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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2847  Friday, 14 December 2001

From:           W. L. Godshalk <godshawl@email.uc.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 13 Dec 2001 15:11:56 -0500
Subject: 12.2841 Re: Subtext
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2841 Re: Subtext

Martin Steward wants to know if Sean Lawrence and I have an intimate
relationship. No, we don't.  But Sean used the word "Other" without
definition, and I misinterpreted deliberately his use of "Other" to mean
"Rebecca," with whom I am intimate.

It seems to me that this misinterpretation does not indicate an
"interstice" in the text.  It merely suggests that Martin was misled by
me.  I didn't give him enough information to make the correct
assumption.  Of course, even had I provided full information, he might
still have believed that Sean and I are lovers (which we are not).
Martin's reading/misreading of the text does not indicate that there is
a "hole" (interstice) in the text.

What I'm suggesting is that some of us are mislocating the sources of
interpretation / misinterpretation.  It is in ourselves that we must
place the glory and the blame, dear Martin, not in an interstice. We
auditors or readers must take the credit -- good or bad -- for our
interpretations.  Let's not blame our readings on the text. Any text can
be misread, deconstructed, reconstructed, expanded, or ignored.

Okay, all language is metaphoric, but let us not put all of our
metaphors in one basket -- to be metaphoric.  Lakoff and Johnson in
Philosophy in the Flesh argue that most thoughts owe their fullness to
metaphor.  But when they get to their own disciplines, they begin to see
that our use of metaphors can be misleading.

Yours (not at all sceptically), Bill Godshalk

P.S. My spell-check suggests "sceptic ally."

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