Andy Stafford
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197266670
- eISBN:
- 9780191905391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266670.003.0015
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Using an unpublished seminar that Roland Barthes delivered in 1966–7, this chapter considers the challenge to rewrite, re-use, and ‘re-cover’ other writers’ texts. It shows, first in Critique et ...
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Using an unpublished seminar that Roland Barthes delivered in 1966–7, this chapter considers the challenge to rewrite, re-use, and ‘re-cover’ other writers’ texts. It shows, first in Critique et vérité, then across the seminar ‘La linguistique du discours’, and finally in the 1970 essay S/Z, that Barthes was developing a creative, literary-critical, practice rather than promoting ‘la nouvelle critique’. In this spirit of creative criticism, using Kristeva, Bakhtin, and Menippus, Barthes designed his radical approach to Balzac in S/Z. An egregious reading of Barthes’s approach notwithstanding (Bremond and Pavel, 1998), three elements are identified in his essayistic rewriting of Balzac’s Sarrasine that point to creative criticism: digression, drama, and historiality. These techniques allow Barthes’s essay both to distance and bring nearer the ‘tutor-text’ Sarrasine which, written in 1830, raised important questions about the cusp of modernity, and how to write criticism as literature.Less
Using an unpublished seminar that Roland Barthes delivered in 1966–7, this chapter considers the challenge to rewrite, re-use, and ‘re-cover’ other writers’ texts. It shows, first in Critique et vérité, then across the seminar ‘La linguistique du discours’, and finally in the 1970 essay S/Z, that Barthes was developing a creative, literary-critical, practice rather than promoting ‘la nouvelle critique’. In this spirit of creative criticism, using Kristeva, Bakhtin, and Menippus, Barthes designed his radical approach to Balzac in S/Z. An egregious reading of Barthes’s approach notwithstanding (Bremond and Pavel, 1998), three elements are identified in his essayistic rewriting of Balzac’s Sarrasine that point to creative criticism: digression, drama, and historiality. These techniques allow Barthes’s essay both to distance and bring nearer the ‘tutor-text’ Sarrasine which, written in 1830, raised important questions about the cusp of modernity, and how to write criticism as literature.
Cynthia Damon
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199558681
- eISBN:
- 9780191720888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558681.003.0021
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter is an investigation of a Tacitean metaphor for historiography and its implications for the historian's role in history. The metaphor of the historian's physical proximity to his subject ...
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This chapter is an investigation of a Tacitean metaphor for historiography and its implications for the historian's role in history. The metaphor of the historian's physical proximity to his subject matter, which is found in the Annals 4 digression contrasting Tacitus's work with that of historians of earlier periods, is an offshoot of the enargeia that often enlivens a narrative. It is also one of the many connections between this digression and both Tacitus's account of the trial of the historian Cremutius Cordus (4.34-35) and what he suggests about his own work as historian.Less
This chapter is an investigation of a Tacitean metaphor for historiography and its implications for the historian's role in history. The metaphor of the historian's physical proximity to his subject matter, which is found in the Annals 4 digression contrasting Tacitus's work with that of historians of earlier periods, is an offshoot of the enargeia that often enlivens a narrative. It is also one of the many connections between this digression and both Tacitus's account of the trial of the historian Cremutius Cordus (4.34-35) and what he suggests about his own work as historian.
Jerome Murphy‐O'Connor
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199592104
- eISBN:
- 9780191595608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199592104.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Early Christian Studies
Any defence of the authenticity of 2 Cor 6:14‐7:1 must show that it fits perfectly into the articulation of Paul's thought in this portion of 2 Cor. The central thrust of 2 Cor 6 is contained in vv. ...
