Friday, January 18, 2013
Language and Meaning
Mantaigne's language and meaning in his essays is different. In "Of Smells" he says "Nay, the sweetness even of the purest breath has nothing in it of greater perfection than to be without any offensive smell, like those of healthful children, which made Plautus say of a woman:" The language and meaning in this passage is confusing, at best. Mantaigne seems to do this with a lot of his essays. He will contradict himself in his passages and in the same sentences. It's like if I said "I love horror movies, as long as they aren't scary", it makes no sense and there is no way a horror movie won't be scary, although some horror movies aren't scary at all, but I guess that depends on the person, or the movie, but horror movies are typically scary, sometimes.
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I totally agree he is very contradictory, I like the example of horror movies.
ReplyDeleteHi Kayla, I'm not sure if this is analysis, emulation, or somewhere in between, but I relate to your reluctance to embrace Montaigne's contradiction. The pacing of the last sentence reminded me of Montaigne's work, stunted, breathy, and unwilling to completely commit.
ReplyDeleteComparing Montaigne's contradictory arguments with non-scary horror movies was a very clever idea! The example does an excellent job of demonstrating how Montaigne's claims sometimes work against each other.
ReplyDeleteNot an emulation.
ReplyDeleteI also become often confused with his writing, not with the example you provide, but still plenty of other times.
Loving the last sentence, Kayla, though I'd've liked to see a more thorough attempt at emulation.
ReplyDeleteI also share your frustration with older work; it doesn't have to be our cup of tea, but there's still a lot of educational caffeine to slurp from it. I appreciate your patience.
DW
P.S. Blogs are definitely informal, but watch your spelling of author's names.
And remember to disable the word verification feature. Thanks!
ReplyDelete