On 6/1/05 3:15 AM, "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> It seems to me that inversions are mirror images of systems of order (which
> is I think what we mean by "sense") and as such make coherent and
> consistent "sense": what's been changed is the core metaphor, not the
> process by which it's elaborated or the pattern it forms.
> What I take to be
> nonsense, and I'm very invested in this, is unstructuredness, which, given
> our human natures and the nature of the languages we've generated, may in
> fact be impossible to achieve, either as writer or reader; attempting to
> approach it nonetheless can serve to extend the boundaries of possibility
> at the same time that it marks them.
Hi Mark
Swiftly - Yes, there's a difference between parody and satire or what I
called "black humour" and nonsense. Which is not to say that the boundaries
between them are not murky. The former very often rely on inversion for
their various anarchies. They are not "revolutionary", in that they do not
challenge the existing order but in a strange way pay tribute to it; great
satirists (Swift, or even Terry Pratchett) are very often conservative.
Though there's Brecht: you could argue however that his parodies of homily
texts in the Manuel of Piety might be said to be equally tributes.
Pure nonsense - some surrealist texts, say - baffles any attempt at "sense".
But complete structurelessness is, as you say, an impossibility, and I'm not
sure it's even a desirable impossibility - I find it very difficult to
imagine a poem that might give me aesthetic pleasure that had absolutely no
structure. I very often like the kind of stuff which loses all connectivity
except syntax, it does interesting things to my brain... And if it is to be
funny, or not simply affectless, there has to be some recognisable trace of
logic there, to permit the recognition of incongruities, to set up enough of
an expectation for it to be imploded. This process is a bit more complex,
anyway, than simple inversions, especially if seemingly random elements
suddenly intrude and derail it.
Best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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