Neville Attkins
> I don't really see what your point about polysemy is?
> Are you saying that all texts are open to reader
> interpretation, and so all texts are polysemous. this
> may be true BUT some texts encourage it and some do
> not. Milton's paradise lost has a very particular
> message to communicate and is designed to get the
> reader to experience a prostestant sense of how
> paradises is lost and the need to resist temptation
> etc etc, it is not open to just any reading.
I'm with Blake, who wrote that Milton was of the devil's party without
knowing it. The conscious intention is important (and very interesting) in
PL - but it's not the whole of the poem. If it were, we might just as well
read a sermon.
Many thanks to L. Upton, who's made the key points about Pride and
Prejudice, and saved me the trouble of explaining my original comment in
full. The only thing I'd add is that P&P is (like FW) a wonderfully
polyvocal novel. there are all sorts of voices and language registers
playing against each other, in the dialogue, the letters, the truths
universally acknowledged, etc, etc.
George
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George Simmers
Snakeskin Poetry Webzine is at
http://www.snakeskin.org.uk
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