What is Wilkins trying to say?
After reading through the Wilkins article for the third time I'm still having a very difficult time trying to understand the basis of what this guy is saying. Ok, I understand (somewhat) the idea behind the categories of classes, the monosyllables and the consonants, but it seems he does not stick to one topic when he is discussing Wilkins' "analytical language". For example, Borges is discussing Wilkins' four-level table, then he mentions the eighth and the sixteenth categories, what happened to the idea of the four-level table? Did they leave it back at the bus shelter or what? Then Borges goes on to make the statement "Beauty belongs to the sixteenth category; it is a living brood fish, an oblong one". What in Gods name does that mean? "A living brood fish, an oblong one"? What is meant by that? It appears to be just some nonsense rant, any ideas anyone? Also those recepies at the end of the article? yeah, no clue whatsoever.
posted by Anonymous @ 1:47 p.m.
2 Comments:
My assumption of the sentence "it is a living brood fish, an oblong one" is a living fish is part of nature, brood (I looked up to see alternate meanings) can mean offspring/ baby/ kids. Therefore all of the above, kid, fish, nature are all beautiful which relates back to the 16th category -Beauty. As to oblong, well it's a rectangular fish I believe(?)
But hey, I could be waaay off!
Hey Matt
I think that the eighth and sixteenth categories are in reference to the 40 categories Wilkins divided the universe into...I might be wrong, but I don't think they have anything to do with the four-level table. To tell you the truth, I don't know what the four-level table is! hahaha. He just brings it up, and then goes off talking about something else (that living brood fish, to be more precise!)
Hope that helps :)
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