SHAKSPER 2001: Re: "What's in a name?"

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 07/06/01 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1701  Friday, 6 July 2001

[1]     From:   Annalisa Castaldo <acastald@astro.temple.edu>
        Date:   Thursday, 5 Jul 2001 09:33:49 -0400
        Subj:   RE: SHK 12.1692 A rose is a rose?

[2]     From:   Stevie Gamble <SMG1BAR@aol.com>
        Date:   Thursday, 5 Jul 2001 13:12:35 EDT
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"

[3]     From:   Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com>
        Date:   Thursday, 5 Jul 2001 20:49:28 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"

[4]     From:   Sean Lawrence <seanlawrence@writeme.com>
        Date:   Thursday, 05 Jul 2001 22:27:08 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Annalisa Castaldo <acastald@astro.temple.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 5 Jul 2001 09:33:49 -0400
Subject: 12.1692 A rose is a rose?
Comment:        RE: SHK 12.1692 A rose is a rose?

"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."

I'd just like to point out that this proves rather than disproves the
argument about context. First of all, "rose" can be a verb, the past
tense of "rise," and we know the difference from context alone (the two
meanings have the same pronunciation). So without context your specific
example is, if not meaningless, at least ambiguous.

Second, the meanings which rose "accrues to its little, four-letter
self" are anything but without context. I have taught students who know
perfectly well that a rose is a beautiful flower that smells nice and is
the traditional gift of love on Valentine's Day (especially in red), but
who do not know the connections with various goddesses or Elizabeth I.
They would respond to Elton John's version of "Candle in the Wind"
because of their cultural context - flowers are beautiful, short lived
when cut and a traditional gift of love.  But they wouldn't (didn't,
when we discussed this) think that Elton John was comparing Diana to a
former queen of England who was also beloved and well dressed. Their
context and my context for the song are different, althogh there is
certainly overlap.

"BTW, traffic signs are notoriously short on context. Should one not
stop at STOP signs because of their meaninglessness?"

Traffic signs are not at all short on context, unless you artificially
limit context to mean "other words in the same sentence." To drive in
America you have to take a test which involves correctly identifying the
shape and color of certain signs, so that you know how to respond even
if you can't read the word (or at least, that was a requirement when I
took the test). If I saw a hand lettered sign reading "stop" on a
telephone pole, I would not stop because that "stop" would have no
context for me. In South Philly, where I used to live, "stop" signs were
almost (dare I say) universally understood to mean "slow down unless
there's a cop nearby" and I actually saw a very near accident when
someone came to a full stop and almost got rear ended by the driver who
knew the local context of "stop."

To bring this back to Shakespeare, "a rose by any other name would smell
as sweet." The collection of letters is not what gives meaning, and even
when we have become used to a collection of letters having a specific
meaning, it is still the contexts - literary, cultural and otherwise -
which do most of the work of carrying the sense.

Annalisa Castaldo
Temple University

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Stevie Gamble <SMG1BAR@aol.com>
Date:           Thursday, 5 Jul 2001 13:12:35 EDT
Subject: 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"

From:   Janet Costa janetcosta@yahoo.com

>  So. Have we decided that the Renaissance was keeping their discovery of
>  Viagra a secret?

Well, of course.

Now that it's been explained to us it's pretty obvious that the
alchemists genetically modified cantharides, and that the subsequent
product was marketed secretly to a number of rich and powerful
individuals in proto-capitalist enclaves such as Verona in order to
enable and sustain the patriarchal structure which, without
pharmacological support, might have withered away (with the transient
and fleeting erection) to return to the more open, inclusive and
people-based norm of reciprocity which had preceded it.

Of course, like all good theories, it is of universal application.
Consider Archimedes' assertion on the action of a lever:

'Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the
earth.'

Now that our eyes are opened to the identity of and identification with
the penis/testacles, we note that lever=penis and earth=ball, as well as
the other way round, and can see, at last, what Archimedes was really
saying. All that remains is to discover what drugs he was doing...

Best wishes
Stevie Gamble

From:           Abigail Quart <arq1@columbia.edu>

wrote, of Elton John's choice of the word 'rose' for the reworking of
'Candle
in the Wind',

 >Yeah. He coulda said "daffodil."

 No. It's got too many syllables.

 Best wishes,
 Stevie Gamble

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com>
Date:           Thursday, 5 Jul 2001 20:49:28 +0100
Subject: 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"

From:           Stuart Taylor <swt1@columbia.edu>

"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 certainly didn't mean to suggest that Saussure abolished the past --
far from it.  I do find, however, rather a muddle between the diachronic
and the synchronic in Stuart Taylor's posts.  This may, of course, be
due to my inability to make intuitive leaps between word-use in the
twentieth and the sixteenth century.

