> Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
>
> > >
> > > > Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > I may be dumb about this but to me all of your descriptions
> are
> > > connotative.
> > > > > How about a good denotative definition or two?
> > > > [snip]
> > > Brad answered:
> > > > I would argue that there is no such thing as a denotative
> definition
> > > > simpliciter.
> > >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > So much for that attempt at some kind of clarity. Also 400
> years of
> > > poetry
> > > just went down the drain. Here is something that came to me
> today.
> >
> > How curious. I would have thought my hypothesis would
> > be very *pro*-poetry, since it seems to me that poetry
> > really "pushes" words to their limits, so that the "spectrum"
> between
> > denotation and connotation becomes instead a 2-dimensional space,
> > and it is not just the case that some words get used in
> > more emotional and others in more factual ways, but also
> > that some words get used [in poetry] in ways that are
> > both more factual and more emotional.
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Everyone has to be a Romantic or a Classicist but in the real world
> there are structural rules that make understanding possible and
> education not a futile gesture. Like the Medical systems of the
> body that do not really exist but are helpful if a Doctor is going to
> operate on you.
I do not think I disagree.
> Denotative and Connotative are Poetic Diction terms
> that are used in performance to make poetry clear to an audience.
I thought these were grammarian, semiotician, et al. terms.
I thought they were deployed by "empiricists" to
argue that facts are true and values are just personal
opinion.
> The creative types, like yourself, often have to rely on the likes of
> us poor performance types to make you understood. But that is OK
> since we do know there is a difference between the meaning and
> interpretive stress of a simple poetic sentence. We also know, that
> the meaning is many layers deep and practice those layers as our games
> instead of being involved in fruitless math exercises that are
> compared to Beethoven symphonies.
[snip]
I like: "fruitless math exercises that are [that]
compared to Beethoven symphonies". I also believe that
mathematical "depth" may be "thinner" than artistic
*depth*.
However, there are a few things in computerland
that have humanistic value even if not the same kind of
depth as a Beethoven string quartet [you know I am ethically
opposed to the Fuhrer-and-followers-and-mass-
public structure of symphonies which is not appropriate for
free persons to participate in].
I can think of one example of a kind of computer program
which in itself has no depth or beauty, but which
greatly facilitates persons producing depth and beauty:
word processing software (which completes the liberation from
scribal copying which the printing press began).
But I have come across two humanistic computer ideas
which I think have intrinsic beauty and elegance: SGML and APL.
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/sgmlnote.htm
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/APL.html
These may not be comparable to Bach's or Beethoven's music,
but maybe they are somewhat comparable to great
architecture.
"Yours in discourse...."
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
