Deguy‘s Poetry and Philosophy: Each only Half of Two

Auteurs-es

  • Thomas Curran

Résumé

Michel Deguy has devoted a whole lifetime to “doing two things at once” — not by engaging in the Platonic quarrel between philosophy and poetry — but instead by rigorously pursing his “twin vocations” — without subordinating one to the other. Employing a “double vision”, Deguy‘s diplopia is not “seeing double”, but is rather the containing of these “most separate peaks” within a single glimpse (Blick), view or vision. These “separate mountains” then become like the foci of an ellipse: inseparable, distinct yet united, unique yet combined, and contained in what one might have called, in an earlier time: “a well-rounded personality.”

Michel Deguy a passé sa vie entière à  faire « deux choses à  la fois », mais cela non pas en s‘adonnant à  la querelle platonicienne entre la philosophie et la poésie, mais en s‘appliquant plutôt avec rigueur à  la poursuite de sa « double vocation », sans permettre qu‘un de ses deux aspects ait le dessus sur l‘autre. La diplopie de Deguy est une « double vision » qui n‘est pas « voir double », mais plutôt la fusion de ces « pics fort distants » au sein d‘un unique coup d‘oeil (Blick), d‘une vue ou d‘une vision. Ces « montagnes séparées » deviennent alors comme les pôles d‘une ellipse : inséparables, distinctes mais unies, uniques mais jointes, et réunies dans ce qu‘on aurait appelé, à  une autre époque, « une personnalité entière ».

Biographie de l'auteur-e

Thomas Curran

Thomas Curran teaches in the Foundation Year Programme of the University of King‘s College, Halifax, where he also serves as the Clerk of Convocation and the Chair of Faculty. His education has emphasized the profound influence of Classical Antiquity upon 19th-Century German Romanticism. These interests have found expression in the appropriation of the Classics in Dante and T.S. Eliot, in particular. His latest project is a series of essays called Fake or Facsimile on his blog www.recherché.com.

Publié-e

2019-11-03

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