On Fear - Blog Posts

the poet paralyzed with fear lying in a hammock on a beautiful day—unhappy man in a happy world—does not suffer any less when he looks around him; he does not cease to suffer, he only ceases to try to understand.

Mary Ruefle, On Fear

if I presume to understand negative capability, am I then incapable of it, since it is the capability of being in the presence of an uncertainty without reaching to understand it? [...] If negative capability works at all, it works in reverse, a kind of negative negative capability—which would make it positive—where very real anxiety and irritability over mystery and doubt enable the poet—no, propel him—into the world of the eye, the pure perceptual habit that checks all cognitive drives, not before they’ve begun but after they’ve begun, and done their damage.

Mary Ruefle, On Fear

I want to say the poet is never afraid because he is unceasingly afraid, and therefore cannot become that which he already is

Mary Ruefle, On Fear

For why is it meaningless to write with no other function than to assuage fear? Doesn’t that function in itself have a meaning? And why fear the dismantling of language’s semantic function, its being representational of meaning, when that is but one more fear that will drive those in opposition to écriture to write?

Mary Ruefle, On Fear

Nervous awe and apprehension are born out of proximity and attention. The greater the intimacy between these cultures and nature, the greater the tension. The industrial world destroys nature not because it doesn’t love it but because it is not afraid of it.

Mary Ruefle, On Fear