Abstract
This study starts with the classical questions on the reality, extension and continuum of the flux of time, and then turns to the creative use of language as a possible solution. It will focus mainly on dramatic language as a spoken language, which has an essential relation with the flow of time. It will look at the different elements in dramatic language such as meter, rhythm, rhetorical devices, and metaphor, etc. to see how language may response to the relation of tension in the structure of time, i.e. how it may, on the one hand, flow with time while, on the other hand, create permanent unities in this flow such as meaning and concept.
I owe this wonderful formulation to Prof. Rudolf Bernet’s suggestion
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Notes
- 1.
Saint Augustine, Confessions, book xi, 14.
- 2.
Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason (A364, A382).
- 3.
Husserl, Edmund. The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness, tr. James S. Churchill (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), p.100.
- 4.
Plato , Cratylus, in: E. Hamilton & H. Cairns ed., tr. B. Jowett, Plato: The Collected Dialogues including the Letters. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 473.
- 5.
Aristotle’s Poetics, 1450b, 1456a-b.
- 6.
Aristotle’s Poetics, 1450b.
- 7.
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: the Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen, 1982), chp. 2, p.17–30.
- 8.
Emotion has been described as movement of the soul in the antiquity. Cicero, for example, uses the term motus animi to refer to emotion. See Cicero, De Oratore, book 3, 215–216. However, in other instances, he uses the same term to refer to the Platonic self-moving soul. See De re publica, book vi, 26–28; Pro Sestio, 43, Cato Maior 78. It is an interesting question whether there is any relation between the two in Greek and Roman philosophy.
- 9.
I find Thomas Mann’s misquote of Cicero’s “motus continuus animi” in his novel Death in Venice interesting, where Aschenbach believes in the “the inner mechanism—the motus animi continuus in which, according to Cicero, eloquence resides.” Unfortunately, it is not from Cicero. While Cicero has quoted Plato’s autokineton in Phaedrus, he has not related it to rhetoric. See Scherer, Paul & Wysling, Hans. Quellenkritische Studien zum Werk Thomas Manns, in: Thomas Mann Studien, Bd. 1, (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1990), p.154. Only in one instance does Cicero talk about the relation between emotion (motus animi) and bodily movement during speaking. See Cicero, De Oratore, book 3, 215–216.
- 10.
Schopenhauer , Arthur. The World as Will and Representation, book iii, tr. J. Norman, A. Welchman & C. Janaway, (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), §51, p. 270.
- 11.
Aristotle , Physics (219a30).
- 12.
This is exactly the opposite of what Husserl calls “absolute Subjektivität” of the “Bewußtseinsfluß” when we have taken away all temporal objects in time.
- 13.
There are different translations of the Greek plural word chronoi. While Nietzsche renders it simply as “Zeiten,” the English translator Lionel Pearson points out that it is a technical term in Greek meter and therefore uses the term “time-length.” See Aristoxenus Elementa Rhythmica: The Fragment of Book II and the Additional Evidence for Aristoxenean Rhythmic Theory, tr. L. Pearson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 5.
- 14.
Günther, Friederike Felicitas. Rhythmus beim frühen Nietzsche, in: Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung, Bd. 55, (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2008), p.120. See also Cathrin Nielsen’s review of Günther’s book “Der Frühe Nietzsche über Erkenntnis, Sprache und Rhythmus” in: Nietzsche-Studien (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter), bd. 39, 2010, p. 613–616.
- 15.
Günther (2008), p.14.
- 16.
See Wong, Kwok-kui. “Rhythm and the Symbolic Process in The Birth of Tragedy”, p.141–142, in: New Nietzsche Studies, Vol. 10, Nos. 3 and 4 (Fall/Winter 2017), (New York: Fordham University), pp. 137–155.
- 17.
Schopenhauer , Arthur. The World as Will and Representation, book iii, §51, p. 269.
- 18.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method, tr. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall, (London: Continuum, 2004), p. 431–432.
- 19.
Johannes von Arnim. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1964), vol. ii, §166 §168, p.48.
- 20.
See Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: the Creation of Meaning in Language (French: La Métaphore vive), tr. R. Czerny, K. McLaughlin & J. Costello, S.J. (London: Routledge, 2003), p.355.
- 21.
Johannes von Arnim. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1964), vol. ii, §166 §168, p.48.
- 22.
Aristotle , Physics, A 4, 211b.
- 23.
William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, act iii, scene i.
- 24.
See John Barton’s Playing Shakespeare, vol. 3. episode 7, Passion and Coolness (Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities, 1990).
- 25.
Some critics regard Shakespeare as having inherited the idea of “rhetorical tragedy “from Roman Stoic tragedy like Seneca (c.1 BC – AD 65), which uses speech to manage one’s emotion. See Hill, R.F. “Shakespeare’s Early Tragic Mode” in: Shakespeare Quarterly 9 (1958), p. 455–469.
- 26.
Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: the Creation of Meaning in Language, tr. R. Czerny, K. McLaughlin & J. Costello, SJ (London: Routledge, 2003), p.355.
- 27.
Cazeaux, Clive. Metaphor and Continental Philosophy: from Kant to Derrida (New York; London: Routledge, 2007), p.193.
- 28.
The Rule of Metaphor, p.351.
- 29.
“One movement aims at determining more rigorously the conceptual traits of reality, while the other aims at making the referents appear (that is, the entities to which the appropriate predicative terms apply). This circularity between the abstractive phase and the concretizing phase makes this power of signifying an unending exercise, a ‘continuing Odyssey’.” p.352.
- 30.
Hegel, G.W.F. Phenomenology of Mind, tr. J.B. Baillie (London: Allen & Unwin, 1977), “Preface”, p.119.
- 31.
Aristotle’s Poetics, 1450b, tr. I. Bywater, in: J. Barnes ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), vol. ii, p.2321.
- 32.
William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, act 2, scene i.
- 33.
John Barton’s Playing Shakespeare (1990).
- 34.
I find Hamlet’s advice to his actors instructive:
-
“HAMLET:
-
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
-
you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
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as many of your players do, I had as lief the
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town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
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too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
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for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
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the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
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a temperance that may give it smoothness. …
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Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
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be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
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word to the action; with this special o’erstep not
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the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
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from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
-
first and now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the
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mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
-
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
-
the time his form and pressure…
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William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 3. Scene 2.
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References
Aristoxenus. 1990. Elementa Rhythmica: The Fragment of Book II and the Additional Evidence for Aristoxenean Rhythmic Theory. Trans. L. Pearson. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Barton, John. 1990. Playing Shakespeare , vol. 3. episode 7, Passion and Coolness. Princeton: Films for the Humanities.
Cazeaux, Clive. 2007. Metaphor and Continental Philosophy: from Kant to Derrida. New York/London: Routledge.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 2004. Truth and Method. Trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall. London: Continuum.
Günther, Friederike Felicitas. 2008. Rhythmus beim frühen Nietzsche. In: Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung, Bd. 55. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1977. Phenomenology of Mind. Trans. J.B. Baillie. London: Allen & Unwin
Husserl, Edmund. 1964. The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness. Trans. James S. Churchill. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Nielsen, Cathrin. 2010. Der Frühe Nietzsche über Erkenntnis, Sprache und Rhythmus. In Nietzsche-Studien, 613–616. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, bd. 39.
Ricoeur, Paul. 2003. The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language (French: La Métaphore vive). Trans. R. Czerny, K. McLaughlin, and J. Costello, S.J. London: Routledge.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. 2010. The World as Will and Representation, book iii. Trans. J. Norman, A. Welchman, and C. Janaway. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
von Arnim, Johannes. 1964. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. Stuttgart: Teubner.
Wong, Kwok-kui. 2017. Rhythm and the Symbolic Process in The Birth of Tragedy. New Nietzsche Studies 10 (3 and 4): 137–155. (New York: Fordham University).
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Wong, K.K. (2020). The Figuration of Time: Rhythm and Metaphor in Dramatic Language. In: Lau, KY., Nenon, T. (eds) Phenomenology and the Arts: Logos and Aisthesis. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 109. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30866-7_8
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