Arnold Rimmer, famed smeghead, was once posed the following question by an astrophysics examination textbook: What does the red spectrum tell us about quasars?

His reply was (dictated): In answering the question, 'What does the red spectrum tell us about quasars?' - write bigger - there are various words that need to be defined. What is a spectrum, what is a red one, why is it red, and why is it so frequently linked with quasars? (he then added to himself, what the hell is a quasar?).

This is what I thought of the minute I read the first few lines of this arty-farty essay that was sent to me by a friend (who shall remain nameless) on behalf of his own friend (who shall also remain nameless).

I decided to go through it in as much detail as I can bear, because man, this is some frightful wank. I was quite proud of my analytical skills, which have gotten rusty over the years.

Quotes in bold.

An Analysis of Poetic Consciousness in Shelley and Coleridge

Heh, first of all, wanky title - but absolutely unavoidable, I understand.

The problematic of any generalized, historical movement is that the movement of history is precipitated by that most particular of phenomena: genius.

Translation: the thing about fads is, they're kicked off by a smartass.

He shouldn't put historical movement and movement of history in the same sentence, he shouldn't use the word problematic in this context, and the phrase that most particular of phenomena is uselessly colourful language. This isn't a story by Arthur Conan Doyle. It's an essay written in 2006 AD.

How about:

Historical movements are generally precipitated by the presence of genius.

Thus it is often the case, historically, that a 'movement' should have one, perhaps two, great minds to inspire it, to bequeath unto it an impetus, which ineluctably dwindles into dogma and ideological idiom.

Translation: so a fad should have one or two smartasses to get it started. When these smartasses are no longer around, the movement loses its oomph.

I wouldn't use the word oomph in an essay, but I would use it before I used the word ineluctably. In fact, the word oomph may just be less offensive to the professor, even if the professor is a woman and you use the word oomph in reference to her.

Additionally, it seems to me that this sentence is repeating the first. The first says that generally, movements are started off by a genius. The second says that historically, a movement should have one or two geniuses to start it off, and thereafter (this should be a third sentence: keep them short and simple) the movement breaks down.

The case of Romanticism may be such a case, however, when one considers merely Romantic poetry,

Why is there a however in this sentence?

What I think he's trying to say is, The Romanticist movement may be one, however, which was precipitated not by one or two genii, but by the genius of the whole damn bunch.

Which might be a bit of a stretch. Even the Romantic Poetry movement was made up of a core of talented poets, surrounded by a huge bunch of talentless hangers-on.

However, since he's really only talking about Coleridge and Shelley, does he really need to talk about the phenomenon of genius as relates to the entire movement? His purposes might better be served by portraying Coleridge and Shelley as the impetus-giving genii in this movement. Although that too would be extremely dubious.

and as perhaps is necessitated by the nature of the poetic endeavour, each poet is, insofar as he is great, definitive of the term "Romantic."

Translation: poets are by definition romantic, and so the great poets of the Romantic Poetry movement were the definition of that movement.

Not really a useful sentence, unless you're trying to reach a word-limit. Which I suspect this guy is. By the time I'm done snipping, he'll be able to write two essays.

Thus, with each "Romantic" poet, there is a transformative reconstitution of the meaning of Romanticism,

Translation: since each Romantic poet defined the movement, the movement was redefined with every new poet.

Duh.

and, with each, the conception of poiein

Alright, can this somehow be said using a different word? Because unless this is vital to the essay, it should be.

After running it through a few translation engines and searching Google, I found out that poiein is Greek for writing poetry. Which means:

is slightly altered in the reflexive sense of also altering the process of creating the meaning of creation.

...that he has repeated himself again. The act of writing poetry alters the poetic process.

Also, creating the meaning of creation is pure wank. Give that man a Kleenex.

One might pose the question: "What is the essence of poetic consciousness as explored and embodied in the aesthetic and poetic writings of the Romantic poets?"

