That's the beauty of it. As with the previous study, one would never have
to talk to the subjects. One wouldn't even need to name them. And one
wouldn't need to quote them. No consent necessary, just a library card and
a random list of poets.
Let's say that the study confirms the previous one. The next step would be
to devise an experimental protocol to determine whether the use of certain
pronouns was symptom or cause. Is it possible that first person singular is
actually toxic?
And of course one would want to know if a tendency to read certain pronouns
was predictive or causative of suicide. Do Sylvia Plath fans do themselves
in more often than Gertrude Stein fans? So many variables...
The ultimate goal, presumably, is to devise entirely literary treatment
methods that wouldn't require ever meeting with the poets. They could be
cured without their knowledge and even, Candice, their consent, perhaps by
reviews containing subtle neurolinguistic programing.
Mark
At 02:22 AM 8/3/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>How would you word the consent form for these subjects, just out of
>curiosity?
>
>Candice
>
>on 8/3/01 2:05 AM, Mark Weiss at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>> I've been thinking on it for two days, and I've finally come up with the
>> next research project for the authors of the pronoun study. Reading the
>> past is rather less useful than reading the future. Perhaps they could read
>> the complete works of say 2000 living poets, balanced for social class and
>> aesthetic principles, and predict which would commit suicide, and when.
>> Check back in 10 years for the results.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> At 01:04 AM 8/3/2001 -0400, Candice Ward wrote:
>>> on 8/1/01 7:26 AM, Matthew Francis at [log in to unmask]
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I can't get stop writing in the second person - don't like to think what
>> this
>>>> says about my state of mind. My second persons tend to be a cross between
>>>> 'you' the reader and the impersonal 'you' meaning 'one'. I hate the
fashion
>>>> for writing to a *specific* second person and telling them things they
know
>>>> already. You know the kind of thing:
>>>>
>>>> Grandmother, you were only 18
>>>> when you married.
>>>> Once you told me
>>>> how you loved making jam
>>>> better than making love...
>>>
>>>
>>> A Brief Encomium to Matthew Francis in the Second Person
>>>
>>> You
>>> First
>
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