J-JOYCE LIST DISCUSSION ON ANNOTATIONS AND GLOSSING
November-December 1998 - CONDENSED VERSION
The letter numbers here are retained from the full version, which has 85 letters.
That full version is also
available at this web site.
Mike Groden
To Michael Groden's Web Page
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1) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 21:25:34 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 02:36 AM 11/6/98 -0800, Jack Kolb wrote:
>An annotated edition provides information: it doesn't prejudice the reader to
one critical view.
For over a week now, the sentence above (among others...) has been begging in
vain to to be used as a springboard for discussion of something substantive. Maybe
the basic question is:
What should annotations or an annotated edition provide? How does one draw a line
between these two things:
(1) simply providing information (which unavoidably carries some implications, and
even suggests some interpretation(s)) and
(2) interpreting, or steering readers to some normative interpretation
It seems hard to draw a line. Yet people have been writing commentaries in great
abundance, and with some success, for millennia -- since c. 300 BCE in the Greek
tradition, for example.
This issue of what is sufficient or appropriate commentary vs. what is supererogatory
or inappropriately "prescriptive" has been bubbling for more than a week,
both here on the Joyce list, and over on FWAKE in connection with a projected "McHugh
3." People seem to have very strong opinions about these matters. Some folks
say too much is never enough; give people everything and let them focus on what appeals
to them. Others say that any commentary inevitably becomes layered over the text
and obscures it, forcing people to look at the text in one way and not another, while
choking off people's willingness to think on their own, maybe even creatively, about
a text's meaning(s).
So here are some places to start:
How do we locate the "golden mean" between "not enough" and "too
much"?
What is commentary/annotation for, anyway?
How are those aims best achieved?
And how are the aims of commentary best achieved in an "electronic-age"
environment?
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4) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 21:16:09 -0500
From: Michael Groden
A couple of days ago Greg Downing tried to steer our attention to questions about
what details in a text like Ulysses should be annotated and how, and Ed Germain and
Tsianides Costas began to answer them. As it happens, I spent quite a bit of time
in my NYU hypermedia-Ulysses lecture on Friday asking similar questions to Greg's
and sharing the same assumptions as Ed outlined at the start of his message, I'd
like to ask the questions I asked at NYU to the list as a way of keeping this thread
going.
At NYU I asked about a specific, very short passage from "Aeolus." Myles
Crawford is about to show Stephen Dedalus and the others how Ignatius Gallaher cabled
the NY World about the murderers' escape route. He says:--
New York World, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his straw hat. Where it took
place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean, Joe Brady and the rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat
drove the car. Whole route, see?--
Skin-the-Goat, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Fitzharris, He has that cabman's shelter,
they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me. You know Holohan? (Gabler ed.,
7:638-43)
I agree fully with Greg that deciding how much to say in an annotation is a critical
decision and also with Ed Germain that what he called "layering," giving
small bits of information at first that open up via links into longer and more complex
analyses is the best way to present information electronically. But what would be
the right amount of information to give here? (I'm talking about information for
a first-time reader, either reading the book alone or in a class. Check out Ed's
site, at http://www.andover.edu/english/joyce for his attempt to put the ideas into
practice for "The Sisters" - from the main screen, follow the links on
Dubliners, The Sisters, and The Annotated Sisters).
Gifford gives two notes, one for "Kelly . . . Brady" and one for "Where
Skin-the-Goat drove the car" (p. 141). Thornton annotates both passages in a
single, somewhat more scholarly note (p. 118; it cites a then-recent article from
vol. 1 of the JJQ). There are also briefer annotations
in the notes to Kiberd's Penguin Annotated Students' Edition and Johnson's Oxford:
1922 Text (neither one available in the US). Fargnoli and Gillespie's JJ A to Z gives
separate entries for Skin the-Goat Fitzharris, the Invincibles, and the Phoenix Park
Murders, all cross-referenced to each other. And there are longer, more critical
and scholarly discussions in books like Fairhall's JJ and the Question of History.
So (question 1), if you indicate to a reader/user that "Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh
I mean, Joe Brady and the rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car."
has a link or links, what do you show the reader who follows the link? What would
you (individual list members) want to know? Everything that can be known? As much
as someone in Dublin in 1922 might know? In 1904?
Fritz Senn has worried, as thoughtfully as anyone could, about the limitations and
dangers of annotations that are the downside of their obvious benefits. In "Protean
Inglossabilities," he asked, "At what time is what kind of information
profitable; or can information be, on occasion, premature and detrimental? . . .
It is possible to know too much, too soon, before our minds have begun to resolve
the possibilities of the text." In the "Aeolus" passage, Crawford
and the other characters get an incredible amount of information wrong, from the
date of the murders to the driver of the car, to Skin-the-Goat's current whereabouts.
So (question 2): How would you handle all these mistakes? Would you tell the reader
in a note? Gifford's note on Skin-the-Goat closes with this sentence: "Skin-the-Goat
was not the proprietor of the cabman's shelter that Bloom and Stephen visit in the
Eumaeus episode; he had Gumley's job, minding a pile of paving stones for the Dublin
Corporation." Should a first-time reader be told this? Would you want to know
this at this point in your reading?
Fritz argues (and I agree fully) in his review of Gifford's book that "notes
by nature look resultative, not explorative. They pretend that the goal has somehow
been reached, when, usually and Joyceanly, the goal itself is in question. Notes
must end, inquiries never do." They give the
illusion of control over information, when Ulysses (I think) works so much to undermine
that control. To make a reader's experience more Ulyssean, would you suppress the
information about the characters' errors? make it hard to find? What if some readers
can't stand not knowing? Can we assume one kind of reader, especially in a hypertext
setting where user-choice is a key factor?
Certainly, cross-referencing backwards must be OK. The passage would be linked to
Bloom's earlier thoughts in "Lotus Eaters" about the Invincibles (5:378-83).
The issue here is cross-referencing forwards.
Tsianides Costas suggested: "Something you know for sure, never annotate."
I would agree if you are annotating only for yourself. But if you are trying to reach
all possible readers, how can you know what someone needs to know? My own knowledge
of Catholicism is close to zero (a limitation for a reader of Joyce, I know), and
I need every bit of information, even incredibly basic stuff. I would be reluctant
to rely on annotations from a Catholic editor who didn't comment on things he or
she knew cold.
Finally, Greg Downing asked about the difference between simply providing information
and interpreting, and Ed Germain separates what he calls "standard glossary"
and "interpretation" in his annotated "Sisters." His site, with
its hypothetical readers Cabe and Alice, presents differing
interpretations without claiming any one as authoritative. Many people who talk about
annotations say that the line between annotation and interpretation is a vague one
(just choosing what to annotate is an interpretive choice) and that the two should
be clearly distinguished. But (question 3), how do you draw the line between them?
The note on our "Aeolus" passage in the Penguin Annotated Students' Edition
reads, "The Invincibles who assassinated Chief-Secretary Burke and Under-Secretary
Cavendish in Phoenix Park, May 1882. Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris drove the decoy getaway
cab and was sentenced to life, but paroled in 1902. Much of the chapter criticizes
the revivalist notion that all great deeds were done in the past. To Joyce this idealization
of the past was a thin cover-up for the mediocrity of the present." The last
two sentences, to me, cross over
the line into interpretation that does not belong in an annotation. What would you
do with these sentences? How would you let a reader know that you are moving out
of something resembling fact and into opinion and interpretation? Would you stop
with one interpretation?
With these questions in mind, I'd again ask, how would you annotate this passage,
or what would you want to find in an annotation or series of annotations?
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8) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 20:27:29 -0500
From: Michael Groden
I'd like to thank Simon Stack, John Paul Fullerton, and Frank Dauenhauer for responding
to my questions about annotating details from Ulysses. They all raise quite provocative
points, and I want to pick up on a few of them.
Both Mr. Stack and Mr. Dauenhauer mention the need to categorize annotations. Mr.
Stack talks about a list of "reasons to annotate," and Mr. Dauenhauer suggests
possible categories: "Definition of terms," "What was known in 1904,"
"What was known in 1922," "Scholars only," etc. I like this idea,
and these categories, but I need to keep complicating matters. Known by whom? What
should someone be expected to know about the Phoenix Park murders? Critics make a
great deal of the fact that Crawford dates the murders in 1881 and not 1882 (in a
passage just before the one I quoted). He is doing this 22 years after the event,
and Ulysses came out 40 years after. I started wondering how many people, in 1985,
would on the spot get the year John Kennedy was assassinated right, and how many
would in 2003. Of course, this is a newspaper editor we're talking about, but the
question always comes back to who the posited reader of Ulysses is. And, of course,
we're dealing with an author who set his book in Dublin without a lot of guideposts
for his non Irish readers, so from the start there are great gaps in what most readers
would "know."
At NYU I also used the example of Throwaway and the Ascot Gold Cup Race. Should the
note tell readers why Bantam Lyons raises his eyes at the end of "Lotus Eaters"
(5:531-41)? Should a reader be told simply to "watch this space"? What
can we consider was "known" at the time? and is the default time 1904 or
1922? After all, Bloom doesn't even know a race is on that day. Is he our model?
I'd be curious to hear from people who have recently read Ulysses or are reading
it now if you were told or found about Bloom's inadvertent tip about Throwaway as
you read "Lotus Eaters," if you learned about it later in the book, or
if you missed the whole thing. Whichever case, are you glad you read this detail
in Ulysses the way you did or the way you were taught?
I think this approaches the kind of thing Mr. Fullerton was asking in terms of context.
Is there any way to know that Crawford is getting a lot of his details wrong from
the context? No one contradicts him in the office--you need to read a note to know
about the date or to learn that it wasn't Skin-the-Goat who drove the getaway car
that Crawford is so excited about. Otherwise, you might think he's a reliable authority.
The factual note would point out the errors and let the user come to whatever conclusion
seems appropriate about Crawford. My question is about whether
even that factual note is tactful. And whether the same problem exists for Throwaway,
where we are talking about a detail that leads to an event of importance for Bloom.
Finally, Mr. Fullerton's question about the cabman's shelter--"4. What is the
significance of having a "cabman's shelter"? Is that an express sign of
not being wealthy?"--gets to the heart of the kinds of details that need to
be explained. How do we learn that a "cabman's shelter" is a public place
and not a home Skin-the-Goat, or whoever, lives in? Is the term in use anywhere now?
We probably were told what it means by a teacher, or read it somewhere. The context
doesn't help. Probably it is safe to define a detail of this kind without any agonizing.
(There is a photo of a cabman's shelter in William York Tindall's The Joyce Country,
pp. 142-43.)
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9) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 22:57:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 12:12 AM 11/14/98, Edward B. Germain wrote:
>Jumping right into the middle of it: layering. Often you can bring up an annotation
with the major
>point in a few sentences. Then the little "more" button, or some highlighted
text can take the
>reader into more arcane matters. This can be repeated, layer after layer. Then
the reader gets to
>choose when enough is enough. The editor must decide what is primary, what is
secondary, what
>is tertiary, etc. That's his job.
Right, layering/nesting is surely a basic principle, as you and others who followed
you on this thread have said. In light of the *variety* of annotational types (i.e.,
different kinds of annotations) and partial annotational structures that others subsequently
suggested on the thread,
one obvious question is what the exact structure of the layering would be.... Probably
different structures and different types of annotations in different passages....
Still, maybe we could pull back a bit and ask (1) what kinds of *principles* would
generate the set of *possible* categories or levels to be drawn on, in various ways,
at various points, in a layered set of annotations, and then (2) what would determine
which categories/levels/layerings would be best in a given passage?
Hmmm, maybe such choices would be kind of like grammatical _constructio ad sensum_,
i.e., it would depend on what is (somewhat uniquely) demanded by the particular passage--episode,
paragraph, sentence, whatever--rather than being logically systematizable.
Or, maybe the principles will emerge if we keep talking and thinking. . . .
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10) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 01:08:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 09:16 PM 11/15/98 -0500, Michael Groden wrote:
> So (question 1), if you indicate to a reader/user that "Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh
I mean, Joe
>Brady and the rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car." has a link
or links, what do you
>show the reader who follows the link? What would you (individual list members)
want to know?
>Everything that can be known? As much as someone in Dublin in 1922 might know?
In 1904?
The first layer would be something as simple and uncontroversial as possible,
I'd imagine. That simple layer would maybe almost be easier to write, or safer to
write, or safer to finalize, **after** the more detailed layers are finished, because
it would be a short extract of a couple of
basic facts from those detailed layers, and would also constitute the bridge between
the text and the detailed layers for those who go beyond the first/basic layer. Fritz
Senn is quite right that, particularly with things that are either difficult, or
seen as difficult, people have a tendency to
(1) find an authority to "clear things up," (2) absorb what the authority
says, and (3) put their feet up on the couch, or at least go on to the next thing.
Students are not the only people who do this. So start with something minimalistic
that is uncontroversial, factual, and not "interpretive" -- and along with
that simple bit of information, add a "more" link, or maybe *several* possible
links that can take people in more than one direction. It's getting late and I'm
not sure I'm thinking clearly after a long day, but here's at least a lick -- with
or without a promise -- for the passage from Aeolus:
(1) a concise but decently thorough discussion of what is clear (and what is not
clear) about the Phoenix Park murders; such a discussion could probably be linked
to from various Ul. passages in which the P.P. murders come up, without having to
be "located at" any one of them (as it would have to be in a Gifford/Seidman
hard-copy commentary); at the end of, or along with, this
account would be a series of links to places in Ul. where the P.P. Murders come up,
as well as a link to the bit described just below (this link would come next to the
link to the Aeolus passage in question)
(2) a careful, clear discussion of what is "wrong" about the account given
in Aeolus, and a link at the end of that to the next bit
(3) moving into the "hypermedia criticism" area (which would be "interpretation"
rather than commentary, and clearly indicated as such), specific discussion of possible
"reasons" this info might be wrong (there are lots of "reasons,"
depending on what angle(s) you want to take, quite a
few of them mutually compatible probably, and several of which Mike Groden has already
mentioned), and a link from there to
(4) (still in "hypermedia criticism" rather than commentary, and labelled
as such), a more general discussion of misunderstanding, uncertainty, confusion,
and other epistemological issues in Ulysses, which might be linked to from various
Ul. loci where these matters come up
A few observations on this tentative/rushed setup --
(A) as one follows links one gets to more specialized, less uncontroversial, more
interpretive material -- if one chooses to go there (you don't get there by accident)
(B) each link should give a concise but definite sense of what you get to by following
the link -- that way there are no bad surprises or spoilers of the kind Mike Groden
rightly worries about; nor does anyone have to read interpretation or criticism if
s/he doesn't want to; nor does anyone have to read interpretative bits under the
misapprehension that they give uncontroversial factual information
(C) if there are multiple layers and links, the navigation has to be as quick and
easy and intuitive as possible
(D) if there is a concern about seeming authoritative, then (i) make clear what is
sheer background information and use layering to keep it closer to the text, and
(ii) make clear what is interpretation as well as the fact that there are multiple
conflicting and/or complementary interpretative possibilities; (ii) can be accomplished
in the way one writes and presents the interpretative bits
>Gifford's note on Skin-the-Goat closes with this sentence: "Skin-the-Goat
>was not the proprietor of the cabman's shelter that Bloom and Stephen visit
>in the Eumaeus episode; he had Gumley's job, minding a pile of paving
>stones for the Dublin Corporation." Should a first-time reader be told
>this? Would you want to know this at this point in your reading?
