Fwd: Re: "winders of the circuit of circuits"

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

> From: ronbutters at AOL.COM
> Date: December 29, 2008 12:17:10 PM PST
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: "winders of the circuit of circuits"
>
>
> Has nobody looked to see what Whitman scholarship says? This is a
> literary question, not a linguistic one.

I think I mentioned in my original query that as best I and my
correspondent can tell the Whitman scholarship is uninformative on
this one -- at least, lots of people quote the line but nobody seems
to explicate it. It's clearly a linguistic question what the literal
meaning of the phrase is in context -- for example, does 'wind' here
mean "traverse," "bend," or "wrap"?; what's the relevant sense of
'circuit'?; was this a familiar collocation?, etc. It's more of a
literary question what figurative or suggestive meaning Whitman was
after, though I don't know that one can cut this distinction so cleanly.

Anyway, I've forwarded the numerous useful comments and suggestions to
my friend, who was extremely grateful for the help.

Geoff Nunberg
>

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