Yes, one might. If one was a tosspot. But I'll let it pass, since this is the founding premise of the essay. Although I would rephrase the question slightly: What is the nature of poetic consciousness as explored and embodied in the writings of the Romantic poets?

Cut down on adjectives and adverbs wherever possible. And you don't need to define the writings of the Romantic poets as aesthetic and poetic anyway. That was sort of a given.

Plus, my tutor always told me that putting a question in an essay is daring. Feel free to do it, but just make sure you bloody well answer it, four or five times over.

In answer to this question, given the predetermined limits of the possibility of this response,

Is he talking about the limits of the essay size and format? Tell him to stop.

it is only with provisional regard to those strictures that two particular, and eminently pertinent exemplars of this movement and enquiry are to be selected.

Translation: since I only have about three thousand words to cover this issue, I'll have to focus on the best two examples.

He is talking about the limitations of the essay.

It's a waste of time to complain about essay limitations. If the essay can only be so many words long, you should make every word count. That means taking out unnecessary padding like aesthetic and poetic, and absolutely no complaining about your word limit.

Through an examination of the relation of the insights found in the aesthetic writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge as embodied in his poem The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner with the notions present in aesthetic writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley, as explored in his poem Mont Blanc,

There's padding here too.

Comparing the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner' to Percy Bysshe Shelley's 'Mont Blanc'...

See? I just saved him 28 words.

Incidentally, I suspected he might have mis-spelled The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A Google search shows up both spellings, so Rhyme is as correct as Rime ... but checking his bibliography:

--------. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." The Harbrace Anthology of Poetry. 3rd ed. Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning, 2002.

He's citing from a book that spells it Rime. So he should do the same.

it shall be attempted to be educed that with each poet respectively, the notion of the poetic consciousness is such that it entails the reflexive application of the creative will to the poet himself, thusly, the relation that the poet bears to nature, and his status as 'natural' is precariously positioned upon the will of the poet qua poet, and not qua natural man, and that this impasse is itself the essence of poetics.

Okay, first of all, take a breath. You can't have sentences this long even if they do hold to grammatical law, which this one really doesn't - and it certainly isn't readable.

Translation: Comparing the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' to Percy Bysshe Shelley's 'Mont Blanc' will serve to illustrate the nature of poetic consciousness. Namely, that the poet's relatiohship to his environment is intimately related to his own identity as a poet, and his environment as poetic.

Even when I translate it, it's essentially meaningless and I feel all dirty.

He also seems to be saying that the nature of poetry is the impasse that exists between the poet-as-man and the poet-as-poet. Which makes sense - poetry is all about mortal man trying to express something higher and better than he is. I'd just find another way of saying it, because this is impenetrable.

In order to begin to understand poetic consciousness, Shelley makes a distinction between the two primary faculties of willed consciousness: imagination and reason.

Now we're getting somewhere. The above should be an introduction, now we get down to cases.

Imagination is presented by Shelley

Shelley presents imagination - avoid passive voice.

as the principle of synthesis which fleshes ideas into their robust integrity, and provides each an essence with its own proper, latent, relations to be further educed, in short, it perceives thoughts in their "integral unity" (Shelley, 753).

Okay, more padding here.

Translation: Shelley presented imagination as the principle of synthesis which fleshes ideas into reality, and provides each idea with an essence so its potential can be realised. In short, imagination perceives thoughts in their "integral unity" (Shelley, 753).

Better? I think so, but I do say it myself.

Oh, and don't say in short and then add stuff. That's actually making it longer. Instead of saying in short, make it short the first time.

Reason is contradistinguished as the principle of analysis,

He didn't need to say contradistinguished.

Shelley presented reason, on the other hand, as the principle of analysis.

More words, yes. But sometimes you need to use more words to make something clear. And I'm still saving him words in the long run. And again, get rid of the passive voice. And make the sentence as small and concise as possible.

considering ideas in their relations, "as the algebraic representations which conduct to general results" without producing any new relations (Shelley, 153).

