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17 April 2015

X-Y Intersections - Missoula, Montana

“Language is, then… the horizontal surface or plane, the centre of which is always the consciousness of the writer, as in perspective the center of the bounding circle of the horizon is always the eye of the observer. To this Barthes  adds the writer’s style which “has only a vertical dimension, it plunges into the close recollection of the person…” Together, these two, language and style, function for Barthes as coordinates, the horizontal and the vertical axes, which order the writer’s world: “A language is… a horizon, and style a vertical dimension, which together map out for the writer a Nature, since he does not choose either. The language functions negatively, as the initial limit of the possible; style is a necessity which binds the writer’s humour to his form of expression.” Language and style thus become the Cartesian coordinates, the x-y axes, which in Barthes analytical geometry of literature permits the definition of writing, of created literary form, as the equivalent of geometrical form in the Cartesian sense.” - from ‘Painting and Poetry: Form, Metaphor, and the Language of Literature’ By Franklin R. Rogers, Mary Ann Rogers, pages 100-101

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