In terms of issues around DNA and language... I've been pondering the parallels, particularly as pertaining to CAS... DNA... Language... They're BOTH strings of symbols susceptible to statistical analysis. They BUILD things: DNA builds and maintains bodies, language builds patterns in the brain. From a sample of DNA, one can determine a LOT, e.g. membership of gender and "race" communities, likelihood of certain diseases, etc, and in future one'll be able to determine MORE, e.g. somatype, personality, IQ, etc. But that formal, scientific DNA analysis is paralleled by the informal, intuitive analysis we can all carry out on a sample of LANGUAGE. Reading CAS, you can intuit his psychology and intelligence. But is there MORE there to be extracted? Is, e.g., CAS's membership of a particular gender and "race" community encoded in his language?

Nature'n'nurture... CAS used English because of his NURTURE; in an alternative reality he might have been using German or French or Basque or Mayan. But whatever the language, he'd've been using it in a unique CAS-ean way because of his NATURE. And I'm wondering how much of that nature is present IN and extractable FROM his language WITHOUT reference to biographical data. And it's maybe present-and-extractable in indirect and unexpected ways. Maybe vowel-consonant ratios, vowel/consonant frequencies say something about extraversion/introversion, openness to new experience, sexuality, etc. I'm also wondering whether future developments in statisticolexicology will finally give us an objective measure of that much-vexed phenomenon: GENIUS... I'm always reluctant to apply the term, because it's used too promiscuously nowadays, but I find it hard not to think CAS had some. Had a lot. But how can you PROVE that CAS was superior to, say, REH? (Whose fan-community I'm a member of TOO, but not as committed a one as I am of CAS's.)

So you do not admit of The Muse?

You accept both NATURE (your allcaps) & NUTURE. You also allow for GENIUS.
But if we allow for the MUSE as another category it opens the door to the
SUPERNATURAL perhaps? You have not covered that influence in CAS. I recall
(but cannot give the source to prove) that REH claimed a Muse in the form
of an ancient warrior - or was it Kull himself? Regardless because then
someone would be likely to deny the Muse in CAS. Why? Here's what Robert
Graves had to say about it:

Quote:

Robert Graves
"No Muse-poet grows conscious of the Muse except by experience
of a woman in whom the Goddess is to some degree resident; just as no Apollonian poet
can perform his proper function unless he lives under a monarchy or a quasi-monarchy.
A Muse-poet falls in love, absolutely, and his true love is for him the embodiment of
the Muse... But the real, perpetually obsessed Muse-poet distinguishes between the Goddess
as manifest in the supreme power, glory, wisdom, and love of woman, and the individual woman
whom the Goddess may make her instrument... The Goddess abides; and perhaps he will again have
knowledge of her through his experience of another woman...

Based on my small understanding CAS lived largely in isolation during his creative period.
So the above quote doesn't sound like CAS to me.

-Cathexis

Currently reading Graves for the first time. I'm about a third in--a difficult, but intriguing, read.

treycelement Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In terms of issues around DNA and language... I've
> been pondering the parallels, particularly as
> pertaining to CAS... DNA... Language... They're
> BOTH strings of symbols susceptible to statistical
> analysis. They BUILD things: DNA builds and
> maintains bodies, language builds patterns in the
> brain. From a sample of DNA, one can determine a
> LOT, e.g. membership of gender and "race"
> communities, likelihood of certain diseases, etc,
> and in future one'll be able to determine MORE,
> e.g. somatype, personality, IQ, etc. But that
> formal, scientific DNA analysis is paralleled by
> the informal, intuitive analysis we can all carry
> out on a sample of LANGUAGE. Reading CAS, you can
> intuit his psychology and intelligence. But is
> there MORE there to be extracted? Is, e.g., CAS's
> membership of a particular gender and "race"
> community encoded in his language?
>
> Nature'n'nurture...