Translation: Reason considers ideas in context, "as the algebraic representations which conduct to general results" (Shelley, 153), without actual creativity.

It might, therefore, be said that for Shelley, imagination without reason is improper, while reason without imagination is stagnant.

Fair cop.

Coleridge refrains from much description of man's rational faculties, however, he was familiar with Kant, and therefore, we may take his insistence that poetry ought to be amoral, to indicate also his position concerning the role of reason in poetic consciousness.

I'd say: Coleridge, however, refrained from dwelling on the rational faculties. His insistence that poetry ought to be amoral can be linked to his familiarity with Kant, and serves to illustrate his opinion concerning the role of reason in poetic consciousness.

By the way: pick a tense and stick to it. Are we going to be talking about Coleridge and Shelley as if they're still alive (Coleridge refrains from much description) or are we going to talk about them as if they're dead (he was familiar with Kant)?

He once wrote, concerning Kubla Khan, that: "...the only, or chief fault, if I may say so, was the obtrusion of the moral sentiment so openly on the reader as a principle or cause of action in a work of pure imagination" (Coleridge, 346).

Heh, Coleridge was a wanker too. But this is fine.

The poem is amorally a work of pure imagination, in this sense it also resists the promptings of the rational will;

AWOOGAH! AWOOGAH!

*runs over wearing rubber apron and radiation mittens, picks up semi-colon with a pair of tongs, and carries it carefully to the door*

Let's get rid of that.

Okay. Are we still talking about Kubla Khan here? Maybe rephrase:

Coleridge believed that the generic poem was a creation of pure imagination, resisting the promptings of the rational mind.

End of sentence! And see, I even put the word 'generic' in there for him.

it creates new laws rather than merely adhering to existent, rational or moral laws.

New sentence!

He believed that the generic poem created new laws rather than adhering to existing rational or moral guidelines.

I'd even take the rational or moral out of there. They're not needed.

Coleridge clearly believed that the order of natural objects was subordinated to the aesthetic imagination,

I'd take this out altogether. We already know what Coleridge believed by this stage, unless we're idiots.

thus he described the activity of the imagination, saying: "It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead" (Coleridge 387).

New sentence!

He described the activity of the imagination: (quote)

For both Coleridge and Shelley the principal role of the faculty of imagination (as the faculty most essential to poetics) lies in the process through which it forges new relations between various thoughts or ideas.

Translation: Both Coleridge and Shelley agreed that imagination was the most essential faculty to the poet. They believed that the principal role of imagination lay in the process by which it forged new relations between thoughts and ideas.

Oh, and don't use brackets.

Coleridge characterizes the aesthetic experience according to this sentiment of novelty: "...the pleasure arising from novelty must of course be allowed its due place and weight. This pleasure consists in the identity of two opposite elements—that is to say, sameness and variety... This unity in multeity I have elsewhere stated as the principle of beauty" (Coleridge 262).

I find this whole quote a bit pointless, and the introduction to it clumsy. Not sure what I'd do about it. Meh, leave it, I suppose.

While Coleridge draws out the element of unification involved in the metaphorical penetrations of consciousness into 'what is', he does not appear to involve this unification so fundamentally with language as does Shelley:

Wow.

Translation: Coleridge does not appear to involve the unification of imagination and reason so fundamentally with language as does Shelley.

We wandered a little bit off the point, so it might be good to reintroduce the key points imagination and reason here.

Plus, the following is a quote, but done differently from the ones before. Maybe this is because it is a longer quote, I don't know. Our boy here should know his faculty's quoting conventions, so I'll let it pass.

In the infancy of society every author is a poet because language itself is poetry; and to be a poet is to apprehend the true and the beautiful, in a word the good which exists in the relation, subsisting, first between existence and perception, and secondly between perception and expression. Every original language near to its source is in itself the chaos of a cyclic poem... (Shelley 755).

