|
Percy says in several places that Susanne Langer dropped the ball and he
intended to pick it up -- he says it in the essays, the conversations,
etc. But only one place do I recall that he actually says WHAT she
dropped -- what she missed. I believe it was early in my reading, in
"Message," but I don't remember what it was and I'm going to have to go back and
look. I thought someone else might have been familiar with it.
Dear Karey,
Perhaps the passage you are looking for is on page
220 of _The Message in the Bottle_ . A footnote in Percy's essay "Culture:
The Antinomy of the Scientific Method".
"As Susanne Langer says, we may, if we like,
interpret language as a sequence of events entailing signs, sounds in the air,
vibrations of ear drums, nerve excitation, brain events, response and so
on. All this does happen. But something has been left out and
it is the most important thing of all. It is that the symbol symbolizes
something."
Cheers,
Jim Piat
|
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.