The question of authorship is, at bottom, a question of individuality. It is of no true significance whether this or that thought, this or that sentence, has been previously uttered or committed to writing; what matters is how that thought or feeling has passed into the consciousness of the one who expresses it -whether a man has been strong enough to succeed in this- how it has been lived, assimilated, transformed, and how it stands in relation to the totality of his interior being. Whoever seeks to problematize this does so as though wishing to monopolize the very structure of the human mind, as though a mode of perception, a configuration of feeling, or a form of insight could belong by right to a single thinker who alone has merited access to it. Such a claim is nothing less than an attempt to privatize what is typological, to convert shared conditions of consciousness into personal property. This, of course, has nothing to do with those wormish insects, those venal instruments, those philistine plagiarists who traffic in borrowed forms without inward necessity, assimilation, and transformation.

republishing some old pieces

the rudemintary and primordial life of the artist —

artists often animate their instincts, feelings, passions and desires, breathing them into life in the grip of sacred images, metaphors, colours or collection of melodies, weaving them together to erect a structurally coherent poem, a piece of composition, or a painting, which in the last analysis reveals the structure of those desires and inner life itself, the more harmonious and ordered; the more we are engrossed by them, they proceed to project them on the objects of that desire, further veiling their origins and evolution, so that when dissected they reveal themselves to be of such circularity, repetition, antiquity and mundanity across the succession of times, nevertheless their skill lies in polishing that inner life in the form of the beautiful, in perfecting a piece of dull raw material, the same rudimentary inner life that is found in the barbarian and in the savage if carefully excavated in their works, but we are still taken by an intense admiration and awe as if we were in front of extraterrestrial beings, moreover, the same primordial inner life undergoes a thousand metamorphoses at the hand of different number of men; as artists, as active men, as scientists, as craftsmen; that is, in creative and artistic men.

each being has its dwelling: the eagle in its nest, the stars in the firmament, the stone in the ocean’s depths, the brute in the forest’s heart, and man in cave and house, but the surrealist mind would like to overturn the natural order of things, to relish the yet unsung possibilities of the mind.

On the semiotics of the human body; on immediate consciousness as an inward interpretation of the human organism: that which passes across the surface of consciousness, continually flowing hour by hour and day by day, as ink passes through the surface of paper, is nothing other than a conjunction of interpretations of inward physiological events and the minimal activity of the sensory apparatus. these processes, through their continual stimulation, manifest as moods, feelings, and thoughts, which appear to us as the proper language and symbolism of consciousness. yet this apparent language is itself the surface expression of an arcane and concealed semiotics, grounded in the communications and sign-relations of organ systems.

في مجتمعٍ شاد أنطولوجيّته على حقّ الظهور، وعلى الإكراه إلى المرئيّ الذي يطوي تحته اللامرئيّ بخديعة، وعلى الإفراط في تعرية الذات، وفي عالمٍ انحلّ فيه معنى الحياة الخاصّة، وصار الإنسان يعرّي نفسه طوعًا في الفضاء العام، حتى أضحى كلّ ما هو مستتر موضع ريبة، تغدو إعادةُ تعريف الإنسان بوصفه كينونةً اجتماعيّة ضرورةً لا غنى عنها. فالإنسان، من حيث هو كُلٌّ عضويّ لا مجرّد سطحٍ للانكشاف، لا يُحدَّد بما يُظهره، بل بما يمتنع عن الظهور. إنّ ماهيّته لا تُستمدّ من العرض الفاني، بل من الاحتجاب الدائم. الإنسان هو، في جوهره، ما يُخفيه دومًا: تراكُمٌ هشّ وبائس من الأسرار؛ إذ إنّ لحظات ظهوره الجزئيّ، تلك الشقوق العابرة في ستار الذات، لا تستنفده، ولا تُحيط بكيانه، ولا تعدو أن تكون شظايا متناثرة من كليّةٍ لا تُختزل. يظلّ الإنسان فائقًا على ما يكشف، ومتعاليًا على ما يُتاح للرؤية.

وزمانيّة الذات لا تنحبس في الحدث، ولا تُستنفد في الآنيّ واللحظيّ، بل تتعالى عليهما، لتتفتّح، كما الزهرة، عبر زمانها الكلّيّ، شبه الخالد. لقد قامت مجتمعاتٌ كانت تُقدّس السريّة بوصفها اختبارًا للفرد، كالجماعات الهرمسيّة والماسونيّة والبافاريّين المتنوّرين، على تراتبيّةٍ روحيّة تحفظ للفرد مقامه، وتؤسّس ما يشبه الأخوّة بين الأعضاء؛ حيث لا يُتاح الظهور الباطنيّ إلا لمن يُشاكل الذات في المرتبة الروحيّة. وفي ذلك صونٌ للذات من الابتذال، وحمايةٌ لها من الرذيلة المتأصّلة في النفس: رذيلة حبّ الظهور.

carl gustav carus, faust in his study, 1852.

