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Post by Denny on Jan 8, 2023 9:07:27 GMT -5
We now turn to the title poem of Retallack's book How to Do Things with Words. If you google that phrase you will of course find yourself reading about J.L. Austin's famous book about speech-act theory. In her poem, which is obviously a response to Austin, Retallack writes a kind of poetry that she believes enacts an idea about what words do. Ponder that for a moment: a poem which is itself about what words do but is also made in a way that also enacts that idea—the idea of words doing things. When you think conventionally of "doing things," you mostly don't think about writing about it—you think, rather, of doing something. What kind of doing is making a thing? Isn't the original idea of poetry—poesis—that it is a making?
HERE is a recording of Joan Retallack performing this poem.
HERE is a copy of the text of the poem.
Here are some questions to which you might respond as you write and post your comments:
1. Why pair J.L. Austin and Jane Austen (a linguistic theoriest and a novelist)? 2. What is the field or area of rhetoric in the poem's writing? Consider this phrasing, for instance: "Thirdly, let us consider the question whether it is true that..." 3. In what way can "precisely" be distinguished from "exactly"? 4. What is to be gained, if anything, from "the continual discovery of fresh types of nonsense"?
As always, I look forward to reading your responses! Please don't ever think that what you say here needs to be definitive! Perhaps you can just choose a line or phrase or passage and attempt to "translate" it into other words--to paraphrase. Or perhaps you should just ask questions.
Enjoy this, please!
—Al
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Post by jennifer on Jan 8, 2023 9:31:21 GMT -5
We have all gained a lot from the "continual discovery of fresh types of nonsense" in Mod Po so far. We discover that the rules of grammar are arbitrary, and that language is linked to political power, Imperialism, and colonization. We gain an insight into this crazy journey we as human beings have taken and what has brought us to this place- the brink- Thank you Vijaya. Perhaps types of nonsense are sometimes/frequently/really fresh types of sense.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 8, 2023 9:32:38 GMT -5
Sorry, my reply has tacked onto the quotrd text. Here it is: Thank you Vijaya. Perhaps types of nonsense are sometimes/frequently/really fresh types of sense.
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Post by martin on Jan 8, 2023 10:14:31 GMT -5
The headnote to one of the sections talks about measuring a banana with a ruler, and then talks about measuring a ruler with bananas. What is the effect of this somewhat surprising reversal? And what does it have to do, if anything, with the idea of doing things with words? In general, rulers have a different curve than bananas. Bananas tend not to be graduated, and lengths might be best defined in terms of whole bananas. Rulers, on the other hand, are generally graduated, so fractions of a eg: metre ruler might be expected. But, if the ruler is straight and long, it might prove difficult to measure the curved banana along the curve (which is probably what is desired). If the ruler is short, a more accurate length of the banana along the curve is probable - this reminds me of measuring coastlines with rods of differing lengths and the fractal nature of coastlines. Where does language lie? Is it a "long ruler" able to give rough but rapid representations, or "short ruler" able to be more "precise" - although when dealing with fractals, precision is a dangerous thing to think about. Also, is language commutative - is a fractal ruler measuring a straight line the same as a straight ruler measuring a fractal between two points?
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Post by Lidia Ostepeev on Jan 8, 2023 10:17:02 GMT -5
If you measure a ruler with bananas, you still have the ruler there, exercising its original function. Like the ruler, words have an original function which is still there, despite the fact that words can change through time.
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Post by alantoltzis on Jan 8, 2023 10:46:19 GMT -5
The headnote to one of the sections talks about measuring a banana with a ruler, and then talks about measuring a ruler with bananas. What is the effect of this somewhat surprising reversal? And what does it have to do, if anything, with the idea of doing things with words? We have to take words at face value and not "measure" them according arbitrary standards. JT puts a lot of credence into the idea that poetry needs to be honest and that honesty can only exist when it does not depend on past standards and measurements (memories without precedent).
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Post by Paul K on Jan 8, 2023 10:48:16 GMT -5
The headnote to one of the sections talks about measuring a banana with a ruler, and then talks about measuring a ruler with bananas. What is the effect of this somewhat surprising reversal? And what does it have to do, if anything, with the idea of doing things with words? Not yet returning to the writing beyond this striking matter and my memory of it (which includes the discussion of precision and exactness):
We usually use words to describe our world. That is, we measure a banana with a ruler.
What if we sought how many worlds could fit in our words?
**
To measure a banana with a ruler :: To write a poem in precise meter -- quite precise
To measure a ruler with bananas :: To compose a meter to fit a poem -- a more exact fit?
**
Reversal: Words describe actions ==> Words are actions in themselves
**
Are words rulers (ways to measure and describe the world) or bananas (objects in themselves)?