Right. I won't correct him, because he's already dead. *grin*

Poetics, in this view, consists in the formation of novel relations between the objects of consciousness.

Perhaps:

According to this view, poetry consists of the formation of novel relations between imagination and reason.

(because I want to repeat imagination and reason here, and I don't know what the objects of consciousness are)

Poetic expression requires the revelation of the inscape of a thing, through its integral unity as metaphorically construed.

I'd balk at saying inscape, but in this context it's a pretty good word. However, the bit about metaphorically construing its integral unity makes no sense. How do you metaphorically construe something? And what is integral unity anyway? Perhaps:

Poetic expression reveals the inscape of a thing, within the framework of rationality.

This keeps us on the track of imagination and reason, but branches out a bit too.

In this manner, the inscape of an object of consciousness is simultaneously perceived and construed through the reticular web of metaphorical relationality,

No it isn't.

But you can get rid of this anyway, because I already covered it in the above:

Poetic expression reveals the inscape of a thing, within the framework of rationality.

and, though the degree to which the inscape is either construed or perceived is unclear, we might say that its perception is natural, and its construal is artificial, or poetic.

New sentence!

Although the degree to which the inscape is revealed is unclear, we might say that its perception is natural, and its construal artificial.

However, as Coleridge and Shelley intimate,

Don't start a sentence in an essay with however.

As Coleridge and Shelley suggest, however,

there is a degree of creation present in the mere perception of nature;

*dons mittens*

End sentence!

In fact, you don't even need the however in there at all, because this sentence isn't contradicting the above assertions.

As Coleridge and Shelley suggest, there is a degree of creation present in the perception of nature.

New sentence!

the notion of nature, with its attendant implications of vitality, already suggests its impurity,

End sentence!

Now remove the 'for' here and...

New sentence!

for 'pure' objects, as Coleridge claims, are essentially dead. Human perception is, therefore, in an essential sense, creative.

Not sure of that logical leap, but okay. Let's leave the stuff that Coleridge thought, and alter our next line to:

Human perception is, therefore, essentially creative.

The mere perception of nature, as a 'natural' process, takes place in such a way as to infuse the representative form of consciousness with a life that its 'natural' objects to not possess in themselves.

Translation: The process of observing and perceiving nature infuses the observer with an imaginative vitality not possessed by the observed objects.

Also dubious, but these are poets we're talking about (plus I inserted imaginative in order to make a bit more sense). This guy does know the difference between writing an essay about poetry, and writing poetry, doesn't he?

This filtering of perception may, as Kant suggested, involve the movement of certain sensations along predetermined and necessary a priori structures, however, what is of greater bearing upon the romantic sense of the term poet, is that the structures through which thoughts, in turn, move from perception to expression are mutable, they may be affected in such a way as to create novel frameworks of meaning.

Break it up!

First of all, what filtering? He never mentioned filtering before. Unless by filtering he is referring to the observer filtering what he sees through his imagination. Let's pretend that's what he meant.

The filtering of perception through imagination may, as Kant suggested, involve the movement of certain sensations along predetermined lines.

New sentence!

Of greater importance to the poet, however, is that the lines along which sensation move are mutable, not predetermined.

New sentence!

These lines may be affected in such a way as to create novel frameworks of meaning.

The relationality of thought,

I'll focus my rage on that comma, since I don't know where to start with the word relationality, which according to dictionary.com does not exist and although that doesn't necessarily mean the word does not exist, it is a good hint that the word should not be used, and perhaps a normal, boring word should be used instead.

Get rid of that comma! It doesn't belong! Unclean! Unclean!!

*shuns comma*

is thus variable and inextricably bound up with the intellect, and the mechanism of metaphorical synthesis is, in some sense, a singularly poetic freedom.

Translation: Perception is bound up with intellect, and the mutability of its practice is in many ways a purely poetic freedom.

