11.18.2009

death mask

XIII. The work is the death mask of its conception.

—Walter Benjamin, "One-Way Street," translated by Edmund Jephcott, Selected Writings, Volume 1: 1913-1926, M. Bullock and M. W. Jennings, eds. (Belknap Press, 1996)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

All wrong. The conception is a radiance, a fluidity, a wind, a code like DNA. The work is its expression, its realization. Without the work the conception is meaningless.

JforJames said...

Benjamin may have been a bit dramatic with that statement. It was part of manifesto of sorts, called Post No Bills.

In an ideal sense I agree with you: The conception is very attractive. And work is all we have in the end to represent it. So, at a certain point, the conception becomes a fiction, a chimera, and perhaps even meaningless. However, other have expressed disspointment and dismay that the conceived fails to match the executed piece:

For example isn't the this the long-winded way of saying what Benjamin succinctly stated:

"So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted...
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or in the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion."

—T.S. Eliot, from “East Coker” section of “Four Quartets”

Anonymous said...

I guess I just don't care for whiners. Eliot was a whiner. ("Not with a bang but a whimper," wah wah.) It seems to me he's saying something different from Benjamin, who seems to be making a structural or systemic claim: all works fail their conceptions. I know this isn't true because I've written poems that came out much better than I ever imagined they might when I started writing. Surely other writers have had this experience. Eliot, it sees to me, is simply articulating his personal sense of failure. (Wah wah.) Or maybe it's just his effete and pointless use of "one" that gets under my skin....

JforJames said...

It's nice to be pleasantly surprised by the results.

I think of the conception vs. product issue as a kind of translation problem. The poem as a translation of that 'original' in the mind. Sometimes the results are pleasing to point one could claim the translation better than the original. Not often but sometimes.

I use 'one' quite a bit, since the English language failed to afford us with a gender-neutral third-person pronoun to fit the bill.

Anonymous said...

I'm being irascible, I know it. I use "one" as well. But Eliot starts off the passage with "I" and then shifts. Annoying.

I like your translation idea. I've been reading translations of Basho with notes on each haiku, and it's truly remarkable what doesn't—and cannot—come across the language divide. Maybe some conceptions (or most, even) have a wordless aspect that is simply beyond articulation....