Wednesday, June 07, 2023
Negative Research
Simon Pulleyn, "A Linguistic Approach to Classics," Classics for All (1 Jun 2023):
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Years of studying classical texts do not lead me to a position where I can relax in a warm glow of mastery. My day-to-day experience is chiefly one of puzzlement.
[....]
When I approach a line of Homer, I look at every single word. Quite often, I write a note on every single word. Then I delete quite a few of them. This is what I call 'negative research': one does a lot of reading, writes what one regards as an elegant distillation, then crosses it out because it does not seem worth foisting on others. The hope is that what remains might be useful.
