[lbo-talk] From another thread

[Carrol Cox]

I was using "truth" in the context of the post from Milon_l I quoted:
something roughly equivalent to "new propositional truth." _Hamlet_ in
some ways is far more interesting than half a dozen new propositonal
affirmations might be. And it might well, each time you go back to it,or
even each time you have a conversation about it, bring you to focus on
some old but refreshened for you now proposition about the world. But
what ontological proposition can you derive fromit that had never been
affirmed before by anyone? _Hamlet_ or _The Awokward Age_ or "The
Imperfect Enjoyment" surely focus the mind, and focus it on things a
given person may not have thought about or thought about recently or
thought about in some particular way. But a new statement about human
history or the nature of human relations. I doubt it.

It is just possible, just barely possible, that when the Iliad was
composed Book 24 made a really new and profound point. But that's the
only even possible exception I will grant.

Carrol

Of course 

Joanna wrote:
> 
> Carrol  writes:
> 
> 'I really don't think Shakespeare added much if
> anything to humanity's stock of "truths."'
> 
> --He added Hamlet.
> 
> --He added Henry IV, part 1. (historical drama)
> 
> --He recast the tragic mode from the classical heroic
> ability-to-meet-fate, to the more modern form of tragedy as existential
> paradox.
> 
> I don't know if these are "truths," but they are representations of
> experiences/realities that did not exist in the classical age.
> 
> Joanna
> 
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