DOCSLIB.ORG

Figures of Speech Or Figures of Thought?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Figures of Speech Or Figures of Thought? Art / Religion Ananda K. is new edition of Coomaraswamy’s classic work includes all of the defi nitive igures of peech or Coomaraswamy F S revisions he later intended to add to the book. Contains, for the fi rst time, translations of the Greek, Latin, French, German, Figures of Thought? and Italian terms and phrases used by Coomaraswamy. Introduction by Roger Lipsey, the foremost authority on Coomaraswamy’s The Traditional View of Art writings. Revised Edition with Previously Unpublished Author’s Notes Edited by William Wroth, a specialist in the Hispanic and Native American traditional arts and cultures. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy “Coomaraswamy uncovers and puts before us the truths of a primordial tradition, refl ected in the world’s existing traditions and expressed by them as if in diff ering dialects. He asks us to join him in the eff ort to decipher the religiously rich arts and crafts, literatures and folklore of the world’s traditions.” F —Roger Lipsey, from the Introduction igures of “Coomaraswamy is an extremely precious author.” —Frithjof Schuon, author of e Transcendent Unity of Religions T he “Coomaraswamy’s essays [give] us a view of his scholarship and brilliant insight.” S T —Joseph Campbell, author of and peech or e Hero with a ousand Faces raditional e Masks of God “Ananda Coomaraswamy is in many ways to me a model: the model of one who has thoroughly and completely united in himself the spiritual tradition and attitudes of the Orient and of the Christian West….” F igures of — omas Merton, author of e Seven Storey Mountain and New Seeds V of Contemplation iew of “[Ananda Coomaraswamy is] that noble scholar upon whose shoulders we are still standing.” A —Heinrich Zimmer, author of e King and the Corpse and Philosophies T rt of India hought? “Coomaraswamy’s work is as important as that of Joseph Campbell or Carl Jung, and deserving of the same attention.” —David Frawley, author of Yoga and Ayurveda A K C (1877-1947) was one of the great art historians of the twentieth century. His books and articles deal primarily with visual art, aesthetics, literature and language, folklore, religion, and metaphysics. World Wisdom World Wisdom Introduction by Roger Lipsey $ 24.95 US / $ 29.95 CAN World Wisdom The Library of Perennial Philosophy The Library of Perennial Philosophy is dedicated to the exposition of the time- less Truth underlying the diverse religions. This Truth, often referred to as the Sophia Perennis—or Perennial Wisdom—finds its expression in the revealed Scriptures as well as the writings of the great sages and the artistic creations of the traditional worlds. Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought? The Traditional View of Art: Revised Edition with Previously Unpublished Author’s Notes appears as one of our selections in the Perennial Philosophy series. The Perennial Philosophy Series In the beginning of the twentieth century, a school of thought arose which has focused on the enunciation and explanation of the Perennial Philosophy. Deeply rooted in the sense of the sacred, the writings of its lead- ing exponents establish an indispensable foundation for understanding the timeless Truth and spiritual practices which live in the heart of all religions. Some of these titles are companion volumes to the Treasures of the World’s Religions series, which allows a comparison of the writings of the great sages of the past with the perennialist authors of our time. Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought? The Traditional View of Art Revised Edition with Previously Unpublished Author’s Notes by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Edited by William Wroth Introduction by Roger Lipsey Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought? The Traditional View of Art: Revised Edition with Previously Unpublished Author’s Notes © 2007 World Wisdom, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in critical articles and reviews. First edition published by Luzac & Co., London, 1946. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish, 1877-1947. Figures of speech or Figures of thought? The Traditional View of Art / by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy ; edited by William Wroth ; introduction by Roger Lipsey. -- Rev. ed., with previously unpublished author’s notes. p. cm. -- (Perennial philosophy series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-933316-34-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Art. 2. Aesthetics. 