10.14 citation and impermanence

Humanist (mccarty@phoenix.Princeton.EDU)
Tue, 14 May 1996 08:09:16 -0400 (EDT)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 10, No. 14.
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
Information at http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/

[1] From: "Peter Graham, RUL" <psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu> (38)
Subject: the parade

[2] From: "Peter Graham, RUL" <psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu> (6)
Subject: Re: 10.10 citation and impermanence

[3] From: Marta Steele <Marta_Steele@Pupress.Princeton.Edu> (11)
Subject: permanence

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 13 May 96 9:18:59 EDT
From: "Peter Graham, RUL" <psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu>
Subject: the parade

Willard McCarty responds to my concern about the parade and whether to lead
or join it with more politeness than I probably deserve. He is certainly
right that we may be whipping the sea, that is resisting the natural tendency
of the medium. I think what I want to suggest is that it's important we do
so. I know however that at times I feel some despair in being able to
preserve anything in this environment (and even at times some despair
at preserving the culture in any form past a few hundred years,
really.)

I am reminded, and I suspect that the example works both for and against my
case, of what we now know of Homeric epic. It was preserved in spite of the
transitoriness of the medium--oral repetition--which arguably is even more
transitory than magnetic domains on disks. The mechanisms for preserving it
included the many adjectival and adverbial phrases qualifying names and
places and things ("wine-dark sea" being the stereotypical example), which
apparently did duty as placeholders to piece out the line, as mechanisms for
jogging the speaker's memory, and as time-fillers to allow the speaker's
memory to work better (I'm sure I've oversimplified and corrupted the real
case here). The result was a preservation in a form that was different from
the original, whatever that was or if it ever could be said to have existed;
yet, it was a preservation; the need was there, felt and responded to.

In Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, his leading man Septimus Hodge dismisses the loss
of history as unimportant, for we will discover it all again and we only have
what we need anyway. Thomasina, the young prodigy whom he tutors, is
desolate at the loss of so many Greek plays and of so much history. I'm on
Thomasina's side. --pg

Peter Graham psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu Rutgers University Libraries
169 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903 (908)445-5908; fax (908)445-5888
<URL:http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/pghome.html>

--[2]--------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 May 96 21:49:31 EDT
From: "Peter Graham, RUL" <psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Re: 10.10 citation and impermanence

And do not Willard's comments in his next message on Optimism come to bear
here? Is it not optimistic to assume we can save human thought in spite of
the transience of the medium? Now *there's* a triumph over nature!
Should we not be optimistic?

Peter Graham psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu Rutgers University Libraries
169 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903 (908)445-5908; fax (908)445-5888
<URL:http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/pghome.html>

--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 08:33:45 EST
From: Marta Steele <Marta_Steele@Pupress.Princeton.Edu>
Subject: permanence

The future will always rely on the past. I'm just concerned with
preserving everything we have so laboriously had to rediscover, which
previous generations, for one reason or another, lost. How can we
demonstrate more concern for remote posterity than the past ever
demonstrated for us? What is the ultimate foresight anyway?

And what have we accomplished that is most important to preserve? I
reread my posting yesterday and it sounded narrow because of my
particular concentrations; I'm sure others in other fields may have
similar, parallel concerns?

That's all I want to know. Bury a time capsule, made of indelible
lead? Bury several of them? Who knows?

Marta Steele