53
In addition to Wittgenstein’s powerful mathematical cantos spread generously
throughout his Tractatus, one of the other most provocative books of the twentieth
century, George Steiner’s After Babel—Aspects of Language and Translation
16
consoled as much as it disturbed, particularly in its incessant Ecclesiastes-like reminder
of our mortality, and our hopes of exploiting coordinated symbolisms to evade devastating truths. “It is our syntax, not the physiology of the body or the thermodynamics of the planetary system, which is full of tomorrows. Indeed, this may be the
only area of ‘free will’, of assertion outside direct neurochemical causation or programming,” he wrote.
17
Umberto Eco seems to concur with Steiner in his chapter on
“The Plants Of Shakespeare” in his mystifying work Mouse or Rat? Translation as
Negotiation.
18
Eco early on acknowledges the crucial reality of “homonymy”
(“when a single term refers to two different things or concepts”)
19
and bolsters its
literal cause through “rules of contextual disambiguation”
20
which ultimately means
nothing less than that “hypothesis about the probable structure of the world pictured
by the original text…”.
21
These instant and pressing enigmas are at the root of
humanity’s penchant, indeed, genetic and molecular obsessions with expression;
and equally so, with the unavoidable conclusions that our many-storied peregrinations, myths, and dreams are so magnificently contradictory as to arouse the sensation that not just this or that, but that everything human must be paradoxical.
16 Oxford University Press, New York and London, 1975.
17 ibid., p.227.
18 Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2003.
19 ibid., p.11.
20 ibid., p.15.
21 ibid., p. 19.
6.3 The Ecology of Ecclesiastes
In addition to Wittgenstein’s powerful mathematical cantos spread generously
throughout his Tractatus, one of the other most provocative books of the twentieth
century, George Steiner’s After Babel—Aspects of Language and Translation
16
consoled as much as it disturbed, particularly in its incessant Ecclesiastes-like reminder
of our mortality, and our hopes of exploiting coordinated symbolisms to evade devastating truths. “It is our syntax, not the physiology of the body or the thermodynamics of the planetary system, which is full of tomorrows. Indeed, this may be the
only area of ‘free will’, of assertion outside direct neurochemical causation or programming,” he wrote.
17
Umberto Eco seems to concur with Steiner in his chapter on
“The Plants Of Shakespeare” in his mystifying work Mouse or Rat? Translation as
Negotiation.
18
Eco early on acknowledges the crucial reality of “homonymy”
(“when a single term refers to two different things or concepts”)
19
and bolsters its
literal cause through “rules of contextual disambiguation”
20
which ultimately means
nothing less than that “hypothesis about the probable structure of the world pictured
by the original text…”.
21
These instant and pressing enigmas are at the root of
humanity’s penchant, indeed, genetic and molecular obsessions with expression;
and equally so, with the unavoidable conclusions that our many-storied peregrinations, myths, and dreams are so magnificently contradictory as to arouse the sensation that not just this or that, but that everything human must be paradoxical.
16 Oxford University Press, New York and London, 1975.
17 ibid., p.227.
18 Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2003.
19 ibid., p.11.
20 ibid., p.15.
21 ibid., p. 19.
6.3 The Ecology of Ecclesiastes