[lit-ideas] Grice the Poet
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- Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 18:22:54 -0500
Humpty Dumpty recites his poem:
"In spring, when woods are getting green,
I'll try and tell you what I mean."
"Thank you very much," said Alice.
This raises a point mentioned by Helm: Must a poet tell the audience what
he (or 'it', since Humpty is an egg) means?
Helm wrote re: "Marfa lights", one of his poems:
"It would be breaking the Poet-Code to say what I had in mind when I wrote
the poem."
This (but then as Geary adds, mostly everything does) raises a Griceian
point.
Let us suppose that there is a poet's code, or a poets' code, or a
poet-code.
And let's suppose that like the code that Turing broke, the poet-code can
be broken.
The issue would be: can we mend a broken code?
Grice would deny that there is a 'code': he prefers 'inference' (keywords:
code vs. inference in communication).
But indeed, something LIKE a code is embodied in maxims that poets 'flout',
such as
"avoid ambiguity".
Grice quotes from Blake:
"love that never told can be"
which can mean:
"love that, if told, would cease to exist".
or
"love that plainly can be told."
To ask Blake what he meant would be otiose.
And let's rephrase Helm's adage along Blake's lines:
Blake wrote
Never pain to tell the love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.
I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah! she doth depart.
Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly;
Oh was no deny.
To simplify:
Blake wrote that love never told can be.
Blake MEANT, plus, that love never told can be.
But he didn't EXPLAIN the implicature.
As Byron would say, "His explanation requires an explanation".
Back to Helm:
"It would be breaking the Poet-Code to say what I had in mind when I wrote
the poem."
This implies that there is a SHARED code: the poet-code has two sides to
it:
(a) the poet qua utterer (who can fail to explicate what he implicates --
for he wouldn't be implicating otherwise).
(b) But then there's the addressee of the poem -- and Helm's point seems to
be, as I read it, that the addressee does NOT want the code broken.
This was a sophism in Oxford for some time. Can an utterer INTEND to be
misunderstood? Can an utterer intend NOT to be understood clearly?
Perhaps Humpty Dumpty did:
`As to poetry, you know,' said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of his
great hands, `I can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it comes to that
-- '
`Oh, it needn't come to that!' Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him from
beginning.
`The piece I'm going to repeat,' he went on without noticing her remark,'
was written entirely for your amusement.'
Alice felt that in that case she really ought to listen to it, so she sat
down, and said `Thank you' rather sadly.
`In winter, when the fields are white,
I sing this song for your delight --
only I don't sing it,' he added, as an explanation.
`I see you don't,' said Alice.
`If you can see whether I'm singing or not, you're sharper eyes than most.'
Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent.
`In spring, when woods are getting green,
I'll try and tell you what I mean.'
`Thank you very much,' said Alice.
`In summer, when the days are long,
Perhaps you'll understand the song:
In autumn, when the leaves are brown,
Take pen and ink, and write it down.'
`I will, if I can remember it so long,' said Alice.
`You needn't go on making remarks like that,' Humpty Dumpty said: `they're
not sensible, and they put me out.'
`I sent a message to the fish:
I told them "This is what I wish."
The little fishes of the sea,
They sent an answer back to me.
The little fishes' answer was
"We cannot do it, Sir, because -- "'
`I'm afraid I don't quite understand,' said Alice.
`It gets easier further on,' Humpty Dumpty replied.
`I sent to them again to say
"It will be better to obey."
The fishes answered with a grin,
"Why, what a temper you are in!"
I told them once, I told them twice:
They would not listen to advice.
I took a kettle large and new,
Fit for the deed I had to do.
My heart went hop, my heart went thump;
I filled the kettle at the pump.
Then some one came to me and said,
"The little fishes are in bed."
I said to him, I said it plain,
"Then you must wake them up again."
I said it very loud and clear;
I went and shouted in his ear.'
Humpty Dumpty raised his voice almost to a scream as he repeated this
verse, and Alice thought with a shudder, `I wouldn't have been the messenger
for
anything!'
`But he was very stiff and proud;
He said "You needn't shout so loud!"
And he was very proud and stiff;
He said "I'd go and wake them, if -- "
I took a corkscrew from the shelf:
I went to wake them up myself.
And when I found the door was locked,
I pulled and pushed and knocked.
And when I found the door was shut,
I tried to turn the handle, but -- '
There was a long pause.
`Is that all?' Alice timidly asked.
`That's all,' said Humpty Dumpty. Good-bye.'
Cheers,
Speranza
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