"ARS LITTERARIA. Everything that a scholar does, says, speaks, suffers, and hears etc. must be an artistic, technical and scientific product, or some such operation. He speaks in epigrams, he acts in a play, he is a dialogist, he lectures on treatises and sciences, he relates anecdotes, stories, fairy tales, novels, he perceives poetically. If he draws, he draws sometimes as an artist, sometimes as a musician. His life is a novel, and that’s why he sees, hears and reads everything precisely in this manner. In short, the true scholar is the completely developed human being, who bestows on whatever he touches and does, a scientific, idealistic and syncritistic form."

— Novalis, Philosophical Writings.

الفَنُّ الأَدَبِيّ — كُلُّ ما يَفْعَلُهُ العَلّامَة، وكُلُّ ما يَقُولُهُ ويَنْطِقُ بِهِ، وكُلُّ ما يُعانِيهِ ويَسْمَعُهُ، يَنْبَغِي أَنْ يَكُونَ عَمَلًا فَنِّيًّا وَتِقْنِيًّا وَعِلْمِيًّا، أَوْ ضَرْبًا مِنْ هذِهِ العَمَلِيّاتِ. يَتَكَلَّمُ في صِيَغٍ إِبْغْرامِيَّةٍ، وَيُمَثِّلُ في مَسْرَحِيَّةٍ، وَيَكُونُ مُحاوِرًا، وَيُلْقِي مُحاضَراتٍ في الرَّسائِلِ وَالعُلُومِ، وَيَرْوِي نَوادِرَ وَحِكاياتٍ وَقِصَصًا خُرافِيَّةً وَرِواياتٍ، وَيُدْرِكُ الأَشْياءَ إِدْراكًا شِعْرِيًّا. وَإِذا رَسَمَ، رَسَمَ تارَةً كَفَنّانٍ وَتارَةً كَمُوسِيقِيٍّ. حَياتُهُ رِوايَةٌ، وَلِذلِكَ فَهُوَ يَرى وَيَسْمَعُ وَيَقْرَأُ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ عَلى هذَا النَّحْوِ بِعَيْنِهِ. وَخُلاصَةُ القَوْلِ: إِنَّ العالِمَ الحَقَّ هُوَ الإِنْسانُ المُكْتَمِلُ النُّمُوِّ، الَّذِي يُضْفِي عَلى كُلِّ ما يَمَسُّهُ وَيَفْعَلُهُ صِيغَةً عِلْمِيَّةً ومِثاليَّةً -بالمعنى الفلسفي هنا- وفَنيّةً تَوْفِيقِيَّةً.

ملاحظة: كلمة scholar عند نوفاليس لا تُحيل إلى «العالِم» بالمعنى المعجمي الحديث (المتخصّص في حقلٍ واحد، ولا سيما الطبيعيّات)، بل إلى الإنسان الموسوعيّ، الجامع بين المعرفة والفنّ والتأمّل، أي ما يُقارب في التراث العربي معنى العَلّامَة أو الأديب الحكيم. وعليه فاختيار العَلّامَة أدقّ دلاليًا وأقرب إلى روح النصّ الرومانطيقيّ الذي يذيب الحدود بين العلم والشعر والفن والفلسفة(والإنسانيات بعامة).

وَتَسْمَعُ تَزْقَاءً مِنَ البُومِ حَوْلَها
كَمَا ضُرِبَتْ بَعْدَ الهُدُوءِ النَّوَاقِسُ


وَأَعْرَضَ أَعْلَامٌ كَأَنَّ رُؤُوسَها
رُؤُوسُ رِجَالٍ فِي خَلِيجٍ تَغَامَسُ


وَلَمَّا أَضَأْنَا اللَّيْلَ عِندَ شِوَائِنَا
عَرَانَا عَلَيْهَا أَطْلَسُ اللَّوْنِ بَائِس

— ٱلْمُرَقِّشُ ٱلأَكْبَر

Friendship arises from the mutual ability to communicate what each considers great and noble. It strengthens or diminishes with the success of this exchange, and it dissolves entirely when what appears noble to one seems brutal or debased to the other.

We are not yet conscious of what we can do with language, of its immense latent potential, whether for thought or for plain speech, even though we have been ingenious enough to create, out of the mundane, everyday fact of speech, a higher art with its own special codes: poetry. Alongside it, we have developed polite conversation, dialogue, and that form of solitary conversation, the monologue, as well as many other forms of art that would not be possible without language. Yet even so, its possibilities are far from exhausted, just as those of its chronological antecedent, the sign. What is even more mesmerizing is the possibility of translating these forms across different artistic media, for example, into dance or cinema.

It is only in the human being that such a tendency is found: the impulse to make art out of what is ontologically merely given. Human consciousness seeks to add an aesthetic dimension to the things it contemplates and is never satisfied with their mere natural givenness. This impulse can be observed in architecture as well as in language, as we have noted. Animal consciousness, by contrast, remains content in its movement through the world; it does not experience that tinge of unhappiness characteristic of humanity, which drives us to reshape things beautifully. At times, a thing may appear so imperfect in its givenness that it must first be destroyed, so that a beautiful form may be erected upon a more dignified foundation.

The manner in which the sun paints and tans the human face, this grand golden artist, which treats the whole planet as its living canvas, laying down each new layer with quiet patience. It is analogous to the way an artist builds color upon color, serenely, until the desired image finally emerges.