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Re: [NABOKJOV-L} several issues( paidos, pedos) and fiction.
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JM: one must be careful in trying to derive ³meaning² from ³etymology,²
especially when the roots of words can have so many plausible connections in
either sound or spelling with potential cognates in other, earlier
languages. Even if we could go back in time and ³nail² the very first usage
and context, we cannot be sure of the user¹s reasons. Mistakes are made!
That¹s why we have ³nickname² and a creature called the ³newt.² (OE: An
ickname; an ewt both misheard and re-spelled.)
Remember, every word starts life as a ³neologism.² Most neologisms either
fade away or survive fitfully in obscure depositories. The successful
neologisms catch on, and after much wear¹n¹tear become embedded into our
everyday lexis. A word¹s meaning(s) emerge as ³agreed, shared common
usages.² This is the core of practical semantics, avoiding the ³Tweedledum²
(or was it dee?) notion that ³a word means just what I want it to mean!²
We poor lexicographers try IN VAIN to keep up with changing usage (semantic
spread), concocting as best we can, in the form of definitions and
citations, the consensus interpretations of intended meanings. Mistakes are
made! Dictionaries, however error-free and authoritarian are a mixed
blessing, giving the unwary the prescriptive illusion of correctness and a
false feeling of precision and completeness.
Whatever meanings the classical roots ³paid-,²³ped-,² and ³paed-,² had to
Romans and Greeks (and without doubt these also suffered semantic spread) we
must not let them dictate derived meanings in any period of English (or
other borrowing languages). When we examine current usage, we find
³pederast/pederasty² more often associated with adult male homosexual acts
with boys, a fact which tells us little about which earlier root actually
begat the English ³ped-² prefix. We can¹t even be sure whether the borrowing
was direct from Greek or Latin (each of which inter-borrowed) or indirectly
from the French. Had the accepted emergent English spelling been ³paiderast²
or ³paederast,² that may, just may, provide a better GUESS, but as we all
know, the quirks of spelling and transliteration deny us a dogmatic answer.
The persistence of the spelling ³paedophilia/paedophile² in British English
seems to validate the Greek root, leading to the surface (literal) meaning
of ³love of children.² Yet, clearly, past and current usage has expanded
(plumetted!) to mean ³disgusting obsession with children below a certain age
[of legal consent].²
We can debate many variants within the definition: the age-limit and hence
the criminality varies by culture, nation and state. Indeed in some
countries, HH, after appropriate Muslim conversions, could presumably have
married Lo, and a hand-picked trio of her school pals, and who knows?
lived happily ever after. But then, what becomes of VN¹s novel? No
guilt-ridden confessions but HH¹s EULOGY to Islamic TOLERANCE? A big HIT in
Tehran (nudge-nudge) and Kabul?? Discuss.
The age factor reminds us that both film versions of Lolita violate VN¹s
definition of ³nymphet² (more an attitude¹ than a definite age-limit but an
upper-limit circa 11/12?) although Adrian Lyne¹s 1997 casting of Dominique
Swain (aged 16/17) pushed the visual limit nearer to a ³screen 12² than did
Kubrick¹s 1962 Sue Lyon, a 16-year old who played, with VN¹s approval, a
14-year old Dolores.
Some usages of ³paedophila² imply actual physical abuse of children rather
than unhealthy, ³unrequited² obsession. E.g., UK law criminalizes the
filming/depiction of under-age sex acts, and, it seems, even the
transmission and possession of such ³lewd, explicit² material. In a recent
prominent case, a TV producer/writer defended his large collection of
on-line under-age porn on the grounds that he was conducting social research
on paedophilia. It was, as I recall, one of those familiar cases where
offenses against an under-age but cooperating girl (14) did not surface
until long after the victim had passed legal age.
Front page Times2 today: ³My Husband the paedophile.² He¹s Roger Took,
³respected² art-historian/travel writer whose exploits OUT-MONSTER HH with
unbelievable depravity against 3 and 9-year old step-granddaughters. He¹s
in jail for a long time. I mention this to highlight how WIDE ranging is the
villainy under the current definition of paedophile¹
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 08/09/2008 12:48, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> S.Blackwell: [...] He can't stop exploiting Dolly, who, having escaped him
> physically, is recaptured by him aesthetically (or just narratively). She has
> very little voice in HH's text. He has total control over her enduring image
> (and the necessity of her death means that she can't correct the record: he
> assures himself the last word).
> J.Aisenberg: I've come across this maddening notion... either justifies
> anything a character does or mystically rots their souls inside out. Isn't
> this what's underlying Jansy's point about H.H. "only" be in jail for Q's
> murder? If I understood the point, isn't this why it seems strange then for
> Humbert to have gone into all that side business about his crimes against
> Lolita, which to modern readers is really is far more damning than his
> killing? ...This is an interesting legal and social development, which affects
> responses to the book, I think.
