Poem as Endangered Being: Lacostian Soundings in Hopkins’s “Hurrahing” and Stevens’s “Blackbird”
This essay situates the recent phenomenology of French Heideggerean-priest Jean-Yves Lacoste in Être en Danger (2011) in a wider discussion of the sacramentology of “things” to pursue the hypothesis that the being of a poem is endangered—crossed between the concrete and the abstract, the perceived a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2016-12-01
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| Series: | Religions |
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| Online Access: | http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/7/12/146 |
| _version_ | 1818701311544131584 |
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| author | Matthew David Farley |
| author_facet | Matthew David Farley |
| author_sort | Matthew David Farley |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This essay situates the recent phenomenology of French Heideggerean-priest Jean-Yves Lacoste in Être en Danger (2011) in a wider discussion of the sacramentology of “things” to pursue the hypothesis that the being of a poem is endangered—crossed between the concrete and the abstract, the perceived and the imagined, the object and the thing. Whereas for Heidegger danger entails a technocratic closure of Dasein’s being-toward-death, for Lacoste danger is proper to the being of life. Lacoste offers two “counter-existentials” to show, contra Heidegger, that life simply cannot be being-toward-death all the time: sabbatical experience and art experience. It is to these kinds of experience that poetry clearly belongs. To illustrate what Lacoste means by sabbatical experience, I offer a reading of G.M. Hopkins’s “Hurrahing in Harvest” (1877); to illustrate what Lacoste means by art experience, I turn to Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” (1917). Finally, I conclude that rather than contrast the secular poem with the religious poem it is best to think of all poetry as generically sacramental, i.e., signs and things (signum et res), with religious poetry constituting an excessive pole that is addressed to the sacrament of God (res tantum). The Christian loves the poem because the poem does not make him or her choose between God and things—in light of the Incarnation, an insupportable choice. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T15:18:50Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b65e34cb0430452f948404c0a3407f29 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2077-1444 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T15:18:50Z |
| publishDate | 2016-12-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Religions |
| spelling | doaj.art-b65e34cb0430452f948404c0a3407f292022-12-21T21:43:27ZengMDPI AGReligions2077-14442016-12-0171214610.3390/rel7120146rel7120146Poem as Endangered Being: Lacostian Soundings in Hopkins’s “Hurrahing” and Stevens’s “Blackbird”Matthew David Farley0Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, 323 Gibson Hall, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USAThis essay situates the recent phenomenology of French Heideggerean-priest Jean-Yves Lacoste in Être en Danger (2011) in a wider discussion of the sacramentology of “things” to pursue the hypothesis that the being of a poem is endangered—crossed between the concrete and the abstract, the perceived and the imagined, the object and the thing. Whereas for Heidegger danger entails a technocratic closure of Dasein’s being-toward-death, for Lacoste danger is proper to the being of life. Lacoste offers two “counter-existentials” to show, contra Heidegger, that life simply cannot be being-toward-death all the time: sabbatical experience and art experience. It is to these kinds of experience that poetry clearly belongs. To illustrate what Lacoste means by sabbatical experience, I offer a reading of G.M. Hopkins’s “Hurrahing in Harvest” (1877); to illustrate what Lacoste means by art experience, I turn to Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” (1917). Finally, I conclude that rather than contrast the secular poem with the religious poem it is best to think of all poetry as generically sacramental, i.e., signs and things (signum et res), with religious poetry constituting an excessive pole that is addressed to the sacrament of God (res tantum). The Christian loves the poem because the poem does not make him or her choose between God and things—in light of the Incarnation, an insupportable choice.http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/7/12/146phenomenologyJean-Yves-LacosteMartin HeideggersacramentspoetryWallace StevensGerard Manley Hopkins |
| spellingShingle | Matthew David Farley Poem as Endangered Being: Lacostian Soundings in Hopkins’s “Hurrahing” and Stevens’s “Blackbird” Religions phenomenology Jean-Yves-Lacoste Martin Heidegger sacraments poetry Wallace Stevens Gerard Manley Hopkins |
| title | Poem as Endangered Being: Lacostian Soundings in Hopkins’s “Hurrahing” and Stevens’s “Blackbird” |
| title_full | Poem as Endangered Being: Lacostian Soundings in Hopkins’s “Hurrahing” and Stevens’s “Blackbird” |
| title_fullStr | Poem as Endangered Being: Lacostian Soundings in Hopkins’s “Hurrahing” and Stevens’s “Blackbird” |
| title_full_unstemmed | Poem as Endangered Being: Lacostian Soundings in Hopkins’s “Hurrahing” and Stevens’s “Blackbird” |
| title_short | Poem as Endangered Being: Lacostian Soundings in Hopkins’s “Hurrahing” and Stevens’s “Blackbird” |
| title_sort | poem as endangered being lacostian soundings in hopkins s hurrahing and stevens s blackbird |
| topic | phenomenology Jean-Yves-Lacoste Martin Heidegger sacraments poetry Wallace Stevens Gerard Manley Hopkins |
| url | http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/7/12/146 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT matthewdavidfarley poemasendangeredbeinglacostiansoundingsinhopkinsshurrahingandstevenssblackbird |