The prophet looks at society as a whole assessing it in the light of justice and heaven. Any predictions about the future are based on logical conclusions from the run of the present. Although the gift is from God, the art is one of moral vision. Nothing is set in stone.
When Dylan sings,
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,he’s making a judgment on trade and its inability to understand the fruits of labor, the falseness of modern life. But his logical conclusion goes beyond prophecy and ends in that realm of poetry, negative capability.
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,It’s not as simple as MacLeish’s nothing. It’s not exactly defined, yet it's ripe with “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” And that’s everything after all.
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
2 comments:
You don't see people addressing artists or social critics as 'prophets' anymore, and like you say, mainstream 'prophets' are long-dead religious figures. The leader of Heaven's Gate was a 'prophet', but the fourth estate, in reporting that cult leader as a 'prophet' (either literally or by implication), took the luster out of the term. It has become synonymous with crazy, wacky leaders who organize group suicides, perform funky rituals to false gods en route to their faithful, and stuff like that. I applaud your 'undefinition'.
PS: Thanks for linking to me. :-)
Joe Baldinux
Maybe someone should publish a Dictionary of Undefinitions.
And thank you too.
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