The Road from Mytho-Poetical Thought to Text in the Work of Diarmuid Johnson
The Road from Mytho-Poetical Thought to Text in the Work of Diarmuid Johnson

Summary/Abstract: The present paper intends to analyse the poetry of the Irish-Welsh poet Diarmuid Johnson within the framework of theories enounced by two philosophers: the German Ernst Cassirer and the Romanian Lucian Blaga, the latter a poet himself. Combining the visions of the two philosophers upon mytho-poetical thought (the Greek mythopoeia i.e. myth creating) I attempt to show that one of the main characteristics of Diarmuid Johnson’s poetry would be man’s assumption of his creative destiny. This means existence for the purpose of revelation (Lucian Blaga), the creative act through which the poet attempts to convert the mystery of his existence through revelatory and metaphorical means into poetic text. A consequence of the mytho-poetical thought embraced by the poet in creating his poetry would be his perception of the world as song. The mytho-poetical credo of the poet, stated in some of his poems, is that giving voice to his song: I sing bold as a nightingale (The Song of Trystan) (Johnson 2009 : 189), this being the song of his people and of the world. It is thus through song that the whole mytho-poetical world is constructed, a world in which man is born to sing, will sing either out of joy or out of grief, and will continue singing until he returns into the world of clay, thus becoming reintegrated into the song of the world.

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