01-22-2010, 01:53 PM | #21 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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What's his answer?
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01-24-2010, 01:47 AM | #22 | ||
Elf Lord
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Basically he leans toward Aristotle's catharsis for the audience, with heavy emphasis on the purgative sense of the word, flavoured with our post-Romantic view that the emotions are good:
Quote:
In the section on Freud he (approvingly) quotes a couple of good smackdowns from C.S. Lewis. My favorite section was on Nietszche and the modern proponents of the "Dionysian" theory of Greek tragedy as sacred performance. After laying out their ideas he comes out with the pointed comment that Aristotle, who after all went to the plays, didn't seem to regard them as particularly religious. As well, he (gently) mocks the assumption of those swept up by the Dark Side of the Apollo/Dionysus split that, "while anyone can see Gibbon's Romans are lightly-disguised 18th-century gentlemen, and Tennyson's Medievals are Victorian bourgeoisie, Nietszche's Greeks are real Greeks." That brought blushes to my cheeks with 35-year-old memories of my own nietszchean infatuation. Very good style too- he can deal with all the intricacies of modern Theory without being swept up in it. I'd like to read some of his other stuff. From the (London) Times obit: Quote:
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01-25-2010, 02:15 AM | #23 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Sounds intriguing...I'll have to give a look. I'm especially eager to see the Lear connection.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
02-20-2010, 06:39 PM | #24 | |
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Quote:
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02-21-2010, 06:02 PM | #25 |
Elf Lord
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CBG, you err. The word you are using was not invented until 1615. See here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism
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02-22-2010, 01:49 PM | #26 |
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Irrelevant; the meaning and definition of the word still applies here.
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02-22-2010, 07:13 PM | #27 |
Elf Lord
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It is hardly irrelevant, CBG, that you apply a concept not yet 400 years old to texts ten times that in age and more.
The genuine question to be answered here is why, exactly, the imposition of "modern" standards should be made to ancient texts? For instance, would you say that the ancient Chaldeans, Chinese, or even, Egyptians, were in error because they were non-Copernican in their understanding of the solar system? Or do you think that even though the Maya have the most accurate calendar that it should be faulted for being non-Copernican? I would think not. Why then retrograde the concept of plagiarism when it clearly does not apply?
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
02-23-2010, 04:50 PM | #28 |
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You can get into etymology, if you like, but it's still irrelevant. The actual meaning of the word plagiarism was entirely appropriate for the context I used it in. Should I have said "The Bible's authors imitated closely the stories and myths of others"? The word plagiarism sufficed. It doesn't matter what date the word appropriated for the concept entered the lexicon; your Copernicus question doesn't apply here. That's an issue of epistemology.
Anyway, this is pointless meandering. The study of comparative myths is something that is genuinely interesting and something that is probably somewhat neglected amongst scholarly circles. What insights can be gained to the questions of cultural replication and the mass spread of ideas? Last edited by Comic Book Guy : 02-23-2010 at 04:57 PM. |
02-23-2010, 10:44 PM | #29 |
Elf Lord
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Yes, CBG, it is an issue of epistemology. Apparently there is yours and then every one else's. Yours, I understand, is the only correct one in your universe. But there are rumours of a multiverse about and the reality may be a bit more than you admit or can inure yourself to!
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
02-25-2010, 03:31 PM | #30 |
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Well, I wouldn't bother saying anything if I didn't think I was right about everything
So if you ever see me banging on about quantum physics, be sure to listen |
02-25-2010, 10:46 PM | #31 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Now, that IS an interesting question. On the most basic level, it points to a fluidity in theologico-mythical thought, and shows them to have been rather more amorphous in the past than they are generally considered to be today. Although a certain "eclecticism" is pretty common today, it seems to generally be quite self-conscious in its eclecticism, whereas the shifting of mythological boundaries in the past seems to have been much less so, almost immediately natural to the peoples of the time.
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