Subject: [HM] Using quotations
From: Tony Gardiner (A.D.Gardiner@bham.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Dec 21 1999 - 07:43:59 EST
May I side with Cipra against Tragesser - partly by suggesting that
Tragesser has confused two different issues?
The first issue is whether quotations can be used creatively to make
a point which the original speaker or writer never dreamt of (or even
the opposite of what s/he intended). It is hard not to conclude that
those who object take themselves too seriously and are even guilty
of imperialist tendencies. (Why should the rest of us use such
material only in ways that please purists?)
It is quite a different matter if a quote is wrenched out of context
so that a view is attributed *to the original speaker* which is at
odds with the facts! [A blatant example where the context and the
complete (?) quote are needed to convey the intended meaning:
During the Dreyfus affair, Hadamard was well known as a "Dreyfusard",
and feelings ran very high. Maz'ya and Shaposhnikova ("Jacques
Hadamard: A universal mathematician") write (p.82):
"On a visit to Hermite, Hadamard was met by the words "Hadamard, you
are a traitor." Hadamard turned pale, but Hermite continue: "You
have left analysis for geometry." " (Hadamard had recently published a
memoir on dynamical trajectories!)]
Tony Gardiner
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