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Any defence of the authenticity of 2 Cor 6:14‐7:1 must show that it fits perfectly into the articulation of Paul's thought in this portion of 2 Cor. The central thrust of 2 Cor 6 is contained in vv. 1‐2, 11, and 14ff. Paul's concern is the Corinthians' relation to the God who has so graciously acted on their behalf. This thematic is interrupted by two digressions (vv. 3‐10 and 12‐13 plus 7:2 ff.) in which the focus is on Paul himself, both stimulated by a sense of injury. When perceived in this way, the twists and turns of the argument are much less arbitrary than is often supposed.Less
Any defence of the authenticity of 2 Cor 6:14‐7:1 must show that it fits perfectly into the articulation of Paul's thought in this portion of 2 Cor. The central thrust of 2 Cor 6 is contained in vv. 1‐2, 11, and 14ff. Paul's concern is the Corinthians' relation to the God who has so graciously acted on their behalf. This thematic is interrupted by two digressions (vv. 3‐10 and 12‐13 plus 7:2 ff.) in which the focus is on Paul himself, both stimulated by a sense of injury. When perceived in this way, the twists and turns of the argument are much less arbitrary than is often supposed.
Srikanth Reddy
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199791026
- eISBN:
- 9780199950287
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791026.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, American, 20th Century Literature
Digression is widely considered a mark of disordered or evasive discourse. Modern legal, philosophical, and political writing largely disavows this trope, regarding it as a departure from the model ...
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Digression is widely considered a mark of disordered or evasive discourse. Modern legal, philosophical, and political writing largely disavows this trope, regarding it as a departure from the model of rational exposition institutionalized under the Enlightenment. And yet, as the rhetorical figure of digression has grown increasingly marginalized within the decorum of public discourse, it has come to occupy a central position in the private discursive world of poetry. This book outlines an anatomy of “the excursus” within twentieth-Century American poetics; moving from aesthetics to the archive to narratology to theories of identity, this study considers the various spheres in which American writers of the period revise prior models of purposeful discourse by cultivating a poetics of digression in the modern poem. The opening section considers the manner in which Wallace Stevens employs digression within the ars poetica genre to deconstruct aesthetic theory under High Modernism; the second chapter examines Marianne Moore’s use of the excursus to organize archival knowledge in the Progressive poetry of instruction; the third section turns to Lyn Hejinian’s construction of a digressive narratology intended to unsettle master-narratives of the Cold War era; the fourth chapter treats digression as a strategy for fashioning the self in the poetry of Walt Whitman and Frank O’Hara; and the book concludes with a survey of “Elliptical” strategies employed by a new generation of poets, writing in the wake of John Ashbery’s aleatory craft, who seek to extend the digressive project of American poetry into the 21st Century.Less
Digression is widely considered a mark of disordered or evasive discourse. Modern legal, philosophical, and political writing largely disavows this trope, regarding it as a departure from the model of rational exposition institutionalized under the Enlightenment. And yet, as the rhetorical figure of digression has grown increasingly marginalized within the decorum of public discourse, it has come to occupy a central position in the private discursive world of poetry. This book outlines an anatomy of “the excursus” within twentieth-Century American poetics; moving from aesthetics to the archive to narratology to theories of identity, this study considers the various spheres in which American writers of the period revise prior models of purposeful discourse by cultivating a poetics of digression in the modern poem. The opening section considers the manner in which Wallace Stevens employs digression within the ars poetica genre to deconstruct aesthetic theory under High Modernism; the second chapter examines Marianne Moore’s use of the excursus to organize archival knowledge in the Progressive poetry of instruction; the third section turns to Lyn Hejinian’s construction of a digressive narratology intended to unsettle master-narratives of the Cold War era; the fourth chapter treats digression as a strategy for fashioning the self in the poetry of Walt Whitman and Frank O’Hara; and the book concludes with a survey of “Elliptical” strategies employed by a new generation of poets, writing in the wake of John Ashbery’s aleatory craft, who seek to extend the digressive project of American poetry into the 21st Century.
Nicholas von Maltzahn
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128977
- eISBN:
- 9780191671753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128977.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies
By working back from the separate publication of the History of Britain (1670) and the Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines (1681), it is possible to reconstitute a fuller History ...
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By working back from the separate publication of the History of Britain (1670) and the Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines (1681), it is possible to reconstitute a fuller History of Britain that takes to the heart of Milton's republican thought at the crisis of the English Revolution. As so often happens, the political turmoil of the latter end of the 17th century provides vital information about a mid-century text. The political reasons for publishing the 1681 Character needs to be explored in order to understand the History. In particular, the publication of the Character needs to be considered in light of the events of 1681: only then do its omissions and other misleading features, especially its editorial preface, come into focus. The Digression was indeed written ‘Unbrib'd’. The misgivings about the Character are explored. Importance of determining the original context for the History and the Digression in the revolutionary years of 1648–9 is stated.Less
By working back from the separate publication of the History of Britain (1670) and the Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines (1681), it is possible to reconstitute a fuller History of Britain that takes to the heart of Milton's republican thought at the crisis of the English Revolution. As so often happens, the political turmoil of the latter end of the 17th century provides vital information about a mid-century text. The political reasons for publishing the 1681 Character needs to be explored in order to understand the History. In particular, the publication of the Character needs to be considered in light of the events of 1681: only then do its omissions and other misleading features, especially its editorial preface, come into focus. The Digression was indeed written ‘Unbrib'd’. The misgivings about the Character are explored. Importance of determining the original context for the History and the Digression in the revolutionary years of 1648–9 is stated.
Nicholas von Maltzahn
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128977
- eISBN:
- 9780191671753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128977.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies
Introducing Book III of the History of Britain, John Milton sees himself as writing with a special purpose in ‘this intereign’. Milton wrote the History as advice literature to the nation in the ...
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Introducing Book III of the History of Britain, John Milton sees himself as writing with a special purpose in ‘this intereign’. Milton wrote the History as advice literature to the nation in the ensuing interregnum. The History should be recognized as part of Milton's achievement in 1649, the annus mirabilis in which he writes the Tenure, the first four books of the History, the Observations, and Eikonoklastes, and in which he further assists the new government in preparing Latin letters of state. It is unfortunate that questions about the date of the History have much blunted its message. The freedom at the beginning of the interregnum was soon to be eroded by the lack of true progress in the revolution. The Digression's context in the History itself indicates the frustration of Milton's hopes for his country in the late 1640s. The doubts voiced in the History lie behind much of Milton's later political thought.Less
Introducing Book III of the History of Britain, John Milton sees himself as writing with a special purpose in ‘this intereign’. Milton wrote the History as advice literature to the nation in the ensuing interregnum. The History should be recognized as part of Milton's achievement in 1649, the annus mirabilis in which he writes the Tenure, the first four books of the History, the Observations, and Eikonoklastes, and in which he further assists the new government in preparing Latin letters of state. It is unfortunate that questions about the date of the History have much blunted its message. The freedom at the beginning of the interregnum was soon to be eroded by the lack of true progress in the revolution. The Digression's context in the History itself indicates the frustration of Milton's hopes for his country in the late 1640s. The doubts voiced in the History lie behind much of Milton's later political thought.
Gerard Passannante
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199794959
- eISBN:
- 9780199949694
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794959.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy, European History: BCE to 500CE
Gerard Passannante’s contribution, “Reading for Pleasure: Disaster and Digression in the First Renaissance Commentary on Lucretius,” explores the reception of Epicurean pleasure in ...
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Gerard Passannante’s contribution, “Reading for Pleasure: Disaster and Digression in the First Renaissance Commentary on Lucretius,” explores the reception of Epicurean pleasure in the early sixteenth century in the crucible of loss and melancholy. By carefully following the digressions that repeatedly take us away from the Lucretian text in the first commentary edition of the De Rerum Natura, published by Gianbattista Pio in 1511, Passannante provides an exemplary demonstration of the interaction of philology and affective response, love of text and the bittersweet pleasures of Lucretius’s lessons on disaster. As Passannante declares, these digressions must not be seen as minor asides, but rather as “a crucial entry into the mental world of the poem” as it was taking shape at the birth of humanism.Less
Gerard Passannante’s contribution, “Reading for Pleasure: Disaster and Digression in the First Renaissance Commentary on Lucretius,” explores the reception of Epicurean pleasure in the early sixteenth century in the crucible of loss and melancholy. By carefully following the digressions that repeatedly take us away from the Lucretian text in the first commentary edition of the De Rerum Natura, published by Gianbattista Pio in 1511, Passannante provides an exemplary demonstration of the interaction of philology and affective response, love of text and the bittersweet pleasures of Lucretius’s lessons on disaster. As Passannante declares, these digressions must not be seen as minor asides, but rather as “a crucial entry into the mental world of the poem” as it was taking shape at the birth of humanism.
