I've been too rushed to butt in, but a quick peep before I shut down
for the night - you're talking about ritual here, surely, cris, and
of the possible transformative powers of language - all this stuff
interests me enormously but too braindead to register anything but
that. But it seems to me highly pertinent to poetry -
Best
Alison
>Hi David,
>
>i'll let Austin say it for me:
>
>'To name the ship is to say (in the appropriate circumstances) the words 'I
>name, &c.'. When I say, before the registrar, &c., 'I do', I am not
>reporting on a marriage: I am indulging in it.
>
>What are we to call a sentence or an utterance of this type? I propose to
>call it a performative sentence or a performative utterance, or, for short,
>'a performative'. The term 'performative' will be used in a variety of
>cagnate ways and constructions, much as the term 'imperative' is. The name
>is derived, of course, from 'perform', the usual verb with the noun
>'action': it indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing
>of an action - it is not normally thought of as just saying something.'
>
>'How To Do Things With Words' (Oxford: OUP, 1962) p6
>
>more and more writers place this understanding on the front and not the back
>burner when they write
>
>I was enjoying reading Peter's sense of that.
>
>love and love
>cris
--
"The only real revolt is the revolt against war."
Albert Camus
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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