Page 87 - The Irony Board
P. 87
Into the World
Carved from without,
Sculpture to be life-like
Must look as if it
Grew from within.
Growing from within,
Life to be sculpture-like
Must look as if it
Were carved from without.
A popular irony has to do with life imitating art and vice-versa.
Gluckman here elaborates that theme into a paradox of internal-
external perception. The logical structure of irony is presented in
this piece by means of a stanza-level word-shuffle. Life grows;
sculpture is carved. It is generally understood that sculptural
representations of organic forms manifest the verisimilitude of life
best when they appear to have developed as ontogenetically as their
models. The converse case is a result of cultural norms of
masculinity: the ideal male figure in the West is often described as
craggy, finely-chiseled, firmly molded, hard-as-rock, wind-swept and
sunbaked. Life, if properly (i.e. fearlessly) lived, will chip away at us,
knocking off our rough edges and ultimately giving us polish. The
result is a man whose inner direction has given him the outer
appearance of a work of art.
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