[Milton-L] Clarity, was new critics

[Carl Bellinger]

re Clarity

In Byzantine rhetoric, obscurity, "asaphaia," was at least as high an ideal 
as clarity. Only by employing richly developed kinds of asaphaia could a 
text be adequate to express the mysteries of God. The rhetorical term 
"emphasis" was more or less an equivalent.  Perhaps Milton's pictorial "dark 
with exceeding bright" runs along the same literary axis.

I'll show my ignorance and ask if anything like the Byzantine "obscurity" 
shows up as one of Empson's samurai?

  -Carl


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 1:46 PM
Subject: [Milton-L] Clarity, was new critics and empson- a few notes


> Clarity is itself not a very clear concept
>
> 1. Bring me a pound of ten-penny nails.
> 2. Bring me a painting I like.
>
> (This example appears somewhere in one of Pound's early essays.)
>
> Both sentences would be equally "clear" on the basis of any objective
> test of clarity (syntax & vocabulary). But the second is wholly opaque
> without either a close acquaintance with the speaker/writer or an
> accompanying (and probably not too "clear") expostion of what the
> speaker "likes" in painting.
>
> Carrol
>
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