Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 16, No. 67.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: "Jim Marchand" <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> (71)
Subject: Re: 16.064 highly constrained language?
[2] From: kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Robert Kraft) (48)
Subject: Re: 16.064 highly constrained language?
[3] From: George Whitesel <whitesel@jsucc.jsu.edu> (20)
Subject: [Fwd: [Fwd: 16.064 highly constrained language?]]
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 07:18:03 +0100
From: "Jim Marchand" <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: 16.064 highly constrained language?
We had a long thread years ago on constrained languages and on such things
as lipogrammatic messages. I guess most of the theoretic discussion on
constrained languages occurred during the Basic English (le francais
fondamental, Grunddeutsch) of the late 30's and early 40's. Some felt even
that Basic English was more expressive than non-constrained English, etc.
etc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Humanist Discussion Group
<w.mccarty@btinternet.com>) <willard@lists.village.virginia.edu>
To: humanist@Princeton.EDU <humanist@Princeton.EDU>
Date: Monday, June 10, 2002 2:02 AM
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 16, No. 64.
> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
> <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
>
>
>
> Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 07:28:16 +0100
> From: Willard McCarty <w.mccarty@btinternet.com>
> Subject: expressive power of highly constrained language?
>
>Inspired by the avant-garde coterie Oulipo, the poet Christian Bok has
>written individual poetic paragraphs each of which uses only a single
>vowel, e.g. from chapter U in his remarkable book of poetry, Eunoia
>(Toronto: Coach House Books, 2001) --
>
>Duluth dump trucks lurch, pull U-turns. Such trucks
>dump much underdug turf: clunk, clunk -- thud. Scum
>plus crud plugs up ducts; thus Ubu must flush such
>sulcus ruts. Scump pumps pump: chuff, chuff. Such
>pumps suck up mush plus muck -- dung lumps (plus
>clumps), turd hunks (plus chunks): grugru grubs plus
>fungus slugs mulch up humus pulp. Ubu unplugs
>flux. Ubu scrubs up curbs; thus Ubu musty brush up
>sulfur dust plus pugnut rust: scuff, scuff. Ubu burns
>unburnt mundungus. Ubu lugs stuff; Ubu tugs stuff.
>Ubu puts up fulcrums. Ubu puts up mud huts, but
>mugwumps shun such glum suburb slums: tut, tut.
>
>(Some here will recognize Ubu from Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi.) In a concluding
>note, "The New Ennui", Bok notes that, "The text makes a Sisyphean
>spectacle of its labour, wilfully crippling its language in order to show
>that, even under such improbable conditions of duress, language can still
>express an uncanny, if not sublime, thought" (p. 103). He then lists a
>series of constraints in addition to the obvious one.
>
>Has anyone studied the poetics of such highly constrained language (perhaps
>starting with Georges Perec's)? I ask because computational metalanguages
>are also highly constrained, although in a different way. I'm raising the
>further question of the expressive power of these metalanguages. Perhaps
>studies of people with damage to or inhibitions of their ability to produce
>language would be relevant?
>
>Comments?
>
>Yours,
>WM
>
>PS The vowel in Bok's surname is written with an umlaut. (Alas, that
>problem is still with us.)
>
>
>
>
>Dr Willard McCarty, Senior Lecturer,
>Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London,
>Strand, London WC2R 2LS, U.K.,
>+44 (0)20 7848-2784, ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/wlm/,
>willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk, w.mccarty@btinternet.com
>
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 07:18:34 +0100
From: kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Robert Kraft)
Subject: Re: 16.064 highly constrained language?
I guess this was a test to see who was alert? I see the vowel "e" in line
two ("underdug" -- perhaps read "dugup"?). Also later, what seems to be an
unnecessary vowel-like "y" clutters up the line "...Ubu musty brush
up...." Un-ugly but ucky? And he never uses "but"!
Bob Kraft
> Inspired by the avant-garde coterie Oulipo, the poet Christian Bok has
> written individual poetic paragraphs each of which uses only a single
> vowel, e.g. from chapter U in his remarkable book of poetry, Eunoia
> (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2001) --
>
> Duluth dump trucks lurch, pull U-turns. Such trucks
> dump much underdug turf: clunk, clunk -- thud. Scum
> plus crud plugs up ducts; thus Ubu must flush such
> sulcus ruts. Scump pumps pump: chuff, chuff. Such
> pumps suck up mush plus muck -- dung lumps (plus
> clumps), turd hunks (plus chunks): grugru grubs plus
> fungus slugs mulch up humus pulp. Ubu unplugs
> flux. Ubu scrubs up curbs; thus Ubu musty brush up
> sulfur dust plus pugnut rust: scuff, scuff. Ubu burns
> unburnt mundungus. Ubu lugs stuff; Ubu tugs stuff.
> Ubu puts up fulcrums. Ubu puts up mud huts, but
> mugwumps shun such glum suburb slums: tut, tut.
>
> (Some here will recognize Ubu from Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi.) In a concluding
> note, "The New Ennui", Bok notes that, "The text makes a Sisyphean
> spectacle of its labour, wilfully crippling its language in order to show
> that, even under such improbable conditions of duress, language can still
> express an uncanny, if not sublime, thought" (p. 103). He then lists a
> series of constraints in addition to the obvious one.
>
> Has anyone studied the poetics of such highly constrained language (perhaps
> starting with Georges Perec's)? I ask because computational metalanguages
> are also highly constrained, although in a different way. I'm raising the
> further question of the expressive power of these metalanguages. Perhaps
> studies of people with damage to or inhibitions of their ability to produce
> language would be relevant?
>
> Comments?
>
> Yours,
> WM
>
> PS The vowel in Bok's surname is written with an umlaut. (Alas, that
> problem is still with us.)
-- Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania 227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827 kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 07:20:44 +0100 From: George Whitesel <whitesel@jsucc.jsu.edu> Subject: [Fwd: [Fwd: 16.064 highly constrained language?]]
Willard:
The book may have been Gerald L. Bruns: Modern Poetry and the idea of Language. I'm not sure. It was a long time ago that I broused in this area.
George
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 17:34:44 -0500 From: George Whitesel <whitesel@jsucc.jsu.edu>
Willard: Poets of the avant guard in France and Russia did much prior to WWI which inspired poets in English afterwards during l'entre deux guerres. The poets of the Twenties and Thirties did a lot of experimenting: inventing new langauges, trying various language games, and reviving old techniques, such as Carmen Figuratum (see also concrete poetry). Bowra wrote about the explosion of experimentation. I believe Auden tried his hand; Thomas certainly did. Is this your "highly constrained language"? (All poetic forms involve constraint, especially in English which doesn't have as many rhyme words as Italian, say.)
Best of luck - I have seen books on this but can't find them.
George whitesel@jsucc.jsu.edu
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