Christopher, much to ponder here. Thank you. A few
stray thoughts: In those 19th-C novels that feature an
explicit reader (as in "Reader, I married him"), the
actual reader (who could conceivably be implicit or
explicit) must be further subsumed by a state of
implicit _duplicity_, would you say?
Then, thinking of the range of pronoun
usages--including a single instance of "I"--in
Prynne's latest, _To Pollen_, I wonder if those
various usages are related to the several instances of
"hurt." Between the two, the collection seems almost
human (as opposed to computer-generated and/or
otherwise programmatic). Do you have a copy of _To
Pollen_? I could send you a photocopy, if you like.
Finally, I want to think some more about your notion
of un/ratification and of a world that exists to be
overheard, if I've read you correctly there(?).
Candice
--- Christopher Walker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> <snip>
> I guess what I'm always interested in is the way the
> 'I' is fictionalized
> (always, & perhaps already) by the act of writing it
> in. And split, or
> multiplied, too. [Doug B]
> <snip>
>
> I don't think the *I* is either true or false.
> Indeed it seems a bit quaint
> (Cf the 'old stable ego' rejected by Lawrence) to
> think of the verbal arts
> as somehow exposing or hiding (as in the Amis
> thread) the *self* of the
> author. Poems, plays, narratives and so forth are
> all (in different ways)
> moments of epoche, for author and reader alike. The
> text isn't a window onto
> or a representation of the self, if only because,
> reflecting the trouble
> Gertrude Stein had with Oakland, there's actually no
> there there. Rather it
> comprises a set of cues towards building a mental
> space. Along with
> indicators of time (including verbal aspect) and
> position (including
> location within the discourse as a process), each
> speaking *I* helps fix the
> deictic centre(s) of the text and stands sovereign
> at the centre of its own
> *here* and *now*. Of course, within what is spoken
> by each speaking *I* each
> (subordinate) *I* may be advanced or postponed in
> time, it may shift
> location and so forth relative to the speaking *I*;
> but it too stands
> sovereign at the centre of its _own_ deictic
> references, and so on
> recursively.
>
> As with *we* and *you*, *I* is referentially stable
> relative to *he*, *she
> and *they*, so that in nested utterances (such as
> 'What I said was that I'd
> already said that I'd...') the assumption is that
> the referent is the same.
> However, in parallel utterances (eg dialogue) or in
> parataxis the parsing is
> more permissive.
>
> So plenty of scope for multiplicity in that respect.
>
> Or so it seems to me.
>
> <snip>
> I think the "I" is also implicit in "we." [Candice
> W]
> <snip>
>
> Yes *we* is the inclusive of *I* (not just the
> plural) and potentially
> includes the addressee(s) as well as the speaking
> *I*.
>
> <snip>
> But what's really interesting is the double duty
> borne by the so-called
> "rhetorical you," where the self is being critiqued
> more impersonally than
> the "I" could do [Candice W]
> <snip>
>
> *You* is unique among pronouns in having neither
> case nor a differentiated
> plural. What interests me, and this relates to the
> point you make, is that
> the referent of *you* is frequently an indefinite
> addressee. Or perhaps more
> precisely *you* is often the familiar or intimate
> form for an indefinite
> addressee. That's how children seem to use it,
> sounding oddly sententious as
> they talk to themselves. 'You can't win' is about
> halfway, in terms of
> address, between 'I can't...' and 'We can't...'
> whilst 'You generally say
> excuse me when you fart' is probably only
> addressable by an adult to a
> child.
>
> In the case of lyric address, two *you*s appear to
> be involved. One ratified
> participant (the speaker) addresses another using
> the familiar indefinite,
> which may or may not be explicit, creating a bounded
> rhetorical space which
> leaves the reader (the implicit *you* for whom, by
> definition, the text is
> in some sense intended) an _un_ratified participant,
> standing just outside
> the boundary of the discourse, radically excluded,
> one world extinguished in
> the moment of epoche, the other unavailable except
> through overhearing.
>
> CW
> _______________________________________________
>
> 'What's the point of having a language that
> everybody knows?'
> (Gypsy inhabitant of Barbaraville)
>
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