3. Figures of speech. I. Wroth, William, date. - II. Title. N7445.C777 2007 701--dc22 2007024177 Cover Art: Kichijo-Ten (Srî-devi); Japanese painting from the end of the 8th century. Detail from the retable of Sta. María de Avià, Catalonia, Spain; first half of the 13th century. Printed on acid-free paper in Canada. For information address World Wisdom, Inc. P.O. Box 2682, Bloomington, Indiana 47402-2682 www.worldwisdom.com Table of ConTenTs List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgements vii Editor’s Preface ix Introduction by Roger Lipsey xvii Author’s Preface xxiii I. “A Figure of Speech, or a Figure of Thought?” 1 II. The Mediaeval Theory of Art 31 III. Ornament 71 IV. Ars Sine Scientia Nihil 85 V. The Meeting of the Eyes 89 VI. Shaker Furniture 93 VII. Literary Symbolism 99 VIII. Intention 107 IX. Imitation, Expression, and Participation 117 X. The Intellectual Operation in Indian Art 129 XI. The Nature of Buddhist Art 145 XII. Saṃvega, Aesthetic Shock 177 XIII. An Early Passage on Indian Painting 183 XIV. Some References to Pictorial Relief 189 XV. Primitive Mentality 191 XVI. Notes on Savage Art 213 XVII. Symptom, Diagnosis, and Regimen 223 XVIII. The Life of Symbols by Walter Andrae 227 List of Abbreviations and Short Titles 231 List of Works by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Cited in this Book 243 Biographical Notes 247 Index 249 lisT of illusTraTions 1. Quentin Matsys: Christus Salvador Mundi 91 © IRPA-KIK, Brussels 2. Shaker Furniture 94 From Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews, Shaker Furniture: The Craftsmanship of an American Communal Sect (New Haven, 1937) 3. The Gracious Manifestation of the Devī 134 © Smithsonian Institute, courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art 4. Sarmatian (?) Ornament, 204 Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum. 5. Horse and Donkey: Folk Art and Bourgeois Art, 205 Photograph in A. K. Coomaraswamy collection. aCKnoWleDGMenTs This new edition of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought? includes material from the author’s notes and com- ments which he made after the book was first published in 1946, as well as a new introduction by Roger Lipsey, the leading authority on the life and work of Coomaraswamy. We are grateful to Dr. Lipsey not only for his introduction, but also for the editing of some of these essays when he re-issued them in Coomaraswamy I. Selected Papers: Traditional Art and Symbolism (Princeton University Press, 1977), now long out-of-print and difficult to obtain. Coomaraswamy himself was fluent in many languages and assumed, no doubt correctly in the 1930s and 1940s, that most of his readers would also be fluent in the major European languages. Often, therefore, he did not translate words, phrases, and even long passages in Greek, Latin, French, German, and Italian. He did, however, have mercy on his readers with regard to words in Sanskrit which he almost always explained or translated. To make this new edition more accessible to a wide audience, we have ren- dered in English all of the previously untranslated material in the above languages and have transliterated all Greek words into our alphabet. The editor is grateful to Dr. Richard McCombs for his transliterations and translations of Greek and his translations of Latin words and phrases. Deborah Kornblau, Roger Gaetani, and Susana Marin all generously assisted in translations from the other languages. Dr. Timothy Scott cheerfully proofread the entire typescript. We have also added to this new edition a list of abbreviations and short titles of works utilized by the author and a list of his own works cited in the essays, as well as an index. Margaret Rich and AnnaLee Pauls of the Rare Books and Special Collections Department of the Princeton University Library kindly provided us with photocopies of Coomaraswamy’s own copies of some of the essays in this volume. The editor is greatly appreciative of the help and dedication of the editorial and design staff of World Wisdom Books: Michael Fitzgerald, Mary-Kathryne Steele, Stephen Williams, Roger Gaetani, Susana Marin, and former staff member Sarah Jacobi. It has been a pleasure to work with them. Finally we are all grateful to the late Dr. Rama P. Coomaraswamy who was an enthusiastic supporter of this project, providing us many helpful suggestions as well as his father’s annotated desk copies of several of his publications. We