[lit-ideas] Dylan Thomas's Chimera
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 07:13:08 -0400
In a message dated 10/29/2014 12:20:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
A post on "chimera" was sent today, ... p.s.'d on "Griceian" v. "Gricean".
These are difficult topics and they may merit treatment under different
headings.
The claim, admittedly, is:
i. For Dylan Thomas, Oxford University was a chimera.
ii. Oxford University is a chimera -- Dylan Thomas.
My interpretation of such claims runs along Griceian lines, but inspired by
a later development of Grice's views as propounded by Donald Davidson,
whom Grice knew well from his Berkeley years.
In "Metaphor" (cited by Lakoff/Johnson, "Metaphors we live by" -- and thus
the only reference to a sort of Griceian approach to this) we have examples
like:
iii. The moon is made of cheese.
Grice's original example was:
iv. You're the cream in my coffee.
Grice is also working under the pretense (or truth) that we should not
multiply senses beyond necessity. Now, 'chimera' has a very obvious literal
sense
This can be formulated as a definition:
v. A chimera is a year-old she-goat.
or
vi. A chimera =df a year-old she goat.
As found, for example, in the Oxford Liddell/Scott Greek Lexicon.
'chimera', ending in '-a', as 'Maria', is a feminine noun. The masculine
noun is 'khimaros' (or 'khimairos'), which is used by Hesiod in "Works and
Days".
As Varro notes, they both derive from "kheima", "winter season".
When Grice discusses
iv. You're the cream in my coffee.
He notes a category 'mistake' that cannot be but intentional. One's
addressee cannot be a dairy product, and even if it were, what would be the
point
of telling one's cream in one's coffee that this is so? It is more
reasonable to understand this as a _simile_:
vii. You are LIKE the cream in my coffee.
The interpretant Grice offers is metaphorical, "you're my pride and joy".
A similar (or not so similar) example is discussed by Kilgariff in "We
don't need word senses" (he takes Grice's principle to the extreme). He is
discussing 'horse', and notes that the Longman Dictionary (for which he worked
for a time) had this:
viii. horse: mammal; representation of this mammal in a painting -- e.g.
the horses of Stubbs.
But 'horse' does not have TWO senses in this sense. The same with
'chimera'. Therefore, we add an adverb,
ix. Peggy is a chimaera.
She said, as she pointed to the year-old she goat. "And we called her Peggy
because the name suits her."
"Oxford University" is, shall we say, a different animal.
Ryle once objected to the use of "Oxford" as a Platonic Entity: "There's
Christ Church, and Merton, and Magdalen -- but I cannot SHOW you "Oxford":
such entity does not exist".
So, in this sense, figuratively, Oxford university may be deemed a
'chimaera'.
It may be noted that the addition of 'figuratively' usually 'kills' the
implicature. Same with 'ironically'. It would be otiose to say:
x. Ironically, it is a fine day today. [implicating, 'it's rotten').
But it is a notable fact that people are tending towards the overuse (or
abuse) of the antonym, "literally". We can play with variants of Dylan
Thomas's claim:
x. For Dylan Thomas, Oxford University was always, literally, a chimera.
This sounds odd. The 'figuratively' seems to be _implicated_ and while
implicatures ARE cancellable, the cancellation of an obvious conversational
implicature can only be an otiose conversational move.
Why was Oxford University a chimera for Dylan Thomas.
Metaphors are difficult, and this is not a mixed one. And poets need like
they HAVE to use metaphors, or obscure language in general.
Recall the episode reported by Martin Starkie.
Walking along Broad Street, Martin Starkie once saw Dylan Thomas
He asked him, slightly out of the blue -- this was some time after Thomas
had left Magdalen, where his son however would get the education:
STARKIE: Dylan. There's something I always wanted to ask you. Would you
like to have been at the University?
He meant 'Oxford University', assuming it had always been a chimaera for
Dylan Thomas.
THOMAS famously replied: "In some ways, yes; in most ways, no."
In other words*, in some ways the idea of being at a chimera appealed him,
but in _many_ didn't, but 'many' turns to trump 'some'?
Cheers,
Speranza
* "In other words" was the original title to the well-known cabaret song,
first heard in Manhattan, "Fly me to the moon". It became an immediate
success, but the success was even greater when it was finally published for a
second time, not under the original title, the Griceian expression, 'in other
words', but by the first line, "Fly me to the moon".
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