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Post by Denny on Jan 8, 2023 12:51:00 GMT -5
The headnote to one of the sections talks about measuring a banana with a ruler, and then talks about measuring a ruler with bananas. What is the effect of this somewhat surprising reversal? And what does it have to do, if anything, with the idea of doing things with words? [br A couple things I love about Retallack Is the way she questions definitions While referencing and pointing to products of mind both novelistic and philosophical. This in itself can be deemed poetic. It isn’t necessary to understand everything. It probably isn’t possible either. Maybe that’s a feature of modernisms departure from the certainties of the world prior to WW1. Parallels in art philosophy and science always reflect their eras and Retallack uses these concurrences for aesthetic purposes. A healthy sense of the absurd does not by its acknowledgment of the ceaseless comedy of inanities the world is inundated in necessarily embrace or condone unethical practices but may rather call such out for what they are, as does the finest invisible silk expose the bare assed emperor. The stuff about distinguishing precisely from exactly is a fair bit of playful absurdity that mocks theoretical dicing and splicing in linguistics. Oddly enough though, six bananas at about six inches each lined up is equidistant to a yardstick. There’s nothing precise or exact about measuring things in bananas but it isn’t entirely without logic and becomes one of those funny and rather absurd ways to measure things. How many bananas tall is the Empire State Building?
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Post by marciacamino on Jan 8, 2023 12:54:41 GMT -5
It has been amazing to learn the close engagement with Austin’s language philosophy & of his posthumously published essay ‘ Sense and Sensibilia’. At first I’d thought it simply playful of Retallack to conjoin the two Austin’s but it was Austin himself who had done so. Austin also had ideas that sound downright conceptually poetic like this…. Austin proposes some curious philosophical tools. For instance, he uses a sort of word game for developing an understanding of a key concept. This involves taking up a dictionary and finding a selection of terms relating to the key concept, then looking up each of the words in the explanation of their meaning. This process is iterated until the list of words begins to repeat, closing in a "family circle" of words relating to the key concept. Joan Retallacks work repeatedly references and engages philosophical concepts with a near flippant brevity that often belies her incisiveness. Here’s a JL Austin quote…. "Sentences are not as such either true or false" - Sense and Sensibilia (1962), p. 111 And here is a reference to a humorous incident involving Austins attempts to logically categorize language …. During a lecture at Columbia University attended by American philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser, Austin made the claim that although a double negative in English implies a positive meaning, there is no language in which a double positive implies a negative. To which Morgenbesser responded in a dismissive tone, "Yeah, yeah."[27][28] (Some have quoted it as "Yeah, right.")
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Post by marciacamino on Jan 8, 2023 13:00:57 GMT -5
I am taking Al at face value (with trust) that what we write here is not definitive.
The question pressing me after I have read (just once) this piece of writing is, Is this a poem? And the answer that jumps to my mind is, I think/feel not. It is oracular, exploratory, frustrating, fascinating, suggestive, a puzzle. And so are many poems. But poetry began with a marriage of rhythm and language. I feel no rhythm here. How far do we go in playing with what words can do before we say, this is interesting (I am interested in x), but it is some other type of making and doing with words than poetry?
And this is odd, the Walrus said, because I have read many things before, such as the poems in Layli Long Soldier's Whereas, or the old apple poem with the worm in it, without having this feeling. I did not have this thought appear reading either "None Too Soon" or Fig. 28. Have I spent too long recently trying to understand my philosopher friend's argument for the logical contradiction in many scientists' self-understanding of causation, given that the practice of science depends upon shared norms among presumed agents? That is, am I temporarily exhausted by the complexity of the words presented, their navel-gazing, or their reach into conversations I have not been attending to?
God bless Jane Austen. She wrote fiction, moving, revealing, and very witty.
I did take (and greatly enjoyed) a logic class in college forty years ago. Thank you, George Weaver, professor of philosophy, Bryn Mawr College.
Am I just tired tonight, or should poems have rhythm? or something? (Yes or no, I am well aware of the problematics of categorization.)
Demoralizing, but try again, tomorrow. With that work, I may find this piece of JR's writing opening, dear, a stone worth rubbing.
-Paul
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Post by marciacamino on Jan 8, 2023 13:09:00 GMT -5
Paul, I love this: "Am I just tired tonight, or should poems have rhythm?" I love this because I am sicker than hell right now with a head cold--a constant type of tired, and many types of pain--and I've read this JR piece three times and listened to it, and I all want is to hear melody, rhythm, rhyme, and--I'll admit--the familiar. My mental/intellectual body is down for the count right now, and poetry this playfully smart (we can see it! we can sense it!) I just decided is beyond my scope today. Maybe tomorrow I'll try again. And I will. For it's Words Words Words, and so in that there is greatness.
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Post by mirandaj on Jan 8, 2023 13:49:00 GMT -5
I admit I'm struggling a bit with this one too. However I do have a few observations!
