Collected Letters Volume Two: Books, Broadcasts and War, 1931–1949. Walter Hooper. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Walter Hooper
Издательство: HarperCollins
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Жанр произведения: Биографии и Мемуары
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007332663
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that he would have allowed us to do so? Does the word poetria77 occur anywhere in the Summa?78 I ask this because one of my objections to some ‘neo-scholastics’ is that they often pick out Thomist texts and string them together with little regard to their real position in Aquinas’ thought, thus producing an account of ‘Thomist aesthetics’, ‘St. Thomas on representative government’ etc etc which really corresponds to nothing their master ever thought or could have thought. If you could give me a few references (I now have both Summae) I could look up the passages in situ: but till then I cannot judge their real significance. I have a strong suspicion that if I did look them up I should find they had nothing to do with poetry, and we could then be clear which we were discussing—the nature of intellectus or the nature of poetry. If one had asked the Doctor to define poetria, do you suppose he wd. have said any more than p. est ars dictandi in versibus. Quaest I. Utrum rhythmus sit versus modus79—or something of that sort.

      3. Prior to all discussion about the form of knowledge you describe, I must make a logical point. Since this knowledge is admittedly prayer and love, and could be shown, from what you say, to be also painting and music, I do not see what is gained by calling it poetry or ‘poetic experience’: for it clearly covers two things higher than poetry, and two things different. At best it would be one of the pre-conditions of poetry. And other conditions which you have left out (e.g. one of language) are surely the differentia of poetry?

      I am afraid this will sound like carping, but do you see my real difficulty? I can’t feel sure from your account whether we are dealing with a special kind of experience or with one aspect of nearly all experience—in fact of all except thought made deliberately abstract for scientific purposes. All day long my experience is going outside ratio in directions wh. cd. quite well be described in the words you quote. And, of course, poetry is nearly always based on that normal experience rather than on the specially and artificially purified moments of ratio. But that is a very different thing from a special ‘poetic experience’. It is rather that there is a special unpoetic experience.

      At this point it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps we are really in agreement: that while you are saying ‘As above, so below’ I am replying ‘As below, so above’. And if you say that the former is to be preferred since the higher explains the lower and not vice-versa, I agree with you. The points I want to make clear are

      a. That I don’t wish to deny (how could I) that really supernatural experience can be and is conferred on the soul—some souls—by God even in this life. But,

      b. That most of the descriptions you give seem to me to refer to an essentially normal experience, which is not specifically religious or poetic or anything but concrete and human.

      6. I hope the discussion about primitive man will go on though I cannot do more than make a few comments here—or ask a few questions.

      a. By primitive do you mean unfallen man or early fallen man?

      b. If he was ‘unable to distinguish between God and Nature and himself’ he was a Pantheist. Therefore fallen? You can’t mean God created Adam heretical? For God and Nature and Man are distincts (as you and I believe), and not to feel the distinction is a defect. Mind you, I don’t say they are necessarily distinct to just the degree and in just the way the modern mind instinctively assumes.

      But I can’t go on: I have a headache and am tired. I will try another time.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      As usual, discussion obliterates the elements of agreement. I should have agreed with nearly all you say if you hadn’t brought in Poetry. What you call Poetry I call simply ‘life’ or ‘concrete experience’. In fact I think you give poetry too high a place, in a sense.