I immediately thought of James Tiptree, Jr. (i.e., Alice Sheldon) when you mentioned the possibility of intuiting or deducing someone's gender or other demographic membership from their writing. Clearly "his" was a case that stumped even the most astute of her colleagues in the SF community (LeGuin, Ellison, Silverberg most famously) to one degree or another, to the point where Robert Silverberg actually stated (in his introduction to one of her short story collections):

"It has been suggested that Tiptree is female, a theory that I find absurd, for there is something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree's writing."

Well, clearly the suggestion (by whomever) wasn't that absurd. Point being, the way someone's writing "comes across" has in many cases only the most tangential relation to their actual personality, and trying to analyze (statistically or otherwise) someone's artistic output in a vacuum, without reference to biographical data, is likely doomed to failure, sometimes highly embarrassing and amusing failure. Maybe she wrote "like a man" because she was a closet lesbian, maybe it's more complicated than that (my view).

As far as nature v. nurture in general, I'm sure both play a part, but probably through such a complex interplay of influences that untangling them in any particular case would be impossible. But more importantly, is it desirable to do so? In order to replicate a "style" or viewpoint one admires? Down that road lies empty pasticheur and stultifying aping of technique (I'm lookin' at you, "Cthulhu Mythos"). On the nature side, sure there are probably genetic factors that contribute to native aesthetic and intellectual capacities and predispose an individual to become a "creative type". But the exact content of the artistic productions are much more likely to be the end results of dialogue with all sorts of environmental and cultural influences, as well as specific predecessors (i.e., HPL's struggles to get past Dunsany, Leiber's conscious decision to avoid writing in Lovecraft's mode despite his admiration, etc.).

I realize literary critics need to make a living, but not being one I have the luxury of holding to Gandalf's maxim, "He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

Just sit back and enjoy the show...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2 Oct 11 | 12:22PM by Radovarl.

K_A_Opperman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Currently reading Graves for the first time. I'm
> about a third in--a difficult, but intriguing,
> read.

I read The White Goddess a couple years ago, based on calonlan's recommendation (thanks!). I too found it very intriguing, but in the end I think it gives more insight into Graves himself than into myths or mythmaking as a whole. Perhaps it's my prejudice as a social scientifically-trained person to want actual rigorously gathered evidence, but I found Graves' method a bit too "creative" for my purposes. I guess that's what you get for sending a poet to do an anthropologist's job :).

Quote:

Radovarl
I read The White Goddess a couple years ago, based on calonlan's recommendation (thanks!)

He got me, too! Graves' text is at the periphery of my mind's ability to understand, and his learning is across the universe from my own--but I'm hanging on; I'm in it till the finish! Yes, his theories may seem outlandish to some--but for now, because it suits my poet's fancy, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'm reading it as I would a fantastic novel--'suspension of disbelief,' and all that. I'm hearing him out, all the way, before forming judgement. And anyway, I'm not really learned enough to poke holes in his argument. There is much to get out of it, whether one believes in Graves' thoeries or not. And it helps that I share Graves' 'creative' side--though I am not without scientific rationality, when I choose to completely spoil the fun of existence.... But I shouldn't bash science too much; how else would we get science-fiction?!

K_A_Opperman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He got me, too! Graves' text is at the periphery
> of my mind's ability to understand, and his
> learning is across the universe from my own--but
> I'm hanging on; I'm in it till the finish! Yes,
> his theories may seem outlandish to some--but for
> now, because it suits my poet's fancy, I'm giving
> him the benefit of the doubt...

I read it the same way; just kept on truckin' whether I completely followed his argument or not.

> ... I'm reading it as I
> would a fantastic novel--'suspension of
> disbelief,' and all that. I'm hearing him out, all
> the way, before forming judgement. And anyway, I'm
> not really learned enough to poke holes in his
> argument. There is much to get out of it, whether
> one believes in Graves' thoeries or not...

