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amoskowi's picture

Abstract writing as in not

Abstract writing as in not writing on anything specific I suppose? Hard to say exactly what "abstract writing" would entail, there is inherently more form to writing than to visual art. Letters make sounds, make words, even if the sentence structure is distorted or absent. Writing is itself representational of the way we speak, which is an attempt to coherently represent...something. What we're thinking about. While you can speak in the "abstract," it's not comparable to abstract modern art.

I think perhaps deconstructionism tries to tackle this- since it seems like abstract meaning is the closest you can get to abstract writing. But since there's a difference between having no meaning and having an abstract one it's, I suppose, necessarily much harder to achieve it. Abandoning that for a second and running off with that sentence I just wrote...what determines "no meaning?" The creator, the viewer, the "truth?" Either way, it seems paradox, circular thinking, or a deconstructed argument is necessary to foil having a concrete message (even if it's about abstract things) in writing. I wrote last week about an inconsistent moment or two in Whitman, but as Thursday proved we were still quite capable of drawing generalizations about what he's doing and how. His writing is representational of his understanding of the world, which is not fixed and not always consistent, but a consistent record of an inconsistent thing is still consistent and representational in itself. So...who knows?

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