>>strict literal accuracy might not be the same thing as being
>>true.
>
>- try this line on your bank manager, or your doctor...
I guess context is all... you know, I got stuck once try to explain this
to a bemused DSS officer, who was luckily quite nice and left saying "Are
all poets this *intense*?" After that I started putting "freelance
journalist" as my occupation on official forms.
I did seek to open the definition of truth to include other very common
usages, in which senses those lines might be said to be true. What does
it mean to be true to oneself, (to be literally accurate to oneself? -
no, something rather more complex, although no doubt that includes a
modicum of literal accuracy). When a bell rings true, is it because
it's literally accurate? No, it's been cast properly. Etc etc etc. I'm
not saying these ideas aren't conceptually linked, but they make truth a
looser abstraction than literal accuracy might suggest, and ideas of
poetic truth to my mind embrace these other usages.
>
>>Shakespeare's quote is dramatically untrue, and therefore ironic
>
>- O, I hope not: I find so much in "full fathom five" to move me, each
>time - I'd hate to see it demoted to just another piece of irony!
Well, I meant dramatic irony, which is a very effective means of
heightening feeling, among other things, and can be a rather nobler
device than the low grade kind that is simply sniggering at something,
most likely from *fear* of feeling!
Cheers
Alison
Home Page: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/bronte/338
Masthead online: http://www.geocities.com/soho/studios/5662
PO Box 186
Newport VIC 3015
Australia
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