Anne Cotterill
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199261178
- eISBN:
- 9780191717598
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199261178.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
In 1658, Thomas Browne protests the ‘brutall terminations’ of death and silencing of individual voices of cultural and religious institutions by civil war and republican government. Challenging ...
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In 1658, Thomas Browne protests the ‘brutall terminations’ of death and silencing of individual voices of cultural and religious institutions by civil war and republican government. Challenging literal-minded readers of ‘this ill-judging age’ suspicious of rhetorical flowers, Browne follows his subterranean exploration of death and burial customs, Hydriotaphia, or Urn-Burial, with his prose ode to light, The Garden of Cyrus, a learned celebration of the five-pointed pattern of planting called a quincunx, the subject of Chapter 3. The narrator ranges in intellectual and sensual freedom as if enacting the invisible ‘plastick principle’ of generation contained in seeds, which becomes the diminutive hero of the visible and invisible universe. Browne cultivates a Paradise that juxtaposes an elegant quincuncial order with digressions ‘into extraneous things’ and ‘collaterall truths’, in contrast to the geometrical gardens and utilitarian, nationalistic horticultural schemes being devised in the 1650s to promote England's economic flowering.Less
In 1658, Thomas Browne protests the ‘brutall terminations’ of death and silencing of individual voices of cultural and religious institutions by civil war and republican government. Challenging literal-minded readers of ‘this ill-judging age’ suspicious of rhetorical flowers, Browne follows his subterranean exploration of death and burial customs, Hydriotaphia, or Urn-Burial, with his prose ode to light, The Garden of Cyrus, a learned celebration of the five-pointed pattern of planting called a quincunx, the subject of Chapter 3. The narrator ranges in intellectual and sensual freedom as if enacting the invisible ‘plastick principle’ of generation contained in seeds, which becomes the diminutive hero of the visible and invisible universe. Browne cultivates a Paradise that juxtaposes an elegant quincuncial order with digressions ‘into extraneous things’ and ‘collaterall truths’, in contrast to the geometrical gardens and utilitarian, nationalistic horticultural schemes being devised in the 1650s to promote England's economic flowering.
Anne Cotterill
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199261178
- eISBN:
- 9780191717598
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199261178.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This epilogue argues that in anger at, yet sensitive mimicry of, the discursive freedom of Dryden and other ‘moderns’ in the marketplace, Swift's A Tale of a Tub (1704) heightens the self-authorizing ...
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This epilogue argues that in anger at, yet sensitive mimicry of, the discursive freedom of Dryden and other ‘moderns’ in the marketplace, Swift's A Tale of a Tub (1704) heightens the self-authorizing voice of digression into a monster of fragment and miscellany. Swift understood the danger of digressiveness to the straight line of narrative and logic, to traditional lines of authority and hierarchy. He angrily conflates Dryden's liberties in his digressive prefaces and the laureate's claims in his late work for an alternate family of fathers and sons based on textual offspring, an exclusive genealogy of fathers and heirs, with the iconoclastic religious and sexual liberties of sectarian zealots and with the digressing, orphaned sons of the allegory. The digression becomes synonymous with the Hack's chaotic writing voice, a mind disconnected from any body — disinherited from the parent narrative of the ancients and in permanent exile of modernity on the popular page.Less
This epilogue argues that in anger at, yet sensitive mimicry of, the discursive freedom of Dryden and other ‘moderns’ in the marketplace, Swift's A Tale of a Tub (1704) heightens the self-authorizing voice of digression into a monster of fragment and miscellany. Swift understood the danger of digressiveness to the straight line of narrative and logic, to traditional lines of authority and hierarchy. He angrily conflates Dryden's liberties in his digressive prefaces and the laureate's claims in his late work for an alternate family of fathers and sons based on textual offspring, an exclusive genealogy of fathers and heirs, with the iconoclastic religious and sexual liberties of sectarian zealots and with the digressing, orphaned sons of the allegory. The digression becomes synonymous with the Hack's chaotic writing voice, a mind disconnected from any body — disinherited from the parent narrative of the ancients and in permanent exile of modernity on the popular page.