This would be reachable by following a link to the Eumaeus passage at the *end*
of layer (1) above, which would place it three full layers down from the sheer text;
it would also be discussed in layer (2), which also places it three layers down.
In both cases, one would be aware before clicking the "give-away" link
that one was following a "spoiler" route: on layer (1), you
would be clicking on a link to the Eumaeus passage (17.whatever) in layer (1), so
you would know you were choosing to go *forward* in the book to things revealed later
(just like someone who flips forward in a regular book to see what happens later);
as for the other path to this information, in the link from layer (1) to layer (2)
you would be told, concisely, that if you follow the link you are going to have facts
about this and later passages spelled out for you
>To make a reader's experience more Ulyssean,
>would you suppress the information about the characters' errors? make it
>hard to find? What if some readers can't stand not knowing? Can we assume
>one kind of reader, especially in a hypertext setting where user-choice is
>a key factor?
I'd guess that this could be dealt with by layering, and by making clear at each
layer what you get to if you follow links forward -- caveat lector/link-tor. The
thing about notes is that they can look resultative -- and to the extent that they
are accurate and factual they are unexceptionably resultative. But there is always
more information, factual or interpretative, to be gleaned or created. Just because
we know "x, y, and z" about a passage does not mean there is no more factual
information to discover and no more interpretation to be generated. (If we draw the
conclusion that interpretation is exhausted, that is our mistake -- especially if
multiple possibilities are provided, and they are presented as *not* normative/final/exhaustive.)
In fact, the more solid information a user has (if s/he wants it), and the more minimally
valid interpretive options a commentator makes conveniently available, the more any
one fact or perspective is dethroned -- if coronation of facts or interpretations
is the big concern here.
>how can you know what someone
>needs to know? My own knowledge of Catholicism is close to zero (a
>limitation for a reader of Joyce, I know), and I need every bit of
>information, even incredibly basic stuff. I would be reluctant to rely on
>annotations from a Catholic editor who didn't comment on things he or she
>knew cold.
This is a very important point -- there's no one standard set of generally shared
cultural information at this point in cultural history. An early 20th-century annotator
of the _Divina commedia_ rightly argued that the commentator should be like Peter,
the traditional gatekeeper of heaven -- i.e., the idea is to err in opening rather
than to err in refusing entry.
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11) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 10:03:28 -0500
From: Brandon Kershner
In rsponse to Mike Groden's and Greg Downing's recent posts on annotation: perhaps
the largest "background" problem raised by this issue is that of authority,
and the whole question of whether and when objective answers are possible. I faced
this recently in writing a guidebook for the Twentieth-Century Novel in English which
includes a glossary of "basic terms" at the end, such as "plot,"
"character," "novel," and so forth. I began the glossary by saying:
"To include in a glossary some basic terms used in discussing the novel seemed
innocent enough until fairly recently. But once we begin to question basic assumptions
about the novel, we also begin to suspect that setting out simple definitions of
basic literary terms is a way of begging the important questions that literature
can raise. There are no disinterested definitions, in literature or in life. Avant-garde
writing, writing by women, writing by people of color or by the colonized, and in
some ways modern writing itself all frequently put into question our inherited ideas
about plot, character, narration, and even the fundamental question of what constitutes
literature."
I know none of this is surprising, but my point is that stating some principles like
this at the outset of a glossary might be a necessary gesture. Then, in discussing,
say, "character," my discussion generally would begin with classical definitions
and move toward postmodern attacks on the entire notion of character, whether in
human beings or in representations. So in a sense the definition I gave offered some
sort of solid ground and then took it away again. I imagine this can be frustrating
for a reader, but it was my way of trying not to mislead a student about absolutes.
My experience was that the hardest thing to settle on was tone, and the tone of annotations
is probably as important as the formal procedures the annotater follows. In a case
like that of Crawford's speech of "Aeolus," I would suggest that any possible
questions (such as whether Crawford "should have known" the date of the
murders) be explicitly left open. For instance, I did hire a friend to consult the
New York World for the time of the trial to find out if Gallaher's story and "map"
was actually run. My friend didn't find it, but I'd be hesitant to say it didn't
exist (perhaps in another newspaper, perhaps under the name of another reporter).
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12) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 18:30:16 +0100
From: Fritz Senn
Just a short biased view on one significant issue:
> Should the note tell readers why Bantam Lyons raises his eyes at the
>end of "Lotus Eaters" (5:531-41)? Should a reader be told simply to
"watch
>this space"? What can we consider was "known" at the time? and
is the
>default time 1904 or 1922? After all, Bloom doesn't even know a race is on
>that day. Is he our model?
I am dogmatically against any anticipatory gloss in this representative instance.
With all potential knowledge of Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Irish history, theology
etc etc. at one's ideal fingertips, no reader would know now the names of race horses.
After all, Bloom himself does not know what is going on.
One also does not tend to add footnotes early on in a detective novel and point out
the culprit.
Of course in electronic, hyperlinked texts, all information is available around several
corners, but at least not all notes have to be thrust on our attention. Eventually
there is no such thing as tactful glossing; but at least let readers make an effort
and - that's the overall rule - FIRST try to find out for themselves.
But we would and will never reach an agreement. As long as we are aware of the pitfalls
and complexities.
-----
16) From: Edward B. Germain
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 98 19:27:51
On Wed, 18 Nov 1998 20:27:29 -0500, Michael Groden wrote:
>I'd be curious to hear from people who have recently read Ulysses
>or are reading it now if you were told or found about Bloom's inadvertent
>tip about Throwaway as you read "Lotus Eaters," if you learned about
it
>later in the book...
No question about it. You read Lyons' "I'll risk it" and ask yourself,
"Risk what?" You keep reading:
"Mr Boom folded the sheets again to a near square and lodged the soap in it,
smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting...." Here you KNOW Lyons is off to
bet. That's all you need to know. No more notes, nothing. No note.
When I first read the book I remember being puzzled at this section. I guessed that
Lyons had gotten some kind of tip from Bloom, but I had no proof. Later, when I discovered
Throwaway at 20:1 I hollered eureka!
When my students read the book together, there are lots of places like this where
they don't know what is going on. Just as with scholars, even after dozens of readings.
I tell them it's life: hang on until you can figure it out. They do, we do, and later,
looking backwards, everything is clearer.
No note at 5:531-41.
Your principle at work: backward notation is fine. Fritz' view that you NEVER give
away the future is right.
-----
17) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 20:22:39 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 09:16 PM 11/15/98 -0500, Michael Groden wrote:
>Many people who talk about annotations say that the line between annotation and
>interpretation is a vague one (just choosing what to annotate is an
>interpretive choice) and that the two should be clearly distinguished. But
>(question 3), how do you draw the line between them?
This is a very difficult question. If, to choose one of many possible examples,
a user feels that social history, as defined from some very specific theoretical
and methodological perspective, is the one correct way of looking at a text, or at
least the best way of doing so, then that user will think that all annotation not
serving that end is misguided, misleading, or nugatory. So the more specific and
well-defined a given user's angle is, the higher the percentage of material s/he
will find useless or inappropriate. But that is really a function of the individual
user's attitude and approach. What a hypermedia commentary needs to do is set itself
up so that the widest possible variety of users can *easily find* what they want
and *easily ignore* what is not of interest, without expending an annoying amount
of time making an effort to find or ignore things.
You are quite right that all annotation is already interpretation in some sense.
So it's impossible to solve the problem in an absolute way. There is no bright line
between the two things. The problems have to be dealt with through detailed decisions
where a lot of factors are brought into balance, not through implementation of an
either/or type of criterion. For example, a
given user may have a specific angle on the world and thus on how to think about
fiction; what s/he may consider indispensable annotation rather than interpretation
may look very much like tendentious interpretation to another user who has a different
angle on what is true/natural as opposed to tendentious or quirky or secondary.
It's really not any different from the 1998 problem of teaching a class consisting
of several dozen people of different backgrounds, attitudes, interests, levels of
information, learning styles, etc. The same class content is not going to please
everyone equally. Leaving aside the often
very considerable disagreements that will exist about various cultural issues, some
in the class will find a given proportion of (for example) "discussion"
(as against "lecture") to be "too much," "not enough,"
or "about right." In our individualistic and pluralistic contemporary culture,
many attitudes and approaches are possible, in contrast to earlier periods that believed
one mode was adequate for everyone. Contemporary modes make this problem of divergent
taste (and to some extent, of intolerance for others' tastes) ineliminable.
All one can do as a commentator is try to say something as ground-zero/zero-grade
as possible at the initial commentary level, *while also* remaining vivid and engaging.
Meanwhile, one must also provide users with the clearest and easiest possible avenues
to the more specifically focused materials that "specific-perspective"
readers demand. But these materials would come under the clearly marked categories
of "analysis" and "criticism" -- either newly written for a hypermedia
Ulysses, or republished from the existing corpus of published work about Joyce and
Ulysses.
Of course, the fact that a whole array of specific-focus materials is available may
in fact encourage specific-focus users to explore and think about more angles than
just the one they may be most comfortable with initially.... Maybe that wouldn't
hurt....
Maybe one practical corollary of all this would be that a commentary should *finalize*
its ground-zero "initial level" only *after* it is clear what the array
of more specific approaches will be.
Or, alternatively, is it still possible to construct, on our complex cultural terrain,
a general "comment"/note, about a given word or phrase or sentence, that
would not be seen by some users as tendentious, even if covertly or by omission?
Whatever gets put in the initial-commentary slot (i.e., "annotation" as
opposed to "interpretation") will tend to be seen as the beneficiary of
a certain "privileging" in comparison to material ("analysis,"
"criticism") that is only (so to speak) available at a further remove from
the text itself. Then again, one could view distance from the text (i.e., number
of levels of remove) as a marker either of increasing sophistication or of increasing
marginalization. Only a simplistic perspective would discern only *one* aspect of
distancing from the text itself but not the other. (But adversarial modes of thought
tend to be simplistic for a number of reasons.)
>The note on our "Aeolus" passage in the Penguin Annotated Students'
Edition reads,
. . . [Letter 4]
>What would you do with these sentences? How would you let a reader know that
you
>are moving out of something resembling fact and into opinion and
>interpretation? Would you stop with one interpretation?
Passages like the first two sentences and passages like the last two sentences
from the Penguin Annotated quotation above almost inevitably tend to be found *together*
in hard-copy commentaries, though for reasons discussed above this rightly annoys
many users of such commentaries. The last thing a hypermedia commentary needs to
do is fall into pitfalls to
which hard-copy commentary was subject due to its own particular structural rules
and limitations. The first two sentences quoted above sound close to what a ground-zero
comment on the passage might be (subject to modification given the level of detail
that would be furnished in a general sketch of the P.P. murders and their aftermath,
a node of commentary that would be linked
with multiple passages in Ulysses). However, the last two sentences would belong
in an "analysis"/"criticism" segment that would be "linked
to" from this and other passages in the book.
-----
18) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 21:16:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 08:17 PM 11/16/98 -0500, Frank C. Dauenhauer wrote:
>These should all be hypertext headings that one could click on (using the PC
>as the medium), so I could choose to jump to such simple headings as
>"Definition of terms," or more complex ones like "What was known
in 1904,"
>"What was known in 1922," "What we know now," "Scholars
only," etc.
I'd agree that the general approach should be to move from the text itself to
gradually more specialized and "narrowcast" information. One thing I'd
be leery about is labelling links as being "for" one "type" of
user/person or another. That seems unnecessarily exclusive. Probably the best thing
would be to describe links substantively/factually -- the type of content rather
than the "type of person/user" it is "for." I doubt that there
is any piece of information that *only* "scholars" would be interested
in, and no one else. Everyone is a "scholar"/expert on *some* subjects
and not on others, and that doesn't always correlate with academic credentials. Anyway,
enough alienation is already stirred up simply by giving people a lot of informational
options that some may not want. Having "apartheid" links would probably
be even more problematic, and with fewer upsides.
>You need to err on the side of the unknowing person. More advance users
>could bypass the basics. We don't read all the articles in an encyclopedia,
>just the ones we are interested in at the moment. At different moments, we
>can read other articles.
>>[Mike Groden had said:] My own knowledge of Catholicism is close to zero
>>(a limitation for a reader of Joyce, I know), and I need every bit of
>>information, even incredibly basic stuff. I would be reluctant to rely on
>>annotations from a Catholic editor who didn't comment on things he or she
>>knew cold.
>You are absolutely right. Use the encyclopedia analogy.
This encyclopedic analogy Mr. Dauenhauer uses hits the nail on the head. . . .
Ulysses meanwhile is at least as encyclopedic as ancient epic -- more so, really.
And it exercises this encyclopedic impulse toward a much wider range of culture and
experience than the ancients considered appropriate to epic or even to written culture
at all. To deal adequately with the degree and range of demands that Ulysses places
on the commentary tradition requires great care. As Mr. Dauenhauer argues, the encyclopedic
mode (as facilitated by the new structural and technical possibilities of hypermedia)
allows inclusion of the greatest information for the greatest number. But the sheer
size and range of the "referential field" of Ulysses also requires great
care, in choice of material, coordination and cohesion, concision, etc.
-----
20) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 11:11:51 -0500
From: Michael Groden
People responding to this thread have sent in some very thoughtful and useful posts. I appreciate them very much, and I'm sure that others on the list do, too. I want to pick up on some contributions:
Greg Downing asked:
> (1) what kinds of *principles*
>would generate the set of *possible* categories or levels to be drawn on, in
>various ways, at various points, in a layered set of annotations, and then
>(2) what would determine which categories/levels/layerings would be best in
>a given passage?
and then suggested that the categories might have to change with each passage.
