Zbigniew Herbert writes in a poem entitled “Mr Cogito and Pop” of a visit to a concert. “Mr Cogito,” a recurring character in Herbert’s poems, reflects on the “aesthetics of noise” and offers some penetrating observations on the character of contemporary pop music:
“to be a god means to hurl thunderbolts”
The inarticulate scream of the rock concert elicits a meditation on silence:
“the difficulty is that the shriek eludes form is poorer than the voice which ascends and falls
the shriek touches silence but through hoarseness not through the will to describe silence
it is garishly dark from powerlessness of articulation”
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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