bLOGOS/HA HA: TAR : Please Observe Critical Distancing

David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.

12 July 2020

TAR : Please Observe Critical Distancing

On TV, a COVID sign outside a London court :
PLEASE OBSERVE SOCIAL DISTANCING

which triggers memories of studying Brecht in our matriculation year, of being very interested in his deconstructive meta-strategy verfremdung (*have never forgotten that term) variously translated as ESTRANGEMENT, ALIENATION, DISILLUSION, DEFAMILIARISATION, DISTANCING EFFECT.

MAKING THE FAMILAR STRANGE sits best here. David Barnett writes :

The Difficulty of Translating the Term

Translating the term has caused all manner of problems in English, primarily because it was once almost universally known as ‘alienation’. This is not a useful translation because of the negative connotations the word has in English (if you alienate an audience, for example, spectators tend to leave the theatre). I prefer to consider Verfremdung as a single word that describes a process: making the familiar strange. The editors of the latest edition of Brecht on Theatre have decided to keep the word in its original German to acknowledge the lack of an easy translation into English.

‘Making the familiar strange’ is an example of a dialectical process : the audience encounters something it recognizes; that thing is then presented as strange (that is, the ‘thing’ is now in contradiction with itself); and the audience then has to reach a new understanding in order to move beyond the contradiction.