Malouf, David, An Imaginary Life, London: Picador, 1978.
This novel gives an interesting insight into the structures of language and explores the importance of such within society, and for the individual.
The protagonist is the famous Roman poet, Ovid, who has been exiled from Rome and is thus forced to live with a "barbarian" people. A personal conflict develops as Ovid must grapple with a new, alien way of expressing himself and viewing the external world. In addition to the contrast between a sophisticated society and a relatively primitive society, a third element of the human capacity to communicate is introduced in the form of a boy who has been raised by animals (it is unclear which species of animal - perhaps wolves, or deer). The boy's "language" is vastly different to both of the others', and the description of how this impacts upon the protagonist's psyche and world is fascinating. The fact that the text is a novel written in poetic style is significant. It prompts me to question the issue of subjectivity and the place of poetic expression in the contention regarding orality and text, and which is closer to "true" communication. The joining and clashing of disparate modes of expression will be of much use in my assignment. unsourced from the ether
A selection from An Imaginary Life [David Malouf, An Imaginary Life (Woollahra, NSW: Picador Pan 1978), p. 29] where the character the Roman poet Ovid speaks directly to the reader about humanity's social evolution:
Our bodies are not final. We are moving, all of us, in our common humankind, through the forms we love so deeply in one another, strain towards in each other's darkness. Slowly, and with pain, over centuries, we each move an infinitesimal space towards it. We are creating the lineaments of such final man, for whose delight we have created a landscape, and who can only be a god.
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