tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post7140564487688722725..comments2023-04-28T06:49:37.389-05:00Comments on Right Mind Matters: Hughes, Plath and Shakespeare: A Twinned Tale of the Mythic FeminineRight Mind Mattershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-51524408008942522882017-05-21T14:51:58.049-05:002017-05-21T14:51:58.049-05:00Thanks for this comment, Voidisyinyang, I agree th...Thanks for this comment, Voidisyinyang, I agree that Jaynes's work needs updating with modern neuroscience, post-1976. I give him credit, nonetheless, for starting me on the path for understanding poetic minds. Hughes certainly had a great mind, with the ability to write such an incisive book on Shakespeare. I found it by accident strolling by a book stall near the Hayward Gallery in London. It seems to have been a fateful day for me.Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-22638059496259342352017-05-21T13:41:36.152-05:002017-05-21T13:41:36.152-05:00Jaynes was wrong in many ways - consider the Bushm...Jaynes was wrong in many ways - consider the Bushmen culture - Dr. Bradford Keeney has studied shamanism worldwide and he doesn't have this view of people just being schizotypal, etc.<br /><br />There is a whole body transformation that needs to take place which the West does not know about - although the PreSocratics knew about it as secret training.<br /><br />Still the analysis of Shakespeare is fascinating.ecoechohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03307941947406787288noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-89127902521441052362016-12-11T13:32:41.621-06:002016-12-11T13:32:41.621-06:00Brendan, I don't know if you will see this or ...Brendan, I don't know if you will see this or not after five years have gone by, but I just read Bataille's The Cradle of Humanity: Prehistoric Art and Culture. I need to write up my thoughts, but wanted to thank you for the reference. Cheers, Carole<br />Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-33031169757013344602012-06-15T04:09:00.838-05:002012-06-15T04:09:00.838-05:00Thanks Carole, though I'm not sure we differ a...Thanks Carole, though I'm not sure we differ all that much. "Poet" is just one mask or tool for voicing myth, though it's a handle I've always been at odds with. I think the greatest artists are so cast in their stone that they're like savants: they can't help but open their mouths wide and let 'er rip (or use whatever appendages necessary for shaping). It comes out complete, with all the vigor of Lascaux. I am far, far more dilettantish and myopic and garbled in that work, so much so that I can't call myself a poet. Being "caught in the maw of a myth" is a tough night sea journey, but it does seem that those of us trapped in similar narratives are doing all we can to explicate the guts before getting vomited out on the coming shore. Reading back is the only way of reading forward. (Right now I'm reading George Bataille on Lascaux and Marshall McLuhan on <em>Laws of Media</em>; the fate of the New Year King is divined from the smoking entrails of the eviscerated Old Year King, if I read Graves correctly. Cheers, BrendanBrendanhttp://blueoran.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-16670094007704207652012-05-04T15:26:23.962-05:002012-05-04T15:26:23.962-05:00Thanks for your always astute comments, Brendan, g...Thanks for your always astute comments, Brendan, giving me new leads to follow. I was thinking we may be the only two people in the world whose mental machinery is oiled by Jaynes and Graves. I wonder if Hughes read Jaynes. He seemed to know all about the right hemisphere's relation to poetry and where would he have gotten that back then, if not from Jaynes. Where we differ, you and I, is that you live the poetic paradigm; I'm just a neuroasethetic analyst caught in the maw of a myth I cannot and do not wish to escape. I'll follow Ariadne's thread to whatever length it takes to get it right.Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-73822102948375058922012-05-04T05:01:33.430-05:002012-05-04T05:01:33.430-05:00Excellent post, Carol, on one of my favorite poets...Excellent post, Carol, on one of my favorite poets. So many things to reflect on. First, your underlying assertion that the deepest wells of poetry are opened under specific conditions (left-handedness, bilateralism, childhood trauma) -- I do believe that each life repeats the history of the species, so that childhood pars up somehow with the end of the bicameral era and the awakening of the self-reflexive poet ... "White Goddess" by Graves was such an essential book in my awakening after I sobered up at 30, and its so evident to see how the ancient matriarchal matrix would so affect Hughes' thought and loves ... His poetry (especially his first two or three books) is closest, I think to the language of the oldest Celtic/Saxon/matriarchal poetry, in-your-face primal howls ("Crow") that come from oldest sources ... Hughes' love of Shakespeare I think makes him an excellent reader of the bard -- he truly had digested so much of Shakespeare's work (I have a book by Hughes of his favorite passages by the Bard); and there's more than a little affinity between Hughes and Hamlet's conflicted relationship with his mother, Ophelia and Sylvia Plath, and, later, Prospero's usurpation of the Isle of Sycorax. And finally, <em>Birthday Letters</em> to me repeat what Jaynes pointed out about bicameral societies where the dead "lived on" for some time -- thus the person dies but not the relationship. Having read <em>Birthday Letters</em>, I think I found the model I needed for writing letters to a dead shaman way down at the bottom of my brainstem, and later to my brother after he died. I love this stuff, Carol. Keep it up. - BrendanBrendanhttp://blueoran.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-68170009166403207122012-04-30T15:00:12.887-05:002012-04-30T15:00:12.887-05:00Julio, be sure to read my new blog post on Daryl B...Julio, be sure to read my new blog post on Daryl Bem, who spoke at the Toward a Science of Consciousness conference I just attended in Tucson.Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-43769138865056451272012-04-08T16:44:21.152-05:002012-04-08T16:44:21.152-05:00Thanks Carole, I agree with you. A feature of psi ...Thanks Carole, I agree with you. A feature of psi phenomena is the difficulty in so repeating; therefore they escape to usual scientific experimentation and require another method and another philosophical background.Julio J. Hernándezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15389197051101173808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-11096072175974964692012-04-08T14:22:11.115-05:002012-04-08T14:22:11.115-05:00P.S. Julio, Here is a link to my own article which...P.S. Julio, Here is a link to my own article which sums up my research into telepathic communication in close couplings (like Sylvia and Ted) or a therapeutic dyad:<br /><br />http://www.carolebrooksplatt.com/Publications_files/The%20Medium%20and%20the%20Matrix.pdfRight Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-90149371590833553642012-04-07T20:57:47.528-05:002012-04-07T20:57:47.528-05:00Julio, Thanks so much for showing me this article....Julio, Thanks so much for showing me this article. There is certainly compelling evidence in it against Bem's research. I supplied this link because it is the newest thing out there that has been accepted by the scientific establishment. Frankly, I don't give much credence to these kinds of experiments. I don't see what random number generators or erotic pictures have to do with telepathy or precognition. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer reports from others who experienced psi themselves, and I consider myself one of them. It's just that science doesn't accept this, no matter how compelling it seems to be. I'll be going to the conference this week, where many researchers will be presenting on these kinds of issues. I'll make a report when I get back.Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-72108546977043183122012-04-07T20:23:41.685-05:002012-04-07T20:23:41.685-05:00I just knew a criticism of the Bem's article i...I just knew a criticism of the Bem's article in <br />http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_futureJulio J. Hernándezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15389197051101173808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-75890874988192763712012-04-06T09:39:36.983-05:002012-04-06T09:39:36.983-05:00So well put, José! I couldn't agree more.So well put, José! I couldn't agree more.Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-65272159363011185782012-04-06T06:48:45.207-05:002012-04-06T06:48:45.207-05:00It sounds like Hughes was orchestrating a last-dit...It sounds like Hughes was orchestrating a last-ditch attempt to exonerate himself from Plath's death, presenting it as a foregone conclusion... Well, it's not that anyone can be held responsible for another person's suicide, but this sure sounds like some kind of self-justification.JoseAngelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08498383812404763792noreply@blogger.com