The persona poem Wittgenstein's Song plays, thematically, on the tenets of Logical Positivism, for which Ludwig Wittgenstein is the primary avatar, and his Tractatus, the textual backbone of Logical Positivism. The Tractatus employs formal logic to prove the limitations of language and linguistic expression: "what we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence." Wittgenstein's gayness was not an issue, in relation to Logical Positivism; but the poem conflates Wittgenstein's personal life with his life as a philosopher.