In a subsequent posting, he suggested these guidelines:
>[(A)-(D) = letter 10]
Several people touched on these matters. Greg Sullivan suggested:
>To this I think that the annotation should at first be a question posed to
>the reader. Asking a question as to why this is stated in a particular way,
>gives the reader a chance to figure it out
and Jonathan Steinhart seconded:
>I think this idea of posing a question as the first "layer" of
>commentary is a brilliant one. In this way the inquisitive reader who
>*wants* to figure things out for himself but doesn't always know where
>to look is provided with a hint.
Fritz Senn:
>I am dogmatically against any anticipatory gloss in this representative instance.
> . . . [Letter 12] FIRST try to find out for themselves.
In some ways these answers are coming from different places, some people thinking
of first-time readings, others of later ones. That is exactly as it should be, and
I posed the question in many ways to try to get at how to satisfy both needs in one
project. If my hypermedia project were aimed at
only one group, the job might be somewhat simpler--maybe. With Greg Downing's warning
in mind (in response to Frank Dauenhauer's suggestion of categories like "Definition
of terms," or more complex ones like "What was known in 1904," "What
was known in 1922," "What we know now," "Scholars only,"
he sensibly replied about the last category that "having 'apartheid' links would
probably be even more problematic, and with fewer upsides"), I wonder if it
might be useful to have two "doors" into information, one for first-time
readers (students in classes, people reading the book on their own) and the other
for other readers (more advanced students, people reading the book a second or subsequent
time, critics and scholars). They wouldn't be labelled this crassly, but the point
would be that one "door" would take you to information linked with pedagogy
in mind: information would be linked in carefully controlled and labelled ways, the
initial notes might be questions, etc., interpretation would be very, very carefully
distinguished from commentary. The other door would lead to information that wouldn't
need to be quite so concerned with these distinctions, since it can be assumed that
the reader has experienced the whole book, is looking for analysis and interpretation,
etc. Of course, both doors lead to the same information pools, but the link structure-
at least at the upper levels as Greg described them--would be very different in the
two cases.
Cyn suggested:
>I just think it should be controlled- no using it to do your papers, etc, for
you.
There are already ways that some authoring programs do allow considerable control. Storyspace, for example (the software used for most commercial hypertext fictions), has what it calls "guard fields," which are conditions that have to be met before a user can visit a particular screen or screens. (For example, you can't get to Screen 25 unless you've already visited Screen 10. You can't get to a note identifying Throwaway unless you've already visited the screen later in Ulysses that gives away the game.) Something like this is possible, but, it seems to me (at least right now) quite a bit too dictatorial. I'd rather guide people and discourage them from going to a screen too soon. But if they want to go anyway, why stop them? (See next response.)
Matt Knight wrote:
>I think that the 'Throwaway' thread might be the perfect 'teaser' for
>instructors to throw at first-time readers of _Ulysses_. This initial
>riddle-spoiling should not affect the overall enjoyment of the novel for
>a 'novice', for it immediately opens up the essential aspects of humour,
>syntactical ambiguity, and, most importantly, the self-referential
>aspect in both the novel and the figure of the narrator.
This is partly why I used the Throwaway example. In many ways, it is a very good test of how we might proceed. I have sometimes told students what is going on when we get to the Lotus Eaters passage precisely for the reasons Matt Knight suggests here: if they seem discouragingly confused, ready to give up, by this point, it gives them a handle on how the book is working. That is why I'm resistant to absolutes like "never" tell the information, although I certainly know what Fritz Senn and Ed Germain are saying. But, of course, as I and others keep repeating, the way in which users are informed as to the existence of the secret is very important. Hypermedia gives us many more options than print does, and we need to use those options wisely.
Also from Matt Knight:
>I think that hypermedia texts
>need to play by very different rules than the professors at our
>Universities. Once a reader steps into the world of 'clicking', no
>amount of layering and warning is going to keep him or her from
>exhausting every path of meaning and interpretation at every possible
>turn; at least that has been my take on human nature these past couple
>decades. (And even if a clicker stops, it may be more from exhaustion
>than fear of over-elucidation).
I've tried to teach hypertext fiction (texts like Michael Joyce's "Afternoon,"
Carolyn Guyer's "Quibbling," Shelley Jackson's "Patchwork Girl")
in three different classes recently (all graduate courses), and my experience has
been quite the opposite. With respect, I would now say that you simply can't generalize
about how people will react. Some of my students did indeed click everywhere they
could, but others followed every default path, others sought out the map that shows
the structure of links, others simply stopped. I think that you have to resist the
assumption that all users will approach an electronic presentation of information
in the same way. Therefore,
still Matt Knight:
>Therefore, I don't believe the
>hypermedia text need to suffer the same anxiety as the professor, who
>needs to question at every turn, "Am I telling them too much? Too
>little? Should I read it to them? Is there therapy for this?" etc. So how
>deep should the layering go on-line? As deep as the 'knowledge' of the
>day--it's always easy to append.
I respectfully disagree here, too. The anxiety might not be the same as for the classroom teacher, but (as these posts point out), every aspect of the hypermedia presentation needs to be thought out thoroughly, probably even more thoroughly than a classroom plan because the result is so much less evanescent. Otherwise, you end up leaving the user "lost in cyberspace," as the old cliche goes, or you give them a pile of undigested information that they can't get through. "Is there therapy for this?" That's another question, of course.
A few more responses, if your patience aren't exhausted already:
Matt Knight:
> But we shouldn't lose sight of the 'book'
>beneath the 'event' that appears to be gestating--regardless of the
>benefits to scholars everywhere, it still might kill the unforgettable
>masochistic pleasure of the first, nearly unguided read of _Ulysses_.
One of the crucial features of my hypermedia presentation is a clean, uncontaminated text of Ulysses -- no links, no toolbar, just the words. This is what the user will see first, and then s/he can start call up whatever else is desired. The text on the screen won't look like a book, by design, but an "unguided read" will be possible. Of course, I don't think that anyone would read Ulysses, or even a much shorter book, on a screen in 1998, but any project like this one is predicated on improvements to the hardware and software that will make that kind of reading more likely in the future.
Greg Downing:
>For example, a
>given user may have a specific angle on the world and thus on how to think
>about fiction; what s/he may consider indispensable annotation rather than
>interpretation may look very much like tendentious interpretation to another
>user who has a different angle on what is true/natural as opposed to
>tendentious or quirky or secondary.
This is absolutely essential. It is very easy to lose sight of, especially if the class you are teaching or a student in isn't as diverse as the one Greg described or if you hang around people with interests and backgrounds similar to your own. Example: at the James Joyce Society meeting at the Gotham Book Mart in October, Trui Vetters, a PhD student at Rutgers, gave what I thought was a very exciting talk about the gaze, both Gerty's and Bloom's, in Nausicaa. It was original, clear, very aware of theory but free of jargon. Because of the number of speakers on the program that evening and the way the evening proceeded, there was no time for questions from the floor. As people left, I learned that many people in the back of the room thought that the talk was hopelessly obscure, jargon-riddled, beside the point. My point (agreeing fully with Greg) is that, in ways that are very different from writing a book or article, you can't take anything for granted in positing the hypermedia reader/user, and you have to find a way of including all possible kinds of readers.
Finally, also from Greg:
>Maybe one practical corollary of all this would be that a commentary should
>*finalize* its ground-zero "initial level" only *after* it is clear
what the
>array of more specific approaches will be.
This is very possible, like writing the introduction to a book after everything
else is written. Of course, if it is done well a user wouldn't know that the ground
was built after everything it is supposed to support was constructed (or have I got
this inverted? are we going down or up in our levels?
-----
21) From: Frank C. Dauenhauer
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 12:16:26 -0500
Just a suggestion, with an eye toward lessening the potential for users' confusion with "layered" help: let the reader of the hypertext edition of Ulysses "log in" to the book at any of a number of levels, which h/she can change instantly by clicking on a numbered icon: e.g.,
Level Kind of help provided
===== ===================
0 - None. Read the book with no intervention
1 - First-time reader/rank beginner. Basic help (definitions of terms, etc.)
2 - Second-time reader. More in-depth help
3 - Advanced beginner (where I think I would spend most of my time)
. . . (You get the idea)
9 - Doctoral candidate, just verifying what is probably already known
Then, each level can have its own sub-categories such as "What was known
. . ." "What was not known . . .," etc.
-----
22) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 13:01:39 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 02:41 PM 11/16/98 -0500, John Paul Fullerton wrote:
>My most common take as a beginner in responding to Joyce's writing is that
>he takes the sounds of different persons' speech and infuses the language
>with indications of quite divergent thoughts, often dependent on a level of
>knowledge, and certainly on a variability in language use, that people
>simply do not generally have or use. For example, I don't know a town full
>of people likely to talk in phrases that evoke "what dreams may come"
or
>other of Shakespeare's writing. It may be that as I gain knowledge of
>Joyce's writing, that my opinion will be different.
You raise an important issue here, namely, all the evocation and wordplay in Ulysses. Perhaps this should be left to the delectation and discretion of individual readers. But maybe on the other hand we should note that there are entries in the secondary literature that already deal with such issues -- Thornton's _Allusions in Ul._ is maybe a prime exhibit here. And some users might *desire* hints along these lines as a way of sharpening or (to mix metaphors) jump-starting their own sensitivity to such evocations...? If a commentary pointed out such evocations, it would have to do so at a decent remove from the main text and basic commentary. Furthermore, such evocations would have to be described accurately at the link from which users would access material that would be seen as "spoiler" stuff by a good many users.
>...how significant is a given particular
>and how much does context account for it? Little known significance, little
>reason to fully explain; continuing theme of book, less cause to explain an instance.
These are important concerns, absolutely. But these complementary concerns are
complicated by other likewise complementary concerns.... (I.e., we are not dealing
with black-vs.-white issues, and thus do not have the luxury of black-vs.-white annotational
principles or choices.)
(1) How many particulars in Ulysses have little significance? You leave an escape
hatch by including "known." Of course no one would write a note or comment
saying "who knows what this means? nothing as far as anyone knows." Silence
makes perfectly clear that nothing worth saying is currently known (to the commentator(s))
about a given detail. (To be clear, let's make explicit that this is not the same
as saying "people argue about which possible significance(s) are valid, or more
valid than others" -- commentaries do *that* all the time.) However, *many*
details in Ulysses seem to be chosen for their cluster of possible resonances.
(2) Ulysses is mostly continuing themes, really. (As is FW -- even more so.) Some
of them are pretty obvious. But in my experience (with myself, with other readers)
people find themselves constantly discovering examples of repeated themes they hadn't
noticed before, and feel silly about not noticing earlier. So maybe one question
here is, Which is better? To leave people to discover on their own as many repeated
themes as they happen to notice? Or to point these repeated themes out in commentary,
after they are noticed, given that the ability to locate such "pointing out"
on a level of commentary removed from the plain text and from the most basic level
of commentary? If one rejects this second option and approves the pure discover-it-yourself
option, that's kind of like saying that Thornton's _Allusions in Ulysses_ and other
items from the secondary literature should
not have been published -- they are cribs.
However these questions get worked out, two basic principles should be:
(I.) the text of Ulysses should be available plain and clean, and
(II.) the basic level of annotation should be a concise and simple and uncontroversial
as possible.
Above, we are discussing possible more specialized features....
>4. What is the significance of having a "cabman's shelter"? Is that
an
>express sign of not being wealthy?
So much of 1904 culture, let alone 1904 Dublin culture, is lost on the twenty-somethings of 1998 -- let alone the thirty-somethings and forty-somethings. I find myself needing to explain (e.g.) what "wearing mourning" is when talking with students who have 1300 or 1400 SATs plus two or three years of undergrad education. Having grown up in the 60s/70s, I don't have any direct experience of "wearing mourning" (inter alia) either -- just information from books. A book as steeped in the details of its moment as Ulysses simply subsumes or alludes to a lot of its contemporary culture unapologetically, without explaining. A book as steeped in the details of our perhaps even more variegated and wide-ranging 1998 culture would require even more explanation/clarification of this type, a century after its fictional moment....
>5. What is the significance of the name of the bridge ("Butt bridge")?
See comments above on (A) the evocative language of Ulysses, and (B) what has little significance vs. considerable significance.
>6. Does the fact that the info is in error (as explained in earlier note)
>get put into a frame for viewing? Is Joyce making something of the error?
>Is the error likely the main reason for the account?
A major cluster of Ulysses themes has to do with problems of knowledge, perspective, etc. That's why I'd maybe suggest some discussion of the differences between the newsman's account and "wie es eigentlich gewesen" (i.e., what "really" happened in the Phoenix Park, and its aftermath), placed of course at several removes from the plain text and the most basic commentary-level, and linked in turn to critical/theoretical discussion of these kinds of "knowledge/perspective/etc." issues in Ulysses, which would be part of the "analysis"/"criticism" section. Such discussion could either be from already-published material about Joyce/Ulysses, or newly written.
>7. What do we get from the passage; what does it answer to from earlier
>related info in the book; what is it followed with?
See discussion above -- i.e., the para. beginning "(2)," above, and
the para. just above on problems of knowledge etc.
-----
24) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 13:53:19 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
>At 11:40 AM 11/19/98 -0800, matt.knight@ns.sympatico.ca wrote:
>>Upon subsequent reads [of Ulysses], I have found the secondary
>>sources invaluable; but I will always cherish and curse the days of
>>delirium surrounding the first time. (Dictionaries and history texts were
>>always primary sources, however.)
Yes, a first (or fortieth) read *without any voice but the text* must be available. A basic principle should be that the plain text is the "default," and one has to search out, deliberately, any commentary or analysis. The point is to help people deal with the text, if they want help -- not to obscure or mar the text.
>>Once a reader steps into the world of 'clicking', no
>>amount of layering and warning is going to keep him or her from
>>exhausting every path of meaning and interpretation at every possible
>>turn; at least that has been my take on human nature these past couple
>>decades.(And even if a clicker stops, it may be more from exhaustion
>>than fear of over-elucidation). Therefore, I don't believe the
>>hypermedia text need to suffer the same anxiety as the professor, who
>>needs to question at every turn, "Am I telling them too much? Too
>>little? Should I read it to them? Is there therapy for this?"etc. So
how
>>deep should the layering go on-line? As deep as the 'knowledge' of the
>>day--it's always easy to append.
This is an interesting passage, because it argues two complementary things:
(1) The user has freedom, and therefore a hypermedia commentary does not have to
worry about what to provide -- it should simply provide various features, and then
let people freely use or ignore those features, as they see fit.
(2) But your other point is just as important -- that providing something invites
its use by everyone, or by a lot of people, and this alters how many people would
experience the book. This is a big concern.
