Abstract:

In the opening sequences of the 1954 film Mirza Ghalib directed by Shohrab Modi, we see a gathering of poets, patrons and other spectators at the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Jafar's court. Among the poets feature such luminaries as Zouk, Momin, bal Mukund and others. With each rendition, whether recited or sung, the audience responds with cheers and accolades. Then comes ghalib;s turn: in the lines of th poem, spoken almost flatly, with nearly no resonance, Ghalib says that his own poetic means are limited and he appeals to the God of poetry to make the addressee grasp his full meaning beyond the poet's faltering words. It is as if to wish that the addressee be made infinite despite the mode of address being only a finite one. This self reflexive couplet, both modest and ironic, leaves the audiences at the court first bewildered then restive. It is not this sort of thing that they had come to enjoy. Ghalib returns disappointed, surely having failed to find his infinite addresses in the emperor's court.

In this talk I will discuss the attempt of poetry to find the supplementary thought of an infinity within the very finite resources of poetic discourse. I will refer to such an attempt in other poets such as Friedrich Hölderlin, René Char and Muktibodh. In the last part I will ask whether a similar attempt to find the supplementation of an infinite thought within a finite materiality can not also be found in other sectors of our historical lives— one of them being politics. Whether in "normal" political life or in an exceptional situation of "crisis" can an infinite logic be found in otherwise finite stakes and considerations such as those of normal time activities like elections and exceptional conditions as war and conflict?