only regret that Dr. Coomaraswamy could not still be with us to see the fruit of his and our labors. vii eDiTor’s PrefaCe ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy 1877-1947 “Blessed is the man on whose tomb can be written Hic jacet nemo” [Here lies no one]. (A. K. Coomaraswamy, Hinduism and Buddhism, p.30) In response to a request for autobiographical information, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy replied: “I must explain that I am not at all interested in biographical matter relating to myself and that I consider the modern practice of publishing details about the lives and personalities of well- known men is nothing but a vulgar catering to illegitimate curiosity… this is not a matter of ‘modesty’ but one of principle.” The principle involved here, often enunciated by Coomaraswamy, was to value the truths expressed by the man above the man himself, who was merely a vehicle for their expression.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • In the Name of Krishna: the Cultural Landscape of a North Indian Pilgrimage Town
    In the Name of Krishna: The Cultural Landscape of a North Indian Pilgrimage Town A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Sugata Ray IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Frederick M. Asher, Advisor April 2012 © Sugata Ray 2012 Acknowledgements They say writing a dissertation is a lonely and arduous task. But, I am fortunate to have found friends, colleagues, and mentors who have inspired me to make this laborious task far from arduous. It was Frederick M. Asher, my advisor, who inspired me to turn to places where art historians do not usually venture. The temple city of Khajuraho is not just the exquisite 11th-century temples at the site. Rather, the 11th-century temples are part of a larger visuality that extends to contemporary civic monuments in the city center, Rick suggested in the first class that I took with him. I learnt to move across time and space. To understand modern Vrindavan, one would have to look at its Mughal past; to understand temple architecture, one would have to look for rebellions in the colonial archive. Catherine B. Asher gave me the gift of the Mughal world – a world that I only barely knew before I met her. Today, I speak of the Islamicate world of colonial Vrindavan. Cathy walked me through Mughal mosques, tombs, and gardens on many cold wintry days in Minneapolis and on a hot summer day in Sasaram, Bihar. The Islamicate Krishna in my dissertation thus came into being.
    [Show full text]
  • Collected Works of Ananda K Coomaraswamy Series
    A. Collected Works of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Philosophical Writings TIME AND ETERNITY Ananda K.Coomaraswamy 1990, viii+107 pp. bib., ref., index ISBN: 81-85503-00-1: Rs 110 (HB) Man's awareness of Time has been articulated in ancient and modern civilizations through cosmologies, metaphysics, philosophy, religion, theology and the arts. Coomaraswamy propounds that though we live in Time, our deliverance lies in eternity. All religions make this distinction between what is merely "everlasting" (or "perpetual") and what is eternal. To probe into this mystery Coomaraswamy provides us with a detailed account of the teachings of each of the main world religions. Present edition embodies all marginal corrections which Coomaraswamy made on the first edition published during 1947 in Ascona, Switzerland. SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY AND TEMPORAL POWER IN THE INDIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT Ananda K.Coomaraswamy Edited by Keshavram N. Iyengar and Rama P.Coomaraswamy 1993, x+127pp. notes., ref., ISBN: 0-19-5631-43-9: Rs 200 (HB) 2013, xii+135pp., ISBN 13 : 978-81-246-0734-3 RsÊ.360 (HB) (reprint). The Indian theory of government is expounded in this work on the basis of the textual sources, mainly of the Brāhmaṇas and te Ṛgveda. The mantra from the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa (VIII.27) by which the priest addresses the king, spells out the relation between the spiritual and the temporal power. This "marriage formula" has its analogous applications in the cosmic, political, family and individual spheres of operation, in each by the conjunction of complementary agencies. The welfare of the community in each case depends upon a succession of obediences and loyalties; that of the subjects to the dual control of king and priest, that of the king to the priest, and that of all to the principle of an eternal law (dharma) as king of kings.
    [Show full text]
  • John Cage's Entanglement with the Ideas Of
    JOHN CAGE’S ENTANGLEMENT WITH THE IDEAS OF COOMARASWAMY Edward James Crooks PhD University of York Music July 2011 John Cage’s Entanglement with the Ideas of Coomaraswamy by Edward Crooks Abstract The American composer John Cage was famous for the expansiveness of his thought. In particular, his borrowings from ‘Oriental philosophy’ have directed the critical and popular reception of his works. But what is the reality of such claims? In the twenty years since his death, Cage scholars have started to discover the significant gap between Cage’s presentation of theories he claimed he borrowed from India, China, and Japan, and the presentation of the same theories in the sources he referenced. The present study delves into the circumstances and contexts of Cage’s Asian influences, specifically as related to Cage’s borrowings from the British-Ceylonese art historian and metaphysician Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. In addition, Cage’s friendship with the Jungian mythologist Joseph Campbell is detailed, as are Cage’s borrowings from the theories of Jung. Particular attention is paid to the conservative ideology integral to the theories of all three thinkers. After a new analysis of the life and work of Coomaraswamy, the investigation focuses on the metaphysics of Coomaraswamy’s philosophy of art. The phrase ‘art is the imitation of nature in her manner of operation’ opens the doors to a wide- ranging exploration of the mimesis of intelligible and sensible forms. Comparing Coomaraswamy’s ‘Traditional’ idealism to Cage’s radical epistemological realism demonstrates the extent of the lack of congruity between the two thinkers. In a second chapter on Coomaraswamy, the extent of the differences between Cage and Coomaraswamy are revealed through investigating their differing approaches to rasa , the Renaissance, tradition, ‘art and life’, and museums.
    [Show full text]
  • Renaissance Receptions of Ovid's Tristia Dissertation
    RENAISSANCE RECEPTIONS OF OVID’S TRISTIA DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Gabriel Fuchs, M.A. Graduate Program in Greek and Latin The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Frank T. Coulson, Advisor Benjamin Acosta-Hughes Tom Hawkins Copyright by Gabriel Fuchs 2013 ABSTRACT This study examines two facets of the reception of Ovid’s Tristia in the 16th century: its commentary tradition and its adaptation by Latin poets. It lays the groundwork for a more comprehensive study of the Renaissance reception of the Tristia by providing a scholarly platform where there was none before (particularly with regard to the unedited, unpublished commentary tradition), and offers literary case studies of poetic postscripts to Ovid’s Tristia in order to explore the wider impact of Ovid’s exilic imaginary in 16th-century Europe. After a brief introduction, the second chapter introduces the three major commentaries on the Tristia printed in the Renaissance: those of Bartolomaeus Merula (published 1499, Venice), Veit Amerbach (1549, Basel), and Hecules Ciofanus (1581, Antwerp) and analyzes their various contexts, styles, and approaches to the text. The third chapter shows the commentators at work, presenting a more focused look at how these commentators apply their differing methods to the same selection of the Tristia, namely Book 2. These two chapters combine to demonstrate how commentary on the Tristia developed over the course of the 16th century: it begins from an encyclopedic approach, becomes focused on rhetoric, and is later aimed at textual criticism, presenting a trajectory that ii becomes increasingly focused and philological.
    [Show full text]
  • European Imperialism
    Quotes Basics Science History Social Other Search h o m e e u r o p e a n i m p e r i a l i s m c o n t e n t s Hinduism remains a vibrant, cultural and religious force in the world today. To understand Hinduism, it is necessary that we examine its history and marvel at its sheer stamina to survive in spite of repeated attacks across India's borders, time and again, by Greeks, Shaks, Huns, Arabs, Pathans, Mongols, Portuguese, British etc. India gave shelter, acceptance, and freedom to all. But, in holy frenzy, millions of Hindus were slaughtered or proselytized. Their cities were pillaged and burnt, temples were destroyed and accumulated treasures of centuries carried off. Even under grievous persecutions from the