[lit-ideas] The Worst Verses Ever Written
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 17:03:01 EDT
In a message dated 6/6/2011 5:43:39 P.M., donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
dividing into "good" or "bad" is not just McEvoy or "Today".
---- Thanks.
Note that I was only focusing on the TITLE of the subject matter in the
post to Lit-Ideas: "Bad poetry" competition. Which is indeed ambiguous
between:
(bad poetry) competition
bad (poetry competition)
----
I'm glad McEvoy expands on the 'bad':
"evaluated as bad or good" --.
The problem here is the prolifferation of lexemes:
good
excellent
supreme
bad
worse
worst
---- For some reason, most languages (and thus, speakers) seem unable to
just stick to ONE 'evaluative' label (call it "GOOD") and thus use
+GOOD for superlative
and
-GOOD for 'bad'.
Note the distinction between 'worse' and 'worst'. I think it was Ayer who
pointed out that superlatives carry the implicature of a negative
existential:
"The Everest is the highest mountain", I think Ayer said, entails, "There
exists no mountain higher than the Everest."
Transfer to 'poem'.
Part of the problem with 'poem' is in the -em. This is a neutral Greek
ending. As is the -om in "idiom". Poema, idioma, in Greek. (Interestingly, an
idiom, for a Greek, was an idiocy --).
---- Of course, for the Greeks, the poem was the thing MADE (or done).
"Poein", to do.
It may be argued that a poet is NOT aiming at _good_ poems. But Grice would
probably say that 'poem' is a value-oriented word (as he called them) and
that, ceteris paribus, a poem is a good poem (his example: a cabbage is a
good cabbage -- Grice, "Of cabbages and kings").
----
When it comes to evaluation +GOOD and -GOOD, the source has to be Ayer. In
"Language, truth and logic", he noted that:
That is a good book.
Or
That is a good poem.
Amounts to
Read it!
---
In symbols, !p
Ayer went on to argue that such imperatives are for sure unverifiable. I am
thus surprised that McEvoy who has elsewhere defended Popper, is looking
for verification in an area where nobody (in the Oxford of 'enfant terrible'
Ayer, as Grice called him) was.
And so on.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
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