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The Semantics of the songe in Saint‐John Perse
Author(s) -
York R. A.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1984.tb00818.x
Subject(s) - dream , saint , denial , harmony (color) , context (archaeology) , extension (predicate logic) , psychoanalysis , epistemology , psychology , philosophy , aesthetics , art history , history , art , computer science , visual arts , archaeology , neuroscience , programming language
The concept of the songe appears frequently in the work of Saint‐John Perse. It is important to him because the dream can be regarded either as an extension of real experience or as a denial of it, and so corresponds to Perse's inclination both to assert the value of the actual world and to seek to transcend it. Accordingly he often shows the dream as involving persons, objects and circumstances chosen to create a special intensity and harmony, especially in the context of the natural or the imaginative; but he also treats the dream disruptively or marginally, by stressing its paradoxical, arbitrary or disproportionate qualities, by showing it as both positive and negative or as both personal and impersonal, by varying its importance within a work or by creating a series of imprecise cross‐references between works.