| Sachin's profilewordswordswordsBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
January 28 The Poet, The Philosopher and The TeacherIt is strange how people have misunderstood the poet to be either a philosopher or a teacher. Whats more even many philosophers and teachers and some poets themselves have nourished this fallacy. Actually, the poet is neither of the two. The reason, as I see it, is that unlike the philosopher or the teacher, the poet is not interested either in knowledge for its own sake or for the purpose of communicating that knowledge. What the poet seems to be interested in is the idea of philosophy for the sake of poetry and didacticism for the sake of poetic effects, rather than the other way round. Both didactisim or knowledge is put to poetic use in at least good poetry, rather than poetry being put to didactic or philosophical use. Same applies for the idea of the poet as a social reformer. The poet is interested in social reform as something that will fuel his poetry. The poet uses, misuses, abuses, knowledge, morality and didacticism for poetic purpose. Does it sound `formalist' position? Well, it cant be helped because poetry primarily is a form . A critical approach can be formalist or informalist, but that doesnt alter poetry as essentially a form. January 16 On Blogging once againSome days back, I chanced to see `We, The People' on NDTV, a programme anchored by Barkha Dutt. The issue of the day was whether blogs should be censored. What was more interesting however was the discussion on why people blog at all. There was this obvious paen to Freedom of Expression. But what was curious was the way people express their private lives in a public domain. They would not talk about many things to their friends, but the things would appear on their blogs. Blogs give a certain amount of anonymity and allow people to hide behind their confessional screen. This can take away the inhibitions.
My own experience with the Net is lot similar, though not directly with blogs. My friends tell me that I open up a lot and I am a different person while I am chatting. I am less inhibited and flirt and say things which I would not have said during face to face meeting. You see I am very often shy.My friend says that this is a symptom of multiple personality disorder. The Net and techology can indeed proliferate identities. Digital identities can act like a mask and liberate.
In the programme, there was also discussion about various types of blogs and bloggers. Blogosphere is a hetereogenous sphere where you have all sorts of blogs and bloggers. Like a library catalogue, you can locate and access the kind you are looking for.
As I have discovered lately as a writer, that blogs can be liberating even from suffocating literary culture. Pathare's diatribe against bloody blogging postmodern poets like us can be seen as an example of the bewilderment of the establishment to the liberating potential of the new media.
Blogging can even be a challenge to the traditional publishing business in future. Publishing houses worked as newer forms of patronage and constraints on the writer. Blogging will be a threat to the older forms of literary politics and probably give rise to newer forms of politics. What form? Lets wait and see for ourselves. |
|
|
