Litterary miracle?

[hgc]

And while there's a certain poetry in a styrofoam cup of Lipton Tea and it takes two minutes to make, I think you'd find considerably more nuance, quality and substance in my Bouillabaisse, which can take a full day to make.

There are all sorts of variations on poetry. Was T.S. Eliot a verbose windbag because he didn't write Haiku or two-line verses? I remember reading somewhere that Eliot wanted to make The Wasteland a truly "long poem" but kept it to a mere 400 or so lines.

I realize that this is a fruitless argument and that it should appropriately be pointed out that every single line in The Wasteland or Prufrock could've probably been an entire verse or a paragraph if it was prose. I realize the point you're making (I think), but I don't think that brevity alone is the hallmark of good poetry.

I should also amend my original statement (lots of meaning in few words being the point of poetry), which was somewhat snarky. If pressed, I would say that meaningful brevity is an important technique, rather than the point of poetry. Though for some poetry, the rhetorical legerdemain is the entire point -- like Kenny G holding a single note for minutes at a time has nothing to do with actually making music.

And as much as I could point out that John Keats packed tons and tons of meaning into the few lines of Ode on a Grecian Urn, I would be hard-pressed to point that out for the thousands of lines of Endymion (though it does pack a lot into its famous first line).

 

[Resume]

deleted

 

[Resume]

And while there's a certain poetry in a styrofoam cup of Lipton Tea and it takes two minutes to make, I think you'd find considerably more nuance, quality and substance in my Bouillabaisse, which can take a full day to make.

There are all sorts of variations on poetry. Was T.S. Eliot a verbose windbag because he didn't write Haiku or two-line verses? I remember reading somewhere that Eliot wanted to make The Wasteland a truly "long poem" but kept it to a mere 400 or so lines.

I realize that this is a fruitless argument and that it should appropriately be pointed out that every single line in The Wasteland or Prufrock could've probably been an entire verse or a paragraph if it was prose. I realize the point you're making (I think), but I don't think that brevity alone is the hallmark of good poetry.

I’m sure your bouillabaisse is delicious, but not because it’s a long word and a pain to spell. A poem, a short story, a novel all need to be as long as they need to be, and not a punctuation mark longer lest you risk self-indulgence. I like to write prettily but find it much more satisfying (and difficult) to write beautifully. That takes self-control and self-control is something you have to learn.

I just removed two paragraphs of self-indulgent crap in fact: an unneeded biography, an unnecessary resume (so to speak) and some silly braggadocio. Let’s just say I ended up being a writer of the American language (the only language in which I’m qualified) not a grammarian nor a linguist. If I taught poetry I’d certainly teach Eliot but I’d also teach Galway Kinnell and Larry Levis and Susan Mitchell and . . . well you get it.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I should also amend my original statement (lots of meaning in few words being the point of poetry), which was somewhat snarky. If pressed, I would say that meaningful brevity is an important technique, rather than the point of poetry. Though for some poetry, the rhetorical legerdemain is the entire point -- like Kenny G holding a single note for minutes at a time has nothing to do with actually making music.

And as much as I could point out that John Keats packed tons and tons of meaning into the few lines of Ode on a Grecian Urn, I would be hard-pressed to point that out for the thousands of lines of Endymion (though it does pack a lot into its famous first line).

Damn! So brilliant minds do think alike. I thought we'd disproved an old adage there and was getting ready to request Mythbusters do an episode on it.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I’m sure your bouillabaisse is delicious, but not because it’s a long word and a pain to spell. A poem, a short story, a novel all need to be as long as they need to be, and not a punctuation mark longer lest you risk self-indulgence. I like to write prettily but find it much more satisfying (and difficult) to write beautifully. That takes self-control and self-control is something you have to learn.

I just removed two paragraphs of self-indulgent crap in fact: an unneeded biography, an unnecessary resume (so to speak) and some silly braggadocio. Let’s just say I ended up being a writer of the American language (the only language in which I’m qualified) not a grammarian nor a linguist. If I taught poetry I’d certainly teach Eliot but I’d also teach Galway Kinnell and Larry Levis and Susan Mitchell and . . . well you get it.

I think HGC nailed it in his clarification. A certain economy of language combined with writing talent certainly makes some poems(even individual lines in poems - e.g. "Do I dare to eat a peach?") into little gold mines of imagery and meaning... and confusion and debate. But you can say the same for good prose. There are passages of Gravity's Rainbow that I read and re-read dozens of times because he packed so much meaning into every word that it literally made me dizzy.

