Seven Types of Ambiguity

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Paul Mackin wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-01-26 at 10:20 -0800, Glenn Scheper wrote:
> > What are the seven?
> know the answer, has the original handy. I think it's still read and
> discussed.

All those years as a litcrit teacher were not totally useless, after all:

1) A piece of language is effective in several ways at once
2) A piece of language has alternative meanings that are
reducible to the meaning intended by the writer (?)
3) A piece of language contains two seemingly unconnected meanings
4) Alternative and contradictory meanings of an utterance add up to
reflect the writer's complicated mind
5) A simile refers imperfectly to two connectable things - this "fortunate
confusion" shows the writer discovering the idea when writing
6) An utterance is contradictory or irrelevant enough to make the readers
invent their own interpretations
7) An utterance is so fundamentally contradictory that it reveals
a basic division in the writer's mind

Quite ambiguously stated here. Read Empson's fine book instead.

If his IMHO greatest study, "Some Versions of Pastoral", were written half
a century later, it might well have included, besides Carroll etc, TRP too
(I'm thinking of GR and VL).


Heikki