Discus­sions about art, prose and poetry almost always centre around the notion that the artiste must have been trying to convey something from deep within his or her psyche. A simple state­ment such as, “the mountains were beautiful” will evoke an avalanche of musings from ardent readers as to the nature of the state­ment, the histor­ical backdrop of the writing, the genealogy of the author, and of course, the wars that were fought at the time.

If the mountains being beautiful had indeed been metaphor­ical phrase­ology, then couldn’t there have been a footnote that said so? That would have saved others the time and the effort of creating meanings out of thin air, especially the kind that no one else can compre­hend. Or better, wouldn’t it make sense for an author to say what he or she means to say, no more and no less, and make it clear that there is no deeper meaning to be derived?

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