This still doesn't make much sense to me, but oh well. I think what we're getting at here is that the way those lines of sensation mentioned earlier are adjustable is a poetic thing.

As Shelley writes: "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world" (Shelley 765). The full sense in which this statement can be understood, however, necessitates a consideration of his poetic works.

Perhaps:

To fully understand this statement, however, necessitates consideration of Shelley's poetry.

To attempt to synthesize these notions of poetic consciousness into The Rhyme

- Rime -

of the Ancient Mariner (henceforth to be called "The Ancient Mariner")

Slack bastard.

is, given the nature of the ballad form, a difficult task.

I dare say. More difficult, however, was wedging the word synthesize into that sentence. You could use the word read instead, and everybody would be happy.

See:

To attempt to read these notions of poetic consciousness into 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is difficult, given the nature of the ballad form.

It places one in the precarious position of attempting to synthesize an aesthetic with a work, which, in turn, can only be properly understood in terms of its internal diachronic relations.

Translation: It places the reader in the position of attempting to place an aesthetic within a poem that can only be properly understood within its own framework.

Again, I'm dubious about this.

It becomes necessary to acknowledge that there is a mutual causality between artifice and aesthetics:

No colons either!

Replace mutual causality with relationship.

New sentence!

the poet's aesthetic inevitably affects his work, as his work inevitably affects his aesthetic;

End of sentence!

New sentence!

neither can be legitimately privileged over the other in terms of interpretive significance.

How about just, neither can legitimately be given greater significance?

Interpretation of the ballad is possible in such multiplicity that a particular, governing theme must be selected if the interpretation is to have any reasonable limits.

Substitute depth for multiplicity and single for particular. If anybody accuses you of not knowing what multiplicity and particular mean in this context, ask them if the meaning of the revised sentence is any different to the original. Then give them a wedgie.

Such a salient theme is that of aesthetic redemption.

And remove salient.

Following his traversal of some then-unknown limit of probity

This sounds rude, but leave it if you must. Although integrity would be better.

—when "With his cruel bow he laid full low/ The harmless albatross"—the Mariner is forced through a series of castigating reprisals.

Castigating is not required here. It's implied in reprisals.

Notably, the first abatement of the severity of those castigations

- reprisals -

comes about, it is implied, as the result of the Mariner's aesthetic appreciation,

End of sentence!

It is interesting to note that the first abatement in severity of these reprisals comes about, implicitly, as a result of the Mariner's aesthetic appreciation.

That's dodgy, but let's move on, we're almost there!

New sentence!

when, speaking of certain sea-serpents, he says:

O happy living things! no tongue

Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea. (Coleridge, 282-291)

Again with the funky quote-style. But that's a technical matter.

The first and second lines indicate that only one aspect of consciousness, that of perception, has transpired, and seem note the incompleteness of consciousness as here presented: the absence of expression.

We're into analysis mode at last. I'd re-write this a bit:

The first two lines indicate that only one aspect of consciousness, that of perception, has transpired. They seem to note the incompleteness of consciousness, specifically the absence of expression.

Correspondingly, the Mariner's redemption is incomplete. The full redemption of the Mariner comes only with the actuation of the poetic consciousness,

End of sentence!

Find a way of saying the actuation of the poetic consciousness without using the word actuation!

New sentence!

it was not sufficient that he should have experienced the subject of his ballad, for it is truly his, but it is necessary also that he express it:

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched

With a woful agony

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns:

And till my ghastly tale is told,

The heart within me burns.

I pass like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach. (Coleridge 578-590)

Alright...

The conception here of the fully poetic consciousness is what finally grants the Mariner remission from his sins.

Okay, if you like...

The notion of aesthetic redemption, as presented in the poem, suggests also Coleridge's notion of the propinquity

Bzzt.