-----
27) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 09:10:06 -0500
From: Murray J. Gross
The current trend of the GLOSS discussion causes me some concern. There seems
to be a polarity of "us vs. the reader". It's shocking enough that academics
feel they want to withhold information from their students and not make it too easy
for them but I thought that Groden's question concerned a wider audience.
We are experiencing today a revolution in information, probably more profound then
any other and what makes it unique is that many of us are aware of this revolution.
We are living in a sea of information. The focus of Groden's project should not be
the limitation of information but only it's organization. I recently purchased a
CD-rom which on one disk contains the whole 32 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittannica,
and by the time Groden is ready to produce his project, we can expect at least 10
time that capacity of the media of his choice.
Let there be NO limit on what we can reference as we read the text. The choice is
and should be with the reader. Not to worry, the text will not be completely annotated.
The greatness of Joyce as with Shakespeare, Dante, or Proust is that the text in
infinite. The more annotation the greater and more profound will be the appreciation.
With all respect to Fritz Senn who I hold as one of the giants of Joyce scholarship,
some detective novels could with profit be annotated. We are all aware of the wonderful
glosses on Sherlock Holmes. Who done it, is rarely an issue with Joyce. Most times
we are not even aware that
there is an issue that needs elucidating. Indeed one of the main purposes of the
annotations will be to spotlight problems as well as attempts to solve them.
This approach, for Groden, is much harder. In a way its easy to be a censer. We are
not high priests with secret or arcane information to which the commoners should
not be exposed.
Let there be more information not less.
-----
28) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 10:30:21 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 09:10 AM 11/24/98, Murray J. Gross wrote:
>There seems to be a polarity of "us vs. the reader". It's shocking
enough
>that academics feel they want to withhold information from their
>students and not make it too easy for them but I thought that Groden's
>question concerned a wider audience.
You're absolutely right that there should not be any such disjunction. In fact,
if we are concerned with avoiding inaccurate and problematic "either/or's,"
we probably need to apply that principle as consistently as possible. This would
mean noticing and noting that while some posters on this thread (several of them
not "academics," in fact) *have* made a scholarly-user-vs.-amateur distinction,
others (including me) have consistently argued *against* making such a distinction
(while bearing in mind that different readers will of course have different priorities).
I'd argue that all information potentially interesting to some users should be provided
-- but the place where "the rubber meets the road" is when you have to
figure out how to arrange/ structure/layer/nest the material so that a whole range
of people with different (and, to some extent, it seems, conflicting) desires and
needs can easily find what they want and ignore what they don't want.
This is the most frustrating but potentially the most important and rewarding part
of designing such a project. To go back to the "classroom" analogy I employed
on this thread a few days ago --
The most difficult thing about any kind of discourse at this late date is the multiplicity
of sometimes almost belligerently conflicting perspectives and worldviews that constitute
the current cultural scene. Some people want framework x -- not just for themselves,
but mandated for others too because it is the most important or only true perspective,
or has been inappropriately ignored or disprized in the past, or is being inappropriately
ignored or disprized at present, for nefarious reasons. Some people feel precisely,
or almost precisely, the same way about the conflicting or competing framework y.
Of course, in a classroom, you have everyone sitting there at once -- they cannot
all have different experiences though they can certainly react to the same events/discourse
differently. All one can do as a teacher is try to formulate a perspective that is
*broad*/general enough for all the jostling worldviews to be comfortable within it
-- while hoping that those who really want *one* specific framework mandated to the
*exclusion* of others do not get overly frustrated by the latitude a broad/inclusive
framework provides.
But the same problem arises in discussion of a commentary intended for a wide array
of users. The classroom problem is somewhat attenuated because all users can operate
in isolation, interacting in their own ways with the commentary and creating their
own experiences. But when we talk about overall structure (as we are doing), the
whole commentary and all its features are in view. Also, when a given user with a
given perspective uses a completed commentary, s/he will inevitably come across items
that s/he doesn't want. So the problem of mutual intoleration arises when a discusser
of a planned commentary, or a user of a completed commentary, thinks: "Why should
I be inconvenienced with this stuff I don't want, and of whose very existence I disapprove?
Furthermore, other people shouldn't be exposed to this stuff -- it's bad for them,
it ruins the book."
Lots of people seem to do this. It's kind of odd, given twentieth-century interest
in multiple perspectives and toleration. Maybe Heidegger and others are right to
say that modernity opened up individualism with its possibilities for formulating
multiple worldviews -- but with the consequence that individuals formulate worldviews,
and then jockey to increase the sway and the allegiance their own perferred options
receive. Tyrants wanting to be enthroned, so to speak.
Again, I think the only way to *try* at least to do *something* about this phenomenon
is:
(1) to start from the principle of a clean text for those who want that, or who want
that in some circumstances
(2) to ensure that the initial annotation is as uncontroversial, simple and concise
as possible -- though that "initial" material might well be the last thing
in a commentary that one could *finalize*
(3) to structure/layer/nest material so that adherents of the various (and, to some
extent, mutually intolerant) worldviews that are out there would have the greatest
chance of (A) being able to stick with what they want, and
(B) not being put out by what they can't stand, either for themselves or even for
others.
>Let there be NO limit on what we can reference as we read the text. . . .
[Letter 27]
>The more annotation the greater and more profound will be the appreciation.
Unexceptionable. But again the issue is *arrangement* so that a *variety* of users
(not "academics" vs. "others"...) can get the most out of the
thing with the least frustration or annoyance.
-----
31) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 18:11:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 06:30 PM 11/19/98 +0100, Fritz Senn wrote:
>I am dogmatically against any anticipatory gloss in this representative
>instance. With all potential knowledge of Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Irish
>history, theology etc etc. at one's ideal fingertips, no reader would know
>now the names of race horses. After all, Bloom himself does not know what
>is going on.
Right, and spoiling parts of the book as one crawls over it is a genuine possibility. However, as you point out below, if the Gold Cup race is discussed anywhere in a Ulysses commentary (and how could it not be?), someone who wants to know about this race will be able to find the information while reading this initial Gold Cup passage at the end of Lotus Eaters. The only issues are (A) how many links would need to be followed to get to a discussion of the race (two, three, four?), and (B) how much *warning* would a reader have that proceeding to examine an account of the race spoils some things that are in fact made clear by the book itself as long as one keeps track of all the information that accumulates from episode to episode?
>Of course in electronic, hyperlinked texts, all information is available
>around several corners, but at least not all notes have to be thrust on our
>attention. Eventually there is no such thing as tactful glossing; but at
>least let readers make an effort and - that's the overall rule - FIRST
>try to find out for themselves.
The commentator has a responsibility not to *force* information on people that
they do not want -- or would not want, if they were aware in advance of the ways
in which getting certain information at a certain point, while reading forward from
beginning to end, would affect their experience of the book. If there is a basic
note here in Lotus Eaters about the Gold Cup race, it should be very general, without
giving anything away. However, a link should somehow be provided for the reader who
(on a first or fortieth reading of Ulysses) wants to go from the Lotus Eaters passage
to a full account of the race, and/or to other passages in Ulysses where the race
comes up. I guess that link needs to make clear that following the link spoils a
surprise, or reveals how this race "strand" unfolds in the rest of the
book, so that those who don't want a "spoiler" here in Lotus Eaters can
choose not to follow it.
But there are still problems. In a prior post on this thread, hypermedia was under
discussion and the wise point was made that once information is provided, most people
are going to tend to use it, no matter what the intentions of the people providing
the information. So this "spoilers" issue really is a problematic area....
-----
35) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 22:18:48 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 05:28 PM 11/24/98 -0500, Brian Hurley wrote:
>It is of some concern to me, and to others, if I recall correctly Fritz
>Senn's post to this thread, that the very act of annotating such a text
>as Ulysses always threatens to corrupt one of the novel's central
>'themes', indeed one central to Ulysses's very modernist aesthetic: the
>textual--and thus de facto inexact--nature of historical, and other,
>knowledge. While Mike Groden has been careful to stress the unfinalized
>nature of all annotations (the need for allowing such annotations to
>*not* be final pronouncements on the given referent), it seems to me
>that any annotation risks just this dillemna. Let me state here that I
>am by no means a detractor of Ulysses in hypermedia--I have seen a few
>prototypes and am very excited by its possilibities, however...
This is what I've been referring to -- two sophisticated readers of the book who have what sound like almost opposite takes on the most basic questions of how to approach the book. Is it even possible to think about producing *anything* that both would find satisfactory? It seems that any approach that would minimally serve one person would annoy the other. Neither is willing to let others be served according to their own lights, because that is "not true to the book's spirit." I.e., what one can only see as evaluative or interpretational *conclusions* about the book are driving whether or not basic/initial commentary should occur at all, and how.
>Of course it can be argued the Ulysses has never offered a
>less-annotated reading experience since at least Stuart Gilbert.
Right, it does seem clear that Joyce had no aversion to commentary, whatever angle *we* may decide to take on the text.
>Moreover, many scholars of Modernism have lamented that the movement's
>aesthetic has long ago been emptied of it's radical power. And yet is
>doesn't help matters, IMHO, that some readers still wish to equate Joyce
>with Dante, Shakespeare, or even Proust, as though all great writers are
>using the same aesthetic means to the same 'great' ends.
And as I've also said before, these mutually exclusive and polemical approaches
to interpretation are driven by mutually polemical cultural modes -- in this case,
as so often, the polemics are presented as a battle of anti-pomo ("timeless
great books") vs. pro-pomo ("epistemic and historicist problematization").
I'm actually not sure why the two are mutually exclusive or why both can't be partly
right -- nor do I see why a commentary on Ulysses needs to be forced into taking
one side on these debates, which will be as dead in twenty or thirty years as any
cultural polemics from decades or centuries ago are today.
I'm also not sure why everyone is not free to read a clean text if s/he wants it.
-----
37) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 01:00:14 -0800
From: Jack Kolb
While I agree with you in principle, Murray--the more information the better--I
think that Ulysses is a book that can be misread by the first reader. My ex-wife
(that's not the reason for our divorce {grin}) was one: she was taught it in college
by an hidebound idiot scholar who insisted that students look up every reference.
This destroyed the book for her forever: it was forever simply an exercise in elaborate
pedantry.
Ideally, as I tell even my non-majors, one should plunge into Ulysses like diving
into some new uncharted waters, recognizing that there will be moments of panic,
but eventually one will accustom oneself to the surroundings, and ultimately the
experience will be pleasurable. Admittedly a crucial component of such a dive is
at least one guide, whose been there before: ideally one is part of a swimming party,
all of whom can point out the identifying features they come to recognize.
Sorry for that extended metaphor. My point is that almost all annotation should at
first come PERSONALLY, from a teacher (who need not be an academic) who can respond
to the individual students (even in a lecture course). This simply can't be provided
by a hypertext, for all its potential value. If you want to read this as an attack
upon the computer as a educator, by all means do so {grin}.
-----
38) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 10:43:19 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 11:34 PM 11/24/98 -0500, Brian Hurley wrote:
>What I *did* pose, and really, this was the point of the whole
>post, was a question in theory; namely, how do annotations affect the
>reading experience?
If a given user uses annotations (rather than the plain/clean reading-text option that would be the "default" on a good hypermedia Ulysses), then the annotations affect the reading experience. The reader is volunteering for that by clicking into the annotations. Whichever annotations a given user accesses on a given reading of the text absolutely affect that particular reading experience. So the annotations would affect different readers differently (or even the same reader differently on his/her subsequent read-throughs), depending precisely on what was accessed and utilized.
>I cited an example of the (hypothetical) annotation
>of a 1904 Dublin personage the name of whom Bloom mentions in passing.
>Greg, would such an instance *necessarily* warant an annotation, in your
>point of view? I am not asking if one should *not provide* an
>annotation--hell, provide as a long an annotation as possible--but
>rather, might the annotation here effect how one as a reader experiences
>Bloom's thought process and Ulysses in general..
Sure, of course it would affect the reading-experience if one accessed that annotation.
But that's why initial-level annotation should be as bare-bones as possible, with
clear indications of what kinds of further information users will get by following
subsequent links to anything more detailed -- i.e., people should not have things
sprung on them that they don't want. And that's also why I think Mike Groden's Monday
11AM idea of a two-portal commentary (first-time reader vs. longer term reader) is
a good idea.
Some readers (whether first-time or longer-term) might not be interested in who Bloom
is mentally alluding to at a given moment. No problem, keep reading the text. Someone
who wonders who that person is, or why Bloom is thinking of that person, etc., should
have options too. **Of course** it affects the reading experience -- everything affects
everything somehow (an old Dean Martin song, I think).
Knowing how much of the background would be lost on a first-time non-Dublin reader
of 1918 or 1922, I imagine Joyce expected people to have that "lost in the flux"
experience that you rightly pointed out last night was very likely part of the book's
deliberate program. But I also imagine Joyce expected people would also be able to
make the allusions out with some effort. Experience is big and complicated and messy
-- but it also has patterns and cohesions and meanings. Both things can be true at
once (flux *and* pattern) -- complexity includes both of them. This is yet another
of Joyce's many cultural vaticinations: the cultural polemics of the later 20th cent.
often revolve around the issue of whether there is "true/objective" coherence
in things or not, and that is precisely the issue that Joyce is trying to thematize
by writing a text where flux *and* pattern are both crucial.
A commentary should happily (joyously? joycily?) allow either -- by providing on
the one hand a plain text, basic initial annotation, and portals for first-time redaers,
and on the other hand some more detailed commentary/background/analysis for those
who feel they would like to have their reading experience altered in that way. (Commentary
as a mind-altering experience.)
-----
39) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 12:52:30 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 01:00 AM 11/25/98 -0800, Jack Kolb wrote:
>almost all annotation should at first come PERSONALLY, from a teacher (who need
not be an
>academic) who can respond to the individual students (even in a lecture
>course). This simply can't be provided by a hypertext, for all its potential
value.
Right -- and one of the most "fun" aspects of experiencing Ul. as student
or teacher is when you discover new things, on the fly, as a result of what someone
else says, or because the classroom reading experience (i.e., the particular sequence
of passages examined in the classroom) brings out
something that no prior reading experience brought out.
But this brings up an interesting pedagogical question, related I think to Mike Groden's
Monday ideas on the topic of what serves first-time readers and what serves long-term
readers (i.e., two alternate portals to information?). Namely:
How would a hypermedia edition/commentary be used in connection with, or not in connection
with, a classroom discussion of Ulysses? And in either case, why?
-----
40) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 13:19:21 -0800
From: Jack Kolb
As an editor I would offer the following comments:
1. I am utterly opposed to an annotated edition which attempts to "interpret"
the text. Such a version would be historically mired in whatever--and however brilliant
or "definitive"--reading were offered. I don't know of any editor who would
argue otherwise. Granted, it's often difficult to separate "descriptive"
from "interpretative" notes. It's probably impossible to generalize about
the policy.
