RE: virus: Why people cling to faith

Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Thu, 28 Jan 1999 07:23:49 -0500

On 01/28/99 03:07 the inimitable Richard Brodie made this comment ‹

>Do you think Shakespeare [et al.] _used_ anything other than logic and reason
to
>communicate?

Interesting use of the word 'used' there, which I underscored for emphasis. The whole study of aesthetics is of course the discipline on its way to an answer for that question, (not to discount the journals of actual artists) but the artifice of art is, yes, decidedly the purview of logic and reason, with that great twin chimera imagination and emotive feeling providing the muse-source, the inspiration, but I would say, uncategorically, that logic and reason (of a very refined, visceral, and yes, poetic type) is most certainly what they 'used'. The dramatic form, for instance, is 'codifiable' and analyzable. Hell, Aristotle did it.

That being said- why did they, among the vast supply of others, come to be known for what they did in such shining and exemplary fashions?

Damn good question....



"Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice,
     but of human obligation." - John Fowles
                §---§---§---§
      Wade T. Smith ‹‹‹ morbius@channel1.com