ERRATA, BY CATEGORY

This Just In:

"However, another poem written in 1948, "In Praise of Limestone," implies that while there is an ongoing tension between agape and eros, there is also the possibility of a reconciliation between the two. The poem's opening evokes Auden's 1930 love poems with its focus on a rough limestone landscape that appeals to "we, the inconstant ones". In the poem's schema the characteristics of a landscape reflect a certain type of person , such that the average "inconstant ones" appreciate the limestone landscape because, although it is solid rock, it also, "dissolves in water" so that,"beneath,/ a secret system of caves and conduits" permeates it. Both landscape and lover play at permanence but are subject to transience and change. Other types of people appreciate other landscapes, so the "saints-to-be" prefer the "granite wastes" because they are solid and constant, and the "Intendant Caesars" prefer clays and gravels because of their malleability. But there are still others, whom the poet calls "the really reckless"....

"and a packet o' gravel please." -Mandy

Except for that last irrelevant and irreverent remark, the rest is from a paper that just came out in "Christianity and Literature" called "Turn her desperate longing to love":W.H. Auden, Denis de Rougemont, and Lyric Love Poetry", by Stephen J Schuler. Or just Steve as he is known around these parts; or, alternatively, "Rogue Cheddar".

I am thinking in particular about that insulting phrase, "We, the inconstant ones"--there is evidence of course that limestone creations such as giant stalagmites and stalactites (ground and ceiling you see) can be formed and deformed very rapidly. So that the calcium deposits on my faucet and my clay "watering worm" are not exactly among the "permanent things" (Eliot/Russell Kirk)

Even so----What do you mean, "inconstant," W.H.? Speak for yourself!! I tithe on mint, cumin, dill, cilantro, and pumpkins !!! So. Am I too full of holes and tunnels? Swiss, not All-American?



I mean--I'm a man of constant sorrow. How then am I inconstant?

This goes back, indirectly, to yesterday's post. The responses were excellent. But the solution to the riddle is not necessarily theo-logical but just logical. It is called a "category mistake" ; in which I, for the sake of argument--or rather, winning an argument, place two things in the same category and one of them doesn't belong, even though I wish it did; and if I do realize my mistake, I hope no one notices. These are not usually intentional but mostly subliminal; we hope however that the conflating of things that are not exactly bedfellows, or of the subsumable with the unsubsumable stuff, will win the day; however, that's about all one can hope to win....

By the way, "conflate" can mean to amalgamate--but equally often may mean, "confuse."

courtesy of:"Confuse-a-Cat, LTD."