2. Since it is a matter of individual cases, let's take the "Throwaway"
reference in "Lotos Eaters." I don't think Gifford's annotation (p. 98)
of 5.532 is inappropriate (providing perhaps a bit more than any reader might want
to know about the Gold Cup race). His following annotation to 5.534: {throw it away}
IS, in my view, inappropriate: "See preceding note. The point is that Bloom
has just unwittingly given a tip on the Gold Cup race."
Not only is this inaccurate or inadequate--only in the construction of Bantam Lyons'
mind has Bloom has "given a tip" about the race--but it's interpretative.
Better, in an ideal hypertext edition, to provide pointers to the many allusions
to "Throwaway" in the text. Let the information about the race stand as
the fact; let the reader interpret.
I admit this is a minimalist approach, but anything else in an annotated edition
is patronizing to any potential reader.
-----
42) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 11:58:08 -0500
From: Michael Groden
A cluster of posts dealt with whether we should annotate everything we know.
Greg Downing:
>(1) How many particulars in Ulysses have little significance? You leave an
>escape hatch by including "known." Of course no one would write a note
or
>comment saying "who knows what this means? nothing as far as anyone knows."
>Silence makes perfectly clear that nothing worth saying is currently known
>(to the commentator(s)) about a given detail. (To be clear, let's make
>explicit that this is not the same as saying "people argue about which
>possible significance(s) are valid, or more valid than others" --
>commentaries do *that* all the time.) However, *many* details in Ulysses
>seem to be chosen for their cluster of possible resonances.
Murray Gross:
>There seems to be a polarity of "us vs. the reader". It's shocking
enough
>that academics feel they want to withhold information from their
>students and not make it too easy for them
>Let there be NO limit on what we can reference as we read the text. The
>choice is and should be with the reader.
Brian Hurley:
>1. Is there really no sense in which too much annotation may work
>against the spirit of Ulysses, its themes, its take on history,
>knowledge, and the aesthetic? Is it a question of censorship, or of
>sensitivity to literary history? Is there not the possibilty that a
>reader of an infinitely annotated (to take the limit-case) edition of
>Ulysses might end up with more knowledge (albeit of the mediated,
>textual kind) of 1904 Dublin than was possible for even the most
>historically-accute resident of 1904 Dublin, of 1922 Dublin? More
>knowledge than that possessed by Joyce? And if so, would not this
>reader gain a kind of position vis a vis Ulysses that might efface the
>very point about the gaps and haziness of knowledge that the novel seems
>to be positing? Or is the reverse the case--does the more that readers
>know allow them to perceive what Bloom and Co. don't know, or get
>wrong? Both, I think.
Brian Hurley:
>Greg, what are your feelings on annotation in general?
>Always a good thing? Never a bad thing? The same whether one is
>annotating Shakespeare or Joyce?
These questions go far beyond Ulysses, but they are very important ones. For my
own selfish purposes, I'm delighted that there is a kind of "town"-"gown"
(or whatever) division that has opened up somewhat, because one of the goals we decided
on early on for the hypermedia Ulysses project
was that it would try to reach and serve readers at all levels from beginners to
scholars, both in and out of organized classrooms. _We_ have to keep thinking about
all the different possible groups of readers, but of course the readers will look
to see whether their own needs are being met without caring about any kind of overarching
view. So the people who are speaking from those perspectives here are providing a
very good sense of what some of the different groups (or at least particular people
in those groups) want and need.
Of course, also, we are talking in the abstract, since most of you haven't seen what
we are trying to do in the project, but I hope that those of you who have been expressing
opinions will help us by looking at versions of the hypermedia project as they develop
and let us know what is working and what isn't. Your sense of what can and can't
be done, and what should and shouldn't be done, will probably change once you see
what the thing actually looks like and how it is structured. (And, of course, how
it is structured will be affected by the things you are saying in these posts.)
The opinions I've quoted here seem to me to strike at the heart of the humanities
and humanistic education. My instincts in this debate are all on the side of providing
everything, or at least all you can. The trick, as has been said several times already,
is to organize the information in a
way that is useful, unobtrusive, and so clearly structured that a user will be able
to find what s/he wants and not be bothered by the rest. (There will, of course,
be limits on what we present; it won't be possible to present everything. But what
is left out will be a matter more of permission beyond denied--almost every piece
of published criticism and scholarship on Ulysses is still in copyright, and people
or publishers who control the rights to materials might not let us use them--or charges
for permissions being beyond our budget, or our own energy running out than of a
decision to leave out information.)
My first reaction to Brian Hurley's question was to wonder if he would suggest that
libraries should curtail what they purchase so that readers don't learn too much.
The problem can't be that there is too much that we can learn. My second thought
was to recall T.S. Eliot's statement in "Tradition and the Individual Talent":
"Someone said, 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much
more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know." Placed alongside
Richard Ellmann's opening line in his biography of Joyce, "We are still learning
to be James Joyce's contemporaries, to understand our interpreter." These two
statements seem to me to get close to the heart of why we keep reading and studying
books like Ulysses, and why worries like Brian's have to affect, deeply, the way
we go about organizing the materials we use in a
hypermedia project but why they can't affect the basic decision to include or not
include material. Of course, we know more than Bloom or a 1904 or 1922 Dubliner or
Joyce--we know Ulysses, we know Finnegans Wake, we know postmodern lit., Freud, Derrida,
Foucault, Kenner, etc. etc. ("We" and "know" subject to as many
qualifications as you want.) What else is liberal-arts education for but to make
sure that we know more? Of course, crucially, we also know less: we don't know about
the Phoenix Park murders as if they happened yesterday, etc. etc. Many of the posts
about how to provide contexts and what contexts to provide have tried to negotiate
between the different degrees of knowledge and ignorance we each bring to a book
like Ulysses, or to Shakespeare. (To answer the question that Brian asked of Greg
Downing, I don't think the issue changes with the author or text.) That seems to
me to be the question, not whether we might be offering too much.
In graduate school my Chaucer teacher was one of those so-called "Robertsonians"
(he was Robertson himself, actually) who insisted that nothing could be said about
Chaucer that wouldn't be known to a 14th-century reader. With Ulysses, yes, Joyce
knew that his audience would never know everything that is in the book, and yes we
can't pretend that we ever will, hypermedia Ulysses or not. If Ellmann is even remotely
accurate, we keep reading Ulysses precisely because we will never "understand
our interpreter." _That_ is what Joyce pulled off, not the puzzles and games,
and that is why Ulysses lasts.
Brian Hurley:
>Joyce was remarkably aware,
>it seems to me, that life in the modern city *does not allow us* to
>'know' most of the objects, and I include people here, with which/whom
>one comes into contact--this is basic to the Modernist aesthetic. Many
>times a name is just a name in the crowd, so to speak.
Yes, Ulysses is full of names in the crowd, one of which is M'Intosh, a name that
gets connected to a person by bizarre (linked) details. Frank Kermode, in _The Genesis
of Secrecy_ from the late 1970s, asked why critics seem to spend so much time trying
to make some sense out of M'Intosh rather than admitting that it doesn't make sense.
There are names in the crowd, and there are names. Again, who decides what matters,
and what doesn't?
-----
43) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 12:27:16 -0500
From: Michael Groden
Some responses to this thread asked specific questions about a hypermedia Ulysses, or made specific suggestions. Here are thoughts about some of these:
Frank Dauenhauer:
>Just a suggestion, with an eye toward lessening the potential for users'
>confusion with "layered" help: let the reader of the hypertext edition
of
>Ulysses "log in" to the book at any of a number of levels, which h/she
can
>change instantly by clicking on a numbered icon: e.g.,
>Level Kind of help provided [= letter 21]
Categories like this might be quite useful. But the computer screen is visual as much as verbal, and a numbered list sounds a lot like an outline on a page. I'd rather think of something like color codings or some other visual rather than numerical system. I'd prefer to stay away from any system that lets you rate yourself, or be rated ("only" a 3; a _real_ reader of Ulysses can handle 9, etc.). If we are going to take full advantage of the computer, we have to learn how it can serve needs that we perceive and at the same time help us out of certain dilemmas that print communication forced on us.
John Paul Fullerton:
>How about a map of the action? (Like a game, map of Dublin, we see
>locations where action takes place.)
>Animate movement through the map/action. (User may observe movement
>through the map.)
>Allow clicking on a section of the map for time/action/context info.
Yes, definitely. Multimedia cries out for maps and all kinds of visual and audio accompaniment to the text, and the map becomes one way of orienting yourself or navigating through the text.
Mike Barsanti:
>1) How about the annotations supplied by the reader him- or her-self? I
>believe Mike Groden's prototype includes functions whereby a reader can
>make notes at certain points in the text--I think this is an essential
>feature in encouraging the reader to engage with the book, and it seems
>especially important in the case of *Ulysses.* As I recall, the prototype
>shows how you can set a mark on the page & make notations in a box that
>pops up on the screen. I like to make circles & boxes & significant
>doodles in my paper books, and that would be my ideal preference for a CD
>Rom version, but that doesn't appear to be possible at the moment.
Programs like PowerPoint let you add shapes of many kinds (customized as well as supplied ones) to your slides, and you can add "handwritten" notes to the slide slow while you are presenting it. I don't think that personal notes will have to be limited to typed words.
also Mike Barsanti:
>2) one of the exciting features provided by CD-ROM games is the ability to
>connect to the internet and play the game with another person. What about
>a function whereby one could share annotations with other readers or
>engage in discussions a la Michael Ditmore's DU-MOO (if that's the right
>spelling?).
A MOO is one thing: it's a live real-time discussion. Somewhat separate is a place for notetaking that is on the Web, and users can look at annotations that are there, post new ones, etc. That will be part of the Web section of the hypermedia Ulysses (we're anticipating that most of the project will be on a disc such as a CD-ROM or DVD but that a small but sizeable part will be on the Web). There could also be a separate Web page for notes from a smaller group, such as an individual class.
three points from Jack Kolb:
>My point is that almost all annotation
>should at first come PERSONALLY, from a teacher (who need not be an
>academic) who can respond to the individual students (even in a lecture
>course). This simply can't be provided by a hypertext, for all its
>potential value.
>I am utterly opposed to an annotated edition which attempts to
>"interpret" the text. Such a version would be historically mired in
>whatever--and however brilliant or "definitive"--reading were offered.
I
>don't know of any editor who would argue otherwise. Granted, it's often
>difficult to separate "descriptive" from "interpretative"
notes. It's
>probably impossible to generalize about the policy.
>I admit this is a minimalist approach, but anything else in an annotated
>edition is patronizing to any potential reader.
No, hypertext can't replace a teacher, and shouldn't. Then again, not every reader
of Ulysses is studying with a teacher, or should be. What a hypertext can provide
is a great deal of opinions, interpretations, analyses for the user to look at. The
hypertext is going to be historically mired whatever we do, and however well we do.
If we clearly separate interpretation from annotation, to the extent that this is
possible, and if we present many interpretations and not our own (or not my own),
then interpretation is contextualized, historicized, qualified. Done this way, how
is it patronizing? The reader's own judgment, or a teacher's aid, would always be
needed to assess and evaluate the interpretations. (Conversely, if the hypertext
tried to present itself as an authoritative interpretation, it should be immediately
and utterly condemned.)
-----
47) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 23:00:32 +0000
From: Richard Stack
Mike Groden raises a question about the appropriateness of the evaluative remarks
in Kiberd's annotation on Groden's chosen passage from Aeolus. After making a couple
of unobjectionable historical remarks about the episode, Kiberd says:
"Much of the chapter criticizes the revivalist notion that all great deeds were
done in the past. To Joyce this idealization of the past was a thin cover-up for
the mediocrity of the present."
It is certainly true that this is a judgement, but in contradistinction to what ?
Something true? Objective ? Informative ? Factual ? Can we really take such distinctions
serously? And, above all, what is it, exactly, that is being annotated ? Can we classify
it? A word, a paragraph, a
chapter as a whole, the work of JJ as a whole ? I think not.
What strikes me about Kiberd's remarks are:
a) he's right; and
b) it is perfectly obvious that he is making a judgement, but
c) it is NOT obvious that he is more reliable ( that is, that he has made the most
appropriate selection from among the various things that he might possibly have decided
to say, assuming he knew a good deal more than he chose to say) in his factual remarks
than in his judgements.
My point is the following: as soon as Kiberd makes a general point about the chapter
as a whole, and then about JJ's work as a whole, his comment is classified as "evaluative",
and therefore ruled out of bounds. But the issue is not whether it is evaluative,
but whether he is reliable. For at what point (along the continuum outlined at the
top of this post,) does the judgement about something inevitably become an "evaluation"
? Is it at the level of the "motif" ? Of the chapter as a whole? somewhere
in between ? Or where ? Obviously there is no answer to this.
To attempt to be clear about this: I would warn against being too complacent about
a) our capacity to differentiate between "evaluation" and "information",
and
b) our tendency to view the latter as being inherently more reliable than the former.
We are simply unwilling (for reasons it would be worth looking into) to trust an
annotator to depend directly on his reading of the text in hand, rather than on some
independent source. But if an annotator has shown himself to be reliable, why should
we not, in principle, be prepared to accept his reading of a chapter or of the book
as a whole? By the same token, if she has NOT done so, why should we accept her account
of the "facts" ? (It is a matter of common experience that it is far easier
to attack someone's facts than it is to attack their judgements.)
Literature itself, and certainly the work of JJ, is crammed with such passages from
fact to evaluation; perhaps in some sense they are what it is all about. Why then
should we wish to produce a set of purged, antiseptic "annotations", pure
of all commentary? What a bloodless drag! Pass the Phone Book ! Tell us what you
think is the case without worrying too much whether you are stepping over someone's
imaginary line. Be assured that we will be quite able to distinguish between your
quirky ideas and the "facts". If we can't, we should learn to read, for
that's what reading is, and if you can't convince us that you're reliable and worth
reading, we simply won't read you, and no harm will be done.
----
49) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 19:47:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 01:19 PM 11/25/98 -0800, Jack Kolb wrote:
>1. I am utterly opposed to an annotated edition which attempts to
>"interpret" the text. Such a version would be historically mired in
>whatever--and however brilliant or "definitive"--reading were offered.
I
>don't know of any editor who would argue otherwise. Granted, it's often
>difficult to separate "descriptive" from "interpretative"
notes.
I completely agree with you about the paramount importance of keeping the annotational
and evaluative aspects of literary response as clearly separated as possible. (Meanwhile,
because all annotation involves selection, choices, priorities, etc., we have to
ackowledge that it is impossible to create an utterly "evaluation-free zone."
