[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Jonathan Reeve <jon.reeve@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 9:14 AM
Subject: [xpmethod] Fwd: [ENCLgrad] Brad Pasanek on “Poetic Diction: Tokens
and Change” 3/7 at 6:10pm
To: xpmethod@lists.columbia.edu

Hi everyone,

Monday’s talk in the Eighteenth Century Colloquium (English) might be of
interest to some in the lab, especially those that are interested in
computational literary analysis. See forwarded message below.

-Jonathan

———- Forwarded message ———
From: Candace Gail Cunard <cgc2118@columbia.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 5:12 PM
Subject: [ENCLgrad] Brad Pasanek on “Poetic Diction: Tokens and Change” 3/7
at 6:10pm
To: enclgrad@lists.columbia.edu <enclgrad@lists.columbia.edu>

Hello all,

I’m writing to announce a pair of events sponsored by the Eighteenth
Century Colloquium and involving Professor Brad Pasanek (University of
Virginia), whose first book, *Metaphors of Mind: An Eighteenth-Century
Dictionary* was recently published by Johns Hopkins. The first of these
events is a talk about his new project on the evening of Monday, March 7;
the second is a seminar discussion of excerpts from his book on the morning
of Tuesday, March 8. Both events will be of interests to students across
fields who are interested in metaphor, poetry, and digital humanities
methods. Full details for both are included below. Please feel free to
circulate this announcement widely to any who may be interested!

*Talk: “Poetic Diction: Tokens and Change”*
*Monday, March 7 from 6:10-8pm in 402 Hamilton*

“Poetic diction” is an early modern term of art, used to mark distinctions
between prose and verse. It signals a belief that poets speak and write a
special kind of language. But “poetic diction” is also the term selected by
William Wordsworth in the preface to Lyrical Ballads to sum up and mark a
break with eighteenth-century poetics. “Poetic diction,” complained
Wordsworth, is “mechanical” and “artificial,” a “hubbub of words.” Poets
should instead write poems, claims Wordsworth, famously, in the “real
language of men.” By 1800, it would seem the seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century stock of words and phrases was well worn if not worn
out.

Poetic diction, as a topic of scholarly interest, had itself become well
worn by the 1960s; but then computational methods may offer new insights
into moribund topics. In particular, when I see critics compile a large
“set of phrases” that occur with “wearisome iteration” or provide a short
list of stock phraseology (“blushing flowers,” “cool gales,” “ lab’ring
oxen,” “curling smokes,” “fleet shades,” and “dusky green”), it is the
mechanical, iterative nature of the verse that I would revisit, alongside
the twentieth-century attempts of scholars like Josephine Miles to come to
terms with it. Computational methods work by iteration; and from the
perspective of a computational linguist, the stock of phrases complained of
by some literary critics are so many types and tokens, waiting to counted
and mapped. An opportunity to identify a representative stock of phrases
and visualize their circulation presents itself in the current moment, but
the uneven and unbalanced complexion of large-scale text collections
challenges responsible search and analysis.

Please note that an informal pizza dinner will be held at Jenny Davidson’s
apartment following the talk; let me know if you are interested in
attending!

*Seminar Discussion: Metaphors of Mind*
*Tuesday, March 8 from 9-10:30am in 302 Philosophy*

We will meet to discuss selections from Prof Pasanek’s recent first
book, *Metaphors
of Mind: An Eighteenth-Century Dictionary*. I have attached several
selections below. To quote Prof Pasanek when I asked him which parts one
should read, “It may be brain damaging to read the thing straight through!
So, don’t worry about your own reading in it: it’s made to be pulled apart.
When it bores you, put it down or ahead! Different parts were written for
readers.” In the spirit of this desultory reading, please feel free to skip
and skim through the various selections as you are moved – and I’ve
included the table of contents in the first file, which will give you a
sense of the scope of the book (and of how difficult it is to get that
scope across in a few finite selections!).

*RSVPs are encouraged for this event *so that I can acquire enough coffee
and breakfast food for attendees! (Also let me know if you have any dietary
restrictions.) Additionally, please note that 302 Philosophy is the seminar
room adjacent to the graduate student lounge and requires Columbia ID card
to access — if you’d like to attend but don’t have ID card access, let me
know so I can make sure to let you in!

And, as always, please contact met at cgc2118@columbia.edu with any
questions!

Best,

Candace Cunard

[Author]

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