Prynne's Quick Riposte to Handke is a powerful and, in conclusion,
impassioned piece, but one cannot help feel some slight qualms at the way
that Handke and his remark, like Language, without defence of context or
German, are so inexorably adjudged. Guilt must needs innocence, and speech
must have at some point possessed the latter in order to acquire the former,
otherwise the notion of 'guilt' is meaningless. It becomes a term without an
opposite.
But Prynne's rhetoric is powerful, even if, ultimately, rhetoric is all any
of us create, illusions of purpose and meaning in an existence which
possesses none. Intrinsically. Which may be the case. Yet, to continue the
game another turn, if language is inextricable from its guilt, how can it
contemplate, discuss, aweigh, judge, the notion of innocence?
Wordlessly?
Or in pure vowels, clouds, like unterritorial birds?
david bircumshaw
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