Alicerçando Palavras #54 - Georges Steiner

Comme le savent les anthropologues et les historiens de l'art, les mythes deviennent des statues et les statues donnent naissance à de nouveaux mythes. Mythologies, credos, images du monde s'incarnent dans le langage ou dans le marbre ; mes mouvements intérieurs de l'âme, que Dante appelait le moto spirital, sont concrétisés dans les formes d'art. Mais au cours de cette opération, les mythologies vont se trouver altérées ou recréées. Quand Sartre dit que la technique d'un roman nous ramène à un système métaphysique, à une philosophie sous-jacente de la vie, il n'indique qu'une direction d'un rythme double. La métaphysique de l'artiste nous "amène" à la technique de son art. C'est des techniques que nous nous sommes jusqu'ici occupés - le mode épique dans les romans de Tolstoï, les éléments de la tragédie chez Dolstoïveski.

Georges Steiner, Tolstoï ou Dostoïevski

Alicerçando Poesia # 64 - Miguel Torga

Enigma

Que lei rege o poeta, ninguém sabe;
Que arcanjo o vela, também não.
Um poeta não cabe
Na sina que se lê na sua mão.

Miguel Torga, Diário IV

Alicerçando Imagens # 38 - Alberto Giacometti-1901/1966

o estúdio


"I could not understand it. All my statues ended up one centimeter high. One touch more and hop! the statue vanishes."

Giacometti

Alicerçando Palavras # 53 - A. Cohen-Solal

La longue marche du Castor

Plus sartrienne que Sartre, elle lui voua sa vie. Mais son oeuvre, sa pensée, son indépendance, son énergie sont d'elle, et d'elle seule. Voici, étape par étape, son itinéraire de femme libre.

"Je pense que personne n'a eu d'influence sur Sartre. Moi non plus d'ailleurs... Il m'expliquait toutes ses théories au fur et à mesure qu'il les avait dans la tête... Je discutais avec lui, mais je pourrais dire qu'il se discutait à moi-même..." Montparnasse, 22 mars 1983. La dame de 75 ans qui répond aux questions sur Sartre n'esquive jamais, n'enjolive pas. Elle cherche. On croit qu'elle a tout écrit, tout dit dans ses livres autobiographiques, que sa mémoire s'est arrêtée là, dans ses bilans. Et puis on la trouve prête à rebondir, toujours.

Dès juillet 1929, Simone de Beauvoir fut une déviante. A 21 ans, c'est la plus jeune des agrégatifs de philosophie. Autour d'elle, des normaliens de trois ou quatre ans ses aines : Raymond Aron, Maurice de Gandillac, Paul Nizan, Georges Politzer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, René Maheu, Jean-Paul Sartre. «Rigoureuse, précise, exigeante et technicienne », reconnaissent certains. «Sympathique, jolie, mail mal habillée», lancera un Sartre déjà provocateur. Mais, très vite, préparant avec elle les épreuves orales de l'agrégation, il dut convenir qu'intellectuellement «elle tenait la route ». Sartre fut reçu premier, elle deuxième. Mais le professeur Lalande, président du jury, expliqua à ses collègues que si Sartre possédait d'incontestables qualités intellectuelles, la philosophe, c'était elle.

A Marseille, puis à Rouen, elle est professeur de philosophie. Là encore, c'est un professeur à part. Ses élèves, elle en fait des amies, les invite à de grandes promenades à pied dans la campagne, à des discussions au café, intégrant le professionnel et le privé. Parmi ses collègues préférées, Colette Audry, qui pourtant ne parviendra pas à obtenir son adhésion au syndicat d'enseignants. Tout comme Sartre, d'ailleurs, Simone de Beauvoir reste, pendant les années 30, dans une période d'apolitisme marginal, observant la société provinciale avec dégoût et méfiance depuis leurs postes d'observation privilégiés, les cafés, trouvant dans les faits divers les plus rocambolesques de l'époque l'affaire Violette Nozières ou celle des soeurs Papin - des chefs d'accusation rédhibitoires contre la convention, l'hypocrisie et la bêtise bourgeoises.

En 1933, Sartre est à Berlin: elle lui rend visite. Initiation à la phénoménologie: il lit, cherche, s'enferre dans les méandres de son premier livre. Elle intervient «C'est trop guindé. c'est mort, c'est un français de marbre.» Il travaille, travaille encore, transforme sous ses conseils, publie enfin «la Nausée» en 1938.

Désormais, leur couple est une équipe, une équipe polyvalente: Sartre rentre de captivité en février 1941, décidé à l'action pour «chasser les Allemands hors de France». A sa suite, Simone de Beauvoir ouvre les yeux sur l'urgence de l'action. Années d'occupation, à Paris, c'est le tourbillon des rencontres, l'époque des grandes privations et des innombrables fiestas. Elle publie son premier roman, «l'Invitée», en 1943: le couple d'écrivains est introduit dans tous les cercles artistiques de la capitale. Elle rencontre Camus, Queneau, Merleau-Ponty, Picasso, Giacometti, Cocteau, Leiris. Toutes ces rencontres, ces relations, elle les filtre, les assimile, les exploite et consigne tout dans son journal: «Nous nous promettions, écrit-elle de cette période, de demeurer à jamais ligués contre les systèmes, les idées, les hommes que nous condamnions; leur défaite allait sonner; l'avenir qui s'ouvrirait alors, il nous appartiendrait de le construire peut-être politiquement, en tout cas sur le plan intellectuel: nous devions fournir à l'après-guerre une idéologie.»

En octobre 1945, naît leur journal «les Temps modernes», directement issu de toutes les discussions des années 30, puis de la guerre. Elle devient dramaturge, journaliste, théoricienne, à côté de Sartre, qui s'installe dans une phase absolument hégémonique sur la pensée française. Leur groupe se développe et s'impose dans une France déboussolée par la guerre. On les encense, on les imite, on les hait; c'est la mode et la contre-mode des «existentialistes» scandaleux qu'on n'a pas lus, qu'on n'a jamais rencontrés. mais que la presse de droite - la presse communiste aussi - caricature quotidiennement. On fera d'eux des mauvais Français, des traîtres, des dépravés qui traînent dans les cafés de Saint-Germain-des-Prés. De fait, ils travaillent plus que jamais, dans un petit appartement bourgeois de la rue Bonaparte, chez la mère de Sartre. Et «les Temps modernes» développent ses rubriques, ses numéros spéciaux, son pouvoir, s'exporte en Italie, en Amérique, en Allemagne: c'est l'affirmation de la littérature comme fonction sociale, l'apologie de la littérature engagée. Autour de ce courant, les signatures de Camus, de Vian, de Moravia, de Leiris, de Ponge, de Beckett, de Soupault, de Blanchot, de Queneau, de Nathalie Sarraute ou de jeunes écrivains encore méconnus comme Violette Leduc et Jean Genet. Au centre du groupe, de la «famille sartrienne», Simone de Beauvoir construit la cohésion du système. Nullement atteinte par le succès de Sartre, elle dissèque tous ses textes, maintient sans faille la pression de ses critiques.

En 1947, elle va vers la quarantaine, découvre l'Amérique, se lie avec Nelson Algren: nouveaux territoires, nouvelles relations. Explorant pour son compte tout ce qui stimule son insatiable boulimie culturelle, elle va, un certain temps, dériver quelque peu de Sartre, naviguer en partie pour elle-même. Ce sont les tournées de conférences en Amérique du Nord, les voyages avec Algren, la fréquentation des écrivains américains comme Mary Mac Carthy ou Richard Wright. Affirmation de sa propre puissance intellectuelle, de son autonomie, de sa pleine identité de femme écrivain. Produit de cette grande période, «le Deuxième Sexe» parait en France en 1948, cinq ans plus tard aux États-unis. En France cette analyse au scalpel de la condition féminine provoque une véritable scandale; en Amérique, c'est le triomphe. Le public français, pourtant, va consacrer son talent littéraire : elle obtient le Goncourt en 1954 pour «les Mandarins», une sorte de saga des intellectuels de gauche dans leurs années héroïques.

Retour sur soi et engagement militant après tant de succès, tant de voyages, après la rupture avec Algren, c'est la découverte d'une autre topographie intellectuelle. Elle écrit ses Mémoires, patiemment, scrupuleusement: récit de l'enfance, de l'adolescence, puis bientôt de tout le groupe des «Temps modernes». Elle décrit avec minutie et transparence, hyperlucide, imperturbable. Elle racontera aussi la mort de son amie d'enfance, la mort de sa mère et ses histoires d'amour et ses propres souffrances. Comme si, par l'écriture, auscultant sa douleur, elle bravait chacune de ses crises : affective, intellectuelle, politique. Et puis, avec Lanzmann, avec Sartre, elle milite pour le FLN pendant la guerre d'Algérie et reprend les voyages: Chine, Cuba, Brésil, Japon, Proche-Orient, pays de l'Est. Une tournée dans le monde entier, conférences, articles, livres, dialogues avec les chefs d'État, soutien aux pays du tiers monde, manifestations, congrès, discours. Retour sur soi et engagement militant: elle tient les deux bouts de la chaîne. A l'écoute d'elle-même, à l'écoute du présent.

Il y aura enfin les années gauchistes, le féminisme actif. Et rien ne parait arrêter la sexagénaire que l'on vient consulter, du monde entier, comme la référence essentielle; elle reçoit, conseille, signe, organise, chaque fois que se profile un combat féministe. Quoi qu'il arrive, elle est au front. Comité de rédaction des «Temps modernes», déjeuners réguliers avec les amis de toujours, vacances trois fois par an, au rythme infaillible du calendrier scolaire. Après la mort de Sartre, elle étonne tout le monde en reprenant la plume: elle écrit «la Cérémonie des adieux» - chronique des dernières années du philosophe et édite les «Lettres au Castor et à quelques autres», anthologie de sa correspondance. «Sa mort nous sépare, écrit-elle alors. Ma mort ne nous réunira pas. C'est ainsi; il est déjà beau que nos vies aient pu si longtemps s'accorder.»

Elle est devenue Simone de Beauvoir comme une conquête, comme une victoire. Elle est devenue Simone de Beauvoir contre son milieu, et contre sa famille. Elle est devenue Simone de Beauvoir avec et contre Sartre, dans la permanente recherche d'un territoire à elle, à la fois autonome et mitoyen. Elle est revenue Simone de Beauvoir contre l'opinion publique et le qu'en-dira-t-on. Associant à la rigueur et à l'activité d'une philosophe les passions et parfois les excès d'une femme.

Accumulant les expériences, les crises, les blessures, et imposant, de livre en livre, une présence, une voix, un exemple.

A. Cohen-Solal, 1995, Le Nouvel Observateur

Alicerçando Poesia # 63 - João Cabral de Melo Neto 1920-1999

A Carlos Drummond de Andrade



Não há guarda-chuva
contra o poema
subindo de regiões onde tudo é surpresa
como uma flor mesmo num canteiro.


Não há guarda-chuva
contra o amor
que mastiga e cospe como qualquer boca,
que tritura como um desastre.


Não há guarda-chuva
contra o tédio:
o tédio das quatro paredes, das quatro
estações, dos quatro pontos cardeais.


Não há guarda-chuva
contra o mundo
cada dia devorado nos jornais
sob as espécies de papel e tinta.


Não há guarda-chuva
contra o tempo,
rio fluindo sob a casa, correnteza
carregando os dias, os cabelos.

Alicerçando Poesia # 62 - Eugenio Montale-1896/1981

Casa sul mare

ll viaggio finisce qui:
nelle cure meschine che dividono
l’anima che non sa più dare un grido.
Ora I minuti sono eguali e fissi
come I giri di ruota della pompa.
Un giro: un salir d’acqua che rimbomba.
Un altro, altr’acqua, a tratti un cigolio.

Il viaggio finisce a questa spiaggia
che tentano gli assidui e lenti flussi.
Nulla disvela se non pigri fumi
la marina che tramano di conche
I soffi leni: ed è raro che appaia
nella bonaccia muta
tra l’isole dell’aria migrabonde
la Corsica dorsuta o la Capraia.

Tu chiedi se così tutto vanisce
in questa poca nebbia di memorie;
se nell’ora che torpe o nel sospiro
del frangente si compie ogni destino.
Vorrei dirti che no, che ti s’appressa
l’ora che passerai di là dal tempo;
forse solo chi vuole s’infinita,
e questo tu potrai, chissà, non io.
Penso che per i più non sia salvezza,
ma taluno sovverta ogni disegno,
passi il varco, qual volle si ritrovi.
Vorrei prima di cedere segnarti
codesta via di fuga
labile come nei sommossi campi
del mare spuma o ruga.
Ti dono anche l’avara mia speranza.
A’ nuovi giorni, stanco, non so crescerla:
l’offro in pegno al tuo fato, che ti scampi.


Il cammino finisce a queste prode
che rode la marea col moto alterno.
Il tuo cuore vicino che non m’ode
salpa già forse per l’eterno.

Eugenio Montale, Ossi di seppia; Meriggi e ombre

Alicerçando Imagens # 37 - Eric Fischl

sem título, 2001, aguarela sobre papel, 54,7" x 40,2"

Alicerçando Palavras # 53 - Leão Tolstoi 1828/1910

Tolstoi


GUERRA E PAZ

Capítulo XII

Desde que foi descoberta e provada a lei de Copérnico, basta o facto de se reconhecer que não é o Sol, mas a Terra, que se move para toda a cosmografia dos antigos ficar aniquilada. Rebatendo este sistema, podia regressar-se à antiga opinião sobre o movimento dos corpos, mas sem isso não era possível, ao que parece, continuar o estudo do mundo de Ptolomeu. No entanto, mesmo depois da descoberta do sistema de Copérnico, o mundo de Ptolomeu continuou a ser por muito tempo objecto de estudo.

Desde que se provou que a percentagem de nascimentos e de crimes está sujeita a leis matemáticas e que certas condições geográficas, políticas ou económicas definem tal ou qual forma de governo e certas relações entre a população e a Terra são as causas dos movimentos do povos, as bases sobre que se edificava a história caíram por terra.

Repelindo as leis novas, era possível conservar a antiga opinião acerca da história, mas, não o fazendo, parecia impossível continuar o estudo dos acontecimentos históricos admitindo serem estes produzidos pelo livre arbítrio dos homens, pois, se, graças a certas condições geográficas, etnográficas ou económicas, se forma qualquer constituição ou se produz qualquer movimento de um povo, não poderia examinar-se como causa a vontade daqueles homens a quem nós imaginamos estabelecendo uma constituição ou incitando o movimento de um povo.

No entanto, a história antiga continua a ser estudada com as leis da estatística, da geografia, da economia política, da filologia comparada e da geologia, as quais contradizem rotundamente o citado princípio.

Durante muito tempo houve na filosofia física uma luta pertinaz entre as correntes antigas e as modernas. A teologia defendia o ponto de vista antigo e acusava o novo de atacar a revelação. Mas quando a verdade venceu, a teologia estabeleceu-se no novo terreno com a mesma firmeza de antes.

Existe igualmente uma luta tenaz nos tempos actuais entre a velha e a nova opinião no domínio da história, e a teologia defende igualmente a velha corrente e acusa a nova de destruir a revelação.

Tanto num como no outro caso e tanto de uma parte como da outra, a luta provoca paixões e asfixia a verdade. Por um lado, surge o medo e a compaixão pelo edifício erecto através dos séculos; pelo outro, a paixão de destruir.

Os homens que lutavam contra a verdade nascente da filosofia física julgavam que, ao reconhecer a sobredita verdade, a fé em Deus e na criação do mundo cairia por terra. Os defensores das leis de Copérnico e de Newton, como Voltarie, por exemplo, julgavam que as leis da astronomia destronavam a religião e empregavam como arma, contra ela, as leis da atracção.

Da mesma maneira dir-se-ia que no nosso tempo bastaria reconhecer a lei da necessidade para se aniquilar o conceito da alma, do bem e do mal, bem como todas as instituições governamentais e eclesiásticas assentes nesse conceito.

Como Voltaire, no seu tempo, os defensores não reconhecidas da lei da necessidade empregam hoje a referida lei como uma arma contra a religião. Mas como as leis de Copérnico na astronomia, a lei da necessidade na história, não só não se destrói como se afirma cada vez mais no terreno no qual estão assentes as instituições do Estado e da Igreja.

Como antigamente, em relação ao problema da astronomia, agora, em relação à história, todas as opiniões distintas assentam em reconhecerem ou não a unidade absoluta que serve de medida para os fenómenos visíveis. Na astronomia essa medida era a imobilidade da Terra; na história, a independência do indivíduo, a liberdade.

Assim, como para a astronomia a dificuldade do reconhecimento do movimento da Terra provinha do facto de haver que renunciar à sensação espontânea da imobilidade da Terra e dos planetas, para a história, a dificuldade do reconhecimento da submissão do indivíduo às leis do espaço, do tempo e das causas consiste em renunciar à sensação espontânea da dependência da individualidade. Mas da mesma maneira que, na astronomia, a nova opinião sustentava: “É verdade que não sentimos o movimento da Terra, mas, admitindo a sua imobilidade, depara-se-nos o absurdo; pelo contrário, se reconhecemos que se move, embora não a sentido mover, é a lei que encontrarmos”, na história, a corrente nova diz: “É verdade que não sentimos a nossa dependência; mas, ao admitirmos a nossa liberdade, encontramos o absurdo; pelo contrário, reconhecendo a nossa dependência do mundo exterior, do tempo e das causas é a lei que encontramos”.

No primeiro caso era preciso renunciar à consciência da imobilidade no espaço e reconhecer um movimento que não se sentia; no segundo, também é necessário renunciar à liberdade, que não existe, e reconhecer a dependência, que não sentimos.

Alicerçando Palavras # 52 - Martin Amis

Yellow Dog by Martin Amis


But I go to Hollywood but I go to hospital, but you are first but you are last, but he is tall but she is small, but you stay up but you go down, but we are rich but we are poor, but they find peace but they find . . .
Xan Meo went to Hollywood. And, minutes later, with urgent speed, and accompanied by choric howls of electrified distress, Xan Meo went to hospital. Male violence did it.
'I'm off out, me,' he told his American wife Russia.
'Ooh,' she said, pronouncing it like the French for where.
'Won't be long. I'll bath them. And I'll read to them too. Then I'll make dinner. Then I'll load the dishwasher. Then I'll give you a long backrub. Okay?'
'Can I come?' said Russia.
'I sort of wanted to be alone.'
'You mean you sort of wanted to be alone with your girl-friend.
' Xan knew that this was not a serious accusation. But he adopted an ill-used expression (a thickening of the forehead), and said, not for the first time, and truthfully so far as he knew, 'I've got no secrets from you, kid.'
'. . . Mm,' she said, and offered him her cheek.
'Don't you know the date?'
'Oh. Of course.'
The couple stood embracing in a high-ceilinged hallway. Now the husband with a movement of the arm caused his keys to sound in their pocket. His half-conscious intention was to signal an ?.impatience to be out. Xan would not publicly agree, but women naturally like to prolong routine departures. It is the obverse of their fondness for keeping people waiting. Men shouldn't mind this. Being kept waiting is a moderate reparation for their five million years in power . . . Now Xan sighed softly as the stairs above him softly creaked. A complex figure was descending, normal up to the waist, but two-headed and four-armed: Meo's baby daughter, Sophie, cleaving to the side of her Brazilian nanny, Imaculada. Behind them, at a distance both dreamy and self-sufficient, loomed the four-year-old: Billie.
Russia took the baby and said, 'Would you like a lovely yoghurt for your tea?'
'No!' said the baby.
'Would you like a bath with all your floaty toys?'
'No!' said the baby, and yawned: the first lower teeth like twin grains of rice.
'Billie. Do the monkeys for Daddy.'
'There were too many monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell down and broke his head. They took him to the doctor and the doctor said: No more monkeys jumping on the BED.'
Xan Meo gave his elder daughter due praise.
'Daddy'll read to you when he comes back,' said Russia.
'I was reading to her earlier,' he said. He had the front door open now. 'She made me read the same book five times.'
'Which book?'
'Which book? Christ. The one about those stupid chickens who think the sky is falling. Cocky Locky. Goosey Lucy. And they all copped it from the fox, didn't they, Billie.'
'Like the frogs,' said the girl, alluding to some other tale. 'The whole family died. The mummy. The daddy. The nanny. And all the trildren.'
'I'm off out.' He kissed Sophie 's head (a faint circus smell); she responded by skidding a wet thumb across her cheek and into her mouth. And then he crouched to kiss Billie.


Uma entrevista com Martin Amis aqui.

Alicerçando Poesia # 61 - Fernando Pessoa

Não sei se é sonho, se realidade,
Se uma mistura do sonho e vida,
Aquela terra de suavidade
Que na ilha extrema do sul se olvida.
É a que ansiamos. ali, ali
A vida é jovem e o amor sorri.

Talvez palmares inexistentes
Áleas longínquas sem poder ser,
Sombra ou sossego dêem aos crentes
De que essa terra se pode ter.
Felizes, nós? Ah, talvez talvez,
Naquela terra, daquela vez.

Mas já sonhada se desvirtua,
Só de pensá-la cansou pensar,
Sob os palmares, à luz da lua,
Sente-se o frio de haver luar.
Ah, nesta terra também, também
O mal não cessa, não dura o bem.

Não é com ilhas do fim do mundo,
Nem com palmares de sonho ou não,
Que cura a alma seu mal profundo,
Que o bem nos entra no coração.
É em nós que é tudo. É ali, ali,
Que a vida é jovem e o amor sorri.

Fernando Pessoa, Poesias

Alicerçando Imagens # 36 - Richard Serra

Gutter Splash Two Corner Cast, 1992

Alicerçando Poesia # 60 - Eugénio de Andrade

Conselho

Sê paciente; espera
que a palavra amadureça
e se desprenda como um fruto
ao passar o vento que a mereça.

Eugénio de Andrade, Os Amantes sem Dinheiro

Alicerçando Palavras # 51 - Edgar Morin

1. ENRACINEMENT - DERACINEMENT HUMAIN

Nous devons reconnaître notre double enracinement dans le cosmos physique et dans la sphère vivante, en même temps que notre déracinement proprement humain. Nous sommes à la fois dans et hors de la nature.

1.1 La condition cosmique

Nous avons récemment abandonné l’idée d’un Univers ordonné, parfait, éternel pour un univers né dans le rayonnement, en devenir dispersif, où jouent de façon à la fois complémentaire, concurrente et antagoniste, ordre, désordre et organisation.
Nous sommes dans un gigantesque cosmos en expansion, constitué de milliards de galaxies et de milliards de milliards d'étoiles, et nous avons appris que notre terre était une minuscule toupie tournant autour d'un astre errant à la périphérie d'une petite galaxie de banlieue. Les particules de nos organismes seraient apparues dès les premières secondes de notre cosmos voici (peut-être ?) quinze milliards d’années, nos atomes de carbone se sont constitués dans un ou plusieurs soleils antérieurs au nôtre ; nos molécules se sont groupées dans les premiers temps convulsifs de la Terre ; ces macromolécules se sont associées dans des tourbillons dont l'un, de plus en plus riche dans sa diversité moléculaire, s'est métamorphosé en une organisation de type nouveau par rapport à l'organisation strictement chimique : une auto-organisation vivante.
Cette épopée cosmique de l'organisation, sans cesse sujette aux forces de désorganisation et de dispersion, est aussi l'épopée de la reliance, qui a seule empêché le cosmos de se disperser ou s'évanouir aussitôt né. Au sein de l'aventure cosmique, à la pointe du développement prodigieux d'un rameau singulier de l'auto-organisation vivante, nous poursuivons à notre façon l'aventure.

1.2 La condition physique

Un peu de substance physique s'est organisé de façon thermodynamique sur cette terre ; à travers trempage marin, mijotage chimique, décharges électriques, elle y a pris Vie. La vie est solarienne : tous ses constituants ont été forgés dans un soleil et rassemblés sur une planète crachée par le soleil ; elle est la transformation d'un ruissellement photonique issu des flamboyants tourbillons solaires. Nous, vivants, constituons un fétu de la diaspora cosmique, quelques miettes de l'existence solaire, un menu bourgeonnement de l'existence terrienne.

1.3 La condition terrestre

Nous faisons partie du destin cosmique, mais nous y sommes marginaux : notre Terre est le troisième satellite d'un soleil détrôné de son siège central, devenu astre pygmée errant parmi des milliards d'étoiles dans une galaxie périphérique d'un univers en expansion...
Notre planète s'est agrégée il y a cinq milliards d'années, à partir probablement de détritus cosmiques issus de l'explosion d'un soleil antérieur, et il y a quatre milliards d'années l'organisation vivante a émergé d'un tourbillon macromoléculaire dans les orages et les convulsions telluriques.
La Terre s'est autoproduite et auto-organisée dans la dépendance du soleil ; elle s'est constituée en complexe biophysique à partir du moment où s'est développée sa biosphère.
Nous sommes à la fois des êtres cosmiques et terrestres.
La vie est née dans des convulsions telluriques, et son aventure a couru par deux fois au moins le danger d'extinction (fin du primaire et cours du secondaire). Elle s'est développée non seulement en espèces diverses mais aussi en écosystèmes où les prédations et dévorations ont constitué la chaîne trophique à double visage, celui de vie et celui de mort.
Notre planète erre dans le cosmos. Nous devons tirer les conséquences de cette situation marginale, périphérique, qui est la nôtre.
En tant qu’êtres vivants de cette planète, nous dépendons vitalement de la biosphère terrestre ; nous devons reconnaître notre très physique et très biologique identité terrienne.

1.4 L’humaine condition

L’importance de l’hominisation est capitale pour l’éducation à la condition humaine, car elle nous montre comment animalité et humanité constituent ensemble notre humaine condition.
L’anthropologie préhistorique nous montre comment l'hominisation est une aventure de millions d'années, à la fois discontinue - advenue de nouvelles espèces : habilis, erectus, neanderthal, sapiens, et disparition des précédentes, surgissement du langage et de la culture - et continue, dans le sens où se poursuit un processus de bipédisation, de manualisation, de redressement du corps, de cérébralisation5, de juvénilisation (l'adulte conservant les caractères non spécialisés de l'embryon et les caractères psychologiques de la jeunesse), de complexification sociale, processus au cours duquel apparaît le langage proprement humain en même temps que se constitue la culture, capital acquis des savoirs, savoir-faire, croyances, mythes, transmissibles de génération en génération…
L'hominisation aboutit à un nouveau commencement. L'hominien s’humanise. Désormais, le concept d'homme a double entrée ; une entrée biophysique, une entrée psycho-socio-culturelle, les deux entrées se renvoyant l'une à l'autre.
Nous sommes issus du cosmos, de la nature, de la vie, mais du fait de notre humanité même, de notre culture, de notre esprit, de notre conscience, nous sommes devenus étrangers à ce cosmos qui nous demeure secrètement intime. Notre pensée, notre conscience, qui nous font connaître ce monde physique, nous en éloignent d'autant. Le fait même de considérer rationnellement et scientifiquement l'univers nous en sépare. Nous nous sommes développés au-delà du monde physique et vivant. C'est dans cet au-delà que s'opère le plein déploiement de l'humanité.
A la façon d'un point d'hologramme, nous portons au sein de notre singularité, non seulement toute l'humanité, toute la vie, mais aussi presque tout le cosmos, y compris son mystère qui gît sans doute au fond de la nature humaine. Mais nous ne sommes pas des êtres que l'on pourrait connaître et comprendre uniquement à partir de la cosmologie, de la physique, de la biologie, de la psychologie…

(...)

Edgar Morin, Les sept savoirs nécessaires à l’éducation du futur - Chapitre III – Enseigner la Condition Humaine

Alicerçando Poesia # 59 - William Butler Yeats-1865/1939

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Alicerçando Imagens # 35 - Milton Avery - 1885-1965

Outono, 1944, óleo sobre tela, 68,6x88,9cm - Colecção de Beverly and Raymond Sackler

Alicerçando Poesia # 58 - Mário Rui de Oliveira

Logo atrás de ti

Esta dor não passa quando adormeço
chora ao pé de mim
irremediável

alguém nos toca no ombro e
damos por nós mais sozinhos

o meu lugar na morte
é junto da janela
logo atrás de ti




Villa Adriana


Na biblioteca latina
Adriano sentiu-se cansado pela primeira vez
e a harpa escura na magnólia
fez doer a tarde

seus olhos perdiam-se agora de soberania
quase voavam indigentes

na solidão sempre próxima do amor

Alicerçando Palavras # 50 - Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann


Thomas Mann – Autobiography

I was born in Lübeck on June 6, 1875, the second son of a merchant and senator of the Free City, Johann Heinrich Mann, and his wife Julia da Silva Bruhns. My father was the grandson and great-grandson of Lübeck citizens, but my mother first saw the light of day in Rio de Janeiro as the daughter of a German plantation owner and a Portuguese-Creole Brazilian. She was taken to Germany at the age of seven.

I was designated to take over my father's grain firm, which commemorated its centenary during my boyhood, and I attended the science division of the «Katharineum» at Lübeck. I loathed school and up to the very end failed to meet its requirements, owing to an innate and paralyzing resistance to any external demands, which I later learned to correct only with great difficulty. Whatever education I possess I acquired in a free and autodidactic manner. Official instruction failed to instill in me any but the most rudimentary knowledge.

When I was fifteen, my father died, a comparatively young man. The firm was liquidated. A little later my mother left the town with the younger children in order to settle in the south of Germany, in Munich.

After finishing school rather ingloriously, I followed her and for the time being became a clerk in the office of a Munich insurance company whose director had been a friend of my father's. Later, by way of preparing for a career in journalism, I attended lectures in history, economics, art history, and literature at the university and the polytechnic. In between I spent a year in Italy with my brother Heinrich, my elder by four years. During this time my first collection of short stories, Der kleine Herr Friedemann (1898) [Little Herr Friedemann], was published. In Rome, I also began to write the novel Buddenbrooks, which appeared in 1901 and which since then has been such a favourite with the German public that today over a million copies of it are in circulation.

There followed shorter stories, collected in the volume Tristan (1903), of which the North-South artist's novella Tonio Kroger is usually considered the most characteristic, and also the Renaissance dialogues Fiorenza (1906), a closet drama which, however, has occasionally been staged.

In 1905 I married the daughter of Alfred Pringsheim, who had the chair of mathematics at the University of Munich. On her mother's side my wife is the granddaughter of Ernst and Hedwig Dohm, the well-known Berlin journalist and his wife, who played a leading role in the German movement for women's emancipation. From our marriage have come six children: three girls, of whom the eldest has gone into the theatre, and three boys, of whom the eldest has also devoted himself to literature.

The first literary fruit of my new status was the novel Königliche Hoheit (1909) [Royal Highness], a court story that provides the frame for a psychology of the formal-representative life and for moral questions such as the reconciliation of an aristocratic, melancholic consciousness with the demands of the community. Another novelistic project followed, the Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (1922) [Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man]. It is based on an idea of parody, that of taking an element of venerable tradition, of the Goethean, self-stylizing, autobiographic, and aristocratic confession, and translating it into the sphere of the humorous and the criminal. The novel has remained a fragment, but there are connoisseurs who consider its published sections my best and most felicitous achievement. Perhaps it is the most personal thing I have written, for it represents my attitude toward tradition, which is simultaneously loving and destructive and has dominated me as a writer.

In 1913 the novella Tod in Venedig [Death in Venice] was published, which beside Tonio Kroger is considered my most valid achievement in that genre. While I was writing its final sections I conceived the idea of the «Bildungsroman» Der Zauberberg (1924) [The Magic Mountain], but work on it was interrupted in the very beginning by the war.

Although the war did not make any immediate demands on me physically, while it lasted it put a complete stop to my artistic activity because it forced me into an agonizing reappraisal of my fundamental assumptions, a human and intellectual self-inquiry that found its condensation in Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen [Reflections of an Unpolitical Man], published in 1918. Its subject is the personally accented problem of being German, the political problem, treated in the spirit of a polemical conservatism that underwent many revisions as life went on. An account of the development of my socio-moral ideas is found in the volumes of essays Rede und Antwort (1922) [Question and Answer], Bemühungen (1925) [Efforts], and Die Forderung des Tages (1930) [Order of fhe Day].

Lecture tours abroad began immediately after the borders of countries neutral or hostile during the war had been re-opened. They led me first to Holland, Switzerland, and Denmark. The spring of 1923 saw a journey to Spain. In the following year I was guest of honour of the newly established PEN Club in London; two years later I accepted an invitation of the French branch of the Carnegie Foundation, and I visited Warsaw in 1927.

Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1924, after many prolonged delays the two volumes of Der Zauberberg were published. The interest of the public, as revealed by the hundred printings the book ran into within a few years, proved that I had chosen the most favourable moment to come to the fore with this composition of ideas epically conceived. The problems of the novel did not essentially appeal to the masses, but they were of consuming interest to the educated, and the distress of the times had increased the receptivity of the public to a degree that favoured my product, which so wilfully played fast and loose with the form of the novel.

Soon after the completion of the Betrachtungen I added to my longer narratives a prose idyll, the animal story Herr und Hund (1919) [Bashan and I]. Der Zauberberg was followed by a bourgeois novella from the period of revolution and inflation, Unordnung und frühes Leid (1926) [Disorder and Early Sorrow]; Mario und der Zauberer [Mario and the Magician], written in 1929, is for the time being my last attempt at compositions of this size. It was written during my work on a new novel which in subject matter and intention is far different from all earlier works, for it leaves behind the bourgeois individual sphere and enters into that of the past and myth. The Biblical story for which the title Joseph und seine Brüder is planned, and of which individual sections have been made known through public readings and publications in journals, seems about half completed. A study trip connected with it led me to Egypt and Palestine in February-March-April, 1930.

Ever since his early days the author of this biographical sketch has been encouraged in his endeavours by the kind interest of his fellow men as well as by official honours. An example is the conferment of an honorary doctor's degree by the University of Bonn in 1919; and, to satisfy the German delight in title, the Senate of Lübeck, my home town, added the title of professor on the occasion of a city anniversary. I am one of the first members, nominated by the state itself, of the new literary division of the Prussian Academy of Arts; my fiftieth birthday was accompanied by expressions of public affection that I can remember only with emotion, and the summit of all these distinctions has been the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature by the Swedish Academy last year. But I may say that no turmoil of success has ever dimmed the clear apprehension of the relativity of my deserts or even for a moment dulled the edge of my self-criticism. The value and significance of my work for posterity may safely be left to the future; for me they are nothing but the personal traces of a life led consciously, that is, conscientiously.

Alicerçando Imagens # 34 - Giorgio Morandi

Esprimere cio' che e' nella natura cioe' nel mondo visible e' la cosa che maggiormente mi interesse.



Morandi

Alicerçando Palavras # 49 - Georges Hyvernaud - 1902/1983

Le Wagon à Vaches

Qu'on ne s'y reconnaisse plus, dans le réel, ça a fini par se savoir.
Il y a les équivalents nobles et abstraits du wagon à vaches - l'histoire, la morale, la physique, la politique. On découvre en ces temps-ci des choses décourageantes sur la position cosmique et métaphysique de l'homme. Mais ces spéculations me dépassent. Je me garde des ambitions excessives : je m'en tiens, dans mes moments de méditation (appelons-les ainsi) à l'aspect trivial de la question du wagon à vaches. Je veux dire : à l'expérience de l'absurde vécu au niveau de la misère quotidienne par les individus les plus ordinaires. Dans ces limites-là, j'ai quand même acquis une certaine compétence. Comme usager du wagon à vaches, j'appartiens au modèle courant. Pas d'erreur. Je n'ai qu'à regarder mon reflet dans les vitrines des magasins de la rue Douillet. C'est à moi, cette silhouette étriquée. On devine l'employé à quinze mille balles. Cette mine basse, ces fringues lasses, c'est moi. Un passant quelconque, vaguement traqué. On est des millions de passants tout pareils, des millions et des millions de reflets. Pour mon compte, j'en connais pas mal. Marécasse, ou Dardillot, ou ma logeuse, ou le type d'Epernay, ou les copains de la cinquième compagnie - rien que des gens empêtrés en aveugles dans les replis d'un malheur informe. Ça suffit comme documentation. J'aurais certainement de quoi composer un traité du wagon à vaches. Il faudra que j'y réfléchisse. Le thème est usé, je sais bien. Et puis, ça mène tout droit à un naturalisme veule, à cette amertume poisseuse et primaire qui dégoûte les belles âmes. Mme Bourladou, ça lui soulèverait le cœur. Elle veut de l'optimisme et de l'énergie. Une littérature, comme elle dit souvent, qui ait le sens de la grandeur. Malheureusement, le sens de la grandeur n'a pas été accordé à tous. Il y a des natures disgraciées qui ne considèrent jamais les choses comme il faudrait. Je crains fort d'être de celles-là. Peut-être suffirait-il que j'eusse la voix ample de Flouche ou les puissantes épaules de Chancerel, le président du Comité d'Érection, pour que l'univers prît à mes yeux de belles couleurs épiques. Ce doit être rudement satisfaisant de le voir en rouge et or, comme un uniforme de l'Empire. Au lieu de le voir dans ces bruns écaillés, ces gris pustuleux, ces noirs délayés des planches de wagon à vaches.
Mais rien à faire. C'est une espèce d'infirmité que j'ai, une maladie du regard. Les grandes phrases, les grandes attitudes me mettent en méfiance Je cherche à côté, ou derrière. Je soupçonne la parodie, le truquage, l'imposture, l'enthousiasme préfabriqué ou le mensonge à soi. Je me persuade que la grandeur doit être tout à fait autre - pas oratoire, pas officielle, pas spectaculaire. C'est ce qui m'a empêché, en particulier, de trouver dans les conflits mondiaux du xxe siècle, ces vivifiantes exaltations que procure toujours une guerre à des témoins mieux conformés. Si jamais je composais mon Traité du wagon à vaches, je suppose que c'est par là qu'il faudrait commencer - par quelques menus épisodes des bouleversements internationaux qui m'ont donné à réfléchir, à certains moments de ma vie.

Georges Hyvernaud, in Le wagon à vaches,Editions Ramsay, 1985

Alicerçando Poesia # 57 - Edgar Allan Pöe

The Raven

First Published in 1845

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore,.
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me---filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door.
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide the door;---
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word,
Lenore?, This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word,
"Lenore!" Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before,
"Surely," said I, "surely, that is something at my window lattice.
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore.
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.
" 'Tis the wind, and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore,---
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never---nevermore."

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore --
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee -- by these angels he hath
Sent thee respite---respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore:
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore---
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming.
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted---nevermore!

Alicerçando Palavras # 48 - Colleen McCullough

- Mr. Kinross – disse Walter Maudling lentamente -, o senhor é um fenómeno. Tem o toque de Midas.

- Costumava pensar o mesmo, mas mudei de ideias. Um homem encontra os tesouros do mundo por olhar para o que vê – declarou Alexander Kinross. – É esse o segredo. Olhar para o que se vê. A maior parte dos homens não o faz. A oportunidade não nos bate à porta uma única vez... é uma batucada perpétua.

Colleen McCullough, O Toque de Midas, Difel, 2005

Alicerçando Palavras # 47 - Franz Kafka-1883-1924

Metamorphosis

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.

"What's happened to me," he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a human being, only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known walls. Above the table, on which an unpacked collection of sample cloth goods was spread out (Samsa was a travelling salesman) hung the picture which he had cut out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty gilt frame. It was a picture of a woman with a fur hat and a fur boa. She sat erect there, lifting up in the direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearm had disappeared.

Gregor's glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather (the rain drops were falling audibly down on the metal window ledge) made him quite melancholy. "Why don't I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this foolishness," he thought. But this was entirely impractical, for he was used to sleeping on his right side, and in his present state he couldn't get himself into this position. No matter how hard he threw himself onto his right side, he always rolled again onto his back. He must have tried it a hundred times, closing his eyes so that he would not have to see the wriggling legs, and gave up only when he began to feel a light, dull pain in his side which he had never felt before.

"O God," he thought, "what a demanding job I've chosen! Day in, day out, on the road. The stresses of selling are much greater than the work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I have to cope with the problems of travelling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all!" He felt a slight itching on the top of his abdomen. He slowly pushed himself on his back closer to the bed post so that he could lift his head more easily, found the itchy part, which was entirely covered with small white spots (he did not know what to make of them), and wanted to feel the place with a leg. But he retracted it immediately, for the contact felt like a cold shower all over him.

He slid back again into his earlier position. "This getting up early," he thought, "makes a man quite idiotic. A man must have his sleep. Other travelling salesmen live like harem women. For instance, when I come back to the inn during the course of the morning to write up the necessary orders, these gentlemen are just sitting down to breakfast. If I were to try that with my boss, I'd be thrown out on the spot. Still, who knows whether that mightn't be really good for me. If I didn't hold back for my parents' sake, I would've quit ages ago. I would've gone to the boss and told him just what I think from the bottom of my heart. He would've fallen right off his desk! How weird it is to sit up at the desk and talk down to the employee from way up there. The boss has trouble hearing, so the employee has to step up quite close to him. Anyway, I haven't completely given up that hope yet. Once I've got together the money to pay off my parents' debt to him—that should take another five or six years—I'll do it for sure. Then I'll make the big break. In any case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o'clock."