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“Poetry” and “archaeology” are not realities that we can capture by means of essentialist definitions, as if they had clear-cut boundaries that we could supposedly split open, in several directions, and thus establish modes of circulation or cross-articulation between them.
If anything, poetic production since the beginning of the twentieth century has been characterized by a constant questioning of itself. That atitude is, moreover, a characteristic of Modernity, in particular since Romanticism. Much the same can be said of the panorama in archaeology.
There is, of course, no single definition of poetics from an academic point of view. From Aristotle to Derrida and De Man, the definitions have been manifold. Actually, we can say that poetics have been a permanent interrogation of literary discourse.
We do not attach great significance to the use of a commonsensical, ornamental conception of poetry (“a beautiful way of expressing feelings or ideas about reality”) as a form of literary expression in archaeology, or in any other creative activity for that matter. Indeed, taken seriously, archaeology is in itself a highly complex and multifarious universe, with ever-shifting boundaries. As it needs to convey its results to disparate audiences, there is a tendency for a literature which resorts to easy modes of enchantment to attract new adherents to the heritage and tourism industries.
In fact, this is part of a well known broader phenomenon: a tendency for a "light" culture easily acceptable by the media. In connection with this, and on a different level, late modern culture questions and dissolves all boundaries and academicisms, deconstructing watertight compartments and prizing fluidity, as well as a certain relativism and indetermination: a caosmos, to use Deleuze’s expression.
As we have said above, poetry cannot be seen as mere ornamentation, as an agreeable and seductive means of conveying other contents external to itself – archaeological or otherwise. Poetry is or is not, that is to say, it has or has not a certain aesthetic potential, which is, to a great extent, subjective (ultimately, the decision is left to each reader). But this subjectivity is a cultivated one, since taste is the product of an enduring process of embodiment.
And when poetry happens, it happens according to its own rules, which are somehow reinvented by each poet and by each reader, and pursuing its own ends. This does not imply, however, a completely autotelic approach. It is obvious, since Bourdieu, that the literary field is a convention, only one among many, created by Modernity. But the “freedom of creativity” and the continuous invention of rules is typical of all forms of modern art, making each author an isolated being, not only because he/she must be original, but also because that very originality is to be defined by him/her; it is not framed, except by the rules created in the course of creative process itself. Last but not least, archaeology is nowadays a concept used within the most diverse contexts, ranging from philosophy to advertising or everyday language. At this level, it has provided a metaphor for depth or for remote, “primitive” or esoteric realities – a metaphor which has long since become exhausted. Once we have established in advance the paths we do not wish to follow, what topics can be usefully addressed in the context of the relationships between poetry and archaeology?
Both poetry and archaeology are forms of creative activity, of poiesis in its most global and ancient sense of “world making”– a making, however, by agents who are not on the outside but, precisely, immersed in the world.
It is as if a craftsman created a vase, not as an object external to his own body, but as a shape involving it, leading up to the merging of both. In this respect, poetry and archaeology are two ways of dwelling in the world in a Heideggerian sense: a dwelling not in the sense of a “casting” oneself into the world, but as a realization that we are already in it, as historically situated beings who need to create meaning.
The British anthropologist Tim Ingold, for example, has made thought-provoking suggestions in this direction, by proposing new ways of looking at human experience and discarding dichotomies as well as traditional disciplinary conventions.
We feel compelled to look beyond the fact that poetry is conventionally pigeonholed in the world of art, and archaeology frequently considered a science, even if a “social” one. Beyond all their differences and specific rules, which are established academically, it is true that both foster discursive practices – or, more specifically, textual ones. Etymologically, text means fabric and connotes texture, canvas, textile, etc. A text has a pre-text and a con-text: it is located amidst a multitude of other texts and within a unique intertextuality that provides it with meaning. A text is a layer, a screen comprising a sub-text. Finding its
subtleties is an unending task concerning both literary and archaeological hermeneutics. And, in the final analysis, this is a demand made to the reader or to anyone who engages with a poetic or archaeological object.
Producing meaning in poetry means to achieve enduring aesthetic effects through the creation of textual rhythms and atmospheres endowed with the new, the absolutely unexpected, a passionate and disconcerting energeia. Paradoxically though, the poetic word, incorporating within itself a multitude of previously metamorphosed discourses, points to a mythical, primeval silence preceding the word. It is as if the word wished to enunciate itself as an "omen" of its own impossibility – an exceedingly difficult enterprise which only few achieve.
Archaeology, too, is moved by a mythical passion for origins, as it aims to unravel from under the earth and the present a hidden reality that is the product of previous experiences. Its apparent tendency for accumulation is no more than a disguise for – or a deviation from – its original aim: seeing beyond or underneath that which is now (misleadingly) visible. But seeing what? Certainly not the “presentification” of the past or something pointing to univocal meaning, but precisely the dismissal – as in poetry – of commonplace views, so as to retrieve beyond them meanings for the surrounding reality.
Poetry organizes the word; archaeology organizes the territory. Both are part of the same design: a desire to find meaning. To re-connect (in the Latin sense of religare, to bind) the world, from which we have been severed by an excess of reflective consciousness and, in particular, by western culture, a logocentric, utilitarian, functional and now increasingly consumerist culture.
