SHAKSPER 2001: Re: "What's in a name?"
From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 07/05/01
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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1692 Thursday, 5 July 2001
[1] From: Gabriel Egan <ge@totus.org>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Jul 2001 15:25:43 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
[2] From: Janet Costa <janetcosta@yahoo.com>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Jul 2001 07:58:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
[3] From: David Knauer <knauerd@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 03 Jul 2001 10:30:33 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
[4] From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Jul 2001 20:25:51 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
[5] From: Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 03 Jul 2001 12:31:01 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
[6] From: Takashi Kozuka <shaxpeare@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 03 Jul 2001 17:05:57
Subj: Re: "What's in a name?"
[7] From: Stuart Taylor <swt1@columbia.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 4 Jul 2001 02:14:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
[8] From: Abigail Quart <arq1@columbia.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 4 Jul 2001 05:30:13 -0400
Subj: RE: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
[9] From: Larry Weiss <pandw@akula.com>
Date: Wednesday, 04 Jul 2001 11:32:38 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gabriel Egan <ge@totus.org>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Jul 2001 15:25:43 +0100
Subject: 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Abigail Quart wrote
>"Deconstruct." That's from the philosophy that insists
>that if something can be shown to have more than one
>meaning it's impossible to know the meaning and
>therefore it has no meaning? Which was invented by
>a guy trying really hard to prove that Nazi propaganda
>he wrote during World War II really wasn't?
Since there are question marks after these two sentences,* I assume
Abigail Quart wants readers to know that she's not quite sure of this
stuff. Stylistically, it's preferable to admit ignorance rather than
write an assertion and put a question mark after it. No, Abigail, that
really is not what is meant by deconstruction. And, no, Paul de Man did
not invent it. You might advance your education by reading the
following:
Peter Barry _Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural
Theory_ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). This is a
standard primer, but Robin Headlam Wells has a fair criticism of it in
the introduction to Neo-historicism and in the afterword to _Shakespeare
on
Masculinity_
Charting the development of theory as response to historical and
cultural pressure in the twentieth century is:
Terry Eagleton _An Introduction to Literary Theory_ (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1983). There's a second, updated edition, too.
A personal favourite of mine is:
Jeff Collins and Bill Mayblin _Derrida for Beginners_ (Cambridge: Icon,
1996)
SHAKSPERians interested in this sort of thing who happen to be in the UK
in November may want to go to Loughborough University on 10th for the
"life.after.theory" event in which Jacques Derrida will be giving a
lecture and then taking part in a round-table discussion. The organizer
is Dr John Schad (s.j.schad@lboro.ac.uk).
Gabriel Egan
PS Careful readers will spot that the second one's merely a fragment.
Columbia's writing program can only do so much.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Janet Costa <janetcosta@yahoo.com>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Jul 2001 07:58:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
So. Have we decided that the Renaissance was keeping their discovery of
Viagra a secret?
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Knauer <knauerd@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 03 Jul 2001 10:30:33 -0500
Subject: 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Abigail Quart wrote:
"'Deconstruct.' That's from the philosophy that insists that if
something can be shown to have more than one meaning it's impossible to
know the meaning and therefore it has no meaning? Which was invented by
a guy trying really hard to prove that Nazi propaganda he wrote during
World War II really wasn't?"
Well played-trot out deMan's lies to discredit all of deconstruction. I
hear Nietzsche could be pretty unpleasant, too, and his sister was a
total fascist! Would your morality test leave us with any philosophers
or critics to read? And no, deconstruction doesn't begin with deMan.
There's this other, probably unpleasant, guy, Derrida. And that joy you
say you feel in perceiving the multiple meanings of a text or in staring
at a Gauguin painting until the colors go all funny? These
deconstruction guys actually like doing that, too. Pity you haven't read
them.<?xml:namespace prefix = ons =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Then this:
"It is a romance novel commonplace to refer to a man in an amorous mood
as 'hard as a rock' . . . I also have a postcard sent me by a former
monk showing an interesting stone feature of Bodmin Moor . . . Then
there was that Osiris thing where he got cut up and thrown to the fishes
and Isis found and reassembled every part but one: guess which?"
I won't bother with the above bizarre genealogy, except to ask, does
Columbia know you're using their computers?
