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Daily Notes on Poetry
17 March 2004. Back to the table today, not because I'm tired but because I want to get it right. No changes to the five main categories, just sub-classes added to each of the first two. With those additions, I believe the table is close to my Official Taxonomy--without being encumbered with my Official Names, and full-scale definitions. I may just be repeating myself, for I've written a lot about my taxonomy, but this will be my first use of a slithy-fine table. I will be my stealthiest attempt to win a convert to my terminology, too, for I plan to reserve that till it's impossible to argue against my categories. The names will then make sense! Well, to one or two more people than they do now. (They make sense although not 100% sense to me, and I believe Gregory St. Thomasino approves of most of them; he's not quite to be trusted, though, for he has his own terms, so may be hoping for a stalemate between my terms and the current terms that will make his terms attractive as a compromise.
Just after writing what I did about Gregory, I left my blog to check my e.mail and found a message from him. He wanted me to look at his latest blog entry. I did. Evidentally, he agrees with me less than I thought. I will deal with him tomorrow! Right now, I must get my table right.
THE VISIO-TEXTUAL ART CONTINUUM
| 1 words whose semantic meaning is of crucial importance for the artworks they are in combined with visual effects of little aesthetic importance for the artworks they are in OR Visually-Enhanced Literature |
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(A) works as described above whose words have been infiltrated by graphic matter which is clearly decorative only as when fancy initials are used to start chapters of novels, or a calligrapher renders a poem OR Typographically-Beautified Literature
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(B) works as described above whose words share pages with graphic elements obviously intended to illustrate the words only OR Illustrated Literature
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| 2 words whose semantic meaning is of crucial aesthetic importance for the artworks they are in combined with visual effects of near-equal aesthetic importance for the artworks they are in OR Classical Visual Poetry
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(A) Works as described above whose words are fused with graphic elements whose aesthetic importance is equal or nearly equal to the words' aesthetic importance, as in many examples of classical concrete poetry, OR Visually-Infused Literature
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(B) Works as described above whose words share pages with graphic elements but are separate from them which are as aesthetically important to the works they are in as the words, as in many specimens of sophisticated collage, OR Visually-Accompanied Literature
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3 visual effects of crucial aesthetic importance for the artworks they are in combined with textual elements whose semantic meaning is of little or no aesthetic consequence for the artworks they are in but whose connotations or references to language are of an aesthetic importance nearly equal to that of its visual effects for the artworks they are in OR Visual Art whose Subject is Language
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(A) Works
in which text is subject matter as text but whose words are irrelevant or of little relevance OR Visual Portraits of Language
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(B) Works using textual elements as design elements but ignoring their semantic
significance, if any OR Typographical Designs
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| 4 visual effects of crucial aesthetic importance for the artworks they are in combined with textual elements used as labels of some parts or the whole of the artworks they are in but are of little or no aesthetic consequence for those artworks OR Label-Containing Visual Art
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| 5 visual effects of crucial aesthetic importance for the artwork they are in combined with words or other textual elements that are part of visual elements being depicted (such as a name on a sign in a streetscene) but are without aesthetic importance OR Text-Containing Visual Art
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To repeat what I mean by "aesthetic importance" in my table is what a reasonable person's idea of knowledgeable people sympathetic to poetry find it to be.
Warning: I may be yakking about this table, and fiddling with it for the next week or more.
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