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The decision to identify an utterance as constituting a certain move presupposes familiarity with that move. In interpreting a poem we must act as judges and ask whether, in saying x, the speaker was doing y (for example, rejecting an offer of reconciliation). Of course there will be problems. Even in our own experience, though we can recognize the moves in erotic discourse, we may sometimes be uncertain precisely what force an utterance carries. Still, both in natural language and in Roman Comedy, context, background information and subsequent actions and utterances tend to resolve such difficulties. It is in the shorter forms of poetry, where we have no such help, that it may be hard to detect the move and even harder to provide persuasive arguments to defend our reading. This is why the study of moves in classical love poetry might well begin with Plautus. |
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As to the second question, on where we draw the line between similar but distinct and different but similar moves, we can only adduce examples and give reasons for our decision. The classification will be grounded in experience, not logic. We need description, not theory.15 |
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The closely related problem of naming has been treated by linguists in relation to the theory of speech-acts.16 A repertoire of names (or phrases) denoting moves will reflect our criteria and influence subsequent classification. "Saying no" to a request for amorous favors might be considered a speech-act but (as we saw in Theognis 371372) there is a significant difference between "saying no" to the the first advance and "saying no" to a request for reconciliation. Or consider the speech-act that we might call "asking to be let in." The phrase ''may I come in," uttered on my first visit to the home of a woman with whom I have no amorous relationship, would not have the same force (pragmatic or emotional) as the same phrase uttered to the same woman on the same doorstep when I have come on an unannounced visit after a lengthy affair long since over. Neither the location nor the phrase would be a sufficient criterion for determining the force of the utterance. The move must be judged by evaluating the "total speech-situation." |
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Now I shall turn to three scenes of Plautus (Amphitruo 898945, Cistellaria 449527, Poenulus 353405) which represent an offer of (or request for) amorous reconciliation and a response (or responses). There we can study in context phenomena such as indirectness in the making of a move and the use of different speech-acts to perform the same move, and reassess some of the problems raised above. |
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15 Cf. Jauss (1982) 80: "[Genres] cannot be deduced or defined, but only historically determined, delimited and described.", and 93: "The modern theory of genres can proceed only descriptively and not by definition." |
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16 E.g. Downes (1984) 348349. |
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