Theory is the problem, or the impressionistic
opinion. You have to jump the gap the theorizer left
behind the shadow of his thought. Hegel is a good
example: his Poetics were useless even to cover the
poesy written in his own age.
    Why? He had to create vague terms and abstract
definitions which only dropped more confusion inside
the matter, BECAUSE he didn’t play any part in the
métier. He never knew what poetry was about. But he
had patience enough to collect all the claptrap he
could to put the Classics and Sturm und Drang
together. Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus,
dixit Horace, i. e., “Wants to give birth a mountain,a
ridiculous mouse is born.”
     Impressionistic opinion is a problem because it
is second-handed; it’s mixtured to a certain extent
with taste; some say “is not precise enough”.
Precision is a very delicate issue here. Arts are not
science, and if there is still someone who believes
this, then it is probably someone who came from the
nineteenth century, when everything was becoming a
kind of “science”.
      Eliot wrote a magnificent essay on music in
poetry; but it is only magnificent for the knowledge
he brought up by being a great poet who experimented
different kinds of metrics, including Roman
quantitative verse. He was the craftsman — like in the
example Romano gave about Machu Picchu fable — who
experienced poetry in a level no critic could have
done.
       Moreover, this is the situation of the plastic
arts: marchands and curators dictate their inane ideas
to a freaky thing called “the market” and then we have
all these boring so-called artists. They’re sons of
politics and money only. Literature is going the same
way. Alas!

                                       Dirceu Villa


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