Bicycle poetics, or why I will have to read Pascoli
Reading The Idea of Prose of Agamben this morning. Somehow I think reading Agamben is a good way to spend Easter: to at least have a little bit the feeling that it is Easter. As happens mostly these years, I almost forgot that Easter was near. When it (the feeling of time) goes on like this, in 2 years time I will forget when it’s Christmas. On on the other hand, I know the cycling calender by heart. I celebrate the bicycle, apparently. Which brings me to this quote from Agamben: “The horse on which the poet rides, according to an ancient exegetical tradition of the Apocalypse of St. John, is the sound and vocal element of language. (…) It is a sure indication of the symbolic tenacity of this image that in Pascoli at the beginning of this century (and, later, in both Penna and Delfini) one finds that the horse takes on the blithe shape of the bicycle.” (Giorgio Agamben, The Idea of Prose, 1995 (1985), p. 43). So, this celebration of the bicycle might then also be a celebration of the voice of language. Hmm, connect that to the pure joy of listening to Michel Wuyts talking while the peleton rides through the landscape, his words being propelled, so to say, by the spinning of the wheels. (Yes, philosophy is fun).
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