Austen/Austin - Jane Austen can be interpreted as a realist writer, certainly when compared to the Gothic novels she so roundly mocks (I'm just finishing reading Northanger Abbey to my twins!). She is attempting to (re)create reality through language, to describe a social world she knows well. Austin however is doing almost the opposite - trying to understand language as a part of reality itself, take it apart and see how it works (I love Vijaya’s remark that this only serves to further confound us!).
Of course one could also argue that Austen’s ‘voice’ goes a long way to shaping our impressions of her characters and setting - the ironic tone and implied judgement means the representation is far from a neutral ‘realist’ one. Indeed, as we have discussed many times in ModPo, the idea of language as a purely transparent lens is inherently flawed. And this is where Austin comes in, showing us the smudges on the glass.
JA is also often credited as an inventor of 'free indirect speech' - a way of writing that blends the voice of the character with that of the narrator. This is an interesting take on the idea of language as both opaque and representative.
My other thoughts are on accuracy vs precision. I was actually recently introduced to the scientific distinction between these terms, via an online science class my 10 year old took! Accuracy refers to how close s set of measurements are to the true value (how realist they are perhaps?) and precision to how similar the set of measurements are to one another - according to Merriam Webster, "precision describes a measurement system—that is, how good it is at giving the same result every time it measures the same thing." Could precision be linked to a deconstruction of language - if I use a word or sentence, does it mean the same things every time? Vs accuracy - how close is this word or sentence to what it represents.
I've read the text again and find the distinction is actually between 'exactness' rather than accuracy - I guess my reading was not as accurate as it could have been - but I think my observations apply nonetheless.
As far as bananas go - I suppose if you measure something with bananas you would be likely to get a different result depending on the bananas in question. So not very precise - you won't get an exactly six banana long ruler with every set of bananas, even if in this case you did. Sometimes the word 'banana' can represent an actual banana perfectly. But sometimes it might mean something else altogether, for instance a symbolic illustration of linguistic subtleties...
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Post by sophianaz on Jan 8, 2023 15:19:04 GMT -5
The headnote to one of the sections talks about measuring a banana with a ruler, and then talks about measuring a ruler with bananas. What is the effect of this somewhat surprising reversal? And what does it have to do, if anything, with the idea of doing things with words? In real life no one would measure a ruler because the ruler is itself a tool of measurement, so is this an instance of language being performative, that is doing something simply because its possible to do so ? Also bananas are curved so is she throwing us a curveball?
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Post by Laura De Bernardi on Jan 8, 2023 16:47:41 GMT -5
Bananas vs rulers: Reading about the history of measurement is fun. The earliest known methods use the human body and appears to be the cubit - the length of an average man's forearm from elbow to middle finger. Foot derives from an average man's foot. I love 'fathom' - the distance between an average man's outstretched arms.
We know what the words are doing when we say, 'I measured my banana with a ruler.' We don't know what words are doing when we say 'I measured my ruler with a banana.' The implication, as I see it, being: What would my world look and be like if bananas were the standard for measurement, just like a ruler currently is?
My height is 12 bananas and you are 3 bananas smaller than me! Woody Allen would have a field day. Looking within, I can see that my mind has been prompted to set aside its usual inclincation, for an analytical, cognitive approach, and is now enjoyably topsy turvy.
It's early here in Australia and I am bound for my garden where some work needs to be done before the heat sets in. I shall measure my garden in bananas and see what comes of it. For a start, everything is looking very yellow!
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Post by Jason Dougherty on Jan 8, 2023 18:50:50 GMT -5
JR's writings are jam-packed, and I love that. But I also scratch my head a lot and find my face scrunching in confusion. And that's OK! I think we need to pull it apart. So I took Al's suggestion to heart when I focused on just one line.
... there is not just one way of being 'not a real pig' ...
Playing around with this double negative, I pretended it was a mathematical something or other (my math mind has not really been exercised for about 30 years at this point, so pardon my lack of precision with my math-ish language) and divided the line by "nots" to get:
there is not just one way of being 'not a real pig' ----------------------------------------------------- = there is just one way of being 'a real pig' not
This is a single way of being a pig, a real pig. Which then infers that there are MANY ways of being a fake pig. Or should it be an 'unreal pig?' A phoney pig? A dummy pig?
That's some pig!
Are words the same? Is there only one way of being 'a real word?' Are there many ways of being a fake word? That's on my mind right now.
Also, there is a lot of maths going on here, in this piece and in JR's works thus far. To me, math always feels like it is doing something directly. It is making something specific happen right then and there. Objects are adding, numbers are subtracting, integers are being divided, calculuses are warping the space-time continuum, etc. But generally, words to me are passive. Meaning it's the information conveyed that's doing the work, not the words themselves. But then again, in their act of conveying, words are doing something right then and there. Each word is a specific act.
Fun!
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