It's probably even impossible to get down to the perhaps minimal level of "parts
per billion" or "parts per trillion" of evaluation somehow implicit
in the most basically annotational annotations.) All of us who read need to keep
the nonidentity of the descriptive and evaluative functions as distinct as possible,
while simultaneously being honest with ourselves about the fact that all thought
and discourse occurs within complexly interwoven conceptual and cultural webs whose
existence is the result of people's cumulative conceptual and cultural activity.
So talking about absolutes or walls of separation here is probably methodologically
unfeasible, and probably also a function of not taking the contingency and complexity
of cultural and conceptual activity as strictly into account as I imagine we should.
But clearly you do recognize the issue as a problem, functionally, when you say:
>It's probably impossible to generalize about the policy.
>2. Since it is a matter of individual cases, let's take the "Throwaway"
>reference in "Lotos-Eaters." I don't think Gifford's annotation (p.
98) of
>5.532 is inappropriate (providing perhaps a bit more than any reader might
>want to know about the Gold Cup race). His following annotation to 5.534:
>{throw it away} IS, in my view, inappropriate: [= letter 40]
No argument from me! Gifford's note is certainly an odd way of discussing what's
happening here. Accepting that Gifford does want to give the game away at this point
(and you and I might question that...), why does he choose wording that focuses on
Bloom rather than Lyons?
This brings out an important point: Yes, it's probably impossible to formulate generalized
rules about keeping description and evaluation absolutely separate. However, all
annotations would benefit from high sensitivity to wording, and avoidance of inaccurate
or inappropriate implications, or false impressions.
>I admit this is a minimalist approach, but anything else in an annotated
>edition is patronizing to any potential reader.
You say above that an annotated edition should avoid interpretation. Does this
mean that you disapprove of traditional "hard-copy" annotated editions
that also have critical material included, after the edition and annotations? (There
are many examples of this format, several of them in the Joyce literature.) Or do
the two things contaminate each other, as certain flavors are said to do, i.e., don't
drink wine x with food y? Does one-stop shopping -- for some non-authoritative, non
exhaustive commentary as well as some non-authoritative, non-exhaustive analysis,
in one CDROM/DVD/website/etc. -- constitute an outrage? If so, why?
-----
51) Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 18:44:19 +0000
From: Richard Stack
Our discussion has been, so far, quasi-technical/utilitarian in character: what
would be the most useful kinds of annotation for this or that kind of reader, and
what kinds of levels of access do we want to provide, and so forth. These are, in
a sense, engineering questions, the very sort of thing that Bloom would have found
absorbing.
But is there, perhaps, also a kind of "political economy" at work here;
a groundwork of assumptions that lead us (in the usual manner of the ideological)
to take up a number of unquestionable, taken-for-granted positions?
Again and again, in this copious and fascinating thread, we come across the urgently
felt need to make very clear when we are evaluating and when we are informing. The
liberal position is that since we cannot make a sharp distinction between the two
we should make a sharp distinction between the two, and separate them onto different
hypertext levels. The conservative position is that
evaluation should be banished altogether, as being bad for the soul of the naive
reader, who is likely to be robbed of his special god-given right to his special
readerly pleasures.
Neither position works, of course. The liberal position is self-contradictory, in
that though one may segregate inputs, one cannot segregate the resulting jumble of
info-judgements once they are lodged in the mind. The conservative position doesn't
work because the choice of facts is a matter of judgement.
One thing, for example, that we haven't thought much about as we try to theorize
annotation is the question of intellectual property-rights. Perhaps lying behind
the very strong intuitions that so many have expressed ("no editor that I know
would...." and so forth) about the vital importance of distinguishing between
the evaluative and the informative, is that the former might be thought of as a kind
of intellectual property, whereas the latter is less plausibly "ownable".
The latter therefore is "safe", verifiable, objective, scientific. One
might perhaps want to be credited with having discovered a piece of information,
but one scarcely has a patent on it The same cannot be said so readily with respect
to critical views which have more in common with the kind of "ownership"
that an author has with respect to his "creations".
I'm not suggesting that it literally comes down to property-rights per se, since
we are, almost all of us, much too poor to actually play that game of suit and counter-suit.
Rather, our ideological intuitions are informed by that "bourgeois" regime,
(as distinct, for example, from the "amateur" regime, likely to disregard
such distinctions, that would govern in a courtly society.)
If I'm right about this, then I suppose there is nothing much to be done. The ideological
always trumps the rational in such matters
.-----
52) Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 14:32:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 12:25 AM 11/26/98 +0100, Arwin van Arum wrote:
>I think that the obvious thing to do in hypermedia is to objectively offer
>several different points of view at the same time, and leave the reader to
>choose which, or even if at all, he wants to read any of them. That's the
>great thing about hypermedia - you can read what you want to read.
Right. And that also means any *evaluative* material, no matter how many different conflicting or complementary options are included, should be presented as discretely as possible from the basic, descriptive annotation/commentary. (That's "discretely," but maybe I mean "discreetly" too.)
>By carefully cataloguing our collective accumulative
>knowledge about Joyce's work, whatever previous assumption about his work
>this confirms or disproves, we will create something current and future
>scholars can build on.
Right. Each generation has to translate for itself, each generation has to write
literature for itself, each generation has to philosophize for itself, and each generation
has to annotate and analyze for itself. It's all part of an ongoing (but not "unidirectional")
process. I suppose it's important to
keep pointing out that all assertions about Ulysses -- and all assertions about anything
-- are limited, partial, imperfect, subject to inevitable correction. Ineluctable
modifiability of the glossable. It's important to keep making this point ("it's
all imperfect/temporary") as explicitly and insistently as possible, because
that's the only thing that furnishes even limited inoculation against the "gotcha"
bug, which bites in something like the following fashion: "You're making a claim
that doesn't adequately acknowledge the pervasiveness of epistemic imperfection,
so I hereby rhetorically demonstrate my own lesser degree of such imperfection by
pointing that out -- without having to take a specific position on anything myself
that I might be wrong about, whatever "wrong" is...."
>And by giving them a choice in what to read, we give them all
>opportunity to be effective and selective, as well as inclusive
>or exclusive.
Right. A convenient collection of various kinds of materials and resources (annotations
for first time readers, more detailed annotations and background material, various
kinds of tools, various kinds of analytical or critical or theoretical materials,
etc.) in various areas of a multi-purpose
document allows *various* people to range as widely or as narrowly as they wish.
(And n.b.: The latter (narrower) kinds of options are in no way necessarily "inferior"
to broader or wider-ranging interests or perspectives.
-----
56) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 13:08:32 -0500
From: Michael Groden
Richard Stack wrote:
> Mike Groden raises a question about the appropriateness of the evaluative
>remarks in Kiberd's annotation on Groden's chosen passage from Aeolus. . . .
[Letter 47]
> It is certainly true that this is a judgement, but in
>contradistinction to what ? Something true? Objective ? Informative ? Factual
?
>Can we really take such distinctions serously? And, above all, what
>is it, exactly, that is being annotated ? Can we classify it? A word, a
>paragraph, a chapter as a whole, the work of JJ as a whole ? I think not.
To be obtusely literal for a moment, the passage I quoted from Declan Kiberd's
annotations is his note to this specific passage in Ulysses:
"172.17-18 Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh, I mean, Joe Brady" (note on Penguin,
p. 996; the Ulysses page and line numbers are from the Penguin reprint of the 1960
Bodley Head edition = Gabler 7:639) So, if I understand Richard Stack's question
correctly, the note is an annotation to a few specific words (names), although Kiberd
uses these words (names) as a springboard for an interpretation.
>My point is the following: as soon as Kiberd makes a general point about
>the chapter as a whole, and then about JJ's work as a whole, his comment is
>classified as "evaluative", and therefore ruled out of bounds.
I'd like to talk briefly about "ruled out of bounds." This all depends
on context of use, and means two very different things in each case. For the hypermedia
Ulysses, we have been trying to talk about distinctions between a kind of factual
annotation that steers clear as much as possible of
interpretation or judgment, and that interpretation itself. If we used Kiberd's note,
the two interpretive sentences would be "out of bounds" for the factual
part, but they could certainly be appropriate for the interpretation section, We
would simply stop the factual note before these
sentences, and provide a link to them, with the link announcing them as interpretations.
If the user followed the link, s/he would see the interpretation, not alone but surrounded
by other interpretations, some conflicting with this one. Here, it is a matter of
classifying the comment, not removing it or declaring it invalid.
The other context is the book itself as a classroom text. Here, I have found the
intrusion of interpretation (it occurs throughout the notes) to be more an impediment
than a help. So, for the purposes of a classroom text, I have ruled these comments
out of bounds, and I don't use this edition.
>Literature itself, and certainly the work of JJ, is crammed with
>such passages from fact to evaluation; perhaps in some sense they are what it
is
>all about. Why then should we wish to produce a set of purged, antiseptic
>"annotations", pure of all commentary? What a bloodless drag! Pass
>the Phone Book ! Tell us what you think is the case without worrying too much
>whether you are stepping over someone's imaginary line. Be assured that we will
be quite
>able to distinguish between your quirky ideas and the "facts". If we
can't, we
>should learn to read, for that's what reading is, and if you can't convince us
>that you're reliable and worth reading, we simply won't read you, and no harm
>will be done.
I certainly take Richard's point about Ulysses being about the blurring about
facts and interpretations. If it weren't, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
And we wouldn't be carrying it on for so long if the answer were easy. (See also
Greg Downing's Friday response to Jack Kolb.) But hypermedia, I hope, will let us
make some useful distinctions without having to eliminate anything. If we call a
fact an interpretation, or vice versa, we will err in where we place some words or
how we link to and from them, but at least the words will be there. And it is easier
to fix a botched link than a printed book or article page.
-----
58) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 17:45:21
From: Andrew H. Blom
I'm a little surprised to find myself taking this position, but a combination
of things said in the "to gloss" thread of late have caused me to change
my mind. Initially I thought the separation of commentary into two groups --- factual
for the first time reader, interpretative for the studied hand - - was a good idea.
Now I'm not so sure.
The number of minds by whose light I'll allow my benighted self to be guided I can
count on one hand: Goethe, however, does happen to be one of them. As he put it,
"Das Hoechste waere zu begreifen, dass alles Faktische schon Theorie ist"
(Goethes Werke, Hamburger Ausgabe, vol.12, p.432). "The most important thing
would be to realize that everything 'factual' is already theory."
I imagine we basically all realize this. I presume too that we understand that it
is by *consensus* that the factual is established (theoretically) as such. Consensus
can be arrived at; it can also be broken down. It can be modified. It can be abolished.
Obviously such an understanding underlies Michael Groden's decision to include a
great number of amateurs, experts, scholars, persons with all different backgrounds
and perspectives, in the project. This will be one of its particular strengths.
My suggestion would be to turn this to further advantage by impressing upon the reader
the (merely) consensual nature of the "factual" commentary which is offered.
This could be achieved in a way like the following.
If it is feasible to do so, I would set out to assemble a review panel --- perhaps
one which is going to vary from chapter to chapter, but in any case, something analogous
to the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. What results there is that
the user, instead of getting his English in Sinai granite, finds entries like these:
"Usage: *I*, rather than *me*, is the grammatically prescribed first person
pronoun for use after the verb *be*: *It is I.* In formal writing, *it is I* is the
construction specified by 78 per cent of the Usage Panel. The variant *it is me*
(or *it's me*) is felt by many persons to be much more natural in speech, and this
form is termed acceptable in speech on all levels by 60 per cent of the Panel. See
Usage at *but*."
The whole dictionary opens with a roll call of the Usage Panel, letting the reader
know that Carl Sagan, Red Smith, Tony Randall, and about a hundred other persons
are the responsible parties behind said 60 and 78 per cents. All in all it's a highly
successful strategy, in my opinion --- the reader is constantly kept aware of the
dissent and flexibility which characterize "standard" language use. If
it would be possible to assemble a Review Panel for the Hypermedia Ulysses, there
could be similar benefits for it as well, perhaps as follows.
Now, I don't suggest including information about percentages unless something is
a contested point. But to give an idea of what I do mean, let me take the simplest
point I can think of that would obviously "have" to be provided for a first-time
reader: a translation of Italian "Già" at 3.493. (I should note that
I didn't know Italian, or anything except English, really, when I first read Ulysses,
and I got along just fine. Personally I may be leaning toward a "let the first-time
reader sink, swim or eat cake" position, but I realize that's fairly extreme.
At any rate it could really shoot marketability all to hell.)
To continue: Gifford gives: "3.493 (50:32) *Già* --- Italian: 'Already.'
As Stephen uses the word here, 'Già ... Già,' it is an expression of impatience:
'Let's go ... Let's go.'"
Now, to me, this is nonsense. Colloquially, "già" also means "yes,
sure, of course, right," and this, with a sarcastic tone, is the sense in which
Stephen is (to my mind) clearly using it. "Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet. Oh
yeah, that's me all right. That's what you wanna be, Stevie, sure."
But I could be wrong. "Già" does too mean "already," and
perhaps a broader view of context might lead someone to argue more convincingly that,
I don't know, Stephen is thinking of the nightmare of history and things past, things
that "already" have been, or something.
In this case, things are simple enough that the solution is probably clear; the Annotations
could simply give a full Italian-English dictionary entry for "già."
But not all apparently factual questions are this easy to resolve in short order,
or rather, there are a number of situations, I'm sure, where inclusivity would quickly
explode beyond what is practical. Moreover, given the worthlessness with which such
typical expressions are translated out of context, I'm not sure that even here one
wouldn't have to give examples of how a particular sense of "già"
would affect the reading of the passage, just as I've had to do above. In other words,
as we've already seen in the course of this thread, if you're really set on helping
the first-time reader, you're just not going to be able to avoid doing some interpretation
for him.
At which point, rather than having a separate category for "Annotations, Pure
and Simple" at all, I would lean toward including, somewhere in the middle of
the list of other critics' names, an option entitled "Review Panel." Like
this:
CRITICISM (menu bar)------------------
Atherton (drop-down menu)
Blamires
Derrida
Gilbert
Review Panel
Senn
Theoharis
Or, at another place:
CRITICISM-------------------
Bauerle
Gorman
Hayman
Lacan
Review Panel
Thornton
For the first-time reader, such an arrangement would bring home the fact that
it's consensual opinion among dissenters that's being given, not gospel. Obviously
the Review Panel entry could give links to the other critics' stuff. And in the event
of severe division of minds among the Panel members, such a fact could be noted,
more or less as the AH Dictionary has seen fit to do.
