[Frameworks] Stan Brakhage and the 'philosophers of light'?

[Kath O'Donnell]

hi Richard, if this helps, Brakhage mentions Grosseteste's "The Light
Philosophers" on pages 42 & 43 of Cantrills Filmnotes issue no 21/22 - the
transcription of his "The Text of Light" film in 1974. he talks about a
paragraph, loses track, then comes back to it. & mentions Hollis Frampton
has used the idea/dialogue in his "Zorns Lemma" film. "On Light or The
Ingression of Forms".

there's a footnote on page 42 that mentions Brakhage subsequentlt
discovered that the name quoted by Ezra Pound is a combination of 2
philosophers Erigena & Scotus.

maybe Arthur Cantrill would remember if this note came via a later
conversation or part of the talk.
actually flipping through the article again, there's another mention on
page 36. & possibly more towards the end of the article - I made it to this
section and have been watching the films on youtube & researching, so need
to finish it.

On 22 March 2012 13:49, John Powers <jpowers95 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi Richard,
>
> I'm not sure if Brakhage actually read a lot of the "philosophers of
> light," but I can tell you from going through a lot of his correspondence
> in the Brakhage Archive in Boulder that he discusses what he's reading
> quite often, and I can't recall him mentioning in the correspondence that
> he has read them. In a letter from 1972 (sorry I don't have more
> information handy right now), he mentions the following books from his
> personal library as the most important to his artistic practice:
>
> Ezra Pound-Guide to Kulchur, ABC of Reading, Spirit of Romance
> Charles Olson-The Human Universe, Call Me Ishmael, The Mayan Letters
> Gertrude Stein-Lectures in America, Geographical History of America
> William Carlos Williams-In the American Grain, "Spring and All"
> DH Lawrence-Studies in Classic American Literature
> Louis Zukofsky-Bottom on Shakespeare
> Donald Sutherland-On Romance
> Hugh Kenner-The Pound Era
>
> These are the books he mentions most frequently. Again, this is dated
> 1972, which is around the time he makes THE PROCESS and THE RIDDLE OF LUMEN
> and shortly before TEXT OF LIGHT, so it's possible he picked them up later.
> But there's not a lot of mention of reading them specifically.
>
> best
> John Powers
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
>
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Richard Ashrowan <richard at ashrowan.com>
> *To:* frameworks at jonasmekasfilms.com
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 21, 2012 6:36 PM
> *Subject:* [Frameworks] Stan Brakhage and the 'philosophers of light'?
>
> Does anyone know whether Stan Brakhage actually read or owned copies of
> written works by Robert Grosseteste, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Duns Scotus
> or Francis Bacon? He refers to them, some of them often, but as far as I
> can tell most of the references he makes to them have been traced back to
> Ezra Pound's Cantos, wherein they are quoted (and sometimes misattributed)
> heavily. It would seem probable that most of Brakhage's  knowledge of these
> philosophers was in fact indirect through the lens of Pound, though I
> wouldn't want to assume that if anyone has any evidence to the contrary.
>
> I wonder if anyone knows if Brakhage had any of these medieval works, or
> other non-Pound references to them, in his library? Availability of these
> works in source translation in the 1970s would most certainly have been far
> more difficult than today, though it certainly remains problematic. I
> assume Brakhage did not read Latin? I know Frampton did - translating his
> own passages of Grosseteste's De Luce, a hint I assume he might have
> ultimately got from Brakhage, though he also read Pound.
>
> There are also many other light philosophers in this domain which I do not
> believe Brakhage ever mentions anywhere - Al-Hazen, Al-Kindi, St Augustine,
> St Basil, Roger Bacon, John Dee, Robert Fludd, Giambattista Della Porta,
> and latterly of course, Newton.
>
> Any thoughts on this most welcome.
>
> Richard
>
> Richard Ashrowan
> richard at ashrowan.com
> Web: www.ashrowan.com
> Blog: http://richardashrowan.tumblr.com
> Alchemy: www.alchemyfilmfestival.org.uk
>
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