetry,
the other is not.

Calligraphy and visual poetry are visual poetry not in the same sense but
analogically.

Speaking analogically about visual poetry, we open ourselves to
1) vagueness, 2) inappropriatness, and 3) self-contradiction.

Where lies the eidetic in calligraphy? The calligraphic eidetic is found
in the line, in the cursive-script line, as here we see the visualization of
the idea insofar as the line depicts or portrays the quality of emotion
[the temperamental disposition / the rhythmic character] of the writing.
In this we "see" joy, grace, wonderment, etc.

the calligraphic predicate eidetic complement

and we hold in distinction to this:

the calligraphic objective eidetic complement

Think: complementarities.  

syn · optic | syn, together, opsis, of sight  

* * *

Interlocation:
as mental interlocation / logical space [language in eidos] 
collocation / a speaking together [a choros]
interlocution / interlocation / topology (topology: this is time,
the simultaneity / knowing present, to past, present and past knowing / how
memory (by definition of the past) exists concurrently!).

In this interlocking / interlocution (inter / ruption, dis / location) we discern the
discourse, the logos.

* * *

A reference to topology (which is the study of surface, or location, or situation,
but never, however, of place), and indeed to Jacques Lacan’s non-seminar, "Time
and Topology."  My "space" is the space of topology (which is used by Lacan as a
metaphor for the mind: is this a more sophisticated "logical space"?).  Space is
nothing but a want of intervening points.  The space / time of topology begins
when we position a point on a surface, or find a location.   (Only once a point is
positioned does any sort of "time" come to mean anything, and this time spreads
with space, it is contiguous with it and cannot exist without it.)  Now consider the
"point" to be a proposition.  It is a unit of logic, or discourse, or knowledge.

Lacan calls these units of knowledge, or of learning, "mathemes." 

* * *

The logos, what was up to this time hidden (in poetry, in discourse). 

The Latin, vates, was both a poet and a diviner, a bard and a seer.

logoclastics

"The break in discourse."

Break:
to lay open / to make a disclosure of / to break the news 
to come into being / a beginning to appear / to dawn (it dawns upon me, it occurs
to me) / the break of day
to come into evidence 

this break, this disjunctive — a disjoining or separation, a suspension — the
relation between two or more alternatives (of a proposition) / indicating a contrast
or an alternative between ideas [an either / or].

to come into evidence [the emerging-in-language]

Objective Art

eVIDEnce

no wonder we say "seeing is believing." this is the "eye-evidentiary."

to break out
the suspension / suspension points.
of what is to follow, or what is to be the inference
[dispersed, but not dissolved]

Indeterminacy:
not to be construed as the absence of intentionality.

eratio

ratio —
(to think it, the inward thought, the name of it)
o·ratio —
(to speak it, the flatus vocis)
e·ratio —
(to show it, to write it, to make it visible:
the complemental pointing finger!)

iteration
it / eratio / n

iteration as a strategy: the frequentative: anaphora in oratory (oratio, to speak)

This iteration is at once a conceit and the means toward introducing conceits.  This formulaic and
incremental iteration is at once a conceit [in itself] and the means toward introducing conceits.

Fractal [from the Latin, frango, frangere, "to break, fracture, fraction"]

The equations of fractal geometry are nonlinear, meaning that they do not have
definite solutions but are recursive, iterating themselves fractionally, producing
endless approximations with a difference of scale.

fractal [self-similarity]

Suspension:
a nonappearance.

Suspensions are not, and ought not to be confused with, the caesura, which
has to do with a pause in rhythm. Suspensions are a matter of logic, and I am
using the term in a somewhat specialized sense. The suspension, however, is more
than a mere device or contrivance to facilitate participation [reciprocation], just be
conscious of yourself when you are communicating and you'll realize that
suspensions are not only frequent-as-to-be-habitual but are indispensable, but are
elemental to language usage. And neither is the suspension an instance of
aposiopesis ("a becoming silent") which is a rhetorical device used for dramatic
effect. Consider that the aposiopesis is "outward" while the suspension is
"inward."

the suspension / the anacoluthon
the suspension / the lacking sequence [in a manner lacking sequence]
(they are not identical / what lies behind [what is the logic behind] the anacoluthon?)

Habits are transparent.
Logoclasody is everywhere. . . . 

Pannarrativity

Pannarrativity:
narratives (bits and pieces [fragments] of narrative [this is "quotation"]) removed
from their original context and placed [in-corporated] into a new context take on
new meanings (while retaining something of their original intention).  

Narrative — the word / logos — is everywhere.  The world is a narrative.

The world "writ large." Pan-narrativity.

quotation / connotation / denotation

The "pannarrative text."  A "text-collage" composed of bits and pieces (words,
sentences, verses, elements [quotation]) of narrative (narrative as found /
appropriation) "stitched" together.

The pannarrative poem begins by seeing all the world as one great narration, a
narrative that is known in proportion to the degree of the relation of its parts.

As an instance of the pannarrative text (or of the collage text) I here do offer one of my own.  And notice, please, the composition, the assemblage, is of things from the world writ large, from the world all around me, and these are mixed with my own sensibilities, with my own emotions.  In the act of placing these things into my poem, I am citing them, saying their names, making quote of them and as though listing them, calling them out, appropriating them (this is what I mean by "appropriation" — things are not quoted from other pre-existing texts, but are found in the world all around us, the world as one great narration, the world writ large):

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear  

the reed of a loom
the guideways, of a loom, or 

when suddenly, when suddenly
this is spring, and this is summer 

and this, this is open sky. 
the birds resemble a man.   

dandelion.  giddying. 
budded.  spree.   

roundly, with joy
for nothing and for everything 

the day, with my own heart
too soon, arrayed.  this haste 

this pasturing.  this coffee companion. 
this cup.  this yellow sky

The pannarrative poem, then, is constituted of fragments of narrative (which in
their dislocative / disjunctive state are potentially plurisignificative) and uses
juxtaposition as a principle of composition.  (And like the metaphor, produces
semantic changes, and thereby increases language.)

While not quite on the level of the metaphor, I see pannarrativity as coming to
be a sort of stand-in for the metaphor, requiring, to its own end, an intuitive
competence — an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars as found
in the disjunction (the logoclastics) that posits the juxtaposition.   (And like the
metaphor, produces semantic changes, and thereby increases language.) 

It becomes clear: the difference, between the pannarrative and the collage.

the neologism increases language in the way of the denotation, while the metaphor
increases language in the way of the connotation.

Pannarrativity and Anonymity

The problem of pannarrativity and anonymity.

anonymous writing. one does not belong to what one has written.
signature / voice / sensibilities 

or, as follows Barthes, the concept that all texts are plural, equivocal, and indeterminate.

Pannarrativity and the Feminine

Pannarrativity and the feminine text.
Femininity and the pannarrative text.  

logoclasody

ody / ode / aeidein, to sing