I found Graves' theories compelling, but his "data" not so much. A lot of the lore he bases his judgments on makes a lot of sense and is presumably valid, but other times he visibly hand-waves things, or basically says (paraphrasing), "This is the way I want to interpret this in order to further my train of thought," which is pretty darn sloppy, even for someone studying something as nebulous as the underlying mythic structures in an array of cultures.

> ... And it
> helps that I share Graves' 'creative' side--though
> I am not without scientific rationality, when I
> choose to completely spoil the fun of
> existence.... But I shouldn't bash science too
> much; how else would we get science-fiction?!

Unfortunately I don't have a creative side (unless you count a literally generative talent for creating offspring, haha) at all, though I am imaginative. That's what I need CAS and the gang for, to provide the grist for the mill. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed reading Graves. Just not sure I put much stock in his conclusions.

Science fiction is something I do know a bit about. Don't let them fool ya; science fiction has no relation to science to speak of. "Hard" science fiction is just science fiction by and for engineers who are trying to fool themselves into thinking they're not wasting their college degrees (similar to the way "magic realism" is fantasy by people with Spanish surnames).

Quote:

Radovarl
science fiction has no relation to science to speak of

That's why I like reading it so much! The very vague and improbable/impossible 'science' incorporated into good science fiction stories just serves to make it a little bit easier to suspend that disbelief, to say: "it just might be possible, to some degree, in some form." Science is a tool to be bent and shaped cunningly to the fiction writer's will, even if the 'science' that results is total fantasy, with hardly a speck of grounding in reality whatsoever, if at all. However, the more plausible, the better. But when plausibility lacks, atmosphere must fill the gap--an atmosphere, physical and psychological, objective and subjective, must be created wherein just about anything can happen.

Quote:

Radovarl
(similar to the way "magic realism" is fantasy by people with Spanish surnames).

Sir, that is the funniest thing I have heard all day!--it's so true!

Quote:

I realize literary critics need to make a living, but not being one I have the luxury of holding to Gandalf's maxim, "He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

As someone who has an M.A. in English, and who declined to pursue a doctoral degree in the subject, I can only say, "amen!"

As for Graves, I admit to not having read his White Goddess, but that is because I tend to dislike pattern-discoverers and systematizers. Invariably, they are more wrong than right. If they are to be read, then it should be for the individual insights they occasionally provide, and not for their overall argument.

That said, whoever wants to read richly stimulating and poetic criticism will find it in a rather unlikely place: The writings of the philosopher of science Gaston Bachelard. Of course, his use of the four classical elements to classify poets is absurd if taken too far, and his phenomenological approach has its limits, in general, but, when reading Bachelard, the reader senses that one poet is speaking of another. I would imagine that that is the main merit of Graves's study, as well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 3 Oct 11 | 11:59AM by Absquatch.

Radovarl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "He that breaks a thing to find
> out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

Not at all---the knowledge we acquire allows us to make new ones.

Don't tell that to Gandalf. He has a very bad temper off screen....

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Radovarl Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > "He that breaks a thing to find
> > out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
>
> Not at all---the knowledge we acquire allows us to
> make new ones.

70-some years of badly unsuccessful attempts to reverse engineer Lovecraft would seem to contradict that remark. And I find it difficult to believe that any study of CAS would enable the analyst to replicate his performances, or even anything approximating them.

It occurs to me that I sound completely hostile to lit crit. I'm not. I find it interesting to read, in small doses, especially if it provides insight into aspects of the subject, or provides context, that I might otherwise have missed.

cathexis Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------
> So you do not admit of The Muse?

Nope.

> You accept both NATURE (your allcaps) & NUTURE.
> You also allow for GENIUS.
> But if we allow for the MUSE as another category
> it opens the door to the
> SUPERNATURAL perhaps? You have not covered that
> influence in CAS.