ruling foreigners, the basics of its civilization remained undefiled and, as soon as the crises were over Hindus returned to the same old ways of searching for the perfection or the unknown. Introduction The history of what is now India stretches back thousands of years, further than that of nearly any other region on earth. Yet, most historical work on India concentrates on the period after the arrival of Europeans, with predictable biases, distortions, and misapprehensions. Many overviews of Indian history offer a few cursory opening chapters that take the reader from Mohenjo-daro to the arrival of the Moghuls and the Europeans. India's history is ancient and abundant. The profligacy of monuments so testifies it and so does a once-lost civilization, the Harappan in the Indus valley, not to mention the annals commissioned by various conquerors.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mountain Path
    THE MOUNTAIN PATH Arunachala! Thou dost root out the ego of those who meditate on Thee in the heart, Oh Arunachala! Fearless I seek Thee, Fearlessness Itself! How canst Thou fear to take me, O Arunachala ? (A QUARTERLY) — Th$ Marital Garland " Arunachala ! Thou dost root out the ego of those who of Letters, verse 67 meditate on Thee in the heart, Oh Arunachala! " — The Marital Garland of Letters, verse 1. Publisher : T. N. Venkataraman, President, Board of Trustees, Vol. 17 JULY 1980 No. Ill Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai. * CONTENTS Page Editorial Board : EDITORIAL: The Journey Inward .. 127 Prof. K. Swaminathan The Nature and Function of the Guru Sri K. K. Nambiar —Arthur Osborne .. 129 Mrs. Lucy Cornelssen Bhagavan's Father .. 134 Smt. Shanta Rungachary Beyond Thought — Dr. K. S. Rangappa .. 136 Dr. K. Subrahmanian Mind and Ego — Dr. M. Sadashiva Rao .. 141 Sri Jim Grant Suri Nagamma — Joan Greenblatt .. 144 Sri David Godman A Deeply Effective Darshan of Bhagavan — /. D. M. Stuart and O. Raumer-Despeigne .. 146 God and His Names — K. Subrahmanian .. 149 Religions or Philosophy? — K. Ramakrishna Rao . 150 Managing Editor: The Way to the Real — A. T. Millar .. 153 V. Ganesan, Song of At-One-Ment — (IV) Sri Ramanasramam, — K. Forrer .. 155 Tiruvannamalai Scenes from Ramana's Life — (III) — B. V. Narasimha Swamy .. 159 * Transfiguration — Mary Casey .. 162 Garland of Guru's Sayings — Sri Muruganar Annual Subscription Tr. by Professor K. Swaminathan .. 163 INDIA Rs. 10 Reintegration, Part II, Awareness — Wei Wu Wei 165 FOREIGN £ 2.00 $ 4.00 Ramana Maharshi and How not to Grow Life Subscription : Old — Douglas Harding .
    [Show full text]
  • The Inaugural Issue Sutra Journal • Aug/2015 • Issue 1
    SUTRA JOURNAL ETERNAL TRUTHS • MODERN VOICES AUG/2015 YOGA VEDANTA TANTRA BUDDHA DHARMA AYURVEDA INDOLOGY SANSKRIT YATRA INTERVIEWS HINDU CULTURE BOOKSTORE HERE SHE COMES THE INAUGURAL ISSUE SUTRA JOURNAL • AUG/2015 • ISSUE 1 Invocation 2 Editorial 3 What is Dharma? Pankaj Seth 9 Fritjof Capra and the Dharmic worldview Aravindan Neelakandan 15 Vedanta is self study Chris Almond 32 Yoga and four aims of life Pankaj Seth 37 The Gita and me Phil Goldberg 41 Interview: Anneke Lucas - Liberation Prison Yoga 45 Mantra: Sthaneshwar Timalsina 56 Yatra: India and the sacred • multimedia presentation 67 If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him Vikram Zutshi 69 Buddha: Nibbana Sutta 78 Who is a Hindu? Jeffery D. Long 79 An introduction to the Yoga Vasistha Mary Hicks 90 Sankalpa Molly Birkholm 97 Developing a continuity of practice Virochana Khalsa 101 In appreciation of the Gita Jeffery D. Long 109 The role of devotion in yoga Bill Francis Barry 113 Road to Dharma Brandon Fulbrook 120 Ayurveda: The list of foremost things 125 Critics corner: Yoga as the colonized subject Sri Louise 129 Meditation: When the thunderbolt strikes Kathleen Reynolds 137 Devata: What is deity worship? 141 Ganesha 143 1 All rights reserved INVOCATION O LIGHT, ILLUMINATE ME RG VEDA Tree shrine at Vijaynagar EDITORIAL Welcome to the inaugural issue of Sutra Journal, a free, monthly online magazine with a Dharmic focus, fea- turing articles on Yoga, Vedanta, Tantra, Buddhism, Ayurveda, and Indology. Yoga arose and exists within the Dharma, which is a set of timeless teachings, holistic in nature, covering the gamut from the worldly to the metaphysical, from science to art to ritual, incorporating Vedanta, Tantra, Bud- dhism, Ayurveda, and other dimensions of what has been brought forward by the Indian civilization.
