The Treacherous Word
–
A Bergsonian
Perspective
Much
in the Whorfian vein, he was conscious of the far-reaching influence of
language on humans' structuring of reality. According to Bergson, we perceive
an object as being constant because we always name it in the same way, thus
disregarding its perpetual, even though sometimes minimal, changes. Language is
all the more unreliable when talking about sensations, which, through their
very nature, are difficult to grasp:
What I ought to say is that every sensation is altered
by repetition, and that if it does not seem to me to change from day to day, it
is because I perceive it through the object which is its cause, through the word
which translates it. The influence of language on sensation is deeper than is
usually thought. Not only does language make us believe in the
un-changeableness of our sensations, but it will sometimes deceive us as to the
nature of the sensation felt. (2001: 131)*
As a matter of fact -- and poets know it best – we live in a state of
continual fluctuation of sensations and feelings. Yet, we have a limited
inventory of words at our disposal to express them, which often enough causes
us to think/say, “I can't really find the proper words to convey what I'm
feeling.”
As a tool of displaying inner
states, language is, according to Bergson, wholly unsatisfactory. We are
permanently induced to confuse feelings and sensations which are in a perpetual
state of change with the words that express them. The structuring of reality
through language misleads us into thinking of states of consciousness as
distinct entities which can be put side by side in a fictitious, homogeneous
medium which we call time, while, in reality, they pervade each other in
a living, concrete time, named duration (la durée) by
Bergson. This duration is heterogeneous in character and we can only be
aware of it through our own states of consciousness, whereby even the word state
is inappropriate, since consciousness is not static, but dynamic. This real time
is not susceptible to measurement like conventional time, since it is not
quantitative in character, but a sum of qualitative multiplicities.
As a basic
element of language, “the rough and ready word”, as Bergson called it, comes to
impose its own stability upon the fugitive impressions of individual
consciousness and to restrict its potential. Each of us experiences love and
hate in a particular way, yet the names for these feelings are constant. Words
serve the social self, not the individual one. Bergson most obviously complied
with the idea of linguistic relativity when stating that the same names of
things or beliefs have distinctive meanings for different individuals.
While
basically fully agreeing to Bergson's reiterations, I am trying not to ignore
that it is precisely this shortcoming of language that compel wordsmiths all
over the world to forge the language into original, intricate patterns of
metaphors and other stylistic devices in order to create unique, unparalleled
literary works.
Now, what
is the relevance of this perspective to the OPA poets? Our Poetry Archive being
an international, multi-cultural literary platform, the impact of the
relativity of words is even stronger. Originating from different languages
communities, the OPA poets must find a common denominator in the process of
transmitting their poetry to the audience. This may occur in several steps. The
non-native speakers of English need to translate or have their poems translated
into English, which already includes a process of adjustment of the word
fluctuations in their mother tongues to the target language, i.e. English. The
non-English readers, on the other hand, are biased by their native languages in
the reception of the poetic message. An amazing encoding-decoding process takes
place which may alter the original poetic message to a great extent. To be
aware of these mechanisms of poetry creation and reception is very important
for all involved: poets, translators, teachers and, last not least, readers.
With this edition of OPA, we are
glad to introduce poet PER JOSEFSSON of Sweden, as the Poet of the month. Poet MARIA
MIRAGLIA of Italy has taken an exclusive interview of him for this edition.
Let’s hope our readers will enjoy both his interview and his poems along with
the whole issue consisting of more than a hundred poems of the poets all over
the world. So, thank you once again and I welcome everyone to this new issue of
OPA.
*Bergson, Henry, 2001, Time and Free Will, An
Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, transl. by F. L. Pogson,
Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York
Dr. Aprilia Zank
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