Blair Worden
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199230822
- eISBN:
- 9780191696480
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230822.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Milton Studies
John Milton's England had declined so low as to betray the God-given opportunity of the revolution. The History seeks the causes of its degeneracy. It does so above all in the ‘Digression’. The ...
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John Milton's England had declined so low as to betray the God-given opportunity of the revolution. The History seeks the causes of its degeneracy. It does so above all in the ‘Digression’. The ‘Digression’ is an exercise in comparative history. In the 1640s, it explains, God ‘had drawn so near a parallel’ between the state of the Britons upon the removal of the Romans. The same point is made at the start of the third book of the History, in a passage which the ‘Digression’ echoes and which calls to be read alongside it. The first book covered remote and legendary history, the second the Roman occupation. It is in Book III, which traces the collapse of the British state in the aftermath of the Roman occupation, that Milton departs most radically from conventional thinking.Less
John Milton's England had declined so low as to betray the God-given opportunity of the revolution. The History seeks the causes of its degeneracy. It does so above all in the ‘Digression’. The ‘Digression’ is an exercise in comparative history. In the 1640s, it explains, God ‘had drawn so near a parallel’ between the state of the Britons upon the removal of the Romans. The same point is made at the start of the third book of the History, in a passage which the ‘Digression’ echoes and which calls to be read alongside it. The first book covered remote and legendary history, the second the Roman occupation. It is in Book III, which traces the collapse of the British state in the aftermath of the Roman occupation, that Milton departs most radically from conventional thinking.
JOHN J. RICHETTI
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112631
- eISBN:
- 9780191670824
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112631.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter discusses the novel as a miscellany, as it contains the digressions, songs, poems, and interpolated stories traditional to narrative. There were a number of novels in the eighteenth ...
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This chapter discusses the novel as a miscellany, as it contains the digressions, songs, poems, and interpolated stories traditional to narrative. There were a number of novels in the eighteenth century that possessed a mixture of narrative techniques and fictional paradigms, and these are discussed in detail.Less
This chapter discusses the novel as a miscellany, as it contains the digressions, songs, poems, and interpolated stories traditional to narrative. There were a number of novels in the eighteenth century that possessed a mixture of narrative techniques and fictional paradigms, and these are discussed in detail.
Ingrid Wassenaar
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198160045
- eISBN:
- 9780191673757
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198160045.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter focuses on digression. One of the most beloved of Proustian stylistic features, digression is a trope which builds a seductive play into rhetorical organization. Alarmingly, however, it ...
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This chapter focuses on digression. One of the most beloved of Proustian stylistic features, digression is a trope which builds a seductive play into rhetorical organization. Alarmingly, however, it is not far from seductive play to the defensive strategy of avoidance or evasion. Stopping in the middle of digressions, rather than announcing triumphantly that there are digressions in the novel, enables us to pursue a surprising, and painful line of argument from parties to people, in other words, between group functioning and relationships with individuals.Less
This chapter focuses on digression. One of the most beloved of Proustian stylistic features, digression is a trope which builds a seductive play into rhetorical organization. Alarmingly, however, it is not far from seductive play to the defensive strategy of avoidance or evasion. Stopping in the middle of digressions, rather than announcing triumphantly that there are digressions in the novel, enables us to pursue a surprising, and painful line of argument from parties to people, in other words, between group functioning and relationships with individuals.
Alfred P. Smyth
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198229896
- eISBN:
- 9780191678936
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198229896.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
This chapter conducts a study of Byrhtferth of Ramsey's working methods and handling of historical sources to shed light on how the Life of King Alfred is constructed. It notes that the Pseudo-Asser ...
