Schlegel’Swords, Rightly Used

Michel Chaouli Schlegel’sWords, Rightly Used Philological Disarmament “Poetry,” Friedrich Schlegelwrites in afragment, “can onlybecriticized by poetry” (Schlegel1991 [1797], 14– 15). Forawhile now,Ihave thought that the line says all one needs to know about poetic criticism, what it is and how to do it,and that it thereforerequires neither commentary nor critique.Itisclear as day, and yet, like so manyofthe best aphorisms,this is an enigmatic clarity,which maybewhy I keep returningtoit.¹ Ikeep failingtofind the right wayofhearing it and responding to it.IfIknew how,then it would stop comingback to me, and before long Icould forgetit. Criticism thinksofitself as memorializing awork, but if it is done right,then it is away of overcoming it,ofdigesting and metabolizing it,and thus of forgetting it. “Poetry can onlybecriticized by poetry.” It is aplain phrase, yetright away Ifeel the urge to poke and prod its every part.After all, can Ibesure what it means by the word poetry,ifpoetry is even the right translation of Poesie,orifthe first usageofthe worddenotes the sameasthe second?AsSchlegel usesthe term elsewhere, poetry is not restricted to agenre such as the lyric nor even to verbal artworks in general, but reaches for the essence of creative making itself, whatever form it might take. Does that hold here? Then there is the word only: am Itotake literallythe assertion that poetry can be criticized by poetry alone and by nothing else? Now Inotice the pas- sive voice and find myself asking by whom – by what unnamed agency – it can only be thus criticized?And what of this criticizing?The worditself – kritisiert – rankles, as does the idea it evokes:does poetry stand in need of being criticized?These mis- givingsare further roused by the very next concept the fragment offers: “Ajudgment of art,” it reads, “thatitself isn’tawork of art […]has no right of citizenship in the realm of art.”“Ajudgment of art”:aphrase Ihavecome across athousand times, yet onlynow do Ihear how off-key it sounds, how gratingitistojoin “judgment” to “art.” Worse, this “judgment” is apt to give the aimless drift of associations that have been stirred up by “criticize” aKantian bent.And suddenlyall Iamableto see in “criticize” is “critique,” thatprosecutor that summons the accusedbefore the Tribunal of Reason to press them for answers. Before Iknow it,anair of anxiety has settled over the line, and rather than enjoying the cloudless simplicity that it had once offered, Ibecome restless and turn over each of its words. One response to the fragment can be found in my essay “‘We Hear That We MaySpeak’:Overtures for DoingCriticism,” Arcadia:International Journal of LiteraryCulture,forthcoming. SinceIdo not start from scratch, some passagesfromthat essayreappear here. OpenAccess. ©2021MichelChaouli, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688719-003 20 Michel Chaouli But whysuch unease? Iapproach the phrase as though in it Iconfronted abeing that speaks an unintelligible idiom whose meaning requires decipherment,when in- stead Icould begin by crediting its affinity. It is, after all, not very mysterious: “Po- etry can onlybecriticized by poetry.” Thewords show the way, by astrokeofluck more clearlyeveninthe English translation, which begins and ends with “poetry.”² Poetry is whereIset out and whereIland, my dwellingand my destination. Though I maynot know its dimensions nor the measure of its boundaries, Idonot face in it an alien object,but something with which Imaintain an unknown intimacy.Often Iap- proach it as though it wereanobscure substance to be probed from adistance with the stick of scholarlyanalysis,but then Iforgetthat Iknow it from inside, even when its meaning confounds me – forgetthat its meaning confounds me in the waythat poetry does because Iknow it from inside. Knowingitfrom inside does not meanthat it harborsnomysteries. It meansthat poetry is not an object to be studied,dissected, and decoded. It is, in fact,noobject at all. That,too, is something the line intimates:when poetry encounters poetry,the two do not occupy opposite poles – here I, the readingsubjectdeploying “poetry,” there apoetic object thatIapproach and whose meaning Iseek to parse – with critique or criticism coursing between us. If criticism itself is done “by poetry,” as Schle- gelputs it,then poetry is the medium through which Imove, not athing Iholdbefore me. Even the term “medium,” recruited to dissolve the dyad of subjectand object, will not quite do. It failstocapturethe strangeaffinitythat Ihavewith poetry – and it with me – if Iamtohearitinthe right way. Forpoetry is not amedium in the sense of ameans, not atool Iwield or achannelIselect to tune into aspecial form of communication. Nor is it amedium in the more capacious sense of asetting, the stageofmyactions or the stream that carries me away.Ineither case – whether I hold it or it holds me – it remains alien to me, something Ithink of as belongingto the world