my mind on books

Consciousness, Literature and Theatre: Theory and Beyond (Studies in Literature and Religion) by Peter Malekin and Ralph Yarrow (St. Martin’s Press, 1997)
This is a book that I read some time ago and took some notes on…..

We have so far sought to establish a model of the mind in which activity takes place on a ground of silence and a model of experiencing as process in which the mind and physiology move toward silence and back towards vigorous activity in a rhythmic pulsation (a factor which has implications for the function of metre and rhythm in verse). All rhythm is simply polarity; in this case the polarity of sound or activity and silence or nonactivity, laid as it were on its side and extended through time as we experience it. The polarity is, however, not a division, for each pole contains and implies the other. Literary work uses this rhythm, basic to all experience, and, partly by limiting its scope, gives it a controlled coherence that can powerfully affect, not only emotions and ideas, but the fabric of consciousness itself. One of its effects can be the activation of the reader’s own creativity, the tendency to bring the dynamic potentiality of silence into the flow of action in life, of which literature is merely a part. (p. 74-75)

Ralph Yarrow also has a new book coming out next month – Sacred Theatre (Intellect Books – Theatre and Consciousness)