Some words about Plath and Torp

Some words about Plath and Torp

John Bjarne Grover

As I noticed also in my article 'The submorphemic Aristotle' - from this part of it:

The history of Norway since it was established in 1814 is likely to be the same story - that the state had a primary rationale in the form of a linguistic basis in the norwegian language for this reinterpretation of Aristotle but this rationale was couped by political interests and eventually could have been turned into a rationale for more or less terror-based international politics on behalf of power interests.

The theory is that the norwegian language of those days (nynorsk or landsmål, now extinct) had the special characteristic that it made it easy to understand the authentic Aristotle and therefore a state with this norwegian language as official language would have been very favorable for finding a solution to the conflicts between e.g. protestantism and catholicism. But since this was in those days of the early 19th century nenessarily only on an intuitive basis and no formalism for it could be constructed in those days, the rationale that was used for making the state came to look like a political farce - such as the need for an antisemitic state or the traditions from the old vikings - or it could have been the need for making a swastika on the map of Europe, which later came to be coupled with the program of antisemitism. This conflict between the political reason (and 'morphemic' aristotelianism - which developed as an important basis for christian theology in the middle ages) and the linguistic reason (with the 'submorphemic' aristotelianism which I have described in my article - these are my probably very groundbreaking ideas and it is probably difficult to find it articulated elsewhere) came to leave its stamp on the development of the modern Norway with the language conflict - the story of Holm (not to be confused with 'the story of O') could be telling.

In this article I made also some observations (articulated here) on a possible connection between some aspects of Sylvia Plath's poetry book 'The Colossus' and two pages from Alf Torp's "Nynorsk etymologisk ordbok", Kristiania 1919. There seem to be two possible interpretations of this on background of the idea that aspects of Sylvia Plath's poetry could resemble Torp's dictionary (possibly including some page layout): 1) If she had written her poetry without peeping in Torp, correlations could be explained with the idea that Torp's etymological dictionary of the authentic norwegian language - which could have been the original but rather unarticulated reason for the state formation in 1814 - could be found in just this phenomenon - that the poetic intuition (cp. Tutankhamon) favorable for understanding Aristotle anew could be somehow related to this theme of Torp's dictionary - and hence the correlations. 2) If she would have used Torp's dictionary for 'constructing' aspects of her poetry (apparently without crediting the source, that would have been, as far as I would know), then the fact that many people nevertheless find her poetry interesting could be explained by the same phenomenon - that Torp's dictionary is about just this language which could have an explanatory value for understanding the authentic aristotelian philosophy from the centuries of greek mythology and the 'elemental' theory. This new (or, say, old) understanding of Aristotle could be of very much importance for poetic matters.

As concerns the story of Holm - or 'the story of O': I recall my official mother Ragna Grøver using the word 'pleasing' (in english) about a certain human attitude or character several times in probably the mid 1970's. I now could find an associative reference in the beginning of 'The story of O' - the mention of 'pleated' skirt in the beginning of the book - which could associate with that 'pleasing' via 'plissee'. (I notice also the handbag). If it would have been a reference to the last words of my first official father - 'I have to piss', was his last word, exceptional for him - before he stepped out of the car at the ferry station Vikebukt (not far from 'Måndalen') in the summer 1969 and another man came back and took his place - this could also have been seen to be about the names of Jimmy (= 'James Earl') Carter and Walter Mondale running for US presidency in the autumn 1976. Inspired by this idea, I then also look up the parallel pages to Torp's page 306 (= 'koll') and page 792 (= 'to') in Monier-Williams' sanskrit dictionary (Monier-Williams, just like Alf Torp, died just before the dictionary work was completed). This book is enumerated first with an introduction of latin numerals before the normal page numbers start on page 34, so one subtracts 33 from 306 = page 273 and from 792 = page 759. The real-number pagination is retained in this scan of the dictionary - for which reason one can just look up page 306 = this page: It seems in fact to suggest a theme akin to what is the impression from the beginning of 'The story of O' - lust, desire etc - and it starts on 'desire' = 'give-me' = 'Jimmy' and 'woolen cloth or blanket (as a carriage)' which possibly could be about 'Garter'. Inspired by this 'hit', I look up page 792 and find that 'Walter' could apply to the beginning of the page and 'Mondale' to the end of it. (Hence the word 'pleasing' could theoretically have had a positive effect on their election campaign?) This could perhaps have been the origins of the puzzling idea that Sylvia Plath could have been the identity behind the preudonym 'Pauline Reage' who is the official author of 'The story of O' - the idea that Plath wrote this (porn?) book I think I have from some published material somewhere but cannot remember where.

Likewise, the story of 'O' could in theory have been thought to relate to the name of 'Hans-Henrik Holm' on the form 'han skjener i colon' = 'he is slanting in colon'. Holm was a poet of much value for the original language of Norway and hence Torp would have been relevant to his work.

What is the conclusion to this? If some of the above should happen to obtain beyond the level of sheer speculation, the idea could arise that Torp's etymological dictionary could be of interest not the least for reasons of this dictionary being essentially (and maybe even rather uniquely) about the origins of that language which could have been recognized as having an explanatory value relative to an original Aristotle - which includes also a linguistic reason for the state of Norway, as goes my theory. That is why one could call for a renewed evaluation of its scientific value rather than a political one - cp. the idea that a possibly authentic linguistic rationale for the state in 1814 could have been overshadowed by political reasons that could have been constructed for countering it - for precisely the reason of preventing that the protestant opposition to catholicism could come to lose its force and reason. The most extreme articulation of this would have been Hitler in protestant Germany. The geographic location (and form) of Norway since 1814 could also have been thought of as the opposite of the italian catholicism - but clearly such 'opposite' is very irrelevant to the real issue of a submorphemic (as I call it) understanding of Aristotle.

The language conflict in Norway (between the original language and the converted danish language of administration) lasted for many decades but there is little left of it now, since the original language can be considered extinct. It is that which is described in Torp's etymological dictionary.

The conclusion could be that Torp's dictionary should ideally not be abused for non-linguistic or non-literary purposes - such as security or 'political' intrigue. A security structure based on Torp's dictionary could (as I see it) be of the most extreme anti-poetic format. Installing e.g. page numbers from Torp's dictionary into the culture could be to quench the last remnants of the poetic logic which should have been developed since the 19th century.

The political reason for Norway 1814 could perhaps also have been related to a british need for a dumping-place for its unfortunate marital basis (of Henry VIII) for the anglican church - which also could mean a continuation of the conflict with the Vatican. This aspect would also imply the very opposite of what the formation of the state of Norway in 1814 could have been for.

References:

Grover, J.B.: The semiotics of TEQ #464. 2025.

Grover, J.B.: The submorphemic Aristotle. 2025.

Monier-Williams, M.: A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Oxford at the Clarendon Press 1979.

Plath, S.: The Colossus. Faber, London 1987.

Reage, P.: The story of O. 1954.

Torp, A.: Nynorsk etymologisk ordbok. Kristiania 1919.