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Twenty Second Annual Darwin College Lecture Series 2007

IDENTITY

Lecture 3   :   2 February

IDENTITY OF MEANING

Adrian Poole

University of Cambridge

Biography  |   Abstract   |   Printable Version  

Abstract

Figuring out what this title means could take the whole lecture. What does it mean to speak of people or things `meaning the same'? What are the implications of Wittgenstein's retort to a hair-splitting interlocutor, `I mean what you mean'? The phrase `identity of meaning' suggests a good dream in which the chaos of Babel and its confusion of tongues might be redeemed. But it also points to a nightmare in which the differences between us are overridden by force from on high. Umberto Eco notes that `the dream of a perfect language has always been invoked as a solution to religious or political strife'. `Identity' and `meaning' are both invested with a faith in or desire for something that `carries' through space and time. This associates them with words from Greek and Latin that have come down to as `metaphor' and `translation'. In the latter part of this lecture I shall focus on passages from Homer and Shakespeare that dramatize questions about the desirability and feasibility of a perfect language in which `I mean what you mean'. Over the past five hundred years the endless re-translation of Homer's epic poems poses questions about identity of meaning as it passes from one language into another. So too does the continual performance of Shakespearean drama in versions often violently at odds with each other, both in the texts they deploy and the interpretations to which they give rise. A couple of scenes from the Iliad and Henry V may help us to conclude that identity of meaning is an impossible dream we can't do without.

The lectures are given at 5.30 p.m. in The Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue, with an adjacent overflow theatre with live TV coverage. Each lecture is typically attended by 600 people so you must arrive early to ensure a place.