To quote Josef Stalin: when I hear the word SUPERNATURAL, I reach for my SYLLOGISMS... To quote the Sex Pistols: Never mind the BOLLOX -- where's the EVIDENCE? Ok, fine, if literal or symbolic belief in a 'muse' helps an artist (Graves, REH), let him/her believe 'til her/his eyes bubble... but please offer evidence that anything supernatural is actually going on. And please DEFINE 'supernatural'... It always seems-ta-me to melt AWAY when examined with any epistemological RIGOR.....

The troot (ta me) seems v. clear: talents and psychological propensities are NOT evenly distributed among the various gender, sexuality and 'race' communities of Hom. sap. And it's NOTHING to do with the supernatural (it seems-ta-me)... To quote Emily Dickinson: 'Don'cha know that we are living in a material world... and I am a material girl...?'

> I recall
> (but cannot give the source to prove) that REH
> claimed a Muse in the form
> of an ancient warrior - or was it Kull himself?
> Regardless because then
> someone would be likely to deny the Muse in CAS.
> Why? Here's what Robert
> Graves had to say about it:
>
> "No Muse-poet grows conscious of the Muse except
> by experience
> of a woman in whom the Goddess is to some degree
> resident; just as no Apollonian poet
> can perform his proper function unless he lives
> under a monarchy or a quasi-monarchy.
> A Muse-poet falls in love, absolutely, and his
> true love is for him the embodiment of
> the Muse... But the real, perpetually obsessed
> Muse-poet distinguishes between the Goddess
> as manifest in the supreme power, glory, wisdom,
> and love of woman, and the individual woman
> whom the Goddess may make her instrument... The
> Goddess abides; and perhaps he will again have
> knowledge of her through his experience of another
> woman...
>
> Based on my small understanding CAS lived largely
> in isolation during his creative period.
> So the above quote doesn't sound like CAS to me.

Radovarl Wrote:

> > Reading CAS, you
> can
> > intuit his psychology and intelligence. But is
> > there MORE there to be extracted? Is, e.g.,
> CAS's
> > membership of a particular gender and "race"
> > community encoded in his language?
> >
> > Nature'n'nurture...
>
> I immediately thought of James Tiptree, Jr. (i.e.,
> Alice Sheldon) when you mentioned the possibility
> of intuiting or deducing someone's gender or other
> demographic membership from their writing. Clearly
> "his" was a case that stumped even the most astute
> of her colleagues in the SF community (LeGuin,
> Ellison, Silverberg most famously) to one degree
> or another, to the point where Robert Silverberg
> actually stated (in his introduction to one of her
> short story collections):
>
> "It has been suggested that Tiptree is female, a
> theory that I find absurd, for there is something
> ineluctably masculine about Tiptree's writing."

James Tiptree Jnr. DID seem v. male, but brains vary more'n bodies and there's a CONTINUUM, not a CHASM, between 'male' and 'female' psychology. To draw a crude analogy: is someone who's 7'2" tall more likely to be male than female? A-course: MUCH more likely to be. Similarly, the FURTHER you head out into the literary badlands/margins, the LESS likely ya're ta discover the distaff doin' the dirty.....

> But the exact content of the artistic
> productions are much more likely to be the end
> results of dialogue with all sorts of
> environmental and cultural influences, as well as
> specific predecessors (i.e., HPL's struggles to
> get past Dunsany, Leiber's conscious decision to
> avoid writing in Lovecraft's mode despite his
> admiration, etc.).

Oh, I don't claim genetics does or ever COULD determine the exact content of any work of art... but then it can't determine the exact content of something it works much more directly on: the brain/body. Neverth'less, genetic influence on the brain, and therefore on psychology, personality, artistic production, etc, is POWERFUL... As we will inCREASingly see.....

I don't believe CAS was made great by his upbringing and environment: I believe he was BORN great. His upbringing and environment coulda preVENted his greatness emerging, sure, but they didn't creATE it.....

(They coulda perVERTed it too... (And mebbe they did.....))