Nocturnal Poïesis

Don't be scared or fooled in to believing that I am actually going to post about Ferdinand de Saussure's the sign, although, that is part of the intent why I am making this post. I had an exam today (and that instantly explains why the frequency of posts has suddenly increased) and the paper was called Criticism. So well, it was unexpectedly easy and it looks like I will graduate with dignity after all.

So now that this paper is over, I really have to vent my thoughts on the purpose of the entire exercise of criticism. So there's prosody, rhetoric, practical criticism, proof reading and general outlines of various literary genres (novel, tragedy, comedy). Also mimesis and the linguistic sign. I love the linguistic sign because well, SB taught it and it was hence brilliantly taught.

So here's what I think about prosody - a person suddenly realizes that there are common rhyming patterns and rhythms, so by man's primal desire to classify, he conceives a naming scheme instead of giving in to the primal urge to conceive and then proceeding to naming his offsprings. He clearly wasn't getting any. So now we have a way to classify poetry and every poem can have... oh... any number of these patterns. So what do we get out of it? Those who cannot appreciate the beauty of a poem finally have something to talk about. No matter that a line can be have multiple different interpretations.

Rhetoric - oh yeah, here's a brilliant one. So we use certain figures of speech. So what's the big use of identifying them? Does it help us like the parts of speech do? Not really. It just teaches us that the fancy way we talk sometimes can be broken down and analysed. So the next time some one talks about tall tales, you can say "oh, so he was using too many hyperboles was he?" Gets the coversation going especially if the other person is a science student ("A hyperbola? Not really, although he was wearing a hat...")

Practical criticism - this I love the best (and hence wasn't even in the class when this was taught). It teaches people who cannot write to write about things that have already been written. So if you  somehow got in to an elite place like JUDE and you can't create to save your life, you can always aim high and be a literary critic. And it is an ego massage too - you will be telling creative people how to create when you absolutely suck at it. What fun! Of course if you are successful at both, I bow to you and say "ah the rules and the glorious exceptions".

So anyway, now coming to sign, no I do not want to rant about sign. De Saussure at least tried to make some sense out meaning. And he got far too but in the end the unknowable remained unknowable and the meaning is still endlessly deferred under de Saussure's system. But I found this brililant cartoon that I wanted to share :P so here it is!

And here's the link to the absolutely intellectual place where I found it ;)