In a message dated 5/2/08 11:35:57 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> I suppose there's no doubting that Cheerskep feels like he has an AE with
> both of them -- but unless we can determine some special quality about that
> Shakespeare AE -- well, what's the point of telling kids to study great
> literature --- when any jackass can go to the ballpark and have a great time?
>
As I've been confessing, I'm mulling a still-woefully-fuzzy way the nature of
those things we think we are are "referring to" when we say "a.e.". If we can
momentrily talk about "kinds" of a.e., we get several kinds from a good
Shakespeare play, and I don't pretend a football game can supply all those
kinds.
But there's a particular kind, the sort Aristotle chiefly emphasized, that
comes from the unfolding of a "drama" with such things as an inevitability,
triumph and failure, Nemesis, and more. I claim I've felt that in several
sporting
contests.
However, a given Shakespeare play teems with a.e.'s (recall my earlier claim
that works like plays and novels are not a single WoA -- they are a collection
of many of them). Meantime, it is the very rare sporting contest that reaches
a powerful level of drama, so I certainly wouldn't tell anyone they can just
go to the ballpark and they're likely to have the same share of a.e.'s they'd
get from a Shakespeare play.
Tell me honestly -- have you never been a spectator to a "non-fiction" event
-- on tv or in an arena -- whern you realized you were being seized by a sense
of memorable drama?
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