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“How you call to me, call to me”: Hardy’s Self-remembering Syntax
Victorian Poetry Pub Date : 2016-01-01 , DOI: 10.1353/vp.2016.0001
A. J. Nickerson

"The phonograph, in one sense, knows more than we do ourselves. For it will retain a perfect mechanical memory of many things which we may forget, even though we have said them." (1) What should we make of Thomas Edison's claim that "the phonograph ... knows more"? Edison is hesitant, carefully delimiting his assertion to "one sense," and cautiously non-committal, applying to an unarticulated consensus about what we ourselves know and so preserving the primacy of human knowledge. And yet his claim is bold: the phonograph will surpass humanity in its characteristic activity of knowing. The reality and tragedy of this is felt in the belated second clause of the second sentence--"even though we have said them." The perfected "mechanical memory" overrules any authorial right to knowledge, intruding upon this most intimate relation of human identity, the self-reflexive knowing that constitutes the sense of self. This is what is at stake when Edison claims the "phonograph ... knows more." But he is careful to hedge his assertion round with qualifications to prevent this conclusion. It is hard to talk about what it means to "know"--we can only talk about it in "one sense" or the other--and it is particularly hard when knowledge is distanced from the human mind, retained within a "mechanical memory." It is this difficult distancing of knowledge from human consciousness and its inscription as material text that is the distinctive form nineteenth-century phonographic experiments give to epistemological questions. From Alexander Melville Bell's Visible Speech, which graphically depicted sound in the human mouth, to Isaac Pitman's phonographic shorthand, in which the "very sound of every word is made VISIBLE," to Edison's wax cylinders traced with the voices of Tennyson and Browning, these attempts to inscribe sound--to make voice occur outside of the body--were shadowed by questions about knowing occurring outside the mind. (2) For as fugitive, temporal, embodied utterances were given permanent, reproducible, graphic form as phonographic writing or recordings, so knowledge, expressed and witnessed to by words, seemed to become unmoored from human consciousness. Phonographic inscription not only dislocates voice from the speaking body; it also transforms it. Words become grammalogues or needle-etchings, sound becomes visual notation. And this new material existence requires a new way of listening--a listening that begins with reading a text-interpreting grammalogues or running a needle across the cylinder. The transformation that accompanies dislocation similarly reformulates ideas about what knowledge is and how it might be known. Edison's claim is that the phonograph "knows"--it does not merely possess "knowledge" but actively "knows," cognition fully transposed from the human mind to the phonograph's "mechanical memory." But what does it mean for the phonograph "to know"? Can it still mean awareness of sensory impression, or perception of truth, or recognition of pattern, or acquaintance with a thing, or insight into oneself, or self-reflexive consciousness? Given the transformation that occurs in phonographic inscription, even the basic elements of human knowledge-consciousness, temporal sequencing, self-reflexivity, and so on--are open to transformation as phonographic technologies replicate and surpass our patterns of knowing. Hardy's well-known poem "The Voice" (1912) reverberates with the sound of these questions: WOMAN much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were When you had changed from the one who was all to me, But as at first, when our day was fair. (ll. 1-4) (3) The disembodied voice ("WOMAN much missed"), the call that summons presence ("how you call to me, call to me / Saying"), the alteration of form when it becomes memory ("that now you are not as you were"), when it becomes inscribed as text--these questions can be heard here, echoing on the edges of the poem's soundscape. …

中文翻译:

“你如何呼唤我,呼唤我”:哈代的自我记忆语法

“从某种意义上说,留声机比我们自己知道的更多。因为它会保留许多我们可能忘记的东西的完美机械记忆,即使我们已经说过它们。” (1) 我们应该如何看待托马斯爱迪生的“留声机……知道更多”的说法?爱迪生犹豫不决,谨慎地将他的断言界定为“一种感觉”,并且谨慎地不置可否,适用于关于我们自己所知道的未阐明的共识,从而保持了人类知识的首要地位。然而,他的主张是大胆的:留声机将在其特有的认识活动中超越人类。在第二句迟到的第二句中感受到了这种现实和悲剧——“即使我们已经说过了。” 完美的“机械记忆”凌驾于任何作者的知情权之上,侵入人类身份最亲密的关系,即构成自我意识的自我反思性认识。当爱迪生声称“留声机......知道更多”时,这就是利害关系。但他小心翼翼地用资格来对冲他的断言回合,以防止得出这个结论。很难谈论“知道”是什么意思——我们只能在“一种意义上”或另一种意义上谈论它——当知识远离人类思想,保留在“机械”中时,这尤其困难。记忆。” 正是这种知识与人类意识的艰难距离及其作为物质文本的铭文,是 19 世纪录音实验赋予认识论问题的独特形式。从亚历山大·梅尔维尔·贝尔的可见演讲中,它以图形方式描绘了人嘴中的声音,对于艾萨克·皮特曼(Isaac Pitman)的录音速记,其中“每个单词的声音都变得可见”,对于爱迪生的蜡缸,描绘了丁尼生和布朗宁的声音,这些尝试刻录声音——让声音发生在身体之外——被关于在头脑之外发生的知道的问题所掩盖。(2) 因为当易逝的、暂时的、具身的话语被赋予永久的、可复制的、图形形式作为录音制品或录音时,所以知识,通过语言表达和见证,似乎从人类意识中解脱出来。留声机铭文不仅使说话的身体失去了声音;它也改变了它。文字变成语法或针迹,声音变成视觉符号。这种新材料的存在需要一种新的倾听方式——一种从阅读文本解释语法或在圆柱体上穿针开始的倾听方式。伴随着错位的转变同样重新表述了关于什么是知识以及如何知道知识的想法。爱迪生的主张是留声机“知道”——它不仅拥有“知识”,而且主动“知道”,认知完全从人脑转移到留声机的“机械记忆”。但是留声机“知道”是什么意思呢?是否还意味着对感官印象的认识,或对真理的感知,或对模式的识别,或对事物的熟悉,或对自己的洞察,还是自我反省的意识?鉴于录音铭文中发生的转变,随着录音技术复制并超越我们的认知模式,即使是人类知识意识、时间顺序、自我反省等基本要素也可能发生转变。哈代著名的诗歌《声音》(1912) 回荡着这些问题的声音:女人很想念,你如何呼唤我,呼唤我,说现在你和当初改变时的你不一样谁是我的全部, 但一开始,当我们的日子是公平的。(ll. 1-4) (3) 无形的声音(“WOMAN很想念”),召唤存在的呼唤(“你如何呼唤我,呼唤我/说”),当它成为记忆时的形式改变(“现在你不像以前了”),当它成为文字时——这些问题可以在这里听到,在诗的音景边缘回响。…
更新日期:2016-01-01
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