While I've made that clear many times in the strict sense of the word (in that I don't have an advanced degree or a job in academe), what I mean by that now is, even if I read an academic work, I have no way to interpret it through the lens of academic discipline. I read it just as anyone else would, and I apply it as I see it amid the general hubbub of the street.
This is a proviso to what follows: that is, you agree to read this, knowing I'm not qualified academically in this (or any other) subject.
And the subject today is language philosophy. Last spring, I dove into a series of lectures given by I.A. Richards at Bryn Mawr College in the 1930s. The collection is called, appropriately enough, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (OUP, naturally, and pricey). The book massaged some brain muscles that hadn't been rubbed in some time, so I guess I can say (adjusting my pince-nez), "I found the book stimulating."
But in it, I really didn't find much I agreed with, which is an odd feeling: "I respect you tremendously, Dr. Richards, but I don't agree with you at all."
Richards taught that (and here's where I get unsteady) words themselves have no meaning other than what we choose to give them, but that "meaning" itself exists in something he referred to as an "ocean" or "sea." Of course, that latter reference is metaphorical, which provides a link to the heart of his "meaning of meaning" -- it's in metaphor. As far as Richards was concerned, all words are metaphoric in some way. The importance of this theory to poetry is obvious.
Clearly, you should read this book for yourself and not depend on my half-witted summary. I'm just trying to point out where the book went for me, personally. In a basic sense, Richards's theory just didn't "take." What did was a book I'd read a few years ago -- Language and Myth by Ernst Cassirer. I read the eight-dollar Dover edition with the English translation by Suzanne Langer.
Cassirer taught that (again, the previous proviso remains intact) language comes from myth -- not myths as we know them from "dead" religions, but from their root experiences.
In other words (this is my summary, not his, specifically): Unname the Caveman is out hunter-gathering one day as a storm brews up, and lightning hits a tree right in front of him. He runs off, as any other scared animal would, but he comes back later to watch the tree burn, fascinated.
Unname brings back to his cave the memory, and three things get invented in that cave: a (mostly sign-language) story, a particular grunt that means "fire," and a name for himself.
Unname is now Ug, the Fire Seer. From that, this Promethean experience eventually brings warmth (a sacred feeling), cooking (a sacred act), a sense of family (a sacred cultural essence) and, as the experience spreads from cave to cave, a tribe (the sanctity of shared experience -- the essence of "myth"). By then, it also makes Ug the Fire Priest. With great power ... .
Do I need to point out how firmly that book "took?" Perhaps equally obvious is the need to read that book for yourself, too.
I can just about guarantee that both books will benefit you. But one of them benefitted me more than the other one did.
And that (apparently) puts me at odds with the majority.
More next time.
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