After reading Robert Hass’ poem, Meditation at Lagunitas I feel that in order to have effective communication you need to have failure of language. The reason for failure is that not everyone uses the same type of language in the same content as each other. It can easily be said that language causes us to misunderstand the world. Robert Hass states that “The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminosity clarity of the general idea” which in other words is saying that what people see as “real” things actually differ amongst all people because their perception of the word is different due to the appearance of things. For example when we talked about the word “table” in class, everyone had a different image in their head when they thought of that word. Hass also claims that words we use, don't really refer to real things but rather to things that have been lost, “Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.” This can compare to the loss of language of Ildefonso who didn't even know language existed. To effectively communicate, there needs to be flaws in language because not everyone is going to agree on the same idea or perception of a word. People take in language differently and speak it out differently as well which explains why there are at least five-hundred different languages. I am more then positive that if we looked into each language there is even a different language inside of a language. Earlier in the poem Robert said that words we use don't refer to real things, but to thins lost and now at the end of the poem he is saying that after you say it more then once “blackberry, blackberry, blackberry” it starts to be a word with meaning. Poet Robert Hass would be able to agree with the idea of the need for failure of language in his poem, Meditation at Lagunitas due to the fact failure of language amounts people refer to different ideas of words.
I completely agree with Natalie. Robert Hass' poem, Mediation of Lagunitas refers to a type of philosophy that denies the obvious facts of reality and sends the message that through centuries people have tried to make sense of loss and that Language causes misunderstanding when viewing the world. There has to be failure in language in order to have an effective communication When we talk about specifics it takes away value from the general idea. Ideas are richer and much more abundant than just the real world using the same example Natalie used "blackberry blackberry blackberry" This turns into a word with meaning. Sometimes words don't refer to the real thing but to something that has been lost. This basically means that real things are just as beautiful than words and ideas for example in the word "blackberry" the word may be a real thing that's just as sweet as the fruit. Sometimes language does fail to capture the essence of the moment. An example of this can be when Robert describes his feelings and passion for the woman in the poem describing her figure and how he “felt a violent wonder at her presence” although words do help in the description and give the reader an idea of his feelings it truly can’t reflect to the moment and what he truly felt.
ReplyDeleteI’m having a hard time fully understanding your idea that “effective communication” stems from “failure of language”. How are you getting that if the whole point of language is to enhance communication? If you could elaborate on that idea it would help a lot.
ReplyDeleteAs for the statement, “The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminosity clarity of the general idea”, my interpretation differs slightly from your own in that I extend it. To better explain my idea, I’ll recycle your memory of the table exercise: when Shiloh had all of us think of a table, collectively, each person had a unique perception. However, if any one of us took the image that we had, it would most likely be very different than the nearest table (and only one person said that the table they imagined was like the table that was currently in the classroom). In this sense, the “general idea” represents anyone’s interpretation of a table and the “particular” represents an actual table (i.e. the one located in the classroom). So “each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea” becomes “an actual table may not fit into your idea of a table, thus your perception loses clarity”.
I agree with you and Robert Hass' poem, Meditation at Lagunitas. In order for a language to succeed and thrive, it must in some form fail. I believe that's why we have so many different languages today; for instance, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan all derive from one base language-- Latin. They became known as the Romantic languages. I think in order for Latin to change into all of these different languages, it had to fail. There were different people of different cultures and nations that changed and morphed that language. So, in order for that language to arise, the original language had to in some form, fail. When all of those people moved to different countries speaking the same language, they encountered different things. Therefore, Latin had to change to adapt to the country and person. For instance, South Americans and the French are not going to look at a piece of flat bread and think of the same thing; South Americans will possibly think of "Tortilla" and the French will possibly think "Crepe." So, in order for a language to succeed it must fail and be misunderstood.
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