Go figure! Thank you Dr.Stritmatter for confirming what my Shakespeare Professor Tom Hester told me when he advised my Master’s dissertation on “Time and Language in ‘As You Like It’ and ‘Coriolanus’ back at N.C. State in 1997. I was tracking the word “time” in both plays to show how language can be used to create harmony (of the spheres)-“AYLI”-or the disorder of Coriolanus. Dr. Hester told me something I didn’t have context for until your presentation: one can always find the key to unlock the plays’ meaning in Act 3, scene 2. After your “ceremonial center” lesson, I now see, as if through the clever sunglass reflection of your AYLI quote by Jacques. In AYLI, 3.2.9-10 reveals the Kabbalistic trope of the microcosm/microcosmic search for Wisdom, the importance of being in tune with the “Music of the Spheres”, known in some Renaissance esoteric circles as “the inexpressive she”. “Run,run Orlando carve on every tree / The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.” Chapter 3 is filled with Pythagorean thought, but I running too long as it is. In Coriolanus, we find this independent note upon which the title character falls: “Would you have me/ False to my nature? Rather say I play/The man I am” (3.2.15-16). 3.2.52 also contains his mother Volumnia’s tour de force lines that end up saving Rome, covered powerfully by Robin Williams’ in “Does Shakespeare Write Like a Girl?”, a 4/25/22 presentation on Shakespeare’s strong women characters. Thank you both!
Just to mention the symmetrical chiastic device (end lines with the same reference, etc.) occurred in Homer's 'The Iliad'. The first and twenty-third Books portray the meeting of the Achaeians, et al. Dylan Thomas employed it in one of his poems. Ernest Hemingway's "Up in Michigan" follows the same pattern. Jonson's use of a device familiar to the "knowing" of his time and oblivious to the uneducated shows his typical ambiguity, an intention to message both esoterically and deceptively. "Honest Ben Jonson" is a humorous play on this literary penchant so necessary to a rebellious author in a time of tyranny.
Dr. Stritmatter: I appreciated your reference to Chiasmus and the focal point that they create for emphasis with a central concept/message. I did a Thesis on the subject of Chiasmus in Modern Revelation, analyzing revelations given through Joseph Smith, the LDS Prophet. The conclusion of the Thesis is that the God of the Hebrews was speaking through His Prophet in the latter-days. I think you would find it interesting. I believe the Prophet did not know that the revelations being given through him were highly structured in these chiastic patterns. A friend and I discovered them in the Summer of 1972. The Thesis was published for my Master's Degree in LDS Church History and Doctrine in 1975. Before our discovery, the patterns were unknown! Take a look at D&C 76 in the Thesis. You will find that a small pattern becomes an element in a larger pattern, which in turn is an element in an even larger pattern, and on up to a Maco Pattern covering the entire revelation. At one point, the chiastic patterns are five levels deep. And all this structure undiscovered for 142 years! My Thesis study and conclusion is that God was the Author of the patterns incorporated into this and other modern revelations. Another thing we discovered: when the Prophet was martyred and Brigham Young became the new Prophet, he received a revelation on the plains as the Mormon Pioneers-having been forced out of the United States-were traveling to the West. (Joseph Smith before his death prophesied the Saints would eventually settle in the Rocky Mountains.) We took a look at President Young's revelation (D&C 136) and found the chiastic patterns were clearly there! Conclusions: You can change the "instrument of revelation," and the patterns remain consistent; the patterns were independent of the modern Prophets through whom the revelations were given; the patterns came from God. Let me know what you think. scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6103&context=etd (RCS, Orem, UT) (p.s. You will be interested in the "Laws of Chiasmus," by Bible Scholar, Nils Lund, in the Appendix, p. 162. The D&C modern revelations follow these same "laws.")
Fascinating lecture! I must get the two recommended books. I hate to belabour the obvious, but it seems to me that the word "figure " would also point to the acrostic "TWO" in capital letters down the page. Alexander Waugh, Professor Stritmatter's sometime collaborator of course, deals with this subject elsewhere in a discussion of codes.
Hello----I left you an important message on your Facebook page. I couldn't figure out how to post, so I left you a private FB message. This information will really help Alexander Waugh---thanks! I love your lectures.
