Discourse Analysis
and
The Meaning of Meaning
Words have dictionary definitionsthat allow us to agree on what they mean. In this fashion, when I say ‘my grandmother’, you automatically know that I am referring either to the mother of my mother (maternal grandmother) or the mother of my father (paternal grandmother). This is the dictionary meaning of the word ‘grandmother’.
But words have lives of their own, and their meaning changes when used by individuals. You, the reader, never knew my grandmothers. You never will. They both passed away a long time ago. I loved them both, but for very different reasons, and to me they were as different as different can be.
This means that when you, the reader of these words, reach the word ‘grandmother’, the faces you see, the emotions you feel, the memories conjured up by that word are totally different from mine. Same word, same dictionary definition, different personal memories, experiences, relationships. In addition, the role that our grandmother(s) played in our lives will be very different too. That role may vary from culture to culture, from language to language, and from the social structure of the changing society in which we live.
For example, when I first went to Santander, Spain, I visited a family who lived in a large, detached house that contained three generations of the family – grandmother, father and mother, grandchildren and an assortment of aunts and uncles. No need for babysitters in that household. Everybody had a vested interest in the development of the young ones and the older ones received tender, loving care, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week.
I lived from time to time in the same town as my own grandparents. I saw them regularly, but rarely on a daily basis. When my parents sent me to my first boarding school, age six (if I remember correctly), I lost contact with my family. My paternal grandfather died when I was away at school. My maternal grandmother died while I was away at school. My maternal grandmother died when I was living in Spain. My maternal grandfather died when I was living in Canada. Alas, after those early years, I scarcely knew them. My experience, then, was so different from that of other people.
When I moved to Canada, the Atlantic Ocean separated me from my parents. My daughter, born in Canada, grew up with no close knowledge of her grandparents. The word ‘grandmother’ did not mean the same to her as it did to the grandchildren in Santander, or to me. How could it? All those miles between the families, and visits limited to a couple of weeks every other year at best. Although the dictionary meaning is always the same, what a difference in the emotional meanings for each person using that word.
Discourse Analysis, the way I use it, builds not on the dictionary meanings of words, but on their emotional and personal resonance. I take the standard, dictionary meaning of words, twist it, look for meanings at different levels, and then build an alternative narrative on that changed meaning. I have great fun doing so.
Part of that verbal fun comes from my childhood. I listened to Radio Shows like The Goon Show and Beyond Our Ken. Giles Cartoons gave my names like Chalky White, the skeletal school teacher, or Mr. Dimwitty, a rather dense teacher in another school. These shows also twisted the meaning of words and drew their humor from such multiple meanings. The Goon Show – “Min, did you put the cat out?” “No, Henry, was it on fire?” Or on an escaped convict – “He fell into a wheelbarrow of cement and showed every sign of becoming a hardened criminal.” Or from Beyond Our Ken – “My ear was ringing. I picked it up and answered it. ‘Ken here, who am I speaking to?’ ‘Larry Choo.’ ‘Ah, Choo.’ ‘Bless you, Ken.’ Verbal scenes like these – it’s hard to get visual pictures from listening to the radio – remain engraved in my memory banks. More than engrained, they become part of the verbal system from within which I write.
This system includes Direct Discourse, Indirect Discourse, and the Twisted Discourse of an Inventive Mind that still wishes to create. It also comes from Francico de Quevedo’s Conceptismo, from Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s esperpento, and from certain aspects of Albert Camus’s Theory of the Absurd, all blended with the poetry of Jacques Prévert and the songs of Georges Brassens. This from the latter – “Tout le monde viendra me voir pendu, sauf les aveugles, bien entendu.” Everyone will come to see me hanged, except the blind of course.
This is not always easy humor, nor is it a comfortable way to see the world. But it is a traditional one with a long literary history. The title of my book goes back to Francisco de Quevedo, of course, who, in 1631, in Madrid, published El libro de todas las cosas y otras muchas más / The book of everything and a lot more things as well. Don Roger turns to his good friend Don Francisco whenever he needs a helping hand.
