8/2/2019 In Broken Images (Mag)

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Theres no money in poetry, but then,

theres no poetry in money either.

Robert Graves

e rst poem thats integrated into the homepagesslideshow is In Broken Images by Robert Graves. In

the poem Graves juxtaposes two ways of thinkingthat may represent severals things. e rst is athinker who knows the world before he or she sees it,someone who is full ofa priorithinking. e secondis someone who has no ready answers.

i s a r t i c l e re v i ew s th e d i ffe r e n tepistemological viewpoints represented. It considers

whether Graves characterizes different thinking byone individual, i.e. right-hemisphere and left-hemisphere thinking. Or whether it divides betweenan idealist and a scientic approach to thought.

Moreover, the very easy dichotomy of these twopatterns of thought may themselves be highlymisleading. is is a poem introduced to me by mysister that has somehow followed me through life.

In Broken Images

He is quick, thinking in clear images;I am slow, thinking in broken images.He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact,Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.He continues quick and dull in his clear images;

I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.He in a new confusion of his understanding;I in a new understanding of my confusion.

In Broken ImagesThis series of articles explores the poems that have been integrated into the website and thereasons for them being there.

By Charles Keeling

FPEC

YOURSELF

8/2/2019 In Broken Images (Mag)

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A prioriand a posterioriGraves juxtaposes two modes of epistemological

thought: a prioriand a posteriori.A prioriknowledgeis not based on or inferred from experience. is isthe rst man (yes, there is an outdated genderpolitics at work here) who knows without havingto test his knowledge. A posterioriknowledge, incontrast, is dependent on empirical evidence. It isconsistent with a scientic approach that has noready answers with rst putting things to the test.

Idealist versus scientist?ere is an attraction in being the quick thinker full

of ready answers. In the poem that attraction isdisarmed by only the second line, with quickbecoming quick and dull. Graves is not expecting usto put up much of a ght!

My rst suspicion that Graves is playing theidealist, the man who already knows the answer, offagainst a man of science, the man who patientlyinfers qualied conclusions from empirical evidence,is beginning to look decidedly shaky. Much as Iadmire his clever wordplays I know only too wellthat this sort of arsenal is useless against a man witha cause - hey, believers believe, its what they do!

Internal dialogue?Could this then be an internal wrangle between what

was once called the two minds - two hemispheresof the brain? Well, Id love to shoehorn Graves poeminto my latest fad and say that the two people, as wekind of assume in the beginning of the poem, are infact the two very different ways of thinkingattributed to the hemispheres of the human brain.

is blows any sexism out of the water as Graves isaddressing himself. However, this is also highlyproblematic.

e left brain processes data sequentially,giving us our sense of time and linearity, whereas theright brain is outside of sequential time. Moreover,our ability for language and to be logical and analyzeare part of our left-brain function. So this entirepoem is a left-brain activity. How then can the he ofthe rst man be the left brain and the I be the right?No, it just doesnt add up.

Dichotomous tosh?In fact, the juxtaposition of two separate thinkersmakes most sense as otherwise (and regardless) the

dichotomy is remarkably convenient. Surely thereality is that we are all both quick and dull and

slow and sharp at diff

erent times and in diff

erentdegrees. We are not all monolithic, unchangingbeings incapable of different modes of thought. IsGraves challenging me to ask this question? I dontthink so. But perhaps its a question I have to ask.

So what is he after?Well, there are no ready answers - just like the poemsays - so we would be fools to hope for a simple keyto unlock the poem. It is an epistemologicalmeditation on how we can possibly know things, if

ever. Some of Graves poems read like mantras andthis is no exception.

A mantra is, literally from the Sanskrit, aninstrument of thought and a repetitive device usedto bring about spiritual transformation. emirrored lines of the poem cleverly invert both wordorder and meaning. Somehow, through thisimperfect process, Graves offers a glimpse of spiritualtransformation. In spite of our need to question thesimple logic of the poem, we are left transformedsomehow at one with the second thinker of thepoem: I in a new understanding of my confusion.

What was all that about two brains? Well, as we read the lines - the mantra - we cannothelp but wonder which we are, and suspect that weare a mixture of the two. But Graves prompts us tobe the second, to be dull and sharp, to rely onempirical evidence from which to infer limited truth.

And through his mantra-poem he gifts us theinstrument of thought to do it. Never perfectly,

never completely, no ready answers. Always inbroken images.

FPEC

YOURSELF

In Broken ImagesThis series of articles explores the poems that have been integrated into the website and thereasons for them being there.

By Charles Keeling