Language and The Written Word
First of all, this blog is really more of a convenient way for me to keep a journal on my computer which I wanted to do anyway. And it's really working.
So over Shabbos I was talking with someone about the power of the written word and language...which is one of the more overwhelming conversations that one can have when one thinks about it for too long. R' Moshe, in his intro. to his shutim quotes the Gemara about when the Torah was given over to earth and people, how the letters themselves now possess the authority. His point is that his answers are only his understanding of the halakha but if anyone wants to disagree with him they are open to. Which is just testimony to the honesty and genuine-ness of R' Moshe. But in general it raises an important idea about the nature of the written word. Ideas are expressed into language, articulated through words. Each person interprets another's words through ones own filter of experience and thought and derives a unique meaning. How much more is this true of the written word that remains present for one to ponder and look at for longer.
Oftentimes I am around people that are...how shall I say, not literature people. The types that cast away literature as a meaningful endeavor the first time they hear their high school English teacher derive something meaningful form the text, using his/her literary intuition. "where does it say that?! as if the author actually intended any of that. you think he sat there thinking about every word?" they scoff mockingly. Lacking the understanding and imagination of the literary mind, they cast the whole field into the garbage can on their way out of the classroom. The answer to their objection is two fold: firstly, obviously authors are not mindless blobs that spend their time orchestrating words on paper to fill up their meaningless lives with. Anyone semi-familiar with writing understands what it is all about. What's embarrassing is that people continue to think this way into their adult years, never questioning their premise, stating their position pompously. But this is a moot point and I won't even exert energy discussing it further. But on another level, authors do not necessarily intend every idea that every person will ever derive from their work. And it doesn't really matter. As the writers of the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain said, once they put the film out for the world to see, it goes from being their baby, their work, to the world's property, free to be understood and treated however. Intellectual property although possesses an author, is in a certain sense ownerless and open for interpretation.
I was made most aware of this point last semester in a Creative Writing class. I was workshopping my short story and a friend of mine commented on it and brought out a point that I had never intended, but nevertheless was legitimate and added layers to the story of richness and depth. The bottom line is that the way we express ideas in language, our linguistic associations, how we phrase or describe something and how we arrange certain objects next to others, says something about our psyche and worldview. And we cannot help but say more than we are conscious of saying. The words themselves have the authority and they when written, become a sort of tangible but almost playdough like object that can be understood legitimately in many ways.
So it doesn't matter what the author intended. And even if it did, it isn't possible to ever understand an idea the exact same way as someone intends it since our understanding of one's words is based on our own associations, experience, psyche and intellect.
What this means in terms of Torah, the written word of G-d, is huge. It means that even if there is such a thing as one pristine and ideal conceptual "Torah", G-d's ideas, truth itself, 1) we could not actually get to it in its original form because we are not G-d, and 2) it doesn't really matter what the original intention was because the text itself has power, and our understanding of it matters and is legitimate, as long as it is logical and makes sense. What is interesting to ponder in this literary context is the other gemaras that talk about that every possible interpretation was given over to Moshe...
What this means in terms of literature, the written word of man, is that we can never fully get inside of another person, we are forced to interpret ideas through ourselves. And the text is authoritative. What we can glean from it is infinite.
We are a world of people constantly trying to understand eachother and failing at it. Lack of communication and miscommunication is the source of so many problems. There is a scene in Kafka's The Castle where he describes K's encounter with Frieda like two animals clawing at each other, trying but unable to get in. This depiction describes the experience and frustration of humanity in general. We try and we try but we can't fully escape ourselves, we can't fully enter someone else. If we could only internalize this and realize our limited understanding and ability, we would learn to view all people around us as equals, to care and empathize with them. We would realize that we are all in the same suffocating situation and would with humility and self-understanding, release ourselves from the shackles of our inhibitions and with care and concern reach out to the individual.
So over Shabbos I was talking with someone about the power of the written word and language...which is one of the more overwhelming conversations that one can have when one thinks about it for too long. R' Moshe, in his intro. to his shutim quotes the Gemara about when the Torah was given over to earth and people, how the letters themselves now possess the authority. His point is that his answers are only his understanding of the halakha but if anyone wants to disagree with him they are open to. Which is just testimony to the honesty and genuine-ness of R' Moshe. But in general it raises an important idea about the nature of the written word. Ideas are expressed into language, articulated through words. Each person interprets another's words through ones own filter of experience and thought and derives a unique meaning. How much more is this true of the written word that remains present for one to ponder and look at for longer.
Oftentimes I am around people that are...how shall I say, not literature people. The types that cast away literature as a meaningful endeavor the first time they hear their high school English teacher derive something meaningful form the text, using his/her literary intuition. "where does it say that?! as if the author actually intended any of that. you think he sat there thinking about every word?" they scoff mockingly. Lacking the understanding and imagination of the literary mind, they cast the whole field into the garbage can on their way out of the classroom. The answer to their objection is two fold: firstly, obviously authors are not mindless blobs that spend their time orchestrating words on paper to fill up their meaningless lives with. Anyone semi-familiar with writing understands what it is all about. What's embarrassing is that people continue to think this way into their adult years, never questioning their premise, stating their position pompously. But this is a moot point and I won't even exert energy discussing it further. But on another level, authors do not necessarily intend every idea that every person will ever derive from their work. And it doesn't really matter. As the writers of the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain said, once they put the film out for the world to see, it goes from being their baby, their work, to the world's property, free to be understood and treated however. Intellectual property although possesses an author, is in a certain sense ownerless and open for interpretation.
I was made most aware of this point last semester in a Creative Writing class. I was workshopping my short story and a friend of mine commented on it and brought out a point that I had never intended, but nevertheless was legitimate and added layers to the story of richness and depth. The bottom line is that the way we express ideas in language, our linguistic associations, how we phrase or describe something and how we arrange certain objects next to others, says something about our psyche and worldview. And we cannot help but say more than we are conscious of saying. The words themselves have the authority and they when written, become a sort of tangible but almost playdough like object that can be understood legitimately in many ways.
So it doesn't matter what the author intended. And even if it did, it isn't possible to ever understand an idea the exact same way as someone intends it since our understanding of one's words is based on our own associations, experience, psyche and intellect.
What this means in terms of Torah, the written word of G-d, is huge. It means that even if there is such a thing as one pristine and ideal conceptual "Torah", G-d's ideas, truth itself, 1) we could not actually get to it in its original form because we are not G-d, and 2) it doesn't really matter what the original intention was because the text itself has power, and our understanding of it matters and is legitimate, as long as it is logical and makes sense. What is interesting to ponder in this literary context is the other gemaras that talk about that every possible interpretation was given over to Moshe...
What this means in terms of literature, the written word of man, is that we can never fully get inside of another person, we are forced to interpret ideas through ourselves. And the text is authoritative. What we can glean from it is infinite.
We are a world of people constantly trying to understand eachother and failing at it. Lack of communication and miscommunication is the source of so many problems. There is a scene in Kafka's The Castle where he describes K's encounter with Frieda like two animals clawing at each other, trying but unable to get in. This depiction describes the experience and frustration of humanity in general. We try and we try but we can't fully escape ourselves, we can't fully enter someone else. If we could only internalize this and realize our limited understanding and ability, we would learn to view all people around us as equals, to care and empathize with them. We would realize that we are all in the same suffocating situation and would with humility and self-understanding, release ourselves from the shackles of our inhibitions and with care and concern reach out to the individual.
posted by shira at 9:54 PM
3 comments
