Marcello Potocco, Nacionalni imaginariji ... - Pedagoški inštitut

186Nacionalni imaginariji – Literarni imaginarijibitko. 73 Na ravni idejnih plasti je poziv torej jasen: obvladanje in izničenjetujega jezika pomeni tudi fizično dominacijo ene nad drugo kulturo,poziv bralcu pa je dosežen s komparacijami in identifikacijami, ki jezikovnobitko vzporejajo s podrejanjem, podkupovanjem Indijancev, njihovimvraževerjem itn.:Brébeuf was now alone. He bent his mindTo the great end. The efficacious ritesWere hinged as much on mental apprehensionsAs on the disposition of the heart.For that the first equipment was the speech.He listened to the sounds and gave them letters,Arranged their sequences, caught the inflections,Extracted nouns from objects, verbs from actionsAnd regimented rebel moods and tenses.He saw the way the chiefs harangued the clans,The torrent of compounded words, the artConcealed within the pause, the look, the gesture.Lacking all labials, the open mouthPerformed a double service with the vowelsDirected like a battery at the hearers.With what forebodings did he watch the spellCast on the sick by the Arendiwans:The sorcery of the Huron rhetoricExtorting bribes for cures, for guaranteesAgainst the failure of the crop or hunt!The time would come when steel would clash on steel,And many a battle would be won or lostWith weapons from the armoury of words.Brébeuf je bil zdaj sam. Upogibajoč svoj umza višji cilj. Ali se bodo obredi izkazali,je bilo odvisno od zmožnosti dojemanja predstav,a tudi od pripravljenosti v srcu.Jezik mu je zato postal prvo orodje.Poslušal je glasove, pripisujoč jim črke,ki jim je razporejal vrste, lovil sklanjatve,73 Peter Stevens, Language and Man in the Poetry of E. J. Pratt, v: The E. J. Pratt Symposium, ur. GlennClever (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1977), 40.