The pieces themselves were first published on my blog rogermoorepoet.com. They have been revised, and I have added some more pieces in a similar vein. Tolle, lege – Take and read. Above all, enjoy this world of mine, with its subtle and not so subtle humor, its sly digs at many of our follies, and its many forms of creativity.
The Book of Everything
and
a little bit extra
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Devil’s Kitchen is a cornucopia of literary styles. The stories contain interior monolog, dream sequences, and first, second, and third person narrators. In these culturally diverse stories, Roger Moore holds a dialog with his time and his many places. These dialogs take place in Canada, England, France, Mexico, Spain, and Wales. The literary styles include pseudo- autobiography – A Convent Education, Creative Non-fiction – A Letter from My Past, Interior Monolog – Crave More, Magical Realism – Crocodile Tears and Don Benito, ,Science Fiction – Devil’s Kitchen, and Cultural Commentary – Hiraeth. The collection is linked by its exploitation of allusion, elusion, metaphor, poetry, rhythm, and the relationship between poetry and the poet’s Bakhtinian dialog. Several of the stories within this collection have been published or have received awards. Aspiring writers would do well to add Devil’s Kitchen to their bucket list. They will learn a great deal about writing narrative and poetic creativity from the collection.
Devil’s Kitchen
Short Stories and Flash Fiction
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Poems for the End of Time is a series of metaphysical meditations written while listening to Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. It is followed by Lamentations for Holy Week, a sequence based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, as imitated by Francisco de Quevedo (1601 – 1613) in a series of poems composed during Holy Week. This poetry is written from the heart and expresses the authenticity of the poet’s being. Here, the poet indulges in a dialog with his time and place – much in the manner outlined by Mikhail Bakhtin in his theory of Chronotopos. This poetry is not written for the simple minded. Rather it invites the reader to explore the nature of the world, the philosophy of time and place, and the metaphysical exercises necessary to prepare for the inevitable end of time.
Poems for the End of Time
and
Lamentations for Holy Week
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Nemo, a young Canadian teacher, orphaned as a baby after the suicide of his single mother, feels mysteriously drawn to Oaxaca, Mexico, the city of the returning dead. He visits the town’s main cathedral only to encounter his adoptive father, a man who had died years earlier. The local witch doctor offers to help Nemo solve the mystery surrounding his birth parents and his past. The shaman gives him a broken medallion and challenges him to find the other half, promising the discovery will reveal the purpose for the young man’s encounter and the reasons for him being called to Oaxaca.
People of the Mist
A Poet’s Day in Oaxaca
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You may purchase
The Nature of Art and The Art of Nature
at Amazon or Cyberwit.net.
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Purchase
Stars at Elbow and Foot
Selected Poems, 1979-2009
at the following links
On Being Welsh
in a land ruled by the English
To read about On Being Welsh click HERE.
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One Small Corner
A Kingsbrae Chronicle
One Small Corner is available at the following link
Empress of Ireland
Poems from Ste. Luce-sur-mer
Read about the Empress HERE.
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Sun and Moon
Poems from Oaxaca, Mexico
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Obsidian’s Edge
From morning to night
a day in Oaxaca
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Obsidian’s Edge Print
Obsidian’s Edge Kindle
A Cancer Chronicle
The verse-story of one man’s journey
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A Cancer Chronicle
Bistro
A Collection of Fiction,
Flash Fiction,
and Pseudo-Fiction.
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Bistro
Print Version
Bistro
Kindle Version
Bistro Two
More short fiction from Moore
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Bistro Two
Print version
All About Angels
Poems from Island View
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All About Angels
Paperback edition
All About Angels
Kindle Edition
Though Lovers Be Lost
Poems about beyond death
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Though Lovers Be Lost
Print Edition
Though Lovers Be Lost
Kindle Edition
Monkey Temple
A narrative fable for modern times.
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Monkey Temple
Paperback
Monkey Temple
Kindle
Iberian Interludes
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Iberian Interludes
Print
Avila
Cantos y Santos y
Ciudad de la Santa
To purchase Avila (written in Spanish) click on the following link.
Avila e-book and print versions
Nobody’s Child
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