Beyond that, two general observations: if Greg Downing's right, and there really
isn't all *that* much Joyce scholarship out there, I'd strongly urge that the project
go for broke and include as much as possible. More is more, particularly if some
qualified categorization of critics is possible (in some way it would have to be,
though obviously that brings up problems of its own).
And finally, I know we all know this, but it bears repeating; you can lead a horse
to water but you can't make him drink. If the first-time reader isn't alive enough
to be able to change his own mind or to allow it to be changed over time, he's got
no business reading Ulysses. Beyond a certain point, the risk of mis-teaching such
people isn't a risk that the project should bother to address.* The upside just isn't
there. I certainly don't wish to propose some kind of Calvinism in Joyce studies;
but, to bend a Lotus-Eaters metaphor, if you're going to set out the wine with the
host, rummies will flock with the faithful. Let the angels rejoice that some will
make it to heaven, and leave it at that. (Apologies to Murray Gross, whose insistence
that we're not here to worship JJ couldn't be more appropriate or refreshing. I'm
just speaking broadly. Which is probably a mistake, but I'm tired.)
* P.S. I'm assuming that the conclusions others have arrived at about specific
varieties of annotative difficulty are acceptable. Namely:
No explicit note about the importance of "Throwaway" should be given. A
reader who follows links to related passages in Ulysses will find it, but no flags
"try these links and get a surprise" will be provided.
"Factual" information about the Phoenix Park murders will be given, and
if the reader can put two and two together, he/she will note that the "factual"
account and the newspaper editor's account don't jive. But no flags "Compare
and contrast: has the editor got his facts right?" will be provided.
-----
61) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 10:06:59 -0500
From: Michael Groden
Thanks to Andrew Blom for his very thoughtful and helpful response and suggestions. His suggestion about a review panel is a fine one:
>If it is feasible to do so, I would set out to assemble a review panel ---
. . . [Letter 58]
>If it would be possible to assemble a Review Panel
>for the Hypermedia Ulysses, there could be similar benefits for it as well, perhaps
as follows.
This could be very useful, and the computer can perhaps go beyond the rather awkward percentage numbers (that both suggest a kind of scientific validity and a, to me, unfortunate degree of specificity). A visual design like a color scale or a pie chart or something like that could indicate percentages.
> . . . But to give an idea of what I do mean, let
>me take the simplest point I can think of that would obviously "have"
to be
>provided for a first-time reader: a translation of Italian "Già"
at 3.493. . . .
>To continue: Gifford gives:
>"3.493 (50:32) *Già* --- Italian: 'Already.' As Stephen uses the word
here,
>'Già ... Già,' it is an expression of impatience: 'Let's go ... Let's
go.'"
This is a good example. The full passage at the end of Proteus is:
. . . Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet. _Già_. For the old hag with the yellow
teeth. And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. _Già_. My teeth are very
bad. . . . (3:493-94)
And, to make the record more pedantically fuller, none of the other annotators (Thornton,
Kiberd in Penguin, Johnson in Oxford) says anything about the word.
>I would lean toward including, somewhere in the
>middle of the list of other critics' names, an option entitled "Review Panel."
Like this:
>CRITICISM (menu bar) [snip]
>Or, at another place:
>CRITICISM [snip]
This could work, and it would serve people who want to go from the word to a menu
of all possible choices that are available for the word. Probably "Review Panel"
shouldn't be buried in the list but should go at the top or bottom.
But there are other ways the problem could be dealt with. Clicking on the word itself
will get you to information, and this is where (I think) Greg Downing and others
who have been talking about some kind of bare-bones factual level would put the information.
Click on "_Già_" and you might get something like Gifford's note:
"Italian: 'Already,' as in 'Enough already' or 'Let's go ... Let's go.'"
(This is just an example; perhaps the first note should be entirely different.) Then,
a word saying "More" or "Interpretations," or a symbol, would
direct the user to more information. Here could be something like the list Andrew
suggests (this would supplement the one in the menu bar), but you could also do something
like providing conflicting interpretations, so that the user wouldn't see just a
statement with some indication that "this is provisional" or "this
is an opinion" but would actually see the different possibilities. The user
could continue to follow the multiple paths, could shut off one or more of the possibilities
(sometimes there would be two in all, sometimes more). A user might decide that a
particular critic is compatible and reliable and go on to look for what that critic
has to say. Others might always seek out two conflicting opinions.
One way (the list Andrew proposes) says, this word is in dispute and if you want
to see details, click on "review panel." The other way visualizes the dispute
first and then lets the user deal with its existence. I think that this is the equivalent
of Andrew's later conclusion about what we've been saying about Phoenix Park:
>"Factual" information about the Phoenix Park murders will be given,
and if
>the reader can put two and two together, he/she will note that the
>"factual" account and the newspaper editor's account don't jive.
Both ways in (via the link and via the menu bar) are needed. Some readers will
prefer one way and some the other (or, based on whatever is going on at a particular
reading, the same reader might use the link one time and the menu bar another time).
Am I reading Andrew's remarks correctly?
-----
64) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 23:59:46
From: Andrew H. Blom
>This could be very useful, and the computer can perhaps go beyond the
>rather awkward percentage numbers (that both suggest a kind of scientific
>validity and a, to me, unfortunate degree of specificity). A visual design
>like a color scale or a pie chart or something like that could indicate percentages.
Yes, something at any rate to dispel the notion of unanimity or fixity in the annotations.
>This is a good example. The full passage at the end of Proteus is:
>. . . Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet. _Già_. For the old hag with the yellow
>teeth. And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. _Già_. My teeth are very
>bad. . . . (3:493-94)
Sorry, I should probably have included the full passage, but I was trying to be
brief. In fact this was the briefest example of a must-annotate-for-the-first-time-reader
passage I could think of. And
again, my point was that even for such a comparatively straightforward annotation
--- the translation of a single, isolated foreign word --- still it would appear
difficult to avoid a highly suggestive degree of interpretation, if said "factual"
annotation is to be at all useful for the first-time reader. To be clearer, I personally
don't experience any dilemma here; I think the reading I suggested is much more satisfying
than Gifford's, so his should be retired, and mine should supplant it. But I'd be
a fool if I didn't find it perfectly conceivable for another reader to come up with
a reading either as good as or much, much better than my own, indeed perhaps one
that ends up relying on the sense of "già" which Gifford proposes
after all, though in a different light.
(This might be a good place to note, since I'm not sure if your paraphrase translation
"enough already" was intended as a compromise between mine and Gifford's,
that really there are two completely different words "già" in Italian,
and never the twain shall meet. The adverb (Gifford's) derives from Latin "iam."
The exclamation (mine) derives from German "ja." Maybe Mario Faraone could
back me up on this.)
>This could work, and it would serve people who want to go from the word to
>a menu of all possible choices that are available for the word. Probably
>"Review Panel" shouldn't be buried in the list but should go at the
top or
>bottom.
The "unprivileged" alphabetical order was only a suggestion to emphasize that the putative panel's opinions are just that --- opinions --- among the wide variety available. But that's pretty extreme too, and it would probably be better to proceed as you suggest. I'll repeat that I don't wish to suggest all opinions about Ulysses are equal. More comprehensive or informed views supersede ones that are less so. Coherent and precise arguments supersede vague or incoherent ones. Presumably the good hard look at Joyce scholarship to be undertaken by Hypermedia Ulysses will result in an embrace of the most coherent and comprehensive stuff to date. So I don't really mind at all if it's given a privileged position. But then there is more risk of it being taken as gospel.
>But there are other ways the problem could be dealt with. . . . [Letter 61]
>Others might always seek out two conflicting opinions.
I think this is pretty much where we were before, but, having said my piece to
try and weigh things away from a "factual" wing, I'll agree that it's a
good solid compromise. And you can't go wrong by providing more information.
By the way, there's another advantage to inclusiveness that may aid the first-time
user in a different sense. It's perfectly possible that someone will follow all the
links slavishly and take a month to get through Telemachus, scarcely daring to take
a step on his or her own. But eventually, if the wade of criticism is thick enough,
it's almost inevitable that he or she will chuck the aids and return to the text
alone, if only from sheer exasperation. That's kind of what happened to me, actually.
Things worked out okay.
>One way (the list Andrew proposes) says, this word is in dispute and if you
>want to see details, click on "review panel." . . . [Letter 61]
>Some readers will prefer one way and some the other (or, based on whatever is
going on
>at a particular reading, the same reader might use the link one time and
>the menu bar another time).
>Am I reading Andrew's remarks correctly?
Umm, I think so, except that I hadn't actually intended to contradict myself, so
let me hasten to correct my sloppiness. That is, in my final appended note about
the PP murders, I meant to address not the question of "factuality" in
annotation, but rather the original problem of "giving the story-to come away."
As far as I can tell they're two separate issues. I see a number of apparently bare
bones, "factual" annotations in Gifford and others that give nothing away,
that in fact only strive to elucidate or source the line at hand; and still they
are all at sea, as far as I can tell. "Già" above is a minor example.
In essence, attempting to pull away from a "factual" extreme, I was sort
of suggesting that *all* "factual" annotations, even undisputed ones, could
be offered under a "review panel" heading or at least something of the
kind which would reinforce the notion of [ever-challengeable] community consensus,
rather than under a [this much is unshakeable] "bare-bones factual annotation"
heading.
Does that make sense? Sorry to spin this stuff a little bit offhandedly, I'm glad
to clarify anything which doesn't quite square. Thanks for calling me on the last
one.
-----
68) Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 13:36:45 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 11:58 AM 11/26/98 -0500, Michael Groden wrote:
>A cluster of posts dealt with whether we should annotate everything we know.
>Brian Hurley:
>>1. Is there really no sense in which too much annotation may work
>>against the spirit of Ulysses, its themes, its take on history,
>>knowledge, and the aesthetic?
>>. . . [Letter 42]
>>Both, I think.
>Brian Hurley:
>>Greg, what are your feelings on annotation in general?
>>Always a good thing? Never a bad thing? The same whether one is
>>annotating Shakespeare or Joyce?
>[Mike Groden then commented:]
>These questions go far beyond Ulysses, but they are very important ones.
>For my own selfish purposes, I'm delighted that there is a kind of
>"town"-"gown" (or whatever) division that has opened up somewhat,
Socially/sociologically, it often sets itself up as town/gown (nonacademic/academic), but cultural, philosophical, methodological, and ideological issues underlie this debate. In fact, one sees nonacademics supporting the "more-glossing" position, and academics supporting the "less glossing" position. Let's talk a little about one of the most central sets of issues underlying the split. Here's part of my current understanding of one area of the debate, and forgive the thorniness of the following if you can -- I don't have time to edit it extensively, so this is going to have to be more or less the way it "comes out" as I write it. Sorry, I guess first drafts are all we have time for on email....
POSITION (1): People who are willing to tolerate the existence of a larger number
of exegetical resources without talking about such resources negatively are echoing
several components of modernity: e.g., latitudinarianism (which grows out of individualism
and liberalism in its etymological sense), and an awareness of complexity and its
implications -- i.e., things are complex, and a complex and detailed discussion will
tend to approximate that complexity less imperfectly than a simpler discussion, despite
ineliminable subjectivity. Latitudinarianism and complexity can
easily function in complementary fashion, because the (relatively) "free,"
modern, subjective individual operates by grappling empirically and analytically
with the complexity of the constituent detail of anything to which s/he pays attention.
Despite the subjectivities and limitations of all "information," Position
(1) people tend to want more or maximum "information," because they think
that will help them go about the task of trying to arrive at what they hope (or assume?)
will be their own better understandings as they grapple, individually, with experience
(even "textual experience," so to speak) and all its complexities.
POSITION (2): People who are less willing to tolerate the existence of a larger
number of exegetical resources, and therefore tend to talk about such resources negatively
or at least call them into question, are also echoing several components of modernity:
e.g., the advanced-modern idea that one of complexity's interesting implications
is that (A) truth and (B) selfhood (the "individual") are complex as well.
(A) Unlike the rationalistic assumptions of some parts of 18th cent. culture and
the positivistic assumptions of some parts of 19th/20th cent. culture, antipositivistic
or antiveristic modernity assumes that things are so complex, and our empirical and
analytical tools for understanding them so imperfect, that all assertions are constructs
inevitably colored by lots of contexts -- personal, phenomenological, social, cultural,
etc. (B) Unlike the heroic individualism of the Renaissance/early-modern or Romantic
eras, individuals and their actions thus become inextricable parts of larger cultural,
social, etc. networks -- i.e., the individual is conditioned by all of his/her surroundings,
and the autonomous individual and even authorial intentionality are seen as reductions/simplifications/distortions.
Despite the utility and to some extent necessity of "information," Position
(2) people tend to want other individuals to impose less "information"
on them or on those for whom they feel solicitude, because such "information"
is not unproblematically veritistic and is therefore, in major ways, a function of
social and cultural and ideological agendas operating through the would-be "providers"
of "information," no matter what those providers may think about their
own intentions or effects. Provision of "information," no matter how "neutrally"
engaged in, has a veritistic effect and a potestative effect: i.e., it involves an
implicit claim that something might be true, or at least truer than something else
that might have been written, and therefore constitutes a power-play that is all
the more insidious because of its implicitude, its covertness. So provision of information
is problematic because it is not (pardon the expression) true to the antiveritistic
and anti-"heroic intentionalizing individual" aspects of advanced modernity.
People supporting some version of Position (1) and Position (2) have spoken clearly
and repeatedly on this thread. There are ironies in both their positions. Position
(2) argues against the veritistic tendencies of the modern individual, but seems
to contain an idea (sometimes submerged and sometimes acknowledged) that criticism
of the "information provider" is intended to protect the heroic, authentic
operation of other individuals ("leave people to experience the book themselves;
don't screw with or ruin their experiences"). I suppose this might sound like
a certain hypocrisy,
but it is really just a function I think of a significant effect of modernity that
I mentioned earlier on this thread: namely, relatively free individuals *all* seeking
to formulate worldviews and develop their own paths through experience, and therefore
tending to feel that parallel activity on the part of others impinges on their own
pursuit of the same kinds of activity. So there is a kind of individualism, a kind
of "romanticism" or "authenticism," inherent in Position (2)'s
opposition to
what it often sees as the "romanticism" and "authenticism" of
Position (1). But meanwhile, Position (1) can tend in the hands of the careless toward
a kind of positivism or objectivism that undercuts Position (1)'s claim to awareness
of complexity and subjectivity....
So have we now theorized ourselves into silence? Do we now understand the dynamics
of these attitudes sufficiently to drive ourselves into aporia? Maybe we'll see as
we work on through the "gloss" thread.... There's more to say about the
maxiglossing and miniglossing positions, and plenty left undiscussed above, but this
is more than enough for now....
