#163917 - 12/02/06 01:29 PM
Re: Je Est un Autre
|
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/13/05
Posts: 3269
Loc: R'lyeh
|
What is the context of this text?It is from a 19th century letter written by Arthur Rimbaud. Here's the context.
_________________________
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#163918 - 12/02/06 03:57 PM
Re: Je Est un Autre
|
addict
Registered: 08/02/06
Posts: 631
|
Quote:
What is the context of this text?
It looks like someone has identified a letter by Rimbaud; however, I ran into these words in a poem (a strangely paranoid poem) by Lawrence Durrell.
Quote:
Je Est un Autre
'Je Est un Autre'
—Rimbaud.
He is the man who makes notes,
The observer in the tall black hat
Face hidden in the brim:
He has watched me watching him.
The street-corner in Buda and after
By the post-office a glimpse
Of the disappearing tails of his coat,
Gave the same illumination, spied upon,
The tightness in the throat.
Once too meeting by the Seine
The waters a moving floor of stars,
He had vanished when I reached the door,
But there on the pavement burning
Lay one of his familiar black cigars.
The meeting on the stairway
Where the tide ran clean as a loom:
The betrayal of her, her kisses
He has witnessed them all: often
I hear him laughing in the other room.
He watched me now, working late,
Bringing a poem to life, his eyes
Reflect the malady of De Nerval:
O useless in this old house to question
The mirrors, his impenetrable disguise.
—Lawrence Durrell.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#163919 - 12/02/06 04:23 PM
Re: Je Est un Autre
|
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 3467
Loc: Marion NC
|
Arthur -- Autre. C'mon, guys, you need a good punster here:
I am an Arthur.
I am an Author?
This was actually written by his brother Jason, about whom it can be said he's always Jason Rimbauds.
_________________________
TEd
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#163920 - 12/03/06 08:12 AM
Re: Je Est un Autre
|
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 13653
|
Quote:
... you need a good punster here
I agree. Know any?
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#163921 - 12/09/06 01:57 PM
Re: Je Est un Autre
|
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/23/06
Posts: 5249
Loc: Netherlands, the Hague
|
Quote:
What is the context of this text?
It is from a 19th century letter written by Arthur Rimbaud. Here's the context.
VQR » "RIMBAUD" EST UN AUTRE... his rendering of Rimbaud's mostfamous epiphany—familiar to most English readers even in its French original: JE est un autre—feels particularly clumsy. ...
www.vqronline.org/articles/2004/winter/grotz-rimbaud-autre/ - 37k - In cache - Gelijkwaardige pagina's
A little late, but lots of information.
Edited by BranShea (12/09/06 01:58 PM)
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#163922 - 12/09/06 07:31 PM
Re: Je Est un Autre
|
addict
Registered: 03/22/05
Posts: 500
Loc: Northern Ontario, Canada
|
Quote:
The verb "suis" means "to have", does it not?
You might want to consult a French grammar.
Or a Canadian. Many of us speak some French, even if only the cereal-box variety. Definitely "Je suis", not "J'est", unless the lovely BelMarduk can enlighten us as to some idiom we sesquilinguals are missing.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#163923 - 12/09/06 08:42 PM
Re: Je Est un Autre
|
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/23/06
Posts: 5249
Loc: Netherlands, the Hague
|
Zemhjzd has the right context.
'La formule est paradoxale et même, semble-t-il, contradictoire puisqu’elle identifie le sujet, le moi, c’est à dire le pôle d’identité de la personne avec son contraire « un autre », indéfini, et étranger.'
Loosely translated:'The formula is a paradox and even, it seems, contradictory because she (it) identifies the subject, the me , which means the antithesis of the person, with his opposite << someone else >>, non defined, and a stranger.'
Je est un autre then will be : I is someone else . (Split personality? )
Still pretty heavy philosophic, but then:
'When he who hears doesn't understand him who speaks, and when he who speaks doesn't understand what he himself means - that is philosophy.
-Voltaire
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#163924 - 12/11/06 10:39 PM
Re: Je Est un Autre
|
veteran
Registered: 05/25/02
Posts: 1529
Loc: Aladamnbama the most watered s...
|
Quote:
Can anyone translate this for me? Doesn't it mean "I (The Self?) is an Other"?
Yes, I can. If any of you give a damn then you must know who it is that is giving a swinging damn. Is it your lingual self? That outward self of sensory information who exchanges information and action with the external world or is the self who directs his fleshy robot into mindless actions?
If you forget a name who is it that recalls that name while you are busy interacting with the outside world? Huh?
And who does the dreaming while you are asleep?
Think a bit. Are you merely a biological extention of a self that is you but doesn't speak in words but in biological imperatives?
Or is the we who are but operatives of our own sub-conscious who is the we?
I think maybe yes.
I hope that you all understand and that we, of the cognitive bent, do too.
Edited by themilum (12/11/06 10:50 PM)
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
8423 Members
16 Forums
13686 Topics
209746 Posts
Max Online: 3341 @ 12/09/11 02:15 PM
|
|
|
0 registered (),
46
Guests and
2
Spiders online. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
11
|
|
12
|
13
|
14
|
15
|
16
|
17
|
18
|
|
19
|
20
|
21
|
22
|
23
|
24
|
25
|
|
26
|
27
|
28
|
29
|
30
|
31
|
|
|
|
Search
Previous Topic
Index