> K.Montserrat: I have one question: Does someone know if these legal concepts
> you're talking about, were the same 50 years ago, I mean, when the novel
> Lolita was published in the United States?
>
> JM: On-line dictionaries are a disappointment in that they bring, as Aisenberg
> and Studdard believe it to be correct, the origin of "pederast" linked to the
> Greek for "paidos", child .
> For example, online entry on pederasty
> <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pederasty> :"sodomy with a boy,"
> 1609, from Mod.L. pæderastia, from Gk. paiderastia "love of boys," from
> paiderastes "pederast," from pais (gen. paidos) "child, boy" (see pedo-
> <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pedo-> ) + erastes "lover," from
> erasthai "to love." Pederast is 1730s, from Fr. pédéraste, from Gk.
> paiderastes.
> Paidos, as in pediatrics or pedophily, is not the word used in "pederast".
> Pederasty has no original link with "paidos" in anything I learned in the
> past. I'll have to find my archives but in Latin, as used by Catullus in an
> exemplary fashion, it means "bottom" ( any bottom, a boys' or a girl's, adult
> or still "paidos") I'm sure others can help. It is a very strange
> misconception ( mine? It could be, online dics have been very impressively
> authoritativw in their "etymological" information and I speak no Greek)
>
> I vote for S.Blackwell's third hypothesis concerning HH's confessions. After
> all, we mustn't forget that Lolita is entirely a creation of HH's. As it
> happens with a work of fiction, to discuss legal variations and
> interpretation, or varying ages of consent along history, is nice but not
> necessary to understand the novel itself. "Lolita", by its presentation of
> exploitation, violence, complaisance, perversion, aso aso ... serves in a
> most "universal" way, independently of culture or of age. It does stimulate,
> as only a work of art can do, the development of one's sensitivity to existing
> legal concepts, social blindness, the need to understand what's happening
> around us.But, as I see it, the novel Lolita is "self-explanatory": its
> treasures lie in the novel per se, and in the way we deal with what HH can
> provoke in every reader.
> HH brings to us the portrait of a very powerful twisted mind ( unfortunately
> easily found anywhere and at all times):Through HH Nabokov effectively
> demonstrates how such minds function.
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especially when the roots of words can have so many plausible connections in
either sound or spelling with potential cognates in other, earlier
languages. Even if we could go back in time and ³nail² the very first usage
and context, we cannot be sure of the user¹s reasons. Mistakes are made!
That¹s why we have ³nickname² and a creature called the ³newt.² (OE: An
ickname; an ewt both misheard and re-spelled.)
Remember, every word starts life as a ³neologism.² Most neologisms either
fade away or survive fitfully in obscure depositories. The successful
neologisms catch on, and after much wear¹n¹tear become embedded into our
everyday lexis. A word¹s meaning(s) emerge as ³agreed, shared common
usages.² This is the core of practical semantics, avoiding the ³Tweedledum²
(or was it dee?) notion that ³a word means just what I want it to mean!²
We poor lexicographers try IN VAIN to keep up with changing usage (semantic
spread), concocting as best we can, in the form of definitions and
citations, the consensus interpretations of intended meanings. Mistakes are
made! Dictionaries, however error-free and authoritarian are a mixed
blessing, giving the unwary the prescriptive illusion of correctness and a
false feeling of precision and completeness.
Whatever meanings the classical roots ³paid-,²³ped-,² and ³paed-,² had to
Romans and Greeks (and without doubt these also suffered semantic spread) we
must not let them dictate derived meanings in any period of English (or
other borrowing languages). When we examine current usage, we find
³pederast/pederasty² more often associated with adult male homosexual acts
with boys, a fact which tells us little about which earlier root actually
begat the English ³ped-² prefix. We can¹t even be sure whether the borrowing
was direct from Greek or Latin (each of which inter-borrowed) or indirectly
from the French. Had the accepted emergent English spelling been ³paiderast²
or ³paederast,² that may, just may, provide a better GUESS, but as we all
know, the quirks of spelling and transliteration deny us a dogmatic answer.
The persistence of the spelling ³paedophilia/paedophile² in British English
seems to validate the Greek root, leading to the surface (literal) meaning
of ³love of children.² Yet, clearly, past and current usage has expanded
(plumetted!) to mean ³disgusting obsession with children below a certain age
[of legal consent].²
We can debate many variants within the definition: the age-limit and hence
the criminality varies by culture, nation and state. Indeed in some
countries, HH, after appropriate Muslim conversions, could presumably have
married Lo, and a hand-picked trio of her school pals, and who knows?
lived happily ever after. But then, what becomes of VN¹s novel? No
guilt-ridden confessions but HH¹s EULOGY to Islamic TOLERANCE? A big HIT in
Tehran (nudge-nudge) and Kabul?? Discuss.
