blog #4

In the very first excerpt, Richard talks a lot about how writing makes someone feels, how the rules set out by doctrines have made it difficult to create flows of expression.  He presents extremes in which simple words can be judged, like “good or bad”, “correct or incorrect”,  “beautiful or ugly”.  He talks about the inaccurate things presented in the Usage Doctrine, and how he is surprised that it has become the norm to utilize it a guide and a sample for good literally usage. 

The second excerpt Richard talks a lot about symbolism.  He defines it as “the study of the part played in human affairs by language and symbols of all kinds, and especially of their influence of Thought”. He, in a way equalizes a word to symbols, because if they stand alone, they have no meaning.  They need to be followed by a word or to be created into a meaning. 

In the third excerpt, he works with the idea of words being in “context”.  He believes that this should take place over the Usage Doctrine in the literary world.

All of these excerpts seem to become an assemblage when read at the same time. The readings pursue the reader to think beyond just the fact that words are words, and to think about the true meaning and importance of them.  I still seem to find a small amount of confusion in that relating triangle.  The concepts were very clearly presented throughout the pages, but that correlative triangle is not as clear as I would like.