Third Essay Beginning with "R"

Let's begin our "r's" in this essay with raisonneur. The word has a somewhat complex history in French, going back to Middle French usage as "lawyer," but then taking on an often depreciative meaning of "a(n) [irrelevant] thinker; person who reasons" by the time of Moliere. We have a good example of this usage from 1950: "The Mensheviks...were primarily men of theory; in Bolshevik terminology they were raisonneurs, 'dry-as-dust archivists', the 'party intelligentsia.'" But then, beginning in the mid-19th century (in English), the more usual meaning of raisonneur emerged--a character in a play or other work expressing the author's message or point of view. I suppose such a person "reasons for" the author. So, the first appearance of this word in this sense in English was in 1845: "The Raisonneur, as he is called in France..is the spirit of intelligent and refined criticism, and represents the intervention of the author in his own works." Sort of a secular deus ex machina-- an "author ex machina." Funny it is that the word seems to mean its opposite, based on when in its history you pick it up. It can either be a deprecatory term for one who spends all his time just thinking and not acting or it can be a laudatory or even neutral term describing the "reasoning" or "position" of the author.

A Digressive Rant

I need a little break for a moment to speak about words, scholarship and confusion. Words can be a barrier to entry into a field as well as the means by which the world is clarified. Scholars, in my experience, often use their words as a way to fend off the world--perhaps out of a bit of guilty conscience because they know that what they are doing isn't worth getting paid for. But, in fact, sometimes a scholar will break through the conventions and actually try to use langauge to make the world which s/he knows clear and accessible to other people. Such a person is a prince of knowledge in my estimation. S/he has used knowledge to expand the minds of others. I would say that perhaps only 20% of scholars actually try do the latter. Most don't, either because they are unable to break out of their self-imposed prison of language games or because they don't really want to appeal to a larger audience than just other specialists.

One of the means used by the 80% of scholars to make sure that no one enters their sacred precincts is to use words in confusing ways. Because words often don't have a laser-like precision to them, they need to be handled with care, like very sensitive plants put into the ground. The hole has to be dug out sensitively, the bulb inserted with solicitude, the dirt lightly covered over the bulb, water vigiliantly doused over it, etc. Words are like that; they need lots of care so that they, when combined with their neighbors, actually give good meaning. Sometimes ambiguity is called for; sometimes is adds to literary power. First, however, an author ought to learn how to do things "straight" before venturing on the high road of amphiboly.

Yet, as we see in this and the preceding essay, many "big" words have at least two meanings, sometimes opposite meanings. For example, if you just called someone a raisonneur, you would lose about 90% of your audience because they don't have the slightest idea of what you mean. Then you would lose most of the rest of the audience because you haven't clarified in what sense a person is a raisonneur. It is meant to be a depreciative or praiseworthy usage? The same holds true, for example, with the word recherche. Is someone using it suggesting something recondite or something rare/special? Words, without clarification, are often left "hanging" out there, creating just enough uncertainty so that the audience is, at the same time, a bit confused but also a bit afraid. The end result is that no one understands what is going on, the person giving the talk is praised and gets a big check, and those "outside the field" are humbled, thinking that they really can't understand something so profound. The "dirty little secret" of most fields, however, is that, once you get into them, they are trivially easy to learn and do well in, so that even a person of moderate intelligence and skill can get along quite well in them. Ambiguous use of language, then, is a product, in my judgment, of people who are scared to admit that it doesn't really take much to understand the things they understand. It is an admission of inadequacy; a sort of confession of fraudulent activity.

Just the other day a friend wrote me a note about a biography she was reading on the Russian Jewis artist Marc Chagall [1887-1985; Ha..He and Georgia O'Keeffe... She, another near centenarian artist, was also born in 1887. She lived from 1887-1986. Maybe when Chagall died, he said, like John Adams was reputed to have said on July 4, 1826, "Thomas Jefferson (here it would be 'Georgia O'Keeffe') lives." I can just imagine it...]. One of the quotations she sent along was the following: "a lachrymose work formed by a nostalgia-tormented shtetl-locked mind." Ok, there are so many images running through this one sentence that you really have to be a sort of wizard to unpack them all. Something lachrymose has some clarity to it, I think--it relates to mournfulness/evoking tears. Possibly, but it needs lots of clarification. What is mournful about it, etc? But then we have a "nostalgia-tormented" mind. Does that mean that memories tormented a person or only the difficulty of going home (the literal meaning of nostalgia) tormented him? Sub- questions would emerge when these are answered. Then, there is the "shtetl-bound" mind. I spent most of my Ph. D. education working with Jewish scholars, and so I imbibed a great deal of yiddish-isms, as well as other Jewish terms, humor, sentiment, etc. So, a shtetl isn't tough--it is a small Jewish town or settlement, usually in Russia. I suppose our closest approximation to this term is "small-town" mentality, but in order to understand the author we need to be brought into various shtetls in order to understand their nature. So, I suppose this sentence means that Chagall's mournful work was driven by his attempt to deal with memories from his small-town (shtetl) past. Ok, but the rhetoric somewhat trumps reality.

I wrote the last digression as a sort of apologia for my life because I spend very little of my time reading present-day "scholarship" and much of my time engaged in "basic learning"--of words, languages, the basic "stuff" of literary and intellectual creativity.

Returning to Some "R's"

Well, after that outburst you deserve about four more "r" words to finish the day. Let's conclude this essay, then, with mention of ravigote, ravanastron, rantize and rantipole. Ravigote also comes from the French, from ravigoter (to invigorate), and its meaning is captured from this 1877 quotation: "Ravigote, pick-me-up...from the French verb ravigoter, to cheer or strengthen...The French give the name of Ravigote to an assemblage of four herbs--tarragon, chervil, chives, burnet, minced small or used as a faggot, and supposed..to have a rare faculty of resuscitation." So, it is a sauce; picture and recipe are here, though many other better pictures are online. I can see that I need to dine out in French restaurants more regularly...

When you get to ravanastron, however, you are in a fully different world--the word of ancient Indian (the subcontinent) musical instruments. It is, as this article says, an Indian stringed instrument played with a bow, used by wandering pilgrims, particularly in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Picture is also there. Hm. Is life long enough to learn the ravanastron, taste and make good ravigote, understand the development of the term regisseur in detail, and learn the various meanings of recherche, rathe and many other words? And, then do you have time left over for some fun? I don't know. Maybe that is why so many people believe in eternity or eternal life--it actually gives you some time to do what you really would love to do but never really had time to do in life--because you were taking care of the business of staying alive.

Let's close this essay with a word on rantize. It has to do with the English sect called "Ranters," which flourished during the Interregnum of the late 1640s and early 1650s. We know surprisingly little about this group because only writings primarily from opponents survive. I used to think that it related to they way they "ranted" and raved in speech/sermons. But, in fact, the word rantize is taken directly from the Greek rhantizein, which means "to baptize." Thus, to rantize means "to sprinkle" (used with reference to baptism by sprinkling rather than by immersion). It could be used as a depreciatory term, no doubt, but also seriously. From 1701: "In Rantizing, or sprinkling and crossing Children's Faces." I think it has fallen out of use, and I ought to know, since I am from a "sprinkling" tradition and I never learnd the word before a few days ago.

Thanks again for joining me on this word-journey. It is a life-journey... There still are some more words--in the next essay.

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