Hi Alison,
I went and googled this and I'd guess this is the review you speak of, which can
be read on the web
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/essays/orwell_1.html
And there's an interesting book _nonsense:aspects of intertextuality in folklore
and literature_ by Susan Stewart that looks at the sense of nonsense, as you
aptly describe it, and the various strategies, of which these couple of quotes
may be of interest:
"it becomes apparent that nonsense must of necessity be a kind of taboo
behavior. First of all, it involves the constant rearticulation of an anomalous
aspect of social life...Secondly...it threatens the disintegration of social
interaction that would occur if the unconscious was made conscious. ..it is the
dispersal of attention from a purpose at hand, a halt to the ongoing nature of
social discourse, and an extreme movement away from any conception of such
discourse as natural. Thus in its concern with states of transition, with the
operations taking place between categories more than with the content of the
categories themselves, nonsense may be seen as a further anomaly, a marginal
or liminal activity...that which is neither this nor that, and yet is both."
"Nonsense is a threat...to the univocality of common sense, and is thus
articulated as a separate, impossible, or unrealizable domain. Nonsense is
thereby a domain between realizable domains, a domain that does not count,
and we have seen that ...its liminal status is important for members making a
transistion between realizable domains. It is a place to stand in the middle of
change. Here again, we can see the importance of nonsense and other
"impossible contents" for getting from one state of things to another, the
motion that is characteristic not only of change, but of learning as well."
And perhaps that 'impossible contents' is not so far from Stephen's sense of the
clashing teutonic plates and the inability of the mind to contain those
impossible contents. . But, yes, it does seem to me anyway "a bubble of joy" and
most freeing. I've always wondered if the tragic or absurdist sense doesn't
create the realities it imagines, since both have their relentlessness, the tragic a
relentless movement to end, and the absurd which inhabits a motionless point,
as if just past the point of 'the ended'. In comparison, nonsense is the
impossible imagined,
best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 07:53:16 +1100
>From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Cluckability
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Coincidentally, I was reading Orwell's gentle review of Edward Lear last
>night, in which he speaks of his "amiable lunacy" and natural affinity for
>the weak and absurd, his gentle poking at the "they" who smash anything
>enjoyable or worth doing, like dancing a quadrille with a raven, and how
>unlike satirists he is "sad rather than bitter". Apart from remembering how
>much I like the Pobble Who Has No Toes, it also made me reflect on the
>curious sense of nonsense. I've loved Lewis Carroll since I could read, and
>for all sorts of different reasons as I grew up; and all that business in
>Godot with the carrot and the boots.... isn't it a bubble of joy that floats
>on the absurd and even the tragic? Something freeing?
>
>Best
>
>A
>
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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