From jmpfund@bgnet.bgsu.edu Thu Mar 9 21:43:48 2000 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id VAA05592 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2000 21:43:48 -0800 Received: from sp07.notesnet.bgsu.edu (sp07.notesnet.bgsu.edu [129.1.7.7]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id VAA31003 for ; Thu, 9 Mar 2000 21:43:47 -0800 Received: from [129.1.190.199] ([129.1.190.187]) by sp07.notesnet.bgsu.edu (Lotus Domino Release 5.0.2b) with ESMTP id 2000031000383415:127 ; Fri, 10 Mar 2000 00:38:34 -0500 X-Sender: jmpfund@popj.bgsu.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200003100345.MAA13836@ham.t.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp> References: <200003090248.LAA10327@ham.t.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 00:47:19 -0500 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: "James M. Pfundstein" Subject: precise language (was: beautiful language) X-MIMETrack: Itemize by SMTP Server on MAIL03/SERVER/BGSU(Release 5.0.2b |December 16, 1999) at 03/10/2000 12:38:35 AM, Serialize by Router on MAIL03/SERVER/BGSU(Release 5.0.2b |December 16, 1999) at 03/10/2000 12:38:40 AM, Serialize complete at 03/10/2000 12:38:40 AM Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >On 9 Mar 00, at 17:40, James M. Pfundstein wrote: > >> SJW did not endorse Dante in his posting, but rather Gombrowicz, whose >> essay, he said, would "anger Dante lovers." Now we have it that SJW is a >> Dante lover. (I take SJW's word for this, but no one but a mind-reader >> could tell it from his recent post, to which I was responding.) It is no >> long step from here to the conclusion that SJW enjoys being angry, or at >> any rate thinks it beneficial. No SJWologist would find this surprising, I >> suppose, but it is not the sort of position that every reasonable person >> (or, according to Seneca, any reasonable person) could be expected to take. >> The problem doesn't seem to be JMP's inability to read (an over-used and >> rather timid ploy of SJW's, when something he says comes up for criticism), >> but SJW's inability to write what he says he means. At 1:53 PM -0500 3/10/2000, Steven J. Willett wrote: > >This is becoming farcical. JMP: I knew we would agree on something eventually. >SJW: >1. I did not "endorse" Gombrowicz, I said that his essay on the >Inferno would anger Danteans and was worth reading along with >Beckett's "Dante and the Lobster" from _More Pricks than Kicks_. It >would be a great exercise for students after finishing the Inferno. >About that I was quite serious. JMP: SJW might want to look up that word "endorse." As Inigo Montoya says to the crafty Sicilian in *The Princess Bride* "I don't think it means what you think it means." As my interpreter (a lesson in reading seems in order here) SJW is not quite at liberty to pick any possible meaning of "endorse" that suits him to confute me. He cannot, for instance, fairly cry, "Aha! I never signed my name on the back of Gombrowicz! How then can Pfundstein claim I *endorsed* him?" "Endorse" can mean "approve, voice support for" without meaning "agree with in every detail." SJW endorsed Gombrowicz strenuously and repeatedly in his long posting. >SJW: >2. My view of Dante is contained in the archives. JMP: I don't dispute that SJW's view of Dante is what he says it is (see my concession of this point above). But, in passing, does SJW really expect someone to comb the archives for everything he's written before they interpret a new posting? Suppose the archives were lost-- how would we interpret new messages from SJW? >SJW: >3. One might construct an imaginary chain leading from my reading >recommendations to my dislike of Dante, but only by a complete >disregard of the ordinary meaning of words. Here is what I wrote, >plain and simple: > > "If Gombrowicz angers poetry lovers and poets, he will certainly > anger Dante lovers in his meditation on Dante. I suggest > reading it first and then turning to Beckett's "Dante and the > Lobster." One could engage the most somnambulistic students > by having them go from the Inferno to Gombrowicz to Beckett. > Too bad it's never been done before." > >There isn't the slightest suggestion of dislike for Dante. It's quite >possible, of course, that many Dante lovers would not be disturbed >by Gombrowicz' reflections on the Inferno. I may have overstated >their power to irritate. JMP: The nested quote is perfectly consistent with a dislike for Dante. Naturally I don't insist that my interpretation is correct in the teeth of the author's denial. But it was certainly difficult to read SJW himself as one of these "Dante lovers" who need to be awakened by the wet-fish slaps of Gombrowicz and Beckett. SJW himself concedes that he may have overstressed the hostility that might obtain between a Dantean and Gombrowicz. Since he clearly approves of Gombrowicz, it was perfectly natural to read him as hostile to Dante (or at least to said "Dante lovers"). I concede (third time) that this conclusion was incorrect. But since it was made by attending to, not disregarding, "the ordinary meaning of words," SJW might want to take note and represent his views a little more clearly. Not all of his readers have committed all of his past posts to memory. JMP("Pirata Robertius") .