14.0743 multiple perspectives

From: by way of Willard McCarty (willard@lists.village.Virginia.EDU)
Date: Thu Mar 15 2001 - 02:12:12 EST

  • Next message: by way of Willard McCarty: "14.0742 framing and nesting"

                   Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 743.
           Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
                  <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

       [1] From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@mulberrytech.com> (52)
             Subject: Re: 14.0740 multiple perspectives?

       [2] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) (74)
             Subject: Re: 14.0740 multiple perspectives?

    --[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
             Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 06:44:59 +0000
             From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@mulberrytech.com>
             Subject: Re: 14.0740 multiple perspectives?

    Hi Willard,

    At 01:47 PM 3/14/01, you wrote:
    >So much for the context. Now my question. Who has written most clearly and
    >persuasively on the relevant paradox of interpretation, which takes control
    >of and to a varying degree remakes its object in the very act of its own
    >subservience?

    Funny how threads intertwine. This reminds me of the work of Harold Bloom,
    from the mid-seventies through the mid-eighties, whose work I've been
    reviewing for another purpose. "Clearly and persuasively" may be arguable
    in his case (the stuff was nothing if not controversial: some readers found
    it by turns over-audacious and obscure). But works like *The Anxiety of
    Influence*, *A Map of Misreading*, *The Breaking of the Vessels* all
    examine this theme.

    > Since we can actually do away with the necessity of
    >physically subordinating commentary and other sorts of interpretative
    >notes, and thus give leash to their heretofore suppressed primacy, will we
    >not (also paradoxically) be increasing the importance of interpretation --
    >rather than minimising it, as some have dreamed computing would do?

    Yes. It is a good lesson to assimilate, that our very acts of "clarifying,
    for all time, the truth of the matter" really amount to adding
    interpretations (new or not so new) to the stack.

    I have been looking at *The Breaking of the Vessels*, which transcribes
    lectures Bloom gave in 1981. One of the fascinating things about this
    little volume is that no typographic distinction is made between quotes and
    commentary. Just to give you a taste (I open the book at random): having
    quoted Wilde's *The Critic As Artist*, Bloom writes:

        Are [Wilde's characters] Vivian and Gilbert not speaking
        the language of poetry and the language of criticism? Wilde
        is one of the pioneers at insisting upon the identity of the
        two languages. Yet he has persuaded only a few critics and
        poets after him. What is or isn't criticism always has been
        problematic, and perhaps readers ought to be less certain
        than they have been as to what is or isn't poetry. What is
        most problematic here is the notion of language, since
        increasingly we all trope upon the word "language" whether
        we are conscious or not of our turning of the term. Wilde
        was far enough ahead of his time so that most of us still
        lag behind him. Yet any memorable criticism, from Longinus
        to our moment, has had very little to do with the modest
        handmaiden's role prescribed by the modern Anglo-American
        academy....

    Best regards,
    Wendell

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    Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com
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    --[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
             Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 06:45:33 +0000
             From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
             Subject: Re: 14.0740 multiple perspectives?

    Willard,

    The beast described below is closer to the creatures of digital imaging
    than those of text encoding but it perhaps captures the long tradition in
    bibliography of being aware fo the "remaking of its objects".

    > So much for the context. Now my question. Who has written most clearly and
    > persuasively on the relevant paradox of interpretation, which takes control
    > of and to a varying degree remakes its object in the very act of its own
    > subservience? Since we can actually do away with the necessity of
    > physically subordinating commentary and other sorts of interpretative
    > notes, and thus give leash to their heretofore suppressed primacy, will we

    /snip

    > be increasing the importance of interpretation --
    > rather than minimising it, as some have dreamed computing would do?

    D.F. McKenzie, drawing upon the work of Peter de Voogd on the marbled
    pages of Laurence Sterne's _Tristam Shandy_

    <cite>
    Each hand-marbled page is necessarily different yet integral with the
    text. As an assortment of coloured shapes which are completely
    non-representational, a marbled page as distinct from a lettered one might
    even be said to have no meaning at all. Most modern editions, if they do
    attempt to include them, and do not merely settle for a note of their
    original presence, will print a black-and-white image of them which is
    uniform in every copy of the edition. By doing that, of course, subvert
    Sterne's intention to embody an emblem of non-specific intention, of
    difference, of undetermined meaning, of the very instablility of text
    from copy to copy.
    </cite>

    One can of course imagine an electronic edition where the image of the
    marbled page is produced by a program that more or less randomly generates
    a marbled page on the fly. One can also image an electronic edition that
    provides a gallery of extant marbled pages from earlier editions. Or a
    combination of both so that future readers can compare images of extant
    physical copies with computer-generated "facsimile simulations".

    Think of Ovid on an electronic billboard --- the physicality of the
    inscription matters. Paul Monette in the preface to a collection of
    elegies in honour of his dead lover recalls the importance of the setting
    to the reading experience:

    <cite>
    In the summer of 1984 Roger and I were in Greece together, and for both of
    us it was a peak experience that left us dazed and slightly giddy. We'd
    been together for ten years, and life was very sweet. On the high bluff of
    ancient Thera, looking out across the southern Aegean toward Africa, my
    hand grazed a white marble block covered edge to edge with Greek
    characters, line after precise line. The marble was tilted face up to the
    weather, its message slowly eroding in the rain. "I hope somebody's
    recorded all this," I said, realizing with a dull thrill of helplessness
    that this _was_ the record, right her on this stone.
    </cite>

    Of course the allusion to "peak experience" brings to mind Timothy Leary
    would have added "set" to my mention of "setting" above. Mind set of the
    readers. It is perhaps worth quoting Leary just to illustrate how close
    psychedelic experience is to reading:
    <cite>
    The specific reaction has little to do with the chemical and is chiefly a
    function of _set_ and _setting_; preparation and environment. The better
    the preparation, the more ecstatic and revelatory the session. In initial
    sessions and with unprepared persons, setting -- particularly the actions
    of others -- is most important. With persons who have prepared
    thoughtfully and seriously, the setting is less important.
    </cite>
    from _The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of
    the Dead_

    No doubt this in not quite what you had uppermost in your mind but these
    selections are not so distant from any consideration of what D.F. McKenzie
    calls the sociology of texts. And quoted here they serve to emphasize
    whenever we ponder the complexities of computing and its fungible
    artefacts, we remember that we are dealing with humans and machines and
    very much like musical instruments both are prepared.

    But half the fun is being surprised in one's unpreparedness -- it leaves
    room for improvisation in the face of instability. Is that not the moral
    of many and Ovidian tale?

    -- 
    Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
           some threads tangle in tassles, others form the weft
    	http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance
    



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