Aloha,
Meaning expands to fill up available interpretation.
Or interpretation expands to fill up available meaning.
What I'm getting at is that we make choices about meaning
and interpretation. And that, much as it sometimes irks me,
more choices exist than I usually imagine. No sooner
do I get something usefully figured out than--whammo!--
here comes another choice to mess up my understanding.
I'm interested in translation and in how to attain accurate and
useful translations of poetry. I value language scholarship and
critical insight on the translation process.
But even scholars and poets make choices--then let those
choices go free into the cultural stew.
What's more, folks will make choices about meaning and
interpretation based on not-so-accurate information. Or to
suit some need or purpose beyond the immediate orbit of
the poem or other bit of discourse.
Just as I mentioned in an earlier post about the total meaning
of "shaman" expanding beyond the bounds of my ethnographic
understanding of the notion (thanks, in part, to other ethnographers
pushing that meaning outward), it looks like Odin's hanging
has already been pushed to touch interpretations that the
original poets did not imagine.
And even accurate scholarly translations probably will not
undo those interpretations. Conflating the rune grabbing hanged
god Odin of the medieval Norse poets with the Hanged Man of
the Tarot makes too much sense in postmodern occulture.
So we end up with more different stuff to think about and
write about and get scholarly about.
Musing The Price Of Knowing...Rose,
Pitch
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