I happen to love e.e. cummings. But I don't think his work is any more (or less) brilliant because of the brevity compared to - let's use The Wasteland again. And I think Wallace Stevens fell very short of the rich and complicated imagery of a Robert Frost, but I think Stevens was the better poet. (Totally subjective - all of these comments.) Ferlinghetti stayed with mundane and even prosaic topics quite often, yet his work is filled with emotion for me. I could go on and on.

 

[Resume]

I think HGC nailed it in his clarification. A certain economy of language combined with writing talent certainly makes some poems(even individual lines in poems - e.g. "Do I dare to eat a peach?") into little gold mines of imagery and meaning... and confusion and debate. But you can say the same for good prose. There are passages of Gravity's Rainbow that I read and re-read dozens of times because he packed so much meaning into every word that it literally made me dizzy.

I happen to love e.e. cummings. But I don't think his work is any more (or less) brilliant because of the brevity compared to - let's use The Wasteland again. And I think Wallace Stevens fell very short of the rich and complicated imagery of a Robert Frost, but I think Stevens was the better poet. (Totally subjective - all of these comments.) Ferlinghetti stayed with mundane and even prosaic topics quite often, yet his work is filled with emotion for me. I could go on and on.

I would have to say I value Frost far above Stevens but my own writing is far more influenced by the latter. I'm happy you referenced these unique American voices and just now I looked behind me to my bookcases and what ho, I removed and hold my copy of A Coney Island of the Mind. These are very important things we are discussing here though the majority of observers have no idea what we're on about.

As to the Sura in the OP I'd have to say that in those same bookcases behind me I could find any number of verses that match and exceed it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Infamouns for his debate with PZ Myers, muslim apologist Hamza Tzortzis also brands himself in muslim circle as a defender of the alleged "inimitable character of the Quran", that is the tenet that no human could even write a single surah with a style superior or comparable to the Quran.

Utter crap.

First of all the religious works don't tend to actually be written that well. No one reads the Bible or the Quran for it's literary merits.

Secondly applying the long, long, long utterly intellectually destroyed "Watchmaker" argument to artistic work makes "Let's Invade Russia in the Winter" look like the Unified Theory of Everything.

It cheapens our world and our lives to give credit to beauty and wonder to the giant invisible sky wizard and this becomes doubly so when we do it to the creations of people.

A sunset isn't any less beautiful because I have accepted the reality that it's a giant ball of nuclear gas 92 million miles away moving out of my field of vision due to the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the sun and don't wallow in the superstitious childhood mentality of it being a magical chariot being driven across the sky by Apollo.

And by the same logic I'd be pretty pissed if I was an artist that created a great work of art and some intellectually crippled dingbat went "Well that's so good no mere human could have done it!."

 

[Foolmewunz]

ETA: (@ Resume) - didn't see another post go up getting back to the OP topic, too.

Well, it's certainly a far more interesting conversation than whether one of the Hairy Thunderers of Fable used his wonderfullness to infuse the writings of his scribes via a "Miracle!"

I find it totally puzzling how people inject The Big Guy into lines that have been interpreted and reinterpreted for centuries and have entire sermons, pamphlets and even books discussing those semantic differences. Wouldn't the Holy of Holies make it miraculously clear to anyone who read the words?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Wouldn't the Holy of Holies make it miraculously clear to anyone who read the words?

Blah, blah, blah works in mysterious ways, blah, blah, blah.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Blah, blah, blah works in mysterious ways, blah, blah, blah.

And it should be noted that while there are certain passages of the NT that are quite lovely (lovelier if you aren't repulsed by woo) to the ear and mind and even to the emotions,... you can trace back to earlier versions that weren't quite so lovely. Why wouldn't The Dood have made it brilliant and lovely the first time out? Why wait twelve hundred years to shine your grace on some English cleric?

Oooh, it must be a sign that God loves England more. He chose to instill the spirit of the Holy Ghost in one of us!

 

[Brian-M]

Googling the subject material, I found pages about it here:
http://www.hamzatzortzis.com/essays...ability-of-the-shortest-chapter-in-the-qur’an
http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?164391-Three-lines-that-changed-the-world

The three lines (which constitute the entire chapter) are...

