Becker, Part 1, Discussion Questions

1. What is philology? (Becker 25; Dickinson and Webster below)

2. What is the role of the "new philologist" (Becker 26)?

3. Discuss Ortega's first axioms for a "new philology": deficiency and exuberance (Becker 5, 17, 19). Every literary text says less than we wish it to. Every literary text says more than we know and more than it intends.

4. What are the roles of redundancy and silence in a literary text? (Becker 5-8)

5. What is the difference between "language" and "languaging"? (Becker 8-12)

6. What is "context-shaping"? (Becker 8-12, 28, 43-46; cf. traditional forumlas and new songs in Watkins)

7. What are the differences between Aristotle's poetics (western Indo-European) and Javanese shadow plays (eastern Indo-European, Eurasian, and Austronesian)? What do western poetics and wayang shadow plays have in common? (Becker 32-43)

8. Compare the language of men with the language of the gods in Becker (50) and Watkins (38).

9. Apply Becker's 4 philological relations to a Dickinson philology poem (25, 29; cf. Louise Rosenblatt's Reader, Text, Poem)

10. Translate the book of Revelation by reshaping it into the context and features of the wayang LAKON structure. (Becker 36-37)

1126

Shall I take thee, the Poet said
To the propounded word?
Be stationed with the Candidates
Till I have finer tried –

The Poet searched Philology
And was about to ring
for the suspended Candidate
There came unsummoned in –

That portion of the Vision
The Word applied to fill
Not unto nomination
The Cherubim reveal –

1342

"Was not" was all the Statement.
The Unpretension stuns –
Perhaps – the comprehension –
They wore no Lexicons –

But lest our Speculation
In inanition die
Because "God took him" mention –
That was Philology – 1651

A Word made Flesh is seldom
And tremblingly partook
Nor then perhaps reported
But have I not mistook
Each one of us has tasted
With ecstasies of stealth
The very food debated
To our specific strength –

A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die
Cohesive as the Spirit
It may expire if He –
“Made Flesh and dwelt among us”
Could condescension be
Like this consent of Language
This loved Philology

PHI-LOL'O-GY, n. [Gr. {}; {}, to love, and {}, a word.]
1. Primarily, a love of words, or a desire to know the origin and construction of language. In a more general sense,
2. That branch of literature which comprehends a knowledge of the etymology or origin and combination of words; grammar, the construction of sentences or use of words in language; criticism, the interpretation of authors, the affinities of different languages, and whatever relates to the history or present state of languages. It sometimes includes rhetoric, poetry, history and antiquities.

(Webster, Noah. American Dictionary of the English Language. Amherst: Jones, 1844.)