Re: dogs
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Wed, 20 Oct 1999 18:14:54 -0500
Jim:
> It's really very funny that you say what you've used happiness as your
> example here...
>
> We were discussing This Very Subject in my Milton class today.
Even funnier is that I had *planned* to use Milton for the example.
Milton has Raphael explain in book V (I think) that to relate events
as they happened in heaven is not exactly possible, since they exceed
the capacity of mortal language. Heaven is a state where meaning
*doesn't* proceed from difference. In the ultimate union, I suppose,
meaning is a function not of difference, but of sameness.
But of course, we know that Milton dropped his semiotics class at
Cambridge in order to pursue more important heresies. So I am only
supposing that this is how he would have reconciled the obvious
problems of meaning and difference in Heaven. On earth, the fallen
poet realizes that true-meaning is an irrecoverable state for the time
being. Curiously, I think he likes it that way, and that's why Satan
doesn't become a real chump until _Paradise Regained_.
--
Amanuensis mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu