Thanks to Peter Jones for opening the door and Helen Betham for offering a clear
illustration of the relationship of texts and activity, and bringing up Hamlet as
a familiar example... I'm pasting in these snips mainly to keep the path visible:
Peter JONES(SCS) wrote:
> 17 april 2000
> from peter jones, sheffield hallam university
> Firstly, I think Nate and Gordon are absolutely right to place the text (all
> texts) within activity.
Helen Beetham wrote:
"And in this case I would argue that the reanimation of the textual 'voice'
through reading, even though it is now an internalised voice - at least once we
have learned to read reasonably proficiently! - is still originally a social
activity."
To keep Helen's point clear in my mind I found myself drawing little triangles.
Each one had the text, Hamlet, at one corner. The first triangle had "actor" and
"performance" for the second and third corners; the second triangle had "reader"
and "interpretation or reading" for the second and third corners.... Changing the
corner label from "actor" to "reader" -- which Helen points out is the historical
progression (although she moves from plays to novels, which is important) --
changes the term appropriate to the third corner -- and vice versa, of course.
I want to stop and think about Helen's remark, "It is only when the scene of
reading becomes displaced to the individual, as it did in the west with the rise
of Romanticism and the novel, that the primary text becomes unclear."
Unclear because meaning is social and can't be established/fixed by an isolated
individual?
I too have more to say but I hope that Helen will consider this message "picking
up the thread" so that she will respond.
Helena Worthen
Assistant Professor of Labor Education, Chicago Labor Education Program
University of Illinois
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 23 2000 - 09:21:17 PDT