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This chapter conducts a study of Byrhtferth of Ramsey's working methods and handling of historical sources to shed light on how the Life of King Alfred is constructed. It notes that the Pseudo-Asser has certain definitive and crucial organizational and stylistic features in common with all the known major works of Byrhtferth. It observes that both writers indulge in lengthy digressions which frequently bear little relationship to the main body of narrative and whose raison d'étre within the text is to conceal the author's glaring lack of information on his chosen subject. It further observes that alternatively, such digressions, although relevant to the work as a whole, have been inserted at the wrong point in the discussion due to the writer's haste or because of his gross lack of organizational ability.Less
This chapter conducts a study of Byrhtferth of Ramsey's working methods and handling of historical sources to shed light on how the Life of King Alfred is constructed. It notes that the Pseudo-Asser has certain definitive and crucial organizational and stylistic features in common with all the known major works of Byrhtferth. It observes that both writers indulge in lengthy digressions which frequently bear little relationship to the main body of narrative and whose raison d'étre within the text is to conceal the author's glaring lack of information on his chosen subject. It further observes that alternatively, such digressions, although relevant to the work as a whole, have been inserted at the wrong point in the discussion due to the writer's haste or because of his gross lack of organizational ability.
David Sedley
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199267033
- eISBN:
- 9780191601828
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199267030.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy
Examines the stages by which Protagorean relativism is refuted. These include the much-debated self-refutation argument, and the argument that only experts could have knowledge of the future. I ...
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Examines the stages by which Protagorean relativism is refuted. These include the much-debated self-refutation argument, and the argument that only experts could have knowledge of the future. I maintain that these are drawing on typically Socratic insights and arguments. But the main emphasis is on the ‘Digression’, in which Socrates indicates why he rejects fashionable relativism of values. This, I argue, develops a series of Socratic positions that serve to reveal how Socrates, despite not having arrived at Plato’s theory of transcendent moral Forms, paved the way to it with a moral absolutism that depended on his insights about god’s perfect goodness. Here, Plato is also looking forward to his later interest in ‘becoming like god’. The Digression, in addition, I argue, hints at Socrates’ radical theological views, the ones that led to his execution.Less
Examines the stages by which Protagorean relativism is refuted. These include the much-debated self-refutation argument, and the argument that only experts could have knowledge of the future. I maintain that these are drawing on typically Socratic insights and arguments. But the main emphasis is on the ‘Digression’, in which Socrates indicates why he rejects fashionable relativism of values. This, I argue, develops a series of Socratic positions that serve to reveal how Socrates, despite not having arrived at Plato’s theory of transcendent moral Forms, paved the way to it with a moral absolutism that depended on his insights about god’s perfect goodness. Here, Plato is also looking forward to his later interest in ‘becoming like god’. The Digression, in addition, I argue, hints at Socrates’ radical theological views, the ones that led to his execution.
Emily Rohrbach
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823267965
- eISBN:
- 9780823272440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823267965.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Chapter five describes the comic epic poem’s foregrounding of the narrator’s writing process as a “presentness,” heightened through interruptions and other kinds of digression as well as the ottava ...
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Chapter five describes the comic epic poem’s foregrounding of the narrator’s writing process as a “presentness,” heightened through interruptions and other kinds of digression as well as the ottava rima stanza form. Turning to the arguments of Hugh Blair and Adam Smith, this chapter recounts the contemporary controversies about what place digressions should have in historical writing. Analyzing key moments in the English cantos, this chapter argues that the temporality of Don Juan’s aesthetic engages with and defies the Enlightenment rhetorical principles of Blair and Smith, while upending the philosophy of progress that often went with them. Suggesting that the historical imagination might take into account not just a progress of what happened, but also a notion of what did not happen but might have, Don Juan creates a sense of time that is less progressive or regressive than digressive—a lateral temporality. The chapter concludes by suggesting what implications this lateral temporality might have for twenty-first century critical practices.Less
Chapter five describes the comic epic poem’s foregrounding of the narrator’s writing process as a “presentness,” heightened through interruptions and other kinds of digression as well as the ottava rima stanza form. Turning to the arguments of Hugh Blair and Adam Smith, this chapter recounts the contemporary controversies about what place digressions should have in historical writing. Analyzing key moments in the English cantos, this chapter argues that the temporality of Don Juan’s aesthetic engages with and defies the Enlightenment rhetorical principles of Blair and Smith, while upending the philosophy of progress that often went with them. Suggesting that the historical imagination might take into account not just a progress of what happened, but also a notion of what did not happen but might have, Don Juan creates a sense of time that is less progressive or regressive than digressive—a lateral temporality. The chapter concludes by suggesting what implications this lateral temporality might have for twenty-first century critical practices.