In this regard, archaeology and poetry are practices prompted by a desire for the invisible, for the metaphysical, for the suspension of the fluidity of ordinary things. Dealing with material things, objects and texts, they are thus in a certain way inspirational objects, vital for our balance as human beings.
copyright Vítor Oliveira Jorge and Daniela Kato
If anything, poetic production since the beginning of the twentieth century has been characterized by a constant questioning of itself. That atitude is, moreover, a characteristic of Modernity, in particular since Romanticism. Much the same can be said of the panorama in archaeology.
There is, of course, no single definition of poetics from an academic point of view. From Aristotle to Derrida and De Man, the definitions have been manifold. Actually, we can say that poetics have been a permanent interrogation of literary discourse.
We do not attach great significance to the use of a commonsensical, ornamental conception of poetry (“a beautiful way of expressing feelings or ideas about reality”) as a form of literary expression in archaeology, or in any other creative activity for that matter. Indeed, taken seriously, archaeology is in itself a highly complex and multifarious universe, with ever-shifting boundaries. As it needs to convey its results to disparate audiences, there is a tendency for a literature which resorts to easy modes of enchantment to attract new adherents to the heritage and tourism industries.
In fact, this is part of a well known broader phenomenon: a tendency for a "light" culture easily acceptable by the media. In connection with this, and on a different level, late modern culture questions and dissolves all boundaries and academicisms, deconstructing watertight compartments and prizing fluidity, as well as a certain relativism and indetermination: a caosmos, to use Deleuze’s expression.
As we have said above, poetry cannot be seen as mere ornamentation, as an agreeable and seductive means of conveying other contents external to itself – archaeological or otherwise. Poetry is or is not, that is to say, it has or has not a certain aesthetic potential, which is, to a great extent, subjective (ultimately, the decision is left to each reader). But this subjectivity is a cultivated one, since taste is the product of an enduring process of embodiment.
And when poetry happens, it happens according to its own rules, which are somehow reinvented by each poet and by each reader, and pursuing its own ends. This does not imply, however, a completely autotelic approach. It is obvious, since Bourdieu, that the literary field is a convention, only one among many, created by Modernity. But the “freedom of creativity” and the continuous invention of rules is typical of all forms of modern art, making each author an isolated being, not only because he/she must be original, but also because that very originality is to be defined by him/her; it is not framed, except by the rules created in the course of creative process itself. Last but not least, archaeology is nowadays a concept used within the most diverse contexts, ranging from philosophy to advertising or everyday language. At this level, it has provided a metaphor for depth or for remote, “primitive” or esoteric realities – a metaphor which has long since become exhausted. Once we have established in advance the paths we do not wish to follow, what topics can be usefully addressed in the context of the relationships between poetry and archaeology?
Both poetry and archaeology are forms of creative activity, of poiesis in its most global and ancient sense of “world making”– a making, however, by agents who are not on the outside but, precisely, immersed in the world.
It is as if a craftsman created a vase, not as an object external to his own body, but as a shape involving it, leading up to the merging of both. In this respect, poetry and archaeology are two ways of dwelling in the world in a Heideggerian sense: a dwelling not in the sense of a “casting” oneself into the world, but as a realization that we are already in it, as historically situated beings who need to create meaning.
The British anthropologist Tim Ingold, for example, has made thought-provoking suggestions in this direction, by proposing new ways of looking at human experience and discarding dichotomies as well as traditional disciplinary conventions.
We feel compelled to look beyond the fact that poetry is conventionally pigeonholed in the world of art, and archaeology frequently considered a science, even if a “social” one. Beyond all their differences and specific rules, which are established academically, it is true that both foster discursive practices – or, more specifically, textual ones. Etymologically, text means fabric and connotes texture, canvas, textile, etc. A text has a pre-text and a con-text: it is located amidst a multitude of other texts and within a unique intertextuality that provides it with meaning. A text is a layer, a screen comprising a sub-text. Finding its
subtleties is an unending task concerning both literary and archaeological hermeneutics. And, in the final analysis, this is a demand made to the reader or to anyone who engages with a poetic or archaeological object.
Producing meaning in poetry means to achieve enduring aesthetic effects through the creation of textual rhythms and atmospheres endowed with the new, the absolutely unexpected, a passionate and disconcerting energeia. Paradoxically though, the poetic word, incorporating within itself a multitude of previously metamorphosed discourses, points to a mythical, primeval silence preceding the word. It is as if the word wished to enunciate itself as an "omen" of its own impossibility – an exceedingly difficult enterprise which only few achieve.
Archaeology, too, is moved by a mythical passion for origins, as it aims to unravel from under the earth and the present a hidden reality that is the product of previous experiences. Its apparent tendency for accumulation is no more than a disguise for – or a deviation from – its original aim: seeing beyond or underneath that which is now (misleadingly) visible. But seeing what? Certainly not the “presentification” of the past or something pointing to univocal meaning, but precisely the dismissal – as in poetry – of commonplace views, so as to retrieve beyond them meanings for the surrounding reality.
Poetry organizes the word; archaeology organizes the territory. Both are part of the same design: a desire to find meaning. To re-connect (in the Latin sense of religare, to bind) the world, from which we have been severed by an excess of reflective consciousness and, in particular, by western culture, a logocentric, utilitarian, functional and now increasingly consumerist culture.
In this regard, archaeology and poetry are practices prompted by a desire for the invisible, for the metaphysical, for the suspension of the fluidity of ordinary things. Dealing with material things, objects and texts, they are thus in a certain way inspirational objects, vital for our balance as human beings.
copyright Vítor Oliveira Jorge and Daniela Kato
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