Steven Willett wrote:
> But how does the mere presence of, say, an arithmetic ratio in a
> poem provide any more value to our response than the type font or the
> paper watermark?
I don't want to put down typography or watermarks. Both can be
beautiful, both can help us to interpret a book (and sometimes a text).
Ratios, though, belong to the poem -- participate in its substance -- in
a different way. Remember Quintilian's distinction between figures of
thought and figures of speech? If you rearrange the words, the figure of
speech disappears. But the figure of thought remains. So it is with
ratios. If you copy out the poem by hand from a printed book, the ratio
is still there. Not so the font or watermark.
> For those who maintain that verifiable numerological
> constructs have a value, I'd like to see an argument that clarifies
> just what that literary value may be. Number symbolism of the kind
> practiced by the Pythagoreans, Plato, Hrosvita of Gandersheim, Nicolas
> of Cusa, Spinoza in his ethics more geometrico, Novalis, Kepler and
> many another depends on the belief that mathematical laws and the
> mathematically-analyzable harmony of nature are both aspects of the
> divine mind. Well, if modern literary numerologists would like to
> ground the ultimate value of their practice on the divine mind, I have
> nothing to object.
I think it's useful to distinguish two kinds of literary math. One is
number symbolism. For this we need to apply the Prescott and Hamlin
tests. The other kind of literary math is what Puttenham calls
proportion. Proportion is something you enjoy, contemplate, adjust
yourself to, as an instance of order in the universe. Conversely,
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord with sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, strategems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
> But think of the pedagogical consequences: claiming
> a special literary merit for this kind of number symbolism requires the
> introduction of a religious belief system into criticism. Strip away
> the mysticism and you strip away the value, if not the existence, of
> numerological relationships.
This is true of number symbolism. But the ratios are still there, and
can still give pleasure. "He that hath an ear, let him hear."
> I am also dubious about Prof. Wilson-Okamura's remark that a numbers
> mentality would have been induced by quantitative metrics. Classical
> poets learned meters as whole structures and did not have to count,
> which would have made no sense anyway with the triadic structures of
> Pindar, Aeolic meters and stanza forms, dactylo-epitrite meters or
> virtually any other metrical unit. I suspect he had the dactylic
> hexameter in mind, where one could I suppose count off a sequence of
> six dactyls and spondees. But the Greek dactylic hexameter was not a
> linear sequence of feet (much as that may be taught in school). The
> verse really consists of two cola divided by a medial caesura: the
> colon - u u - u u - (occurring independently as the hemiepes, usually
> symbolized by D in Greek metrics) is the structural unit. As M. L.
> West points out in _Greek Metre_, the hexameter is essentially D u | u
> D - ||, where the two short syllables on either side of the caesura
> could be replaced by one long syllable. The Latin hexameter was
> probably learned and conceived in the same way, since its practitioners
> all knew Greek. Greek and Roman poets thought and felt rhythm in terms
> of cola, not in terms of feet. Counting played no role in composition,
> though it may in the much narrower accentual-syllabic meters of
> English. Much as I love English, it suffers from a poverty of metrical
> as opposed to free verse resources.
If we're talking about "How do you make a real hexameter?" then of
course we should all agree with M. L. West. (R.I.P. We shall not see his
like again.) But that's not the relevant question. Instead, we need to
ask, "How did Spenser and Sidney and the whole gang of metrical vandals
_think_ you make a dactylic hexameter?" To answer that, you do what
Attridge did: you find the books that they read, and see how _those
books_ explained the meter. Even if they were wrong! Which they were,
about a lot of things!
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Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
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