Part of the problem of the marginalia in More's Utopia (and I think also
Baldwin's "Beware the Cat" is that the irony is not consistent. Some notes
are clearly meant to be read straight, others are not. The point, I
suppose, is to continuously engage the reader, since it is never
self-evident when, and in what degree, the note is supposed to ironic,
obtuse, or insightful.
pch
At 08:23 AM 10/3/2006, you wrote:
>Peter Herman says yes, but I'd be more comfortable (although comfort is
>not what More offers) calling the marginalia "collaborative irony." Some
>say the notes are by Erasmus, and it is pleasant to think so. A good
>parallel to this collaborative irony from the margins would be the
>marginal notes in Willaim Baldwin's *Beware the Cat*. "Cat," of course, is
>short for "Catholic." Anne P.
>
> > Moving back in time, would the marginalia in More's _Utopia_ qualify as
> > parodic commentary?
> > MJG
> >
> >> Dear All,
> >> I suppose there is a long tradition of (disingenuous)
> >> self-commentary
> >> in English letters. But I would certainly add to the short list the
> >> "Night
> >> Lessons" episode of Joyce's _Finnegans Wake_ where Shem, Shaun, and Issy
> >> all
> >> gloss the text; and Eliot's _Waste Land_ where the notes have always
> >> seemed
> >> to me a bit parodic.
> >> Brad.
> >>
> >> On Sun, 1 Oct 2006 19:59:14 -0400
> >> william godshalk <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>> Could we compare Spenser to Nabokov in Pale Fire, where the Commentary
> >>> is
> >>>not entirely reliable?
> >>>
> >>> Bill
> >>>
> >>> At 06:14 PM 10/1/2006, you wrote:
> >>>>Hi Charlie,
> >>>>
> >>>>To agree with you: it seems to me that, even if someone were to
> >>>> discover
> >>>> an
> >>>>acrostic in 'October' reading 'I AM E K', we would still have to
> >>>> consider
> >>>>the question open. (Though please don't let me stop anyone from looking
> >>>> for
> >>>>acrostics in 'October': a very noble enterprise.) Isn't that the fun of
> >>>>masking, as time us taught, &c? (Oh, and the identity of E.K. seems to
> >>>> me
> >>>>as good an explanation as any for understanding why Spenser's name
> >>>>continues not to appear on The Shepheardes Calender during his
> >>>> lifetime.)
> >>>>
> >>>>Anyway, as for why Spenser might have written a bad gloss on elves, or
> >>>>allowed his friend to write a bad gloss on elves: doesn't that sound
> >>>> like
> >>>>fun, too? I mean, if you are writing a pseudo-learned commentary on
> >>>> your
> >>>>own works, obviously you will want some of the glosses and annotations
> >>>>completely to miss the mark, because that makes the whole project of
> >>>>self-disclosure and self-interpretation less stable and more productive
> >>>>(see the glosses on Hobbinol and Rosalind in, say, 'Januarye'; and
> >>>> again
> >>>> in
> >>>>'Aprill'); then, to compound the joke, you play most havoc with the
> >>>>reference that has most to do with your own interests and future career
> >>>>prospects. Keep in mind, too, that Spenser gives some pretty
> >>>> spectacularly
> >>>>bad etymologies to Irenius in A view, as well. And I think it's also
> >>>>probably worth considering, with Matthew Woodcock in his recent book
> >>>>_Renaissance Elf-Fashioning_, that Spenser deliberately used in FQ what
> >>>> he
> >>>>and his contemporaries seem to have considered to be a low-comic,
> >>>>folkloric, and altogether silly convention (fairies) precisely because
> >>>> it
> >>>>was anti-epic; in that light, this gloss doesn't look so strange, but
> >>>>rather seems to be playing the same game.
> >>>>
> >>>>andrew
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>andrew
> >>>>
> >>>>Andrew Zurcher
> >>>>Tutor and Director of Studies in English (Part 1)
> >>>>Queens' College
> >>>>Cambridge CB3 9ET
> >>>>United Kingdom
> >>>>+44 1223 335 572
> >>>>
> >>>>hast hast post hast for lyfe
> >>>
> >>> ***************************************
> >>> W. L. Godshalk *
> >>> Department of English *
> >>> University of Cincinnati Stellar disorder *
> >>> Cincinnati OH 45221-0069 *
> >>> 513-281-5927
> >>> ***************************************
> >>
> >
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