I've made my points and I stand by them.
Play with them as you will.

Cheers,
Peter.

Dr. Peter C. Montgomery
Dept. of English
Camosun College
3100 Foul Bay Rd.
Victoria, BC CANADA V8P 5J2
[log in to unmask]
www.camosun.bc.ca/~peterm


-----Original Message-----
From: Nancy Gish [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 8:29 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Grammar (you and I)


Rebuttal is so much easier if you rebut your own claims and ignore what
was said.

First, the lines from the sonnet are about poetry outliving flesh.  All very
beautiful but not related to the issue of print vs. oral transmission.  It
could
"give life" transmitted either way.

Second, I did not throw out anything.  Eliot's words may be performed in
many ways, but I said nothing about interpretive performance, which is
what is at stake in anyone now performing Eliot.  It is true he recorded his
own poems, but that is not what I was discussing either, and IN ANY
CASE, once performance enters, the performance of others is as valid as
that of an author.  That is why there is theater.  Once the words are on the
page, the actor/ reader/ performer creates anew.  None of which is relevant
to my statement below.

Third, we already have a spoken version:  it's called a telephone.  And that
includes conference calls.  But I referred to THIS medium, not any
theoretical future one.

And I think that "spoken multi-referential" medium you imagine has long
existed--it's called (among many other things) a Glasgow pub.

But that is also quite another topic.  If you want a debate, it really is
useful
to address what the other says and not what they do not say.
Nancy









Date sent:              Tue, 8 Apr 2003 19:44:27 -0700
Send reply to:          "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum."
<[log in to unmask]>
From:                   Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: Grammar (you and I)
To:                     [log in to unmask]

From: Nancy Gish [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sad announcement:  Eliot is dead.
=======================================
PM>As long as men can breath and eyes can see,
   so long lives this and this gives life to thee.
=======================================
NG>The only words we have from him are what is written.
So I just assume the list is in fact about studying writing.
======================================================
=
PM>So you wholus-bolus throw out voice, theatrical
performance, character development, ALL of which
were designed for active voice, not simply word analysis on paper? (Not to
mention the auditory imagination?)
============================================== NG>I
won't get into whether
this is an oral medium, but if
   it is, it's a pretty pathetic one since it is atonal,
   lacks body language, and has no pitch.
==============================================
PM>I will admit that as a seminal medium, its
   potential has barely been tapped, but if
   all the qualities you mention can be brought
   to life from a script, so the same qualities
   are here, if people want to use them. Besides,
   this is only a temporary transitional phase
   of the medium. Soon we will be using spoken voice.

   However, print lovers have cause for cheer.
   The Gutenberg Elegies were so much cloying
   tears in beer. When the horse was obsolesced
   by the auto, it far from disappeared. It
   could be said to have become even more
   apparent through hollywood and through dresage.

   Print will find its own place on the shelf, next
   to the manuscript which it obsolesced.

   If McLuhan is right (write, rite), new media
   obsolesce old media, but in the process, turn
   those old media into art forms.

   The real challenge will be to develop the grammar
   of hypertext, which could well transform the language
   overnight into something unrecognisable. I don't
   necessarily mean computer hypertext, I mean written
   and spoken multi-referential language.

Cheers,
Peter.

Dr. Peter C. Montgomery
Dept. of English
Camosun College
3100 Foul Bay Rd.
Victoria, BC CANADA V8P 5J2
[log in to unmask]
www.camosun.bc.ca/~peterm




Date sent:              Mon, 7 Apr 2003 21:32:37 -0700
Send reply to:          "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum."
<[log in to unmask]>
From:                   Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: Grammar (you and I)
To:                     [log in to unmask]

Nancy wrote:
why study the gorgeous complexities of writing
==============================================
Who says I do? Remeber, I claim this to be an oral medium.
But I gotta use words when I talk to you;
But if you understand or if you don't....

Cheers,
Peter.

Dr. Peter C. Montgomery
Dept. of English
Camosun College
3100 Foul Bay Rd.
Victoria, BC CANADA V8P 5J2
[log in to unmask]
www.camosun.bc.ca/~peterm