    [Show full text]
  • By Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
    From the World Wisdom online library: www.worldwisdom.com/public/library/default.aspx THE VEDANTA AND WESTERN TRADITION* Ananda Coomaraswamy These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me. Walt Whitman I There have been teachers such as Orpheus, Hermes, Buddha, Lao­ tzu, and Christ, the historicity of whose human existence is doubtful, and to whom there may be accorded the higher dignity of a mythical reality. Shankara, like Plotinus, Augustine, or Eckhart, was certainly a man among men, though we know comparatively little about his life. He was of south Indian Brahman birth, flourished in the first half of the ninth century A.D., and founded a monastic order which still survives. He became a samnyasin, or “truly poor man,” at the age of eight, as the disciple of a certain Govinda and of Govinda’s own teacher Gaudapada, the author of a treatise on the Upanisads in which their essential doctrine of the non-duality of the divine Being was set forth. Shankara journeyed to Benares and wrote the famous commentary on the Brahma Sutra there in his twelfth year; the commentaries on the Upanisads and Bhagavad Gita were written later. Most of the great sage’s life was spent wandering about India, teaching and taking part in controversies. He is understood to have died between the ages of thirty and forty. Such wanderings and disputations as his have always been characteristically Indian institutions; in his days, as now, Sanskrit was the lingua franca of learned men, just as for centuries Latin was the lingua franca of Western countries, and free public debate was so generally recognized that halls erected for the accommodation of peri­ patetic teachers and disputants were at almost every court.
    [Show full text]
  • Sankara's Doctrine of Maya Harry Oldmeadow
    The Matheson Trust Sankara's Doctrine of Maya Harry Oldmeadow Published in Asian Philosophy (Nottingham) 2:2, 1992 Abstract Like all monisms Vedanta posits a distinction between the relatively and the absolutely Real, and a theory of illusion to explain their paradoxical relationship. Sankara's resolution of the problem emerges from his discourse on the nature of maya which mediates the relationship of the world of empirical, manifold phenomena and the one Reality of Brahman. Their apparent separation is an illusory fissure deriving from ignorance and maintained by 'superimposition'. Maya, enigmatic from the relative viewpoint, is not inexplicable but only not self-explanatory. Sankara's exposition is in harmony with sapiential doctrines from other religious traditions and implies a profound spiritual therapy. * Maya is most strange. Her nature is inexplicable. (Sankara)i Brahman is real; the world is an illusory appearance; the so-called soul is Brahman itself, and no other. (Sankara)ii I The doctrine of maya occupies a pivotal position in Sankara's metaphysics. Before focusing on this doctrine it will perhaps be helpful to make clear Sankara's purposes in elaborating the Advaita Vedanta. Some of the misconceptions which have afflicted English commentaries on Sankara will thus be banished before they can cause any further mischief. Firstly, Sankara should not be understood or approached as a 'philosopher' in the modern Western sense. Ananda Coomaraswamy has rightly insisted that, The Vedanta is not a philosophy in the current sense of the word, but only as it is used in the phrase Philosophia Perennis... Modern philosophies are closed systems, employing the method of dialectics, and taking for granted that opposites are mutually exclusive.
