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POETRYETC  2005

POETRYETC 2005

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Subject:

Re: Nonsense

From:

Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 5 Jan 2005 11:15:17 -0500

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I've been troubled by some of these ideas since they were first posted. I
realize that I'm commenting on a very brief redaction of Stewart's thought,
but that's what I have.

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. The Festival of
Fools, in other words, inverts the social hierarchy but maintains its
structure. It's something like science fiction, which says, "suppose the
existence of x." By changing the value premise on which it's based, in
fact, inversion highlights the abstract pattern. 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 extrend the boundaries of possibility
at the same time that it marks them. The longer resolution is
delayed, which by this formulation means the longer the phenomena remain
without structure, unresolved, the more new territory there is.

Mark

At 10:14 AM 1/5/2005, you wrote:
>I think you're right, Liz, about distinctions and am mostly just sorry
>that these
>brief quotes have created the impression of Stewart's work as something that
>would run these various things together as grist for the mill of the argument,
>my fault, I think.
>
>I don't know, "nonsense" as a word is defined as that which makes "no
>sense", so it's a term that is always referring back to another term,
>defined by
>what it is not, rather than particular characteristics of its own, a sort
>of vast
>category of whatever is 'not' sense. Stewart talks about the difficulty of
>definition at the beginning of the book, for nonsense is always referring
>back to
>what it isn't. She's primarily concerned with literary texts and in terms of
>unraveling these various ways in which nonsense works, though the way in
>which it works in a literary text also work in everyday discourse and nonsense
>events like carnival.
>
>So for instance she'll talk about the inversion of social order in
>carnival, carnivalesque discourse, the inversions of fraternity pranks,
>and how
>the difference between "fictive and nonfictive events" is the way in which
>pranks
>are classified as apart from crimes, the first cartoon (on a papyrus from
>the New
>Kingdom) where the order of the animal world is inverted) to the inversions of
>any number of categories in _The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren" to the
>inversion of human into animal in Gargantua and Pantagruel to the
>topsyturvydom of Lewis Carroll. All within three pages, and all connected
>by this
>use of inversion and reversal to create disequilibrium, on the page or in
>'real life'
>(the nonfictive event). Anyway it is much more interesting and subtle than my
>brief quotes have made it seem!
>
>I do think that interruption does happen in nonsense poems, for instance, The
>Bobble with no toes. If nonsense always refers back to sense, the poem is a
>subversive interruption of those commonsense admonitories of parents (if you
>don't do this, something terrible will happen--your toes will fall off), the
>warning, and the often roundabout procedure required (to take care of x, you
>don't take care of x (your toes), you must instead take care of y(your
>nose) and
>then when the worst has happened, the fact that one knew all along and didn't
>reveal (the fact is, bobbles are happier without their toes). It's a gentle
>interruption but I'd guess children like such things because it is a
>subversive
>interruption, they laugh, and reveals the nonsense of the commonsense
>admonitions they're always hearing, something like that.
>
>And that is terrible about the trafficking in orphans,
>
>Best,
>
>Rebecca
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 21:12:59 -0000
> >From: Liz Kirby <[log in to unmask]>
> >Subject: Nonsense
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >The nonsense gesture interrupts not only the
> >> metonymy of common sense but...of social relationships verified through
> >> common sense. Thus, although nonsense may be insulated through
>framing,
> >> through its status as an impossible context, its contexts are at
> >> the same time
> >> fields for the manipulation and recreation of social
> >> relationships. We have only
> >> to think of the anomaly of carnival or rites of inversion, or the
> >> calculated chaos
> >> of the 'reign of terror.'..
> >
> >hmmm - thanks for the clarification Rebecca.... I am still pulling a bit of
> >a face here - this definition of nonsense seems to take in pretty much
> >everything that isn't 'common sense' and so the argument kind of proves
> >itself. An argument that takes children's rhymes, carnival and the 'reign of
> >terror' as grist for its mill is a bit sweeping for my taste. All these
> >different kinds of 'nonsense' need untangling. There is surely a great
> >difference between the bloodthirsty behaviour of a mob, the excesses of
> >carnival and the puns and ritual of children's rhymes......?
> >
> >It doesn't seem to me that the kind of nonsense poetry we started off by
> >talking about fits this notion of interruption either. To me it seems much
> >more calming and reassuring in its appeal.
> >
> >But then I am saying this from only the summary and quotation that you have
> >kindly given us Rebecca, and I could be way off beam.
> >
> >Liz
> >
> >PS: A new kind of nonsense seems to have entered the world. I heard on the
> >BBC today that the UN thinks that there is evidence that the orphans of the
> >tsunami are being illegally 'offered for adoption' - or trafficked in other
> >words.......
> >
> >There is an interruption of social relations verified by common sense if you
> >like.

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