rather thantomyself. Yettodocriticism by poetry names something more intimate: aform of comportment,awayofdoing things. Hearing That We May Speak We scholars have been readingthis fragment (along with the otherfragments,es- says,dialogues, and other writingsinthe archive of “EarlyRomanticism”)asabuild- ing block in an intricate theory of literature, when in fact it is acall to action. It pres- ents us not merelywith new thoughts,but with ademand. It asks us to “hear,thatwe mayspeak,” as Emerson says (Emerson 2001 [1837], 60). But do we need to learn how to hear and speak?Dowenot do it in our sleep?Ofcourse we do, but that is just the reason Emerson urgesadifferent mode of hearing and speaking.Every day, language passes through me without leaving aripple. Yetfrom time to time Icome across The original reads, “Poesie kann nur durch Poesie kritisiert werden” (Schlegel 1967[1797], 162). Schlegel’sWords, Rightly Used 21 words, and something happens.The words snapmeout of my slumber and suddenly Ihearinthem acall thatdemands something of me. No longer do Iread to add to my stock of interpretations; Iread, rather,totake part in aform of making.Iremain vig- ilant about the ways of seeing – the theories – that the text unveils, yetmainly because it can lead me to new ways of doing.Ichangemyposture and lean forward, readytolearn how these words set in motion something in me, rather than leaning back, content to behold the shape they reveal. So: IhearSchlegel’swordthatImight act.The wayofacting towardswhich they guide me is clear.Iam to encounter poetry with poetry,toact poeticallywhen com- ing across poetry,wherepoetry is not aspecial category of artful writing (lyrical, complex, sophisticated – what have you), but names ways of making thatoutstrip utility – call it passionatemaking.The fragment asks me to face the cominginto being of something new not with the aim of fixing its location in agrid of meanings, but rather with agesture that launches my own ways of making.Ifcriticism names my encounter with the poetic, then areal encounter,and real criticism, must itself be poetic.How do Ibring about such an encounter?The fragment does not say. Yet, in whatever wayIgo about it,mywork – criticism – no longer remains the same. It ceases to serveasthe mere occasion for assigningpraise or blame, nor does it docu- ment an arrangementofmeaningsderived from – or imposed on – asource. Some- thing different happens. Forone thing,something happens. In poetic criticism, someone speaks, someone venturesanact of speech – an act in speech. Even if it has been uttered before, such aspeech act is unheard of. Ideas that have grown flaccid gain fresh vigor,likeamus- cle that one learns to feelanew. Yetthis speaking,though new,emergesnot out of thin air,but follows upon another act,this being an act of hearing – hearing this fragment,for example – an act as fragile as the speech to which it givesrise. For to hear “that we mayspeak,” to hear poetically, demands of me to open not my ears alone, but also my self, to allow myself to be exposed to what speaks to me, un- shielded by my usual armaments – with effects Icannot foresee. Learningtobecome vulnerableinthis waylies at the coreofencounteringpoetry with poetry. What changes, then, what is at stake in hearing the fragment,ismore than criticism. If Isucceed in hearing the poetry in some arrangement of words (just as Imight perceive it in acomposition of images, sounds, or movements), then they rouse me from the torpor of my habits and bring to consciousness ways of encountering things that had lain dormant.Mywhole organism comes alive,and as Ilearn to hear and see and feelanew,fresh possibilities of making sense of the world reveal themselves, which turn out to be justfresh possibilities of making the world. That would change everything. 22 Michel Chaouli Second Thoughts Have we been readingtoo much into this line? Does it reallysay that poetry is not an object nor Iasubject, that hearing it involves knowing it from inside, that it names a form of intimacy? If so, how and where? These are fair questions. Still, it is irksome that they interrupt our reverie. Wasnot the idea to keep at baythe unease that our usual modes of readinghavetaught?Yet here we are, readytoshadowboxwith chal- lenges of our own making.And once we start,there is no stopping: behindthese questions ahundred others lurk, each readytotake aswing. When interpretation runs into trouble, we like to place the blame on the ‘difficul- ty’ of the object before us (for example, the line by Schlegel), when the real obstacle lies elsewhere. Strangethat ease does not come easilytous. Second thoughts molest us before we have come to know the first.But then, whynot simply plugupour ears and getonwith it?Are we too hidebound? No doubtweare.We know well how to vex each other with textual and historical riddles, but we are at aloss at how to go about hearing the words someone has uttered.

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