[lit-ideas] Re: The Life and Death of Paul Feyerabend
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 13:22:53 EDT
In a message dated 5/14/2009 12:18:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
O give it a rest.
---
I will. But, like C. Bruce, you disappoint me :).
You failed, in my view, to address the important topic of the header, "The
life and death of...". Never mind Feyerabend. You'll agree that 'the life
and death of ...' is a silly title, but there are _hundreds_ of books with
that title.
"Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans"
"Death" has the -th ending,
Always look on the bright side of death
just before you draw your terminal breath
So the -th ending indicates it's an abstract noun (as sloth, truth, froth)
from 'die'.
But the abstract ending is to indicate "the quality of ...", e.g. truth,
the quality of being true. But 'death' is sometimes used to mean: the
_dying_, not the quality of being death. Especially in opera, "La morte di"
occurs in quite a few.
Now, 'death' is defined only in terms of life. I would think that Lennon's
implicature is:
"Life is ... -- and then you die".
where the predicate is "what happens to you when you're busy making other
plans".
Etc.
I don't recognise "the land of the dead" as a topos.
Cheers,
JLS
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