Quote

I shall state my thesis plain. The first poets were gods. Poetry began with the bicameral mind.

Julian Jaynes

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Julian Jaynes
Age: 77 †
Born: 1920
Born: February 27
Died: 1997
Died: November 21
Psychologist
University Teacher
Newton
Massachusetts
First
Gods
Mind
Began
Poet
Poetry
Shall
Bicameral
State
Thesis
States
Plain
Firsts
Poets

More quotes by Julian Jaynes

Image
History does not move by leaps into unrelated novelty, but rather by the selective emphasis of aspects of its own immediate past.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Civilization is the art of living in towns of such size the everyone does not know everyone else.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Indeed, it is sometimes almost as if the problem had to be forgotten to be solved.
Julian Jaynes
Image
For if consciousness is based on language, then it follows that it is of much more recent origin than has been heretofore supposed. Consciousness come after language! The implications of such a position are extremely serious.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Our search for certainty rests in our attempts at understanding the history of all individual selves and all civilizations. Beyond that, there is only awe.
Julian Jaynes
Image
The changes in the Catholic Church since Vatican II can certainly be scanned in terms of this long retreat from the sacred which has followed the inception of consciousness into the human species.
Julian Jaynes
Image
We know to much to command ourselves very far.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Abstract words are ancient coins whose concrete images in the give and take of talk have worn away with use.
Julian Jaynes
Image
This breakdown in the bicameral mind in what is called the Intermediate Period is reminiscent at least of those periodic breakdowns of Mayan civilizations when all authority suddenly collapsed, and the population melted back into tribal living in the jungles.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Reading in the third millennium B.C. may therefore have been a matter of hearing the cuneiform, that is, hallucinating the speech from looking at its picture symbols, rather than visual reading of syllables in our sense.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Poetry begins as the divine speech of the bicameral mind. Then, as the bicameral mind breaks down, there remain prophets.
Julian Jaynes
Image
There is no such thing as a complete consciousness.
Julian Jaynes
Image
It is by metaphor that language grows.
Julian Jaynes
Image
The importance of writing in the breakdown of the bicameral voices is tremendously important. What had to be spoken is now silent and carved upon a stone to be taken in visually.
Julian Jaynes
Image
No one is moral among the god-controlled puppets of the _Iliad_. Good and evil do not exist.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Memory is the medium of the must-have-been.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Poetry, from describing external events objectively, is becoming subjectified into a poetry of personal conscious expression.
Julian Jaynes
Image
The vestiges of the bicameral mind do not exist in any empty psychological space.
Julian Jaynes
Image
The very reason we need logic at all is because most reasoning is not conscious at all.
Julian Jaynes
Image
Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of.
Julian Jaynes