Paul Hetherington and Cassandra Atherton
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691180656
- eISBN:
- 9780691212135
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691180656.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter focuses on ideas of open form and closure in prose poetry. While lineated lyric poetry is typically highly suggestive and open to various interpretations, it simultaneously tends toward ...
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This chapter focuses on ideas of open form and closure in prose poetry. While lineated lyric poetry is typically highly suggestive and open to various interpretations, it simultaneously tends toward conveying a sense of formal resolution and closure. The attention to formal elements in lineated lyric poetry, including the beginnings and endings of lines and the opening and closing of works, is very different from other kinds of less formalized writing — including prose poetry, where sentences are drawn together in paragraphs rather than separated. Prose poetry refuses lineated poetry's rhythmic closure even as it visually preempts its conclusion in the capacious white space that follows the last sentence of the paragraph. In other words, openness and closure are likely to be manifested very differently in lineated poems compared to prose poems. Prose poems have their own integrity as works, but their sense of completeness turns on their appeal to incompleteness in the same way as the literary fragment. Structurally, prose poetry's use of the sentence rather than the line as its unit of composition allows the poet to engage in “narrative digression.”Less
This chapter focuses on ideas of open form and closure in prose poetry. While lineated lyric poetry is typically highly suggestive and open to various interpretations, it simultaneously tends toward conveying a sense of formal resolution and closure. The attention to formal elements in lineated lyric poetry, including the beginnings and endings of lines and the opening and closing of works, is very different from other kinds of less formalized writing — including prose poetry, where sentences are drawn together in paragraphs rather than separated. Prose poetry refuses lineated poetry's rhythmic closure even as it visually preempts its conclusion in the capacious white space that follows the last sentence of the paragraph. In other words, openness and closure are likely to be manifested very differently in lineated poems compared to prose poems. Prose poems have their own integrity as works, but their sense of completeness turns on their appeal to incompleteness in the same way as the literary fragment. Structurally, prose poetry's use of the sentence rather than the line as its unit of composition allows the poet to engage in “narrative digression.”
Monica R. Gale
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199586462
- eISBN:
- 9780191724961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586462.003.0012
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
A characteristic feature of the didactic genre is the inclusion of ‘set-piece’ digressions, more or less clearly marked off from the surrounding expository material. This chapter argues that such ...
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A characteristic feature of the didactic genre is the inclusion of ‘set-piece’ digressions, more or less clearly marked off from the surrounding expository material. This chapter argues that such digressions are a locus of particularly intense intertextual engagement with poetic predecessors, offering a clear opportunity for the poet to situate his own work within a range of (in a broad sense) political frameworks. This hypothesis is explored through detailed analysis of three passages of Manilius’ Astronomica: the history of civilization at the beginning of Book 1; the digression on the premonitory functions of comets at the end of the book; and the brief series of vignettes of the four seasons towards the end of Book 3. In each case, Manilius’ dialogue with earlier didactic poets (especially Lucretius and Virgil) can be shown to serve a squarely Augustan ideology, underlining the analogy between cosmic and political order implicit throughout the poem.Less
A characteristic feature of the didactic genre is the inclusion of ‘set-piece’ digressions, more or less clearly marked off from the surrounding expository material. This chapter argues that such digressions are a locus of particularly intense intertextual engagement with poetic predecessors, offering a clear opportunity for the poet to situate his own work within a range of (in a broad sense) political frameworks. This hypothesis is explored through detailed analysis of three passages of Manilius’ Astronomica: the history of civilization at the beginning of Book 1; the digression on the premonitory functions of comets at the end of the book; and the brief series of vignettes of the four seasons towards the end of Book 3. In each case, Manilius’ dialogue with earlier didactic poets (especially Lucretius and Virgil) can be shown to serve a squarely Augustan ideology, underlining the analogy between cosmic and political order implicit throughout the poem.
Josèphe-Henriette Abry
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199586462
- eISBN:
- 9780191724961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586462.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter focuses on three digressions in Manilius, which deal with: the heroes celebrated along the Milky Way (1.761-804); temporal calculations for measuring the length of the day (3.443-82); ...