    [Show full text]
  • A. K. Coomaraswamy and R. Guénon
    From the World Wisdom online library: www.worldwisdom.com/public/library/default.aspx Prologue A Fateful Meeting of Minds: A. K. Coomaraswamy and R. Guénon by Marco Pallis Memories of the great man whose centenary we are now wishing to celebrate go back, for me, to the late 1920s, when I was studying music under Arnold Dolmetsch whose championship of ancient musical styles and methods in Western Europe followed lines which Coomaraswamy, whom he had known personally, highly approved of, as reflecting many of his own ideas in a particular field of art. Central to Dolmetsch’s thinking was his radical rejection of the idea of “progress,” as applied to the arts, at a time when the rest of the musical profession took this for granted. The earlier forms of music which had disappeared from the European scene together with the instruments for which that music was composed must, so it was argued, have been inferior or “primitive” as the saying went; speak­ ing in Darwinian terms their elimination was part of the process of natural selection whereby what was more limited, and therefore by comparison less satisfying to the modern mind, became outmoded in favor of what had been rendered possible through the general advance of mankind. All the historical and psychological contradic­ tions implied in such a world-view were readily bypassed by a socie­ ty thinking along these lines; inconvenient evidence was simply brushed aside or else explained away by means of palpably tenden­ tious arguments. Such was the climate of opinion at the beginning of the present century: if belief in the quasi-inevitable march of progress is nowadays beginning to wear rather thin, this is largely due to the results of two world-wars and to the threats of mass- destruction which progress in the technological field has inevitably brought with it.
    [Show full text]
  • The Elegiac Grotesque
    The Elegiac Grotesque by Mariapia Pietropaolo A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Classics University of Toronto © Copyright by Mariapia Pietropaolo 2013 The Elegiac Grotesque Mariapia Pietropaolo Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Classics University of Toronto 2013 Abstract In Roman elegy the poet-lover has recourse to images of ugliness and disfigurement when he discovers that he is unable to retain the favour of his beloved with his love and verses. He degrades his opponents and suggests that his beloved herself succumbs to the fascination of horrid lovers. In this thesis I explore the theme of elegiac degradation from the perspective of grotesque hermeneutics, with the aim of showing that the grotesque plays a significant role in the development and self-understanding of elegy, the genre in which it is least expected. After discussing relevant aspects of grotesque theory, I show that the historical premises for a grotesque reading of Roman love poetry are found in Lucretius’ diatribe against love, a powerful philosophical gesture against the sentimentalizations of love and a strong argument for a poetics of love grounded in grotesque materialism. I then turn to Catullus, focusing on his bold use of grotesque imagery. Catullus admits the grotesque ii into the domain of love poetry and shows that, beneath the surface of elegance and urbanity that typifies romantic love, there lurks a reality that is both defiled and defiling. Turning to elegy proper, I analyze Propertius’ use of the grotesque focusing on his creation of a grotesque ethos within the aesthetic space of elegy.
    [Show full text]
  • Seeing with Two Eyes René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy and the Complementary Reassertion of Traditional Metaphysics
    Seeing with Two Eyes René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy and the Complementary Reassertion of Traditional Metaphysics by Peter Samsel Sacred Web 18 (2007), pp.119-54. “Not that the One is two, but that these two are one.” Hermes Trismegistos One of the most remarkable, if unremarked intellectual and spiritual developments of the last century has been that of a school of thought concerned with the reassertion at once of tradition and of the sacred. Termed the Traditionalist, or Perennialist School,1 its overarching themes might best be summarized in the subtitle both of its foremost journal and seminal anthology:2 Metaphysics, Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism. Although comprised of diverse figures, its coherence has been readily apparent: as Kenneth Oldmeadow has observed, Anyone who has given more than cursory attention to the writings of these men will not doubt that they form a unified group. They share philosophical assumptions and adhere to a specific understanding of the perennial philosophy. Their works are shot through with the same ideas, principles and themes. The solidarity of the group is evident not only in the substance of their writings but in several superficial and more immediately obvious ways….Doubtless there are many other reciprocal relationships, personal and intellectual, which are not visible to the public eye.3 The Traditionalist School may be understood in perhaps three conjoined ways: first, as a collection of diverse contemporary writers united under the banner of a common spiritual vision of tradition; second, as a continuation and reaffirmation in the contemporary era of a ‘golden chain’ of expression of the philosophia perennis et universalis4 extending across civilizations and through history; third, as a decisive doctrinal assertion and theoria of the Real, of That which is, along with the historic and normative human adumbrations consequent upon It.
    [Show full text]