“As poets and as readers we are both the users and the transmitters of this lexicon. Today we need to keep adding not subtracting meaning, remembering not forgetting, to connect ourselves to the chain that ultimately joins all cultures.”
Sophia Nugent-Siegal
Welcome to Lexicon
Wittgenstein famously concluded his Tractatus with the memorable comment: “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent”.
Unlike Ludwig, Sophia, in whose memory this site is maintained, did not accept “remaining silent” as a viable intellectual option—not because she thought ultimate meaning any more expressible than did Wittgenstein, but because she thought the battle was necessary.
Heroic, doomed to failure, absolutely essential.
Treasures from the Vault
Treasures from the Vault Now that Telstra has accorded this half of your editorial team a reliable Internet connection, joys hitherto denied have become temptingly available. The Internet is a treasure trove for anyone at all interested in history. One can, for example, read some of the world’s oldest, rarest, and most beautiful books—the pages real almost to touch, each leaf turned as if by magic hand (here are some pages from the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of the most precious of Anglo-Saxon/ Celtic texts in the British Library). Or listen to TS Eliot reading Four Quartets in those spare, dry,
Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel
Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel Contemplating the rationale for this blog (and leading on from Wittgenstein and the “rules” of communication), got me thinking about Star Trek (course it did—as sci fi nerds like Sophia would totally, totally understand). Arguably one of the best, and certainly one of the most interesting Star Trek episodes was in The Next Generation, the late 80s-early 90s series starring the magisterial Patrick Stewart (bringing all that Shakespearean gravitas to the role). It is also worth considering in relation to the notion of the importance of transmitting the cultural lexicon, a concept which is