The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart
A Poetry Anthology- Robert Bly, James Hillman, and Michael Meade
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This is an excerpt from this Poetry Anthology by James Hillman
Language: Speaking Well and Speaking Out
…But the notion of ordinary, only literal speech can be questioned, since words cannot be cut free from their primordial messages. As Gerhart Hauptmann says, “Poetry is the art of letting the primordial word resound through the common word.” All words have roots, histories, families, genders, offspring. They reach back through centuries to the dead tongues of ancient peoples, and they go on accumulating wealth and shedding outworn baggage as they travel from region to region. They bring blessings—like a long-awaited letter from your son or your father; and they bring curses so that even the most soberly abstract term can fix us in spells that last for years, like a psychiatric diagnosis. Because words are so laden with hidden messages, they cannot help but be metaphors, by nature “poetic,” opening beyond their commonsense definitions into mystery and myth. In fact, the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico wrote, “a metaphor is a myth in brief.”
Thoreau recommends extravagance for breaking through usual language. “I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true expression.” J. M. Cohen’s translation of the incredible exaggerations by the classic French writer Rabelais and a contemporary version of “Amergin and Cessair,” an ancient Celtic incantation, show the power of extravagance. Bombast, scurrility, farfetched similes and startlingly sensuous images, and the humongous immensity of their vocabularies enchant the eye as it reads, the ear as it hears. We are charmed out of the ordinary by the riches of words.