The age factor reminds us that both film versions of Lolita violate VN¹s
definition of ³nymphet² (more an attitude¹ than a definite age-limit but an
upper-limit circa 11/12?) although Adrian Lyne¹s 1997 casting of Dominique
Swain (aged 16/17) pushed the visual limit nearer to a ³screen 12² than did
Kubrick¹s 1962 Sue Lyon, a 16-year old who played, with VN¹s approval, a
14-year old Dolores.
Some usages of ³paedophila² imply actual physical abuse of children rather
than unhealthy, ³unrequited² obsession. E.g., UK law criminalizes the
filming/depiction of under-age sex acts, and, it seems, even the
transmission and possession of such ³lewd, explicit² material. In a recent
prominent case, a TV producer/writer defended his large collection of
on-line under-age porn on the grounds that he was conducting social research
on paedophilia. It was, as I recall, one of those familiar cases where
offenses against an under-age but cooperating girl (14) did not surface
until long after the victim had passed legal age.
Front page Times2 today: ³My Husband the paedophile.² He¹s Roger Took,
³respected² art-historian/travel writer whose exploits OUT-MONSTER HH with
unbelievable depravity against 3 and 9-year old step-granddaughters. He¹s
in jail for a long time. I mention this to highlight how WIDE ranging is the
villainy under the current definition of paedophile¹
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 08/09/2008 12:48, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> S.Blackwell: [...] He can't stop exploiting Dolly, who, having escaped him
> physically, is recaptured by him aesthetically (or just narratively). She has
> very little voice in HH's text. He has total control over her enduring image
> (and the necessity of her death means that she can't correct the record: he
> assures himself the last word).
> J.Aisenberg: I've come across this maddening notion... either justifies
> anything a character does or mystically rots their souls inside out. Isn't
> this what's underlying Jansy's point about H.H. "only" be in jail for Q's
> murder? If I understood the point, isn't this why it seems strange then for
> Humbert to have gone into all that side business about his crimes against
> Lolita, which to modern readers is really is far more damning than his
> killing? ...This is an interesting legal and social development, which affects
> responses to the book, I think.
> K.Montserrat: I have one question: Does someone know if these legal concepts
> you're talking about, were the same 50 years ago, I mean, when the novel
> Lolita was published in the United States?
>
> JM: On-line dictionaries are a disappointment in that they bring, as Aisenberg
> and Studdard believe it to be correct, the origin of "pederast" linked to the
> Greek for "paidos", child .
> For example, online entry on pederasty
> <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pederasty> :"sodomy with a boy,"
> 1609, from Mod.L. pæderastia, from Gk. paiderastia "love of boys," from
> paiderastes "pederast," from pais (gen. paidos) "child, boy" (see pedo-
> <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pedo-> ) + erastes "lover," from
> erasthai "to love." Pederast is 1730s, from Fr. pédéraste, from Gk.
> paiderastes.
> Paidos, as in pediatrics or pedophily, is not the word used in "pederast".
> Pederasty has no original link with "paidos" in anything I learned in the
> past. I'll have to find my archives but in Latin, as used by Catullus in an
> exemplary fashion, it means "bottom" ( any bottom, a boys' or a girl's, adult
> or still "paidos") I'm sure others can help. It is a very strange
> misconception ( mine? It could be, online dics have been very impressively
> authoritativw in their "etymological" information and I speak no Greek)
>
> I vote for S.Blackwell's third hypothesis concerning HH's confessions. After
> all, we mustn't forget that Lolita is entirely a creation of HH's. As it
> happens with a work of fiction, to discuss legal variations and
> interpretation, or varying ages of consent along history, is nice but not
> necessary to understand the novel itself. "Lolita", by its presentation of
> exploitation, violence, complaisance, perversion, aso aso ... serves in a
> most "universal" way, independently of culture or of age. It does stimulate,
> as only a work of art can do, the development of one's sensitivity to existing
> legal concepts, social blindness, the need to understand what's happening
> around us.But, as I see it, the novel Lolita is "self-explanatory": its
> treasures lie in the novel per se, and in the way we deal with what HH can
> provoke in every reader.
> HH brings to us the portrait of a very powerful twisted mind ( unfortunately
> easily found anywhere and at all times):Through HH Nabokov effectively
> demonstrates how such minds function.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/