M. W. Rowe

Lamarque and Olsen on Literature and Truth

In Fiction, Truth and Literature, Lamarque and Olsen argue that if a critic claims or attempts to prove that the outlook of a work of literature is true or false, he is not engaging in literary or aesthetic appreciation. This paper argues against this position by adducing cases where literary critics discuss the truth or falsity of a work’s view, when their opinions are obviously relevant to the work’s aesthetic assessment. The paper considers in detail the way factual errors damage a work’s aesthetic standing, and shows that Lamarque and Olsen’s alternative account of the role of propositional truths in literature only looks plausible because it considers a restricted range of examples. Finally, it considers the role intention, date and genre play in discussions of the aesthetic damage done by literal falsehood.

The Definition of ‘Game’

Besides its intrinsic interest, the definition of ‘game’ is important for three reasons. Firstly, in Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations ‘game’ is the paradigm family resemblance concept. If he is wrong in thinking that ‘game’ cannot be defined, then the persuasive force of his argument against definition generally will be considerably weakened. This, in its turn, will have important consequences for our understanding of concepts and philosophical method. Secondly, Wittgensteins later writings are full of analogies drawn from games—chess alone is mentioned scores of times—and a proper understanding of ‘game’ can lead us to exercise more caution when considering the parallels between games and non-games. Thirdly, games and play are intriguingly and closely related to art and ritual, and an analysis of games can throw considerable light on both of the latter.

Goethe and Wittgenstein

The influence of Goethe on Wittgenstein is just beginning to be appreciated. Hacker and Baker, Westphal, Monk, and Haller have all drawn attention to significant affinities between the two mens work, and the number of explicit citations of Goethe in Wittgensteins texts supports the idea that we are not dealing simply with a matter of deeplying similarities of aim and method, but of direct and major influence. These scholarly developments are encouraging because they help to place Wittgensteins work within an important tradition of German letters which goes far beyond his contemporaries and immediate forebears in Vienna; and they show that Wittgensteins profound interest in literature and music is ceasing to be merely a matter of biographical anecdote, and is being used to illuminate some of the most central areas of his work.

Wittgenstein's romantic inheritance

A number of writers have noted affinities between the form and style of Wittgenstein′s Philosophical Investigations and the Christian confessional tradition. 1 , 2 In this paper, however, If the Christian tradition, than of the Christian inheritance refracted through, and secularized by, German Romanticism. I shall argue that Wittgenstein′s work is less a direct continuation on this context, not only do many of the features of the Investigations which seem eccentric or wilful become naturalized, but light is also thrown on Wittgenstein′s claim that the twentieth and late nineteenth century play no part in his spiritual makeup, and that his ‘cultural ideal’ derives from ‘Schumann′s time.’ 3

Wittgenstein, plato, and the historical socrates

This essay examines the profound affinities between Wittgenstein and the historical Socrates. The first five sections argue that similarities between their personalities and circumstances can explain a comparable pattern of philosophical development. The next nine show that many apparently chance similarities between the two mens lives and receptions can be explained by their shared conceptions ofphilosophical method. The last three sections consider the difficulty of practising this method through writing, and examine the solutions which Plato and Wittgenstein adopted.

Knowing Where to Turn: Analogy, Method and Literary Form in Plato and Wittgenstein

Notoriously, Wittgenstein read very little philosophy.1 ‘He could only read what he could wholeheartedly assimilate,’ recalled von Wright, ‘[…] as a young man he read Schopenhauer. From Spinoza, Hume and Kant he said he could get only occasional glimpses of understanding. I do not think he could have enjoyed Aristotle or Leibniz, two great logicians before him. But it is significant that he did read and enjoy Plato. He must have recognized congenial features, both in Plato’s literary and philosophical method and the temperament behind the thoughts’ [MM:19].

‘Here’: Avoiding the Subject

‘Here’ doesn’t seem to be a philosophical poem. Larkin said it was just a ‘plain description’ [SL:346], and it certainly appears to be a straightforward account of a journey to the east Yorkshire coast. In this essay, however, I want to argue that the poem is an ambitious attempt to reconcile a profound philosophical tension in his thought.

‘Livings’: Aesthetic Intimations

With the possible exception of ‘Sympathy in White Major’, ‘Livings’ is the poem in High Windows which has caused commentators most difficulty [CP:186–8]. Each individual part1 has its problems. Clive James, for example, writing of the second, says: ‘The narrator’s situation is not made perfectly clear. While wanting to be the reverse, Larkin can on occasion be a difficult poet, and here, I think, is a case of over-refinement leading to obscurity’ [EN:6/1974:68]. However, the most significant difficulty is how the three parts relate to one another. Larkin himself thinks that they have very little in common, and that the sequence was terminated rather than completed: ‘I thought I was going to write a sequence of lives, or livings, little vignettes, but it petered out after three. They haven’t got any connection with one another, or meaning, but are supposed to be exciting in their separate ways’ [SL:653].

Larkin and the Creepy

This essay considers the significance of the supernatural in Larkin’s life and work, and, in particular, examines the influence of M. R. James on both. Part one (sections I–XII) is largely concerned with the subject matter of Larkin’s poetry, but part two (sections XIII–XXI) tries to show that Larkin’s responsiveness to the eerie and ghostly – suffused and adjusted by James’s influence – not only affected his choice of subjects, but imbued his deepest feelings about poetry itself.

‘Aubade’: Death and the Thought of Death

Larkin invariably uses French words and French titles ironically. For him, French is the language of style, sophistication, sensuality, urbanity, passion and worldliness: it is the language of la politesse [CP:179], sens d’occasion and savoir vivre [SL:629] – all qualities he felt he and his world conspicuously lacked. Appropriately therefore, in the only poems with French titles from the forties – ‘Femmes Damnees’ [CP:270] and ‘Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis’ [TWG:247–8] – Larkin takes two rather elevated French poems and affectionately reduces them to something more quotidian. Baudelaire’s lesbians – Hippolyte and Delphine – become Rosemary and Rachel, and they are set amongst builders’ estates and cabbage patches rather than ‘languishing lamps’ and scented cushions. Villon’s majestic elegy for great women in history – Thais, Heloise, Joan of Arc – and his refrain of ‘But where are the snows of yester-year?’, becomes a lament for now dispersed school friends – Valerie, Julia, Elspeth – with a last line that rings the changes on ‘So many summer terms away’.