[Lexicog] When Semantics Doesn't Matter
bolstar1
bolstar1 at YAHOO.COM
Fri Jun 29 16:10:33 UTC 2007
"Better a witty fool than a foolish wit." Is this the use of
antistrophe or chiasmus? Well, here the use, or frequency of use,
would take precedence over any particular dictionary, because "it's
all one" according to the dictionaries. My gut tells me "chiasmus,"
but the OneLook Reverse Dictionary doesn't list it under "inverse,"
but it does list "antistrophe" (both alluding to the reverse order of
parallel phrases.)
This all becomes trivial pursuit however, when balanced against
the original meaning of Shakey. According to C.T. Onions, and backed
up by disparate lines in Bardies' collection of plays, the original
meaning of "witty" here is "wise" or "prudent" -- other than we would
assume (or do we even assume we know the meaning of the cryptic
phrase in the first place?). The meaning of "witty" has lost that
connotational color in today's one-liner-world of Leno and Letterman
(sorry, Carson, that you didn't get mentioned).
This example would also be grist for the purist-mill in
castigating 'modernizers-of-Shakespeare', if it weren't for the
matter of words changing meaning 180 degrees (oppo-semantic-shift)--
an issue that, for me, makes modernizing Shakespeare more than an
idealist-torch for hip-lingo-Anglophiles. (e.g. In III Henry VI 1.4.3-
5 "My uncles both are slain in rescuing me/And all my followers to
the eager foe/Turn back and fly..."). Rather than hot pursuit of the
enemy, 'turn back' means "turn their backs on" -- i.e. "flee in
fear". Would changing the wording "turn back and fly" to "Turn their
backs and flee" be such a roll-over-in-his-grave affront to the
genius of Shakey -- if it meant understanding what he meant?
Oviously, the following context indicates the meaning -- but that's
an eventual understanding, if the listener/audience/reader would like
to go back to re-interpret what has now turned to a new phrasal
enigma, to perhaps re-interpret a line or two later.
These examples show how tricky modernization can be. Many more
examples, especially of verse, not open-prose, could be cited to
illustrate the conundrums involved. But the question to me is not
really "Should shakespeare be modernized" as much as "At what point
in the current/future English language era must it be modernized?"
Scott Nelson
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