Dave Knauer
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com>
Date: Tuesday, 3 Jul 2001 20:25:51 +0100
Subject: 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
From: Stuart Taylor <swt1@columbia.edu>
"I believe that Wycliffıs translation did not make it into print in the
15th or 16th century. So although there were written copies of Wycliff
in circulation, these were probably expensive and may not have been
common in the 'lower orders.ı Tyndale took the 'honorı of the first
print English translation and his accurate text was all the more
threatening to the Church because it was more cheaply and widely
available."
As the first 'officially authorised' bible was the Great Bible of 1539,
this might suggest that up till that point (and there'd obviously be a
drag-on effect) 'Petrus' anglice "Peter" would have built up a long
association with, if not the lower orders, then at least subversion.
The two 'corrections' which Rainbow made to her original
class-association-of-the-name-Peter post-Don Pedro and Petrucchio-are
both directly passed from Latin into the various Romance languages. As
"Petrus" went directly into French, ("Pierre"), etc., there wouldn't, in
these countries, be an association of the proper name with subversive
vernacular translations of the Bible.
Speculative on my part -- does anyone know of any occasions where the
name "Peter" is given to an upper-middle or upper class figure in this
period?
Robin Hamilton
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 03 Jul 2001 12:31:01 -0700
Subject: 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Great work Robin and Stevie. You both make so much sense.
As for Mr. Taylor's comments:
>Is Mike Jensen the arbiter of: what counts as linguistic history
>(6/19), what is the nature of "proof" (6/22, 27), when arguments are
>"crap" or are mistaken (6/27), what is 'intellectual honestyı (6/27),
>the confidence of others and whether it is "excessive and suspect"
>(6/27), and what 'everyone must understand about speculation vs.
>evidenceı (7/2)?
>
>I joined this thread on 6/19 and stated:
>
> Despite Robin Hamiltonıs efforts, I BELIEVE that a
> consideration of linguistic usage SUPPORTS Abigail
> Quart's intuition about the word "Peter." (emphasis added)
>
>Since then, I have attempted to say what I think and why I think it. I
>did not claim to "have proven that Peter was a phallic reference in
>*R&J*" (Jensen, 6/27).
>
>In my opinion, this discussion has benefitted (sic)
>from many and various substantive challenges and contributions. If Mike
>Jensen has, in his words (6/27, 7/2), 'a problemı with what has been
>argued, why doesnıt he participate and address the ideas being discussed,
>rather than simply issuing judgements and decrees?
Interesting that Mr. Taylor singles me out for a personal attack. Well,
I will not go to that level. I am concerned that you don't understand
what constitutes evidence and argument in scholarly discourse. The lack
thereof is why not just I, but Robin, Stevie, and others have written
addressing you.
This is a sincere offer: I will be happy to recommend some excellent
critical thinking textbooks so you won't continue to make the mistakes
that have been pointed out to you, and that you cling to so tenaciously.
Abigail Quart, please don't quote that poem again. I found it
unspeakably depressing.
Mike Jensen
[6]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Takashi Kozuka <shaxpeare@hotmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 03 Jul 2001 17:05:57
Subject: Re: "What's in a name?"
Abigail Quart <arq1@columbia.edu> furiously writes:
>"Deconstruct." That's from the philosophy that insists that if something
>can be shown to have more than one meaning it's impossible to know the
>meaning and therefore it has no meaning? Which was invented by a guy
>trying really hard to prove that Nazi propaganda he wrote during World
>War II really wasn't?
>
>Showing something can have more than one meaning doesn't deconstruct a
>damn thing.
It depends on what one means by "a damn thing". Abi is referring to Paul
de Man. He and Yale School (his followers) would argue that
deconstruction questions ("deconstructs") the fixed bond between a name
("signifier") and a substance ("signified"). It may not deconstruct the
physical existence of the substance at once, but it can deconstruct the
fixed bond between the signifier and the signified. Where to go from
this point (what this can further mean), of course, is another issue,
and one can write a book on it, as did a couple of SHAKSPEReans in the
past.
Best wishes,
Takashi Kozuka
[7]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stuart Taylor <swt1@columbia.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 4 Jul 2001 02:14:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Robin Hamilton said, "I think one of the larger issues behind the
arguments on this thread is to what degree connotation (and, indeed,
denotation) is contextually governed."
I very much agree. But after this promising start, Hamilton goes on to
assert that in my argument, "context, whether in speech act or artistic
text, has apparently been abolished." This must be Hamiltonıs idea. I
canıt see how he gets this from what Iıve said. In fact, on 6/27, I
referred to the contexts of "the linguistic milieu in which the play was
written, the concerns of the play itself, the language of the scene and
the action of the scene" (in that instance, II.iv). And I donıt
consider that an exhaustive list of contexts that are relevant.