Don't say propinquity unless you mean it. And are wearing a condom.

of religious and aesthetic transfiguration:

Instead of saying propinquity, say:

...Coleridge's notion of the similarity between religious and aesthetic transfiguration:

" [The principle of beauty may be said to] excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure for which ...we have eyes yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand" (Coleridge 388).

Okay.

Indeed,

Lose the indeed.

it is the supernatural elements of his experience which awaken in the Mariner the agony of aesthetic desire, and the necessity and capacity for poetic consciousness, and hence expression.

Alright.

Shelley notes a similar relation of the aesthetic to the religious in A Defence of Poetry: "[Poets are] the inventors of arts and life and the teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity

Aha! Damn you, Shelley!

with the beautiful and the true that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion" (Shelley 755).

Notice how these guys always say poets are the creators of the universe and the tellers of the story of life, but never that they're unwashed bums with pretentious facial hair and a penchant for self-indulgent melodrama?

The first victim of poetry is truth.

According to Coleridge, the experience of the natural in its full, aesthetic, or metaphoric novelty confers a greater perspicacity, and enthusiasm upon the subject.

Take out , aesthetic, or metaphoric, and change perspicacity to vitality to tie it all back to the beginning of the essay.

You remember, the beginning of the essay?

According to Coleridge, the experience of the natural in its full novelty confers a greater vitality and enthusiasm upon the subject.

Shelley suggests that it is precisely the poet, who properly orients and approximates to beauty and truth, what is religiously termed 'supernatural'.

This sentence needs an enema. Perhaps:

Shelley suggests that it is the poet who orients and approximates beauty and truth in poetry, an orientation that is religiously termed 'supernatural'.

Dodgy.

Shelley' poem Mont Blanc

There's an s missing there.

suggests that this transfiguration is, however, 'natural' though perhaps it also involves a redefinition of nature.

How about:

Shelley's poem 'Mont Blanc' implies that this orientation is natural, although it may also involve a redefinition of nature.

Mont Blanc may be read as a description of consciousness, either in general, or specifically that of Shelley as he is inspired to write the poem,

End of sentence!

New sentence!

it begins with the following lines:

The everlasting universe of things

Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves

Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting doom—

Now lending splendour, where from secret springs

The source of human thought its tribute brings

Of waters—with a sound but half its own (Shelley 666)

Right.

The first line indicates the possible reading of the poem as describing consciousness in general, rather than in particular, with the words "The everlasting universe of things."

Rephrase:

The first line, "The everlasting universe of things", indicates the possibility that the poem is describing consciousness in general, rather than in particular.

That the poem's subject is consciousness, to begin with, is here intimated in two separate instances.

Remove to begin with and here.

And look! My rephrase is consistent with the next part anyway!

The second line, "Flows through the mind" explicitly denotes the concern with both "the everlasting universe of things" and its presence in human consciousness.

Alright.

Furthermore, the fifth and sixth lines, which read, "The source of human thought its tribute brings/ Of waters—with a sound but half its own" attend to the established theme of consciousness, determining the natural, for instance Mont Blanc, to be the source of consciousness, and concurrently, to be merely half of what is present in consciousness, the other half being that which man imputes upon the things of the universe.

Break it up!

Furthermore, the fifth and sixth lines, "The source of human thought its tribute brings/ Of waters—with a sound but half its own" attend to the established theme of consciousness.

New sentence!

They determine the natural, represented by Mont Blanc, to be the source of consciousness, and declare it to be merely half of what is present in consciousness.

New sentence!

The other half, implicitly, being that which man imputes upon the things of the universe.

If this is the proper inference, we must conclude that man is 'naturally poetic,' though poiein, is artificial, and thus always an abstraction from the originary substrate of things, that is, the natural.

Padding!

Rephrase:

The reader must conclude that man is naturally poetic, although the creation of poetry itself is artificial. The creation of poetry is therefore an abstraction from the natural.

And in fact, that last sentence may be redundant.

