tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post9052323347592244312..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Bodies in Motion 3: Or Any Other Beauty We Share with StoneCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-24282805560272805172008-11-19T13:52:00.000-05:002008-11-19T13:52:00.000-05:00Hit and run comment, hopefully more tomorrow, but:...Hit and run comment, hopefully more tomorrow, but:<BR/><BR/><I>and yet I can't help wondering if medieval English ears didn't hear some rocky resonance within it.</I><BR/><BR/>Certainly Joyce did. See the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_&_Jeff" REL="nofollow">Mutt and Jute</A> dialogue in <A HREF="http://books.google.com/books?id=CTrT6wh172AC&pg=PA18&dq=%22Ore+you+astoneaged,+jute+you%22&ei=oV8kSfrJD4y4yASztv35Ag&client=firefox-a" REL="nofollow"><I>Finnegans Wake,</I></A> which echoes both thunderstruck and stonedKarl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-34369836564104599462008-11-19T13:45:00.000-05:002008-11-19T13:45:00.000-05:00Thank you, as always, for your generous comments J...Thank you, as always, for your generous comments Jonathan. This version doesn't incorporate what you've already given me off blog (it is still basically my SEMA paper) but your references and insights are proving very helpful as I recast the plenary as an essay for publication -- and eventually as a book chapter.<BR/><BR/>I love the connection between Jerusalem as a begemmed city and what is going on in Mandeville.<BR/><BR/>As to astonishment: that's a word I've had a long romance with, since it is a medieval term that so well captures a phenomenon I'm enduringly intrigued by, the power of the inhuman to place us beside ourselves. As far as I can discover it comes into Middle English from Old French (estoner), ultimately from Latin <EM>tonare</EM> (to thunder). So it is a stormy word rather than a stony one -- and yet I can't help wondering if medieval English ears didn't hear some rocky resonance within it.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-70753657539336311002008-11-19T13:34:00.000-05:002008-11-19T13:34:00.000-05:00This is such a beautiful and fascinating reading o...This is such a beautiful and fascinating reading of "lapidary Mandeville" - I never "got" the Gravel Sea until you put it in this context! I think I've hurled enough texts in your direction recently, but this posting additionally calls to my mind the lapidary/lunacy convergence in "Pearl" (XVII - XVIII). At the sight of the begemmed walls of Jerusalem/Heavenly City the poet states: "Anunder mone so gret merwayle...I stod as stylle as dased quayle/For ferly of that freche fygure,/That feld I nawther reste ne travayle,/So ravyste wythe glymme pure" (1081-88). In this sequence, "mone" is a key term; it reappears in a cyclical pattern necessitated by the poem's form. It intrigues me - in light of Mandeville - that here too the sight of the "new and ryally dyght" Jerusalem gives stones/structures agency and ravishes the viewer; the poet - and, arguably, the "lunar" Englishman? - is in a strange awestruck stasis. I would imagine, too, that there must be some etymological link between stones and astonishment but I'll stop here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com