Inna aAtayna kal kawthar
Fasalli li rabbika wanhar
Inna shani-aka huwal abtar​

Or in English...

Verily We have given to you the abundance
So pray to your Lord and sacrifice
Indeed your enemy is the one who is cut off​

Is this a bad translation, or does anyone else perceive it a bland and lackluster drivel? Presumably it's more impressive in the original language.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The shortest short story in literature is thought to be The Dinosaur by Guatemalan writer Augusto (Tito) Monterroso. Here is the complete story:

''When (he,she,it) woke up, the dinosaur was still there.''

Who woke up? A man? A woman? The dinosaur itself? Is the beast capable of traversing millions of years in one night. Or to move from the realm of dreams to the real world? Who is the narrator? The dreamer? Why does the story inspire a sense of hopelessness more than that of panic? A sense that the dreamer can not escape destiny. Why do we know that the beast materialized sometime during the early morning, that it wasn't there last night before sleep?

And then there's the shortest horror story ever written:

The Last Man on Earth sat alone in his room. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. - Frederic Brown.

http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/41434

 

[Foolmewunz]

And then there's the shortest horror story ever written:

The Last Man on Earth sat alone in his room. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. - Frederic Brown.

http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/41434

Why would that be so horrifying? All he'd have to do is post the experience here and we'd explain to him why it was impossible for him to have actually heard a knock on the door.

> Buildings sometimes expand or contract with changes in the weather.
> Pair o' doilies, numb nutz!
> And do you have an original taping of this?
> Pics or it didn't happen.
> Confirmation bias.

We'd straighten him away.

 

[Brainache]

Why would that be so horrifying? All he'd have to do is post the experience here and we'd explain to him why it was impossible for him to have actually heard a knock on the door.

> Buildings sometimes expand or contract with changes in the weather.
> Pair o' doilies, numb nutz!
> And do you have an original taping of this?
> Pics or it didn't happen.
> Confirmation bias.

We'd straighten him away.

Maybe it was a woman at the door. I guess for some that might be horrifying...

 

[Aridas]

Why would that be so horrifying? All he'd have to do is post the experience here and we'd explain to him why it was impossible for him to have actually heard a knock on the door.

> Buildings sometimes expand or contract with changes in the weather.
> Pair o' doilies, numb nutz!
> And do you have an original taping of this?
> Pics or it didn't happen.
> Confirmation bias.

We'd straighten him away.

We couldn't be there to straighten him out, though!

 

[freedy]

And the shortest poem… Entitled ‘Fleas’

Adam
Had’em

 

[A'isha]

Is this a bad translation, or does anyone else perceive it a bland and lackluster drivel?

It's definitely not the most aesthetically pleasing translation I've ever seen (it's very similar to, though not exactly like, the Sahih International version).

You can see a comparison of 30 different translations of that sūrah here. Some are better than others. Some are rather verbose and complicated, considering the short length of the Arabic original, like Al-Muntakhab:

"We have bestowed on you O Muhammad AL-Kawther which is the abundance of good things. We favoured you with a good many blessings of magnificence and imposing magnitude here and Hereafter including knowledge, wisdom, distinction, followers, immunity, fame and insight.

In return, perform your prayer first, then execute the sacrifice whose meat you distribute among the needy till benevolence has had its rite.

As to your enemy who bore malice to you; it is he and not you who shall he cut off all hope and posterity and drown in shame. He will be denied the praise of his name to fame."

Presumably it's more impressive in the original language.

This is generally the standard claim (it's related to the claim that the Qur'an cannot be translated into other languages).

 

[Weak Kitten]

With such a shortened form of the text isn't the Quran open to a lot of misinterpretation and argument over interpretation? I would think that some of the missing words could be rather important and some could insert different words to change the meaning entirely.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

With such a shortened form of the text isn't the Quran open to a lot of misinterpretation and argument over interpretation? I would think that some of the missing words could be rather important and some could insert different words to change the meaning entirely.

Not if you are inspired by the Guy in the Sky. Then you know what the missing words are. This must be true because Islam is such a monolithic religion with no disagreeing sects. They are all brothers.

 

[autumn1971]

And then there's the shortest horror story ever written:

The Last Man on Earth sat alone in his room. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. - Frederic Brown.

http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/41434

I heard it as
"Alone in the dark room, as the terrified man reached out to light the solitary candle, a match was placed in his hand."