Shelley returns to commenting upon this relation in the concluding lines of the poem when addressing Mont Blanc:

The secret strength of things

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome

Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,

If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy

Just as in the opening lines, Shelley here mentions the secret source and strength, of things, that is the 'natural' or, 'nature' itself, as the subtending matter of consciousness which never fully reveals itself in consciousness.

Mmm ... secret source.

Ahem. Rephrase and cut padding and generally turn this into a real sentence:

Shelley repeats that the secret source of strength for all observed phenomena is consciousness.

Consciousness in general may possess only half of that which is not its own, it is divorced from nature, and there is a certain necessity also to this disarticulation for, there would be no poetry, no vitality in life, "If to the human mind's imaginings/Silence and solitude were vacancy."

Translation: Consciousness will only ever possess half of that which is not known. It is divorced from nature, and for a very good reason: there would be no poetry, no vitality in life, If to the human mind's imaginings/Silence and solitude were vacancy.

(I'm allowed to use a colon. He isn't.)

Observing that consciousness is abstract from nature, and that the néant between consciousness and nature is bridged by penetrations which are, in essence, metaphorical, it becomes evident that, insofar as it is poetic, consciousness is alienated from itself as 'natural'.

Néant? Shut up before you hurt yourself.

Translation: Observing that consciousness is divorced from nature, and that the separation is bridged by metaphor, it is evident that consciousness is alienated from its 'natural' self.

Since consciousness in general is essentially metaphorical, the poet is both artificial and natural, in effect, the concept of poiein is itself a metaphor, and the impossibility, as described above, of the identification of the metaphor (as that which is constantly in motion) with itself, is concurrently the impossibility of the identification of the poet with himself.

Take a breath!

Since consciousness is essentially metaphorical, the poet is both natural and artificial.

New sentence!

The concept of 'the creation of poetry' is itself a metaphor, one that is impossible to define as it is constantly changing.

I could make a new sentence about the poet identifying himself with himself here, as per the final section of the above übersentence, but I can't bring myself to do so.

Finally, we come to comprehend not poetic consciousness, but the incomprehensibility of poetic consciousness,

New sentence!

and this aporia,

Delete this, it's crap!

this rational impasse,

Lose the comma!

is not the conclusion of aesthetics, but its beginning;

End of sentence! Remove the semi-colon! New sentence!

the entropy of the hermeneutical subject-object which supplies to metaphor the variability and transience which is at once its limit and its origin.

This entire bit is also unnecessary crap, delete it. This rational impasse is not the conclusion of aesthetics, but its beginning. is a good ending, although the entire conclusion could use work.

He should also have taken note of Blackadder.

Shelley: Oh, love, oh ecstasy that is Mrs. Miggins, wilt thou bring me but one cup of the browned juicings of that naughty bean we call 'coffee', ere I die...

Mrs. Miggins: (swoons) Ooohhhh, you do have a way of words with you, Mr. Shelley!

Lord Byron: To Hell with this fine talking. Coffee, woman! My consumption grows evermore acute and Coleridge's drugs are wearing off.

Mrs. Miggins: Ohh, Mr. Byron, don't be such a big girl's blouse!

Hee hee. That's always what I think of when I hear about the Romantic poets.

Well, the little wittle ickle baby seagull was gone yesterday evening, and still gone this morning. Do parent birds fly down and pick up their chicks when they fall out of the nest, and put them back in? They can, you know. They're capable of picking up a hatchling and carrying it away, if it's another species and they're going to tear it apart and eat it. So could they pick up their own, and put it back where it came from?

Laziness is a complex and deeply involved philosophical concept.

So I have finally been moved from my quiet little office with three people in it, to the bustling hubbub of a great big No*ia office with about a hundred people in it. And that's just in my cubicle. It's like one of those frat pranks where they cram guys into a phone booth. Except I have no phone.

A hat is like a fine bottle of minttu. It goes straight to your head, smells okay at the start but gets skanky if you sleep on it.

It's good to keep busy.