home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
09077_Field_TCGG T842.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
852b
|
16 lines
would miss the needed clues. Pope is offering a formal
causality, not an efficient causality, as an explanation of the
metamorphosis from within. The entire matter is thus to be
found in a single couplet (I, ll. 89­90):
Now night descending, the proud scene was o’er,
But liv’d, in Settle’s numbers, one day more.
Print, with its uniformity, repeatability, and limitless
extent, does give reincarnate life and fame to anything at all.
The kind of limp life so conferred by dull heads upon dull themes
formalistically penetrates all existence. Since readers are as
vain as authors, they crave to view their own conglomerate
visage and, therefore, demand the dullest wits to exert
themselves in ever greater degree as the collective audience
increases. The “human interest” newspaper is the ultimate