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This chapter focuses on three digressions in Manilius, which deal with: the heroes celebrated along the Milky Way (1.761-804); temporal calculations for measuring the length of the day (3.443-82); and zodiacal world geography (4.585-743). In each case, Abry argues that the digression has a positive political thrust in that it alludes to and celebrates in verse an important monument of the age of Augustus: respectively, the Forum Augustum with its statues of illustrious Roman individuals, the Horologium Augusti, and the Map of the World set up by Agrippa. All three cases, therefore, demonstrate the parallel between the workings of heaven and the Augustan political order: or, in other words, between cosmos and imperium.Less
This chapter focuses on three digressions in Manilius, which deal with: the heroes celebrated along the Milky Way (1.761-804); temporal calculations for measuring the length of the day (3.443-82); and zodiacal world geography (4.585-743). In each case, Abry argues that the digression has a positive political thrust in that it alludes to and celebrates in verse an important monument of the age of Augustus: respectively, the Forum Augustum with its statues of illustrious Roman individuals, the Horologium Augusti, and the Map of the World set up by Agrippa. All three cases, therefore, demonstrate the parallel between the workings of heaven and the Augustan political order: or, in other words, between cosmos and imperium.
Alison Sharrock
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199277773
- eISBN:
- 9780191708138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199277773.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter rethinks the relationship between ‘digression’ and ‘main text’ in didactic poetry. By looking at both the narrative ‘digressions’ and the ‘action’ of central characters implicit in the ...
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This chapter rethinks the relationship between ‘digression’ and ‘main text’ in didactic poetry. By looking at both the narrative ‘digressions’ and the ‘action’ of central characters implicit in the instructional parts of the text, it is argued that both parts can be seen to work together, rather than in opposition, in the creation of an ‘implied narrative’. It might even be argued that it is the instructional parts which are obstructive, in that they slow down the instructional momentum of the ‘digressional’ stories.Less
This chapter rethinks the relationship between ‘digression’ and ‘main text’ in didactic poetry. By looking at both the narrative ‘digressions’ and the ‘action’ of central characters implicit in the instructional parts of the text, it is argued that both parts can be seen to work together, rather than in opposition, in the creation of an ‘implied narrative’. It might even be argued that it is the instructional parts which are obstructive, in that they slow down the instructional momentum of the ‘digressional’ stories.
John Leonard
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199666553
- eISBN:
- 9780191748967
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199666553.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter unites the topics of style and genre (the twin themes of volume one) in a discussion of Milton’s use of the epic simile. The chapter traces the development of two opposite yet ...
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This chapter unites the topics of style and genre (the twin themes of volume one) in a discussion of Milton’s use of the epic simile. The chapter traces the development of two opposite yet interconnected theories of how similes work: Addison’s theory (taken from Boileau) that epic similes offer relief by digressing from the main action, and the rival theory (first proposed by Addison’s contemporary James Falconer) that Milton’s similes have multiple points of correspondence (‘homologation’) between tenor and vehicle. The chapter examines the way in which this debate influenced the twentieth-century ‘Milton controversy’, when Leavis turned Addison’s argument into a weapon against Milton by denying Milton’s ability to sustain a relevant thought. The chapter also connects criticism of Milton’s similes with related developments in the classics to make the case that ‘relevance’ and ‘irrelevance’ are problematic terms, for it is the function of epic similes to find relevance in irrelevanceLess
This chapter unites the topics of style and genre (the twin themes of volume one) in a discussion of Milton’s use of the epic simile. The chapter traces the development of two opposite yet interconnected theories of how similes work: Addison’s theory (taken from Boileau) that epic similes offer relief by digressing from the main action, and the rival theory (first proposed by Addison’s contemporary James Falconer) that Milton’s similes have multiple points of correspondence (‘homologation’) between tenor and vehicle. The chapter examines the way in which this debate influenced the twentieth-century ‘Milton controversy’, when Leavis turned Addison’s argument into a weapon against Milton by denying Milton’s ability to sustain a relevant thought. The chapter also connects criticism of Milton’s similes with related developments in the classics to make the case that ‘relevance’ and ‘irrelevance’ are problematic terms, for it is the function of epic similes to find relevance in irrelevance
