Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.63.0609030142520.4941@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Analogic Array:
Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2006 01:43:05 -0400 (EDT)
Analogic Array: notes on reading Samuel Johnson's Dictionary 1785-1799 edition First, that words are pulled into existence by their extensions, as if these are chreodic formations (see Waddington). Second, the feel and weight of the paper; every page carries a visible history which has no origin but an emission in reverse. Third, the lack of page numbers; one is guided solely by word order (and as if the volumes have an indefinite number of pages). Fourth, the three columns with three letter page headings as in MIM MIN MIN or ORD ORD ORD; these are loosely tethered to their word-lists. Fifth, the latinate quality of the whole, romance languages in particular, lending themselves to fields of words and worlds creation. Sixth, the pleasure of the text and worlds; Johnson is famously partial - see definitions of "oats" or "puritan." Seventh, the careful rationalism of the text, accompanied by a relative elimination of the abject; "shit" is not present, but "urine" is, and "whore" and "pimp" are present but "fuck" isn't. Eighth, the maternality of the volumes, occupying a relatively wide field of vision, the world safely inscribed, references to Pope, Donne, Swift, Shakespeare and company. Ninth, the labor of writing, delineating, almost single-handedly, word after word; one searches for development, for the indexing methodology used for some forty-thousand words. Tenth, those words almost certainly invented by Johnson, perhaps represented by other authors, such as a French-English, English-French dictionary I have from 1845. Eleventh, the analogic weight of the enterprise, in spite of apparent precision in definition; thus the weight, touch, rustle, scent, of the book is foregrounded, along with the wear-and-tear of type, and the definitions themselves which are more than likely to emphasize poetry and poetics in example. Twelfth, differentiation as problematic; at times, a word will be identified as a "plant" or a "serpent" without further description; such description, scientism, might be elsewhere; but see his entry for "opium." In summary, a matrix not positing, but _enveloping_ knowledge; such knowledge is lived, biographed; such knowledge effloresces; rationality and ratio are assumed; the page is a field, not enumerated container; word roots likewise are fields; idioms break the code (there are over one hundred of them for "take"; words are words and things are things; language by the grace of God and man. http://www.asondheim.org/thruhole2.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/thruhole3.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/thruhole4.jpg (to be amplified)