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According to philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, alterity can exist only in its infinite and fluid nature in which the aspects of it that exceed the human ability to fully understand it remain unthematized in language. Levinas sees the encounter between self and other as the moment that instigates ethical responsibility, a moment so vital to avoiding mastering what is external to oneself that it should replace Western philosophy’s traditional emphasis on being as philosophy’s basis, or “First Philosophy.” Levinas’s conceptualization of language as a fluid, non-mastering saying, which one must continually re-enliven against a congealing and mastering said, is at the heart of his ethical project of relating to the other of alterity with ethical responsibility, or proximity. The imaginative poetic language that some contemporary poetry enacts, resonates with Levinas’s ethical motivations and methods for responding to alterity. The following project investigates facets of this question in relation to Levinas: how do the contemporary poets Peter Blue Cloud, Jorie Graham, Joy Harjo, and Robert Hass use poetic language uniquely to engage with alterity in an ethical way, thus allowing it to retain its mystery and infinite nature? I argue that by keeping language alive in a way similar to a Levinasian saying, which avoids mastering otherness by attending to its uniqueness and imaginatively engaging with it, they enact an ethical response to alterity. As a way of unpacking these ideas, this inquiry will investigate the compelling, if unsettled, convergence in the work of Levinas and that of Blue Cloud, Graham, Harjo, and Hass by unfolding a number of Levinasian-informed close readings of major poems by these writers as foregrounding various forms of Levinasian saying. Ph. D.

Graikiškasis filosofavimas klostosi kaip visiškai naujoviškas kalbėjimas, kurio specifika nulemta naujo teorinio žvilgsnio į pasaulį. Mes taip įpratę prie teorinio žvilgsnio, kad mums rodosi, jog vien to žvilgsnio gana, kad pamąstytume patį pasaulį naujai. Tačiau pasaulis žmogui visada duotas per jo veiklą ir su ja susijusį kalbėjimą (mąstymą). Graikiškąjį pasaulį – kosmą – turiningai ir vertybiškai steigia rapsodiškasis bylojimas. Graikiškąjį filosofavimą išprovokavęs imperatyvas „Pažink save“ įkurdina filosofą visiškai neturiningoje ir vertybiškai neutralioje refleksijos teritorijoje – teorijoje. Prasidedantis filosofavimas savo turinius ir siekius tegali imti iš graikų pasaulį steigiančio rapsodiškojo bylojimo. Todėl graikiškasis filosofavimas neišvengiamai prasideda kaip rapsodiškojo bylojimo imitacija. Šioje imitacijoje viršų palaipsniui ima loginė teorijos prigimtis, kuri ilgainiui neatpažistamai deformuoja rapsodiškojo bylojimo turinius ir nukraujina jo siekius. Filosofavimui pereinant į raštą, ryšiai su rapsodiškąja bylojimo struktūra visiškai nutraukiami, o filosofavimas užsisklendžia teoriniame mąstyme ir virsta anemiška rašto veikla. Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Homeras, Iliada, rapsodas, sakymas, pasakymas, refleksija, dorybė, raštas. Greek Philosophizing as Rhapsodic Telling Deformed by Reflection Skirmantas Jankauskas Summary Greek philosophizing emerged as a new kind of talking whose specificity was determined by a new theoretical standpoint. Nowadays, we are used to theoretical standpoints, and the standpoint per se seems to be sufficient to view the world anew. However, the world is given to a human as an interrelation of his activity and talking (thinking). The Greek world cosmos was established informally and axiologically by rhapsodic telling. Greek philosophizing was provoked by the imperative “Know thyself” which entrenched Greek philosophers in a new neutral territory of reflection, i.e. theory. Early philosophizing could acquire its contents and aspirations from the rhapsodic telling which established the Greek world. That is why Greek philosophizing inevitably started as an imitation of rhapsodic telling. However, the logical origin of theory gradually took over rhapsodic telling, deformed its content and enfeebled its aspirations. When Greek philosophizing established itself in writing, its ties with the structure of rhapsodic telling were totally broken and the philosophizing isolated itself in theoretical thinking and turned into an anemic activity of writing. Keywords: Homer, the Iliad, rhapsode, the saying, the said, reflection, virtue, writing.