Moreover, I donıt think that contexts are mutually exclusive; many are
relevant or "active" at the same time.
I do think the context of a wordıs history (diachronic factors) is
relevant (as well as an emphasis on synchronic features of language).
It is Robin Hamilton, not me, and not Saussure, who declared, "The past
has been abolished..." (6/24).
I also think that human bodily experience is a 'contextı that is of
enduring relevance. In infancy, a primary mode of learning about the
world is through the body. Does that mode stop, what becomes of those
experiences as they are linked to language? A major thread in current
cognitive linguistics (eg Lakoff and Johnson) argues that language is
essentially founded on bodily metaphors. Our language is full of idioms
that link bodily experience, including sexual experience, with everyday
life. Many discussants have given examples of this.
So, it seems to me that questions about contexts include: when we hear
or read a verbal communication, which contexts are operative? which
contexts do we consider relevant when considering the meanings of a word
or phrase? and, do we want to exclude any contexts from consideration?
If so, how do we decide which contexts are not relevant? In this case,
should we exclude linguistic history and corporeal experience from the
contexts in which a play plays?
Unfortunately, we get no thoughts from Hamilton on such matters.
Instead, after making some confused fuss about 'the singular/plural
distinctionı (including a vital reminder about the fact that the normal
anatomy of the human male includes two testicles), he resorts (yet
again) to the singular argument he has iterated throughout this
discussion, which is to insist that others 'singularly lack evidence.ı
This trivializes the discussion, and forecloses certain crucial
questions.
Since Hamilton has repeatedly failed or refused, despite queries, to
comment on the actual utility of various types of evidence, we are left
to wonder whether, in the context of this discussion, he has any idea
what "evidence" means (after all, Hamilton cites a poem in which a
someone thinks itıs paradise to be looking right at two kids and not
know whether or not theyıre fucking incidentally, given the context
provided, maybe Larkin is referring to pills other than contraceptive
pills). Letıs forget about dogs that donıt bark and horses that donıt
sing, and simply hope that the evidence-parrot......well, you know from
the context.
[8]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Abigail Quart <arq1@columbia.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 4 Jul 2001 05:30:13 -0400
Subject: 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment: RE: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Robin Hamilton says:
"Words in isolation are virtually meaningless."
I suppose so, if one doesn't know the language or writing system used to
spell it. Or one's vocabulary is limited. And one's knowledge of the
culture and its history.
Ms or Mr. Hamilton's example was "cat." I'll use "rose." See, I know
it's a flower. As a noun. I also know that, as a flower, it has been
sacred to many goddesses, including Aphrodite and the current Queen of
Heaven, Mary. It was also used to describe Elizabeth I of England. The
pattern of its inner petals resembles a woman's intimate parts which is
probably how "rose" became a synomym for those, too. (Which led to it's
being a symbol for eternity but maybe that's a bit much for today.) So
when Elton John altered the lyrics to "Candle in the Wind" to call Diana
"England's rose," he was not simply saying she was as pretty as a
flower. And he could not as easily and effectively have called her
England's daffodil. The word "rose," sitting pretty much alone, has a
history and power that accrues to its little, four-letter self. With
that one word, John acknowledged Diana to be Goddess of Love, Queen of
Heaven, and Queen of England. Only symbolically, of course. Only
poetically, of course. Probably he just meant she was a nice flower.
Probably that's why people spent $10,000,000 to put flowers on every
place she walked or ever touched. Not because of what Elton John said,
no. But John knew the right word to express what he saw happening. But
a word alone is meaningless. Yeah. He coulda said "daffodil."
BTW, traffic signs are notoriously short on context. Should one not stop
at STOP signs because of their meaninglessness?
[9]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <pandw@akula.com>
Date: Wednesday, 04 Jul 2001 11:32:38 -0400
Subject: 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment: Re: SHK 12.1683 Re: "What's in a name?"
> To begin: "stone" doesn't mean 'testicle'. "stones" [sic] can mean
> 'testicles' [sic].
In R&J,I.iii.52 (Riv), the Nurse describes young Juliet's bump on the
head as being "as big as a young Cock'rel's stone."
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Hardy M. Cook, editor@ws.bowiestate.edu
The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
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