>Because one of the goals we decided on early on for the hypermedia Ulysses
project
>was that it would try to reach and serve readers at all levels from
>beginners to scholars, both in and out of organized classrooms.
This is a really important and laudable goal -- and I think the only large thing
that stands in the way of such a goal is the mutual intolerance of some kinds of
readers and users for each other. (See above, and see prior posts on this "gloss"
thread.)
-----
72) Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 11:42:41 -0500
From: Michael Groden
Again, thanks to all the people who have continued to offer their ideas about
annotations and reactions to the various posts. Thanks especially to Greg Downing
for his careful delineation of the two positions regarding the availability of exegetical
information. The hypermedia Ulysses will (I'm
confident of this) be a lot better and more subtly designed because of all the issues
that people have raised here and positions they've mapped out.
A few responses to recent posts:
Andrew Blom:
>I'll repeat that I don't wish
>to suggest all opinions about Ulysses are equal. More comprehensive or
>informed views supersede ones that are less so. Coherent and precise
>arguments supersede vague or incoherent ones. Presumably the good hard look
>at Joyce scholarship to be undertaken by Hypermedia Ulysses will result in
>an embrace of the most coherent and comprehensive stuff to date.
Yes, definitely. We have to choose and to leave much out. This will all be done by large groups of people so that the result doesn't represent one person's opinion of what is coherent and comprehensive and what can stand now and what has been superseded.
>So I don't really mind at all if it's [the results from the Review Panel]
given a
>privileged position. But then there is more risk of it being taken as gospel.
This will take more thought. We don't want to develop an anti-ossifying method and then let the results become ossified.
Andrew Blom:
>In essence, attempting to pull away from a "factual" extreme, I was
sort of
>suggesting that *all* "factual" annotations, even undisputed ones,
could be
>offered under a "review panel" heading or at least something of the
kind
>which would reinforce the notion of [ever-challengeable] community
>consensus, rather than under a [this much is unshakeable] "bare-bones
>factual annotation" heading.
>Does that make sense?
Yes, it certainly does. It, too, will take more thought for us to put it into practice in a way that is useful and not confusing.
John Paul Fullerton's question:
>>I'm not acquainted enough with the book account and the facts to know how
>much the facts and the account differ; however, I *think* that I'd like to
>have the flag and statement "newspaper editor's account is inaccurate".
It
>may be that my following comments do not relate very directly to the
>particular facts of "Ulysses".
Andrew Blom's response:
>As I understand the project, Michael Groden was indeed talking about
>providing this information, only at a deeper level than that initial one
>which would be recommended for the first-time reader. But maybe it's
>exactly that to which you're objecting.
John Paul Fullerton's response:
> There I might appreciate a nudge when such a clue is to be found, and
>being given a nudge doesn't seem like annotation taking away from the
>experience of literature. It may indeed be better to be offered these
>annotations only on request.
"On request" is what we have in mind. The trick is to design it in a way that lets readers (and this is part of the "first-time reader" issue) know what they will gain by asking for the information and what they will possibly lose.
John Paul Fullerton:
>The thought came to mind that maybe managing "amount of annotation"
is
>partly a computer programming activity.
>The main notions that led to the programming viewpoint were 1) letting the
>user define how much info that they want to show (while full set of info
>is available, hmm, maybe added books on subscription basis, pay a royalty
>of $10, add John Smith's book) with pre-defined "selection-sets" easily
>available (beginner selection set gets novel, Gifford's (author's name?)
>annotations, map of Dublin, Joyce's design plan) and 2) having a method of
>finding what should be or could be included.
I find this very intriguing as a conceptual model, as long as it doesn't harden
into a set of buttons (for example: push button 1 and you get Ulysses, Gifford map,
etc.). I'll just refer to Greg Downing's message from yesterday about labelling and
apartheid. The programming model could
certainly help in the thinking about how the information can be structured, but I
hope that the result will be fluid, allowing, even encouraging, categories to be
blurred and bypassed. But maybe I'm missing something in what John is saying. Please
correct me if I am.
-----
74) Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 10:57:47 -0800
From: Jack Kolb
I guess I feel about hypertext editions the same way I feel about the net: (hypothetically)
there should be no restrictions. By all means, offer criticism; if possible: perhaps,
the more the better. The worst of the alternatives is to offer any ONE interpretation.
But ideally there should be some attempt (difficult as that sometimes is) to separate
annotative from interpretive material. As an editor of a 19th century writer's poetry
and prose, I have no problem with separating the categories (and, in my case, rigidly
excluding the latter). I'm not sure I see the difficulty in the case of Joyce's novel.
Could I get some more specific instances?
I'm still concerned about the effect on the initial reader, whatever the hypertext
format. To "overread" Ulysses is very tempting for the reader seeking help.
Yet I think what Joyce essentially offers is a "sink or swim" attitude.
And of course (though the initiate doesn't know this) the fact that the reader is
going to begin to understand as she continues. That Ulysses, in short, is a work
that teaches the reader how to read...Ulysses. And that, of course, its circularity
means that one must read ahead to understand what is behind.
I have no doubt (and not just based upon my ex-wife's experience) that the surest
way to destroy the book is to read it as a collection of clever illusions.
-----
75) Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 11:01:58 +0100
From: Fritz Senn
I. AM. A. [Gabler 13: 1258, 1264]
There seem to be two aspects. One is what Bloom actually would have written if he
had completed an intended sentence. Always supposing that Bloom knows what he is
going to write. He could just start the act of writing without any particular goal
or message in mind (the way we may begin a letter), verbally doodling, as he goes
along. The first thing would be "I", always the starting point, or a platitude.
Bloom writes himself first, as earlier on he read himself (mistakenly) into a text
("Bloo ... Me? No. Blood of the Lamb"; 8.8).
The gap, naturally, invites our inspired guesses. In part at least, THAT (the filling
of a gap) is also the meaning. I sometimes thought of "I am alone". We
do not really know if "A" is the article or the first letter of a word
not known to all men.
On the level of symbolic reverberations I believe we do indeed have echoes of Christ
writing in the sand, also of I AM THAT I AM, not to forget the first half of "I
AM A = Alpha" (... and Omega). Etc. Odysseus also once wrote in the sand, or
rather Ulixes as Ovid paints him. On the beach he would outline to Calypso the exploits
around Troy. "He with a light staff S draws in the deep sand the tale of which
she asks" ("Ille levi virga . . . Quod rogat, in spisso litore fecit",
Ovid, Ars amatoria, II,131-2 , Loeb translation). The situation is different, but
Ulixes does say, explaining his sketch of the siege, "Hac ego sum" ("there
I AM"), II.138. (more in JJQ 25:I (fall 1987), 42)
As it happens, the A moreover points forward to the next chapter. We know that the
letter Aleph which became Alpha which became A originally meant OX. Oxen of the Sun
also contains an "Alpha S upon the forehead of Taurus" and a "shipload
from planet Alpha" (14.1108, 1171).
Somehow this also links up to the fruitful debate about Glossolalia that has been
going on. What of the above (and from all the contributions) should become part of
an annotation of the passage, in which wording, which which certainty, at what level
of hierarchic distance from the text?
-----
80) Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 11:34:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
At 08:58 AM 11/29/98, Murray J. Gross wrote:
>Since we agree that it is difficult if not impossible to separate
>"descriptive from interpretative notes" and since we should agree that
>we want the Groden Project to be effective and not just a bare
>minimalist set of hints ñ what is it that we should do?
>Not a new idea: mix the two. Add as much interpretation as you think
>necessary. We may be addressing first-time readers of what is clearly a
>difficult book. If they are at the stage of being able to read such a
>book, then, presumably, they have developed some critical sense and can tell
the difference.
Yes.... This is the "separation" issue again. In a hypermedia document,
things that would never be published in the same place (for reasons of space, as
well as due to differences in audience) are in the most basic sense copresent, i.e.,
are never more than a few "clicks" away from each other. Even if one created
two completely "separate" arenas within a DVD or a website, what would
keep a user from accessing both? Somehow, it's not just a question of keeping things
utterly separate. Even if one created two completely separate CD's or DVD's (i.e.,
physically distinct items, available separately), what would keep someone from obtaining
and using both in looking at the same passage in Ulysses.
It's less "apartheid" to provide various kinds and levels of info/anno/evaluation,
and leave people in peace to create their own experience. They will anyway, actually,
regardless of how many "walls" one might try (for better or worse) to create.
>The reader would also know that these
>interpretations are not the only possible ones and that Groden's Disk is
>circa 2005. Why should the new reader, or for that matter any reader,
>have to boot himself up all alone; give him a loaded CD and invite him
>to join the Joyce community. He need not be trapped in an old
>interpretation, he can use it critically to lead to deeper and, if not
>better, at least different analyses. If anyone thinks that we can
>exhaust the book, think again.
And these kinds of premises for the project would be carefully but forthrightly
stated in an introduction or overview, laying out what the project is intended to
do (and not intended to do), and how, and why, and where, and for what kinds of readers/users,
etc.
-----
82) Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 13:47:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
A brief comment below some concise clips from two posts:
At 05:45 PM 11/29/98, Andrew H. Blom wrote, quoting Goethe:
>"The most important thing would be to realize that everything 'factual'
is
>already theory."
>[...]My suggestion would be to turn this to further advantage by impressing
>upon the reader the (merely) consensual nature of the "factual" commentary
>which is offered. This could be achieved in a way like the following.
>If it is feasible to do so, I would set out to assemble a review panel ---
>perhaps one which is going to vary from chapter to chapter, but in any
>case, something analogous to the Usage Panel of the American Heritage
>Dictionary....
>Now, I don't suggest including information about percentages unless
>something is a contested point....
Then, at 10:06 AM 11/30/98, Michael Groden replied:
>This could be very useful, and the computer can perhaps go beyond the
>rather awkward percentage numbers (that both suggest a kind of scientific
>validity and a, to me, unfortunate degree of specificity). A visual design
>like a color scale or a pie chart or something like that could indicate
>percentages.
Andrew and Mike -- I think this is a fine idea, and it would have the added advantage
of helping future literary/cultural/intellectual historians obtain a more nuanced
sense of the "lay of the land" at the turn of the millennium. I often find
myself wondering just how representative or unrepresentative (or some combination
of both), i.e. just how in or out of one mainstream or
another, a given cultural figure from the past was, within his/her contemporary context.
Those who wonder about such questions in the future will be greatly assisted by being
able to examine a wide array of thinking brought conveniently together.
-----
83) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 21:37:03 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing
Fritz Senn's meaty contribution, at or near the end of the "I. AM. A." thread, perhaps provides a good place to sum up a good deal of what I learned from everyone who contributed to the "gloss" thread. F.S. also explicitly invited discussion of general "glossatorial" matters in connection with a specific locus/crux such as "I. AM. A." Ergo, comments below....
At 11:01 AM 12/8/98 +0100, Fritz Senn wrote:
>I. AM. A.
>There seem to be two aspects. . . . [Letter 75]
>What of the above (and from all the contributions) should become part of an annotation
of the
>passage, in which wording, which which certainty, at what level of hierarchic
distance from the
>text?
Picking up from the final paragraph above, let me start with a few general hypotheses
about how one might arrange and deploy "info" and "commentary"
of various kinds, for readers with various wants and needs....
Any local word or phrase in the book (e.g., "I. AM. A.") could take a reader
seeking something beyond the text in one of two basic directions.
The two possible directions (portals, pathways, whatever image seems appropriate
-- I know some of the potential terms already have established meanings in hypertext/internet/WWW
environments) would be something like:
(1) first time readers
(2) more experienced or longer term readers
[(1) and (2) should be defined not in "professional" terms, but in terms
of a reader's current relationship with the text -- professors whose speciality is
not Joyce may well be in category (1), and some of the most sophisticated readers
of Joyce have no special FDA "academia" stamp on their flank]
If one takes direction (1), the first thing one would come to would be the kinds
of things we might refer to as "thinking questions and hints" -- clear,
careful, non-condescending questions to think about and mental avenues to explore.
No spoilers, unless one chooses to link in a "spoiler" direction beyond
the initial page of "thinking questions and hints."
If one takes direction (2), the first thing one would come to would be the kinds
of things we might refer to as "ground zero commentary" -- clear, careful
presentation of ideas that at least aspire to status as basic "information"
that would be useful to someone thinking about the locus in question, but witten
in full awareness of the fact that all "information" already involves some
sense of priorities and some amount of evaluation simply by dint of what is said
(and how), and what is not said.
The initial page that is reached both via option (1) and option (2) would "end"
(?) with a list of multiple options leading to (A) the other option, if for some
reason one wanted to switch over at that point, (B) various more detailed kinds of
"information" and comments, (C) various analytical,
theoretical, and hypercriticism options, and (D) other types of links as called for
by the local context. The exact structure and order of the list might well differ
from locus to locus, as called for by the local context (i.e., the passage in question),
though there should be some effort made to
ensure basic consistency of presentation throughout.
In the case of "I. AM. A.", the specific contents might be something like:
(1) Thinking Questions and Hints:
Does Bloom have something specific in mind to write in the sand at this moment? Or
is he just doodling, and never actually formulates the end of the sentence? In either
case, what do you think about his state of mind and motivations at this moment?
If he does have something specific in mind to write, what might it be? "I. AM.
A. {what}"?
Even if Bloom doesn't have any specific "completion" in mind as he writes,
what is the book leaving us to fill in as the end of the unfinished sentence? One
clear solution? Several possibilities, clear or unclear?
Think about the solution or possibilies you come up with. What might it/they imply
about Bloom, the story, the ideas brought up by the book, etc.?
[Etc.]
(2) Ground Zero Commentary:
A brief presentation of the basic possibilities proposed in connection with the "I.
AM. A." phrase, written carefully and concisely, and presenting all possibilities,
perhaps arranged with an eye to thematic coherence. Perhaps the strongest or more
basic suggestions would be listed earlier, and the more specialized or speculative
suggestions later. If there is too much material to fit into one screen/page for
this much-discussed crux, a concise, basic discussion would mention each position
and would also allow the interested reader to open a more detailed presentation of
each position at will.
Of course, Fritz Senn's clear and succinct discussion above already contains a good
deal of what might go into (2).
From (1), one could link to (2) if one wanted to. Both (1) and (2) would contain links to various passages of published analysis, new "hypercriticism," and theoretical background/context/etc.
Would that kind of basic structure allow everyone to be served according to their
needs and wants? Maybe, maybe not. Additions, criticisms, etc. etc. welcome. In fact,
there are more details to be gone into about this, but this is certainly enough for
now....
-----
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