August 2010

Language functions, with illustrations–an occasional supplement (1)

August 27, 2010 - 11:01am

The regulatory function: laws and legal regulations, rules, social codes, religious commandments, judicial  “sentences,” etc.  Clare Cavanagh quotes a passage from Osip Mandelshtam’s notebooks in her Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russian, Poland, and the West (Yale 2009):

Sugar cane

August 22, 2010 - 1:04pm








Cicada

August 12, 2010 - 1:46pm


The height of August…

Voice

August 6, 2010 - 9:48am

Often I have wondered if there is some aspect of the way a master class in voice is taught (opera repertoire, art songs, religious music, jazz–any kind of singing that can be trained) that could enrich the teaching of writing.  Voice is performance—diligent, serious, patient preparation, and then everything risked and perhaps won in the moment of singing; writing is… a differe