May 24, 2005
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Final Arrangements, continued:
Two Poles
From today’s New York Times:
From erraticimpact.com on Paul Ricoeur:
“Ricoeur reserves his greatest admiration for
the
narratologist Algirdas-Julien Greimas.[See below.]Ricoeur also explores
the relationship
between the philosophical and religious
domains, attempting to reconcile
the two poles in his thought.”From today’s NYT obituary of Sol Stetin: “Mr. Stetin, who emigrated from Poland at the age of 10 and dropped out
of high school in the ninth grade, was fond of saying he got his
education in the labor movement.”
Elementary Artcontinued:
“… it is not in isolation that the rhetorical power of such oppositions resides, but
in their articulation in relation to other oppositions.
In Aristotle’s Physics the four elements of earth, air, fire and
water were said to be opposed in pairs.
For more than two thousand years oppositional patterns based on these four
elements were widely accepted as the fundamental structure underlying surface reality….
The structuralist semiotician Algirdas Greimas introduced the semiotic square
(which he adapted from the ‘logical square’ of scholastic philosophy)
as a means of analysing paired concepts more fully….”
– Daniel Chandler, Semiotics for BeginnersRelated material:Poetry’s Bones and
Theme and Variations.Other readings on polarity:
Log24, May 24, 2003, and
from July 26, 2003:Bright Star and Dark Lady
“Mexico is a solar country — but it is also a black
country, a dark country. This duality of Mexico has preoccupied me
since I was a child.”– Octavio Paz,
quoted by Homero Aridjis
Bright Star
Amen.
Dark Lady
