The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0355 Sunday, 15 June 2008
[1] From: Duncan Salkeld <
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Date: Friday, 13 Jun 2008 12:57:24 +0000 (GMT)
Subt: Re: SHK 19.0352 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
[2] From: Donald Bloom <
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Date: Friday, 13 Jun 2008 09:33:54 -0500
Subt: RE: SHK 19.0352 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Duncan Salkeld <
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Date: Friday, 13 Jun 2008 12:57:24 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: 19.0352 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0352 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
David Schalkwyk's thoughtful and well-informed contribution merits a more
considered response than I have given so far or (I regret) am able to give here.
I think there are plenty of areas of agreement between us, and both of us leave
room for manoeuvre in our approaches. I'm not so ready to follow him down Hilary
Putnam's road of 'externalism' when we talk about intention but agree that
intending is a social practice and not solely a personal, private mental affair.
Each of us, I think, sought distance from naive positions on either side of the
issue. I accept that Shakespeare's intentions will always be a matter of
(belated) inference but suggest there are cases where the 'I-word' just has to
be invoked whether we like it or not (by everyone). We might disagree about the
wider purposes or implications of Shakespeare's malapropisms (eg. in speeches by
Dogberry, Elbow or Mistress Quickly), but we would not even begin to disagree
unless we shared an understanding of what literary malapropisms were, that is
authorially determined structures. In such cases, the appeal to intention is not
just heuristic: it is inescapable. My point is that in working out what
Shakespeare's intentions might have been, or were, we make implicit causal
assumptions about his choices, or uncertainties - that of all the options
available to him he settled on one (or didn't). The 'determining' bit is assumed
in the inferring. This is why I think it's helpful (sometimes) to identify
intention as 'a determining and authoritative cause' and similarly to regard
obscurity as ignorance of such a cause.
No criticism of Hardy implied at all, but when I received my contribution
together with Terry's, both were indeed somewhat mangled. Our intentions seem to
have come across pretty well despite it.
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Donald Bloom <
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Date: Friday, 13 Jun 2008 09:33:54 -0500
Subject: 19.0352 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
Comment: RE: SHK 19.0352 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
With regard to "words," "meanings," "intentions," and other cattle of this color:
In an explanatory note some weeks ago, our long-suffering editor used the title
"Resent Digests." I immediately took the first word to be an imperative verb,
and also immediately found myself puzzled. I could see no reason why I should
resent any of the digests (unless, of course, they had exposed some folly of
mine for all the world to see, or said something snide, or whatever). And it was
very unlikely that Hardy would use an imperative form in a title.
I quickly re-read the title to "Recent Digests," silently emending what I took
to be a typographical error, and assuming that he was offering a collective
comment on posts of the past few days.
But I was wrong. What he was talking about were re-sent digests, ones that he
had to send out over again because of one of those glitches that periodically
infect the digital world. For some reason the hyphen had dropped out.
(Alternatively, Hardy may feel that the hyphen is unnecessary.)
In any case, the title was understandable once I clarified what the actual word
was, a process that I accomplished by reading the rest of the passage and
discarding the two incorrect readings. By acquiring the intended meaning of the
whole note, I could figure out the intended meaning of the puzzling word.
I offer this as a parable. Do with it what you will.
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