(no subject)

Allegory's for when one can't convey something more properly discursively, and will therefore tend to involve matters the allegorist has trouble thinking about. Figures, landscapes and stories are needed for the thought to complete itself.

One would assume that much of the best writing would be allegorical, since thoughts that even the most brilliant individuals find themselves unable to complete in words can sometimes be completed by apt figurations. The furthest reach of the furthest reachers needs this on its fingers.

Where restatement is not reliably possible, how can technique be taught? It can only, at best, be imitated. But how close can imitation be in a space of maybes just past speech, logic, and reality? Only what is brought back can be imitated, and the brought may not be seeable for what it is outside the orientation of the act-that-is-intention of the bringing. What they wanted to get, they got, those few, but what we find, searching their relics, is not solidly that. It is a fragile food reflavored by the hand. The trick's to have your hand taste just like Shakespeare's.

(no subject)

You can also allegorize the approach to the thing you can only conditionally think about. Bishop does this: a lot is translatable, but it fades into what isn't quite. I guess that's why she's so unprecedentedly satisfying--she makes a tangible, coherent object and shimmers every part and angle back toward something deeper. Like great wine in a lovely bottle, or your loved one in the body of your loved one, or...something. Viva Bishop! I think I have a more personal sort of love for her than for any of them but Shelley. She makes you feel you know her.