Re: brouhaha

heh :). Totally understand you being too busy, of course. What I
should have written was, "Homer's representation of Achilles' rage."
Again, if you choose to read this and not respond, or not respond much,
I understand.

Thinking of the applicability vs. meaning discussion, it seems like it
first came up in reference to Tolkein's LOTR trilogy. We discussed this
in relationship to Tolkein in two ways:

1. Some argue that the ring is a symbol for nuclear weapons. Tolkein's
friend, C.S. Lewis, said this was impossible because when Tolkein was
writing the Trilogy nuclear weapons were still unknown. In other words,
nuclear weapons were not one of the range of possible meaning given the
dating of the text. This statement defines the word "meaning" as "the
range of possible meanings conceived by the author at the time it was
written." Lewis would not argue that the ring is not applicable to
nuclear weapons, though. It's entirely possible what Tolkein says about
the ring can serve as commentary on the social significance of nuclear
weapons. In this sense the distinction between "meaning" and
"applicability" pre-supposes authorial intent as the final arbitur of
textual meaning. It's interesting Lewis slipped in to this given other
comments he's made about his intent for his own fiction.

2. We also noted Tolkein's insistence that the LOTR trilogy is not
"allegory." There's no one-to-one correspondence between the ring, for
example, and any specific thing "out there" in the world. "Meaning"
here would be the system of relations between the elements of the text,
and "applicability" here is our "filling in" the signs presented by the
text with specific cultural referents, etc. In this sense the
distinction between "meaning" and "applicability" is not necessarily
begging the question in our discussion of authorial intent. It does,
however, insist on a preference for the specific cultural referents,
etc., meaningful to the author -- a preference that needs to be
justified, of course.

Jim

L. Manning Vines wrote:

>Jim wrote:
><< [. . .] Homer's rage is [. . . .] >>
>
>One last thing: -- It's Achilles' rage.
>
>Of course you already knew that.
>
>(I just can't help myself from nitpicking when it's Homer we're talking
>about. And in a roundabout way, I think the distinction might even be
>important and insightful to the topic -- which I will nevertheless not be
>discussing. Sorry for being a tease.)
>
>-robbie
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Received on Mon Apr 21 10:46:06 2003