| Abdullah Qasim Safi Al Hadi1 |
1Department of English / College of Education / The Islamic University / Iraq
Email:abdullah_alhadi@iunajaf.edu.iq
HNSJ, 2021, 2(8); https://doi.org/10.53796/hnsj2821
Published at 01/08/2021 Accepted at 24/07/2021
| Abstract |
| Henri-louis Bergson (1859–1941), one of the most influential French figures in the tradition of process philosophy or so-called continental philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century, and Charles John Olson (1910 – 1970), a scholarly and pedagogical poet in the second half of the twentieth century America, proposed similar theories on new humanism, namely the importance of man’s physiology, immediate experience, and recognition. Charles Olsen’s aesthetics has sparked wide controversy, with particular emphasis on Olsen’s approved or known resources. This essay provides a detailed rebuttal of this preposition, namely the importance of Henry-Louis Bergson’s concept of “conscious perception” for understanding Olson’s radical concept of direct perception or “stance toward reality.” Although Olson is not known to have read or reviewed Bergson’s works, Bergson can be well regarded as an outstanding physiological precursor for Olson’s project of restoring man’s physiology to its position at the center of the world, freeing it from the will to power or memory of the past. Both Bergson and Olson prefer instantaneous experiences to received knowledge, and value histology over history. Thus, the essay simply shows some affinity between the philosopher Bergson and the poet Olson and how the latter has been a major force behind the creation of the many varieties of poetry and performance arts in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century America. |
| Key Words: poetry of experience, attention, direct experience, histology, recognition. |
English 
Arabic