M & D relevant

[Elisabeth Romberg]

That Keith Thomas looks like a cool dude.. I’ve gone ahead and ordered that book you referred to. I totally agree with your points, had to look up Empsonian though, and learned about the Seven Types of Ambiguity. Thanks!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Types_of_Ambiguity <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Types_of_Ambiguity>

I’m particularly interested in number 5: "When the author discovers his idea in the act of writing». 


> 5. apr. 2015 kl. 23.57 skrev Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
> 
> I have just read a good essay on Shakespeare and his sense of
> causation in his history plays....in which the author quotes from
> Keith Thomas's book on the decline of magic (to make movement
> of history points) and quotes from philosophers of history, one of whom
> writes something very close to this:
> 
> "To create fully believable and coherent characters in history (or
> historical fiction)
> is to not need to plumb historical causation because the depth of the
> characterization shows the history---with so many causes---that
> created them."
> 
> Pynchon's historical novel M & D 1) keeps 'magic' alive post-Enlgihtenment
> 2) his depth of characterization of Mason & Dixon, embedded in history &
> an anachronous history, shows his vision of causes is Empsonianly ambiguous.
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

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