"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?"

The statements above are, on the face of it, unexceptional.  The problem
(for me) is that they quite beg the various questions of this
discussion.  As, for example, just when and how does linguistic history
become relevant?  [The Peter debate].  What is the authority of an
individual subjective response (underpinned by bodily experience)?
[Rocks make me think of phalloi].

"Unfortunately, we get no thoughts from Hamilton on such matters.
Instead, after making some confused fuss about 'the singular/plural
distinctionı"

I'm sorry you found my argument confused, and that you consider that to
be as precise as possible as to how a word was used in the sixteenth
century is "fuss".  You suggested that the association of "stone" with
testicle in the sixteenth century supported an assumption that "rock"
carried the connotation of 'penis' in the same period.  My counter was
to the effect that you have to jump even further than this -- from
(plural) "stones" (in a linguistic context associating the root 'stone'
with human physiology) to singular "rock" (without the wider
physiological associations).  You would obviously prefer to discuss the
rules of the game rather than the length of the jump.

"(including a vital reminder about the fact that the normal anatomy of
the human male includes two testicles),"

As you appeared to have forgotten it, it seemed a point worth making
since it was relevant to your argument.

"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."

Whether or not the evidence has been lacking, evidence (of a particular
sort, admittedly) hasn't been satisfactorily (to my mind) put forward.
To attempt to shift the ground towards an argument as to whether
cognitive or descriptive linguistics is more relevant to the study of
Shakespeare is a different issue.  Perhaps this is on the level (going
back to an earlier specific [or trivial?] point of disagreement between
us) as to how pertinent the nature of sound changes in Indo-European is
to whether "pier" and "Peter" share a common Indo-European root.  I
would feel it was extremely pertinent, and part of a larger issue, but
neither crucial to the matter in hand nor appropriate to SHAKSPER, which
was why I didn't raise it at the time.

"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"

Evidence (in case, as I rather assumed I had, I didn't make this clear
earlier) is the primary source material.  In the context of this
discussion, predominantly written texts dating from the sixteenth
century, either in their entirety or excerpted in dictionaries.  (And I
quite agree that certain other materials may be relevant, but no one has
yet appealed to a painting of St. Peter.)  Beyond that, we are in the
realms of inference.

The penumbra of the debate isn't (at least for me) over the nature of
evidence, but as to how to treat this evidence -- the inferences we make
from and around this, the interpretative strategies we bring to bear.
This certainly involves "certain crucial questions", which I hope that I
haven't closed down.  However, general presuppositions are a different
(and not necessarily more important) issue.

"(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"

As a slight aside (and for once to be fair to Larkin) it's not that he
doesn't "know whether or not", but that he says, "and guess he's fucking
her ..." -- he's playing the American use of "guess" (know) against the
English use (conjecture).  The nature of the speaker (English) would
suggest that the later sense is foregrounded, the colloquial register of
the language used points to the former.

I'm sorry if this wasn't apparent from the content of the short passage
I quoted -- I'd rather assumed the poem would be all-too-familiar to
most list members.

"incidentally, given the context provided, maybe Larkin is referring to
pills other than contraceptive
pills)."

Given the local context of the lines in the poem ("pills" bracketed by
"fucking" and "diaphragm"), it would seem with a high degree of
probability that the pills being referred to (among the variety of
possible pills) are (or is) the contraceptive pill.

A more interesting (but still, I think, unlikely) possibility is that
Larkin is creating a speaker who is deliberately +meant+ to be ignorant
of linguistic usage.

All this in the larger contexts of the poem as a whole, its appearance
as the title poem of Larkin's last volume of poems, its status as an
"anthology" poem, its place in the context of Larkin's work as a whole
-- I could go on, but won't.  Some contexts may (I hope) be taken as
read.

"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."

Oh, dear, I must curb my propensity for metaphor -- it's obviously not
appropriate to the context of this list -- at least as Stuart Taylor
understands it.

Robin Hamilton

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Sean Lawrence <seanlawrence@writeme.com>
Date:           Thursday, 05 Jul 2001 22:27:08 -0700
Subject: 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1692 Re: "What's in a name?"

Abigail Quart notes that a rose

>as a flower, [...] 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.

This is all true enough.  The real question is whether Elton John had
all meanings in mind at once when he used the term to describe Diana.
Referring to someone as a vagina is usually considered an insult, is it
not?

Cheers,
Seán.

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