i found him cos hes written about prynne
2.1 Alt for
“Alt,” the first word of the poem, sets the tone for our reading. A polyvalent word, made even more significant by the grammatical uncertainty of its context, its meanings include:
- An abbreviation for “alternate” (AHD[7]);
- “In an exalted or excited frame of mind” (OED2[8]);
- “A key on a computer keyboard that is pressed in combination with another key to execute an alternate operation[9].”
The word is related etymologically (CDE
[10]) to the Latin “altus” (“high, grown-up”) and “almus” (“fostering”), and to the Germanic “alt” (“old”).
If we look for the alternate, exalted, ancient, dual usage of the word with which “alt” is first combined — “for” — we find an early recorded use is around 725 AD in Beowulf, meaning “for, before, on account of.” Prynne himself has written at some length on the “dark logic” of the word “for,” in his commentary on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94
[11]: “At certain crucial junctures the dark logic of the
for-linkage is itself the hardest challenge to understanding.” Already the question of argument — poetical and otherwise — is being put in front of us: the means by which we make up our minds about meaning, the world at large, and courses of action.
Furthermore, the word “for” is related to the Indo-European root “per,” which itself has many facets which become significant as the poem develops
[12].
Later in the poem, the word “alt” also immediately precedes only two other words, both of which have a historical meaning which will prove to have a bearing on wider themes in the poem as a whole:
- “mere” — the oldest meaning in Old English, from before 700AD, being “lake, pond” — such as the famous haunted mere in Beowulf where Grendel dwelt;
- “fierce” — related by etymology to the word “feral,” and the Indo-European root “ghwer,” meaning “wild beast.”
2.2 List of other common dual use items
Let us apply this same “alt” operation to some frequently occurring words in the text of the poem.