JDS in the Clouds
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Thu, 04 Nov 1999 11:42:01 -0600
Tim O'Connor wrote:
> I myself think Salinger was having a bit of fun poking at academics
> who rely upon "Zeitgeist" as if it were the SHIFT key.
This is surely the case. I, of course, was having a bit of fun poking
at Salinger in a roundabout way. He implies that people who pursue
such questions are silly, trivial souls who may mean well but who
needn't bother so hard after all.
In fact, he has quite a bit of Frost in his attitude:
Don't be so naive. I'm an artist. I'm too sublime actually to
discuss that sort of stuff. Me in my Frostian woodpile here--all I
have to do is get out of bed in the morning and I just channel
unpremeditated literary substance right into my prose, see. 'Tis a
lofty and tranquil summit here in the heights of my vast being! The
sap in my veins is the potent distillation of Olympus's million finest
throbbing muses, so why would I kick in the clouds at my feet to
ponder that sort of thing? I am a total aesthetic-reception device in
a stocking cap, chopping wood for his solitary fire this afternoon!
In fact, if you look around for a bit, you'll surely see Henry David
Thoreau's ants marching their bellicose march toward my window sill.
You'll understand, then, why I regard you with the amiable
condescention of Rilke watching his children slip and stumble in the
oil of his wisdom.
--
But Would JD have Split the Infinitive?
mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu