MaryLupin wrote:I always think of aletheia as not-forgetting because of the River Lethe.
[Since the end-of-the-list bug ate my original post, I repost.]
Rather, aletheia is a waking up to what is hidden in plain sight. Here is an example:
This poem by Vachel Lindsay was written about sixteen years before his death:
"What Semiramis Said
The moon's a steaming chalice
Of honey and venom-wine.
A little of it sipped by night
Makes the long hours divine.
But oh, my reckless lovers,
They drain the cup and wail,
Die at my feet with shaking limbs
And tender lips all pale.
Above them in the sky it bends
Empty and gray and dread.
To-morrow night 'tis full again,
Golden, and foaming red."
Consider:
1. How do we know that this poem is especially self-revealing?
2. From what secret disease does Vachel suffer?
3. What is the character of the woman he will marry?
4. This poem was apparently written before 1915. Vachel died in 1931.
How is he going to die?
5. When will he die?
1. The energy in this poem is uncanny. Normal people in a normal frame
of mind do not let themselves talk this way. His usual controls have
weakened, and his hidden self is showing through. The life behind
this utterance is desperate, depressed, perverse, morbid. The poem
has the energy it does because he is putting his own life stuff into
it.
2. From what secret disease does Vachel suffer?
"But oh, my reckless lovers,
They drain the cup and wail,
Die at my feet with shaking limbs
And tender lips all pale."
Nocturnal epilepsy. Apparently he experienced his seizures
orgasmically, as some epileptics do. He was able to conceal this
condition until he married and had attacks during the daytime.
3. What is going to be the character of the woman he will marry?
"my reckless lovers"
Reckless. Vachel in his seductive Semiramis role gave her hell. He
had already said he would.
4. This poem was written before 1915. Vachel died in 1931. How is he
going to die?
"The moon's a steaming chalice
Of honey and venom-wine.
....
They drain the cup and wail,
Die at my feet with shaking limbs"
He will drink poison. The actual material was Lysol.
We know that Vachel to an extreme degree is revealing the materials
of his inner life. Sixteen years before his death he was already
unconsciously committed to death by poisoning. His father was a
doctor. It is likely that as a stressed teenager he had had fantasies
of suicide by means of his father's drugs.
5. When will he die?
Vachel doesn't tell us directly, but we already know enough to be
canny. He is struggling to conceal his bizarre inner life. Exposure
is the crisis that will kill him. He has already equated sex with
death. We may reasonably conclude that he will kill himself when he
becomes sexually active, when he is stressed by adult
responsibilities that expose his infantile orientation, and when his
disease of shame becomes known, as happened by 1931.
Such is aletheia. It is the reflective use of signs (ignored in Eco's semiotics) that discloses the individuality of the author. Walden is a huge example of such an expanded semiotics.
Tom
