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
======================================================================
Wendell Piez mailto:wapiez@mulberrytech.com
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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