Go figure! Thank you Dr.Stritmatter for confirming what my Shakespeare Professor Tom Hester told me when he advised my Master’s dissertation on “Time and Language in ‘As You Like It’ and ‘Coriolanus’ back at N.C. State in 1997. I was tracking the word “time” in both plays to show how language can be used to create harmony (of the spheres)-“AYLI”-or the disorder of Coriolanus. Dr. Hester told me something I didn’t have context for until your presentation: one can always find the key to unlock the plays’ meaning in Act 3, scene 2. After your “ceremonial center” lesson, I now see, as if through the clever sunglass reflection of your AYLI quote by Jacques. In AYLI, 3.2.9-10 reveals the Kabbalistic trope of the microcosm/microcosmic search for Wisdom, the importance of being in tune with the “Music of the Spheres”, known in some Renaissance esoteric circles as “the inexpressive she”. “Run,run Orlando carve on every tree / The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.” Chapter 3 is filled with Pythagorean thought, but I running too long as it is. In Coriolanus, we find this independent note upon which the title character falls: “Would you have me/ False to my nature? Rather say I play/The man I am” (3.2.15-16). 3.2.52 also contains his mother Volumnia’s tour de force lines that end up saving Rome, covered powerfully by Robin Williams’ in “Does Shakespeare Write Like a Girl?”, a 4/25/22 presentation on Shakespeare’s strong women characters. Thank you both!
Just to mention the symmetrical chiastic device (end lines with the same reference, etc.) occurred in Homer's 'The Iliad'. The first and twenty-third Books portray the meeting of the Achaeians, et al. Dylan Thomas employed it in one of his poems. Ernest Hemingway's "Up in Michigan" follows the same pattern. Jonson's use of a device familiar to the "knowing" of his time and oblivious to the uneducated shows his typical ambiguity, an intention to message both esoterically and deceptively. "Honest Ben Jonson" is a humorous play on this literary penchant so necessary to a rebellious author in a time of tyranny.
Dr. Stritmatter: I appreciated your reference to Chiasmus and the focal point that they create for emphasis with a central concept/message. I did a Thesis on the subject of Chiasmus in Modern Revelation, analyzing revelations given through Joseph Smith, the LDS Prophet. The conclusion of the Thesis is that the God of the Hebrews was speaking through His Prophet in the latter-days. I think you would find it interesting. I believe the Prophet did not know that the revelations being given through him were highly structured in these chiastic patterns. A friend and I discovered them in the Summer of 1972. The Thesis was published for my Master's Degree in LDS Church History and Doctrine in 1975. Before our discovery, the patterns were unknown! Take a look at D&C 76 in the Thesis. You will find that a small pattern becomes an element in a larger pattern, which in turn is an element in an even larger pattern, and on up to a Maco Pattern covering the entire revelation. At one point, the chiastic patterns are five levels deep. And all this structure undiscovered for 142 years! My Thesis study and conclusion is that God was the Author of the patterns incorporated into this and other modern revelations. Another thing we discovered: when the Prophet was martyred and Brigham Young became the new Prophet, he received a revelation on the plains as the Mormon Pioneers-having been forced out of the United States-were traveling to the West. (Joseph Smith before his death prophesied the Saints would eventually settle in the Rocky Mountains.) We took a look at President Young's revelation (D&C 136) and found the chiastic patterns were clearly there! Conclusions: You can change the "instrument of revelation," and the patterns remain consistent; the patterns were independent of the modern Prophets through whom the revelations were given; the patterns came from God. Let me know what you think. scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6103&context=etd (RCS, Orem, UT) (p.s. You will be interested in the "Laws of Chiasmus," by Bible Scholar, Nils Lund, in the Appendix, p. 162. The D&C modern revelations follow these same "laws.")
Fascinating lecture! I must get the two recommended books. I hate to belabour the obvious, but it seems to me that the word "figure " would also point to the acrostic "TWO" in capital letters down the page. Alexander Waugh, Professor Stritmatter's sometime collaborator of course, deals with this subject elsewhere in a discussion of codes.
Hello----I left you an important message on your Facebook page. I couldn't figure out how to post, so I left you a private FB message. This information will really help Alexander Waugh---thanks! I love your lectures.