[lit-ideas] Re: Picking a few bones with Edmundson's English Major
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 15:44:02 -0700 (PDT)
________________________________
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 12:43 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Picking a few bones with Edmundson's English Major
In his clear and cogent response to Edmundson, Lawrence writes, in part
> I have more appreciation for some of the other things Edmundson says,
> for example his response to Heidegger’s “language speaks man”: “. . .
> Not all men, not all women: not by a long shot. Did language speak
> Shakespeare? Did language speak Spenser? Milton, Chaucer, Woolf,
> Emerson? No, not even close.” I’m not sure where this Heidegger quote
> came from, but Heidegger didn’t believe language spoke for all men
> either – especially not himself. He made up words to convey what he
> believed was his unique “speech,” i.e., philosophy. But in general I
> take Edmundson’s meaning. Most people, most likely, have no reason to
> be dissatisfied with the limits of language. Creative people like those
> he mentions (including Heidegger) never feel constrained by the limits
> of language. They get out of it more than the common reader thought was
> there – a bit more, perhaps, than Wordsworth’s ‘often thought but ne’er
> so well expressed.”
Some clarifications:
I think that 'language speaks man' is from Heidegger's Poetry, Language,
Thought. I have no idea what it means.
*Perhaps something similar to 'the limits of our language are the limits of our
world' ? Anyway, I don't want to get into Wittgenstein, but I think we can
understand what Heidegger meant here, that a person is controlled by the
language they speak rather than the other way around. Of course, we don't have
to agree, although the idea has some plausibility.
O.K.
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