[lit-ideas] Re: [lit-ideas] Always fragment (was: Re: [lit-ideas] Re: [lit-ideas] Regarding Classics defined as “novels that matter”)

  • From: david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2021 18:48:42 -0800



On Feb 7, 2021, at 1:39 AM, Torgeir Fjeld <t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Here I notice that 
Excessive eagerness is about to make me

Destroy the delicate fabric of poetry
And the construction of this poem, 

Well, excessive eagerness will do that, if left untrammeled.  You gotta used a 
net, apparently.  Reinforces the fabric.

trammel (n.)

mid-14c., "net to catch fish" (implied in trammeller "one who fishes with a 
trammel net"), from Old French tramail "fine-gauged fishnet" (13c.), from Late 
Latin tremaculum, perhaps meaning "a net made from three layers of meshes," 
from Latin tri- "three" (see tri- 
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/tri-?ref=etymonline_crossreference>) + macula 
"a mesh" (see mail 
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/mail?ref=etymonline_crossreference#etymonline_v_2215>
 (n.2)). Meaning "anything that hinders" is from 1650s, originally "a hobble 
for a horse" (c. 1500). Italian tramaglio, Spanish trasmallo are French 
loan-words.

trammel (v.)

1530s, originally "to bind up (a corpse);" sense of "hinder, restrain" is from 
1727, from trammel 
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/trammel?ref=etymonline_crossreference#etymonline_v_16865>
 (n.), a figurative use from the literal sense "bind (a horse's legs) with a 
trammel" (c. 1600). Related: Trammeled; trammeling.


David Ritchie,
helping out in
Portland, Oregon

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