Still tentative here, Kent, and not necessarilly on focus, as I've just been
out for a pint following England's victory over Greece in Athens, with a
brilliant winning thirty-yarder goal by Becks, even tho' he has a silly
voice, but I'm still mullingly pondering this matter of identity.
Say, for example, if 'David Bircumshaw' misbehaves in some way, say for the
sake of argument he's rude to someone, without justification. Well then I,
as the allegedly responsible adult, have to take some kind of ownership of
that issue, not without reluctance, for sure, nor necessarily perfectly, but
I have to to try to 'be there', to sort out the mess that twit's got me into
this time.
I don't mean this as a condemnation of other cultures, I'm just talking from
where I am now and here. And, also, surely dismissing the self can translate
so horribly easily into unconcern for others, like in old people's homes, or
viscious violent trenchlines of the past?
Impressed by the mycology.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "kent johnson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 10:24 PM
Subject: personae/ heteronyms
> David, some equally tentative thoughts inside yours below,
>
> >I think, Kent, and I'm very tentative on formulating this, that it's
> >something to do with knowing who to blame afterwards. That is to say, a
> >matter of owning up and responsibility.
>
> Hmm. In fact, isn't this notion of blame and responsibility at the heart
of
> Foucault's Author Function: "Blame," "responsibility," understood as
> ideological effects bearing the felt force of ethical imperative-- and an
> essential part of Power's feedback loop?
>
> But what if we were inside a literary culture where it was accepted and
> respected, as a matter of course, that any work may hide more regarding
its
> origins than its first denomination would denote? Where it was taken for
> granted that heteronymous works exist and freely circulate amidst works
that
> can be given an "empirical" and genetic ascription? Where attributional
> indeterminacy was welcomed into the very fabric of the reading experience?
> Where readers were ready and willing to abide within a kind of negative
> capability vis vis the authorship of a text? In this kind of milieu, I
> think, "responsibility" would move beyond being just the burden of
> authority, or "authenticity" the trademark of the Author's Name. The
> situation would (I suspect it would, anyway) be much more fluid and
> interesting.
>
> >I find, too, that the personae can run loose quite well enough without
>me
> >giving them their own keys to the house. It's not that I 'outlaw' a >free
> >rein to multiplicities, I just don't feel the need myself.
>
> Fair enough. But do you "blame" those who follow their need to create and
> present their writing inside imagined authorships? I take it you don't.
> (Thank you, say Kierkegaard, Pushkin, Pessoa, and the author of the Tosa
> Diary.)
>
> >It would be like, for instance, contributing to this list under a
> > >pseudonym. I couldn't do that, even tho' my surname minds me of a
> > >fungus.
>
> Heteronyms and e-mail pseudonyms are different things in kind, entirely.
And
> micology happens to be one of my hobbies: Boletellus betula (the
> Shaggy-stalked Bolete) is as close as I can come to Bircumshaw.
>
> From the top of Mount Bugs Bunny,
>
> Kent
>
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