MDMD2: The Learned English Dog

[Dave Monroe]

"All at once, out of the Murk, a dozen mirror'd Lanthorns have leapt
alight together, as into their Glare now strolls a somewhat dishevel'd
Norfolk Terrier, with a raffish Gleam in its eye,--" (M&D, Ch. 3, p. 18)

By the way, another anachronism here, even from within the Revd Wicks
Cherrycoke's narrative frame ...

raff·ish
'ra-fish
adjective
1801
1 : marked by or suggestive of flashy vulgarity or crudeness
2 : marked by a careless unconventionality : RAKISH

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

Note the date (vs. WC's 1786).  But taking "raffish" to be roughly
synonymous with "roguish," to continue, from William Empson, The
Structure of Complex Words (Norfolk [!], CN: New Directions, 1951), Ch.
7, "The English Dog," pp. 158-74 ...

   "Orion makes a fine discourse on dogs in Summer's Last Will and
Testament ....  Being a hunter, he is concerned with the dog's natural
wisdom, faithfulness, and so forth; one might connect Shakespeare's view
of dogs with his not coming from a hunting class and his evident
sympathy, in Lucrece, for the hare.
   "The more obvious Elizabethan view, the idea of the dog as a cynic ..
seems to be in part a learned innovation." (p. 164)

cyn·ic
'si-nik
noun
Middle French or Latin, Middle French cynique, from Latin cynicus, from
Greek kynikos, literally, like a dog, from kyn-, kyOn dog -- more at
HOUND
1545
1 capitalized : an adherent of an ancient Greek school of philosophers
who held the view that virtue is the only good and that its essence lies
in self-control and independence
2 : a faultfinding captious critic; especially : one who believes that
human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

And note Empson's previous comments about "The web of European
civilization seem[ing] to have been slung between the ideas of
Christianity and those of a half-secret rival ... one that streses pride
rather than humility, self-realization rather than self-denial" (p.
159), the articulation betwixt "rogue" as "out-and-out" et al. and "dog"
(p. 162).  But to continue ...

"However, there was a more obvious element in dog behaviour that fitted
the cynic; the habit of making water often and on conspicuous objects,
actually (I believe) as a signal to the next comer, but mistaken by men
for a symbol of contempt." (p. 164)

However, cf. ...

   "'This seems to be all right.'  The Learned English Dog stops and
pisses.
   "'This dog,' Mason singing sotto voce, 'is causing me
ap-pre-hen-sion,-- surely creatures of miracle ought not to, I
mean,...Flying horses?  None of them ever--'
   "'The Sphinx...?' adds Dixon.
   "'My Thoughts precisely.'" (M&D, Ch. 3, p. 20)

Signal, singing, ap-pre-hen-sion (why the syllabication here?), and Imps
thereof ...

ap·pre·hen·sion
"a-pri-'hen(t)-sh&n
noun
Middle English, from Late Latin apprehension-, apprehensio, from Latin
apprehendere 14th century

[...]

3 : suspicion or fear especially of future evil : FOREBODING

http://m-w.com/dictionary/

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=883&sort=date

   "This connection with cynicism is puzzling to modern sentiment, which
tends rather to stress the unresoning fidelity of the creatures; and
certainly there were contrasting ideas....  Shakespeare, as has often
been pointed out, had a sort of fixation of disgust between the words
'spaniel' and 'candy'; the dogs always appear slobbering and melting
their sweets ....
   "Lear brings in dogs fifteen times, or more if you count synonyms ...
.  They chiefly appear as snobs, cruel to the unfortunate, also either
as flatterers or as habitually flattered ....  The Fool has a phrase
'dog in madness' which apparently appeals to hydrophobia, in a
determined effort to make metaphorical dogs join the variety of lunatics
already represented in the play....  Shakesperae had just reached the
height of his anti-dog sentiment juts before the ysterious pro-dog
gestures which are part of the cynicism of Timon." (pp. 165-6)

By the way, Ch. 8 here is "Timon's Dog" (pp. 175-84), though I'm sure
y'all will appreciate that the ol' carpal tunnel/arthritis/whatever'll
stop me from getting that far here.  But skipping a bunch of stuff and
picking up not quite where I left off ...

"The paradox of the independence of a specially dependent creature is as
clear here as in the Fool." (p. 166)

   "The brief sixteenth-century fasjion of swearing by Dog's wounds
instead of God's might also be mentioned; the dog is God's opposite in
sound so you can swear by hime as the scapegoat--blame everything on the
dog....  So far as the dog is connected with God by sound it is easy to
make of him a devil ....  The idea of sexual looseness also carrie
weight in this direction ....  'dogged' in the later sense of the word
....  The old sense was 'cursed, malicious', then 'fixedly malicious',
'obstinate' ... and from this took its eighteenth0century twist into
'having rugged strength of character'.  Various elements which had given
the dog strength as a symbol of evil could still give it strength in
terms of praise." (p. 167)

"It gave the eighteenth-century use a considerable range of praise.
Though become respectable, the human dog keeps something of the
independence of the outcast; he is at least undoubtedly sure of what he
wants, and the suggestion of slyness [learnedness?] adds to his
competence and keeps his animalism from stupidity.   There is also
enough 'blow-the-gaff' feeling about calling a man a dog to give him a
fundamental sincerity ...; he does not hide the truth about himself and
therefore shows the truth about us all." (p. 168)

"Dog, it is absurd but half-true to say, became to the
eighteenth-century sceptic what God had been to his ancestors, the last
security behind human values.  'Men are no more than animals.  No man by
any effort can escape the chrmed circle of self-interest.'
'Materialist' ideas of this sort were in the air, not so often believed
as feared to be possible.  'Yet if the worst is the dog, humanity is
still tolerable.'  I know of no parallel development on the Continent to
the English dog ...; it gives one a sense of Voltaire's real
qualifications to discover England when one finds him, in old age, with
wary but genial admiration, shaking his head over Dr. Johnson to Boswell
and calling him ('in the English phrase') 'a supersititious dog'.  The
stress, of course, is on supersititious ....  Dog is unstressed because
the phrase assumes that everybody is some kind of dog ...." (p. 168)

Cf. ...

"'But please do note come to the Learned English Dog if it's Religious
Comfort you're after.  I may be praeternatural, but I am not
supernatural.  'Tis the Age of Reason, rrrf?  There is ever an
Explanation at hand, and no such thing as a Talking Dog,--'" (M&D, Ch.
3, p. 22)

Okay, one last pass through Empson left to go then, but I've already had
to call up another address to save this post from what might prove to be
yet another crash here, so ...