THINQon : Names

THINQon is a platform for a more intelligent web. It aims to replace the ruling paradigm of the web – that of sharing and gathering information – with a sharing and achieving of understanding. Instead of the Q&A model it offers an experience. A platform for discovery of ideas, people, and yourself. Continue >

Hanna Clapson, I am an English major. I write and think. I...

Names

Latest Post: March 2, 2011 at 3:14 PM

22 followers

From the poem Ozymandias by Percy Shelley:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I'm currently working on a short story not really about names but regarding them and thought I'd try and bring a discussion to get some ideas flowing. I want to discover what names hold, either to the individual or the masses. Why do so many cultures treat and give names differently? Is there a universal connection between all names? If not, does that mean names are most important to the individual? Does everything have its own name? Where does meaning come from?

These lines are taken from one of my favorite poems and they explore themes of eternity and decay, power and civilization. All that is left of the once great pharaoh is a pile of rubble, some engraved words, and a very distant legacy. The power his name once commanded is literally blown over by the desert sands and his message is direct: "Your power won't last either, you'll be forgotten too."

Is the name the last thing to go? After our legacies have long been forgotten, will our names still surface? But without our legacy, can just our names truly evoke the spirit/essence of our lives? I don't think so. I think once the name is separated from a legacy, once it creates no connection to flesh or deed, the name is dead. In the poem Shelley suggests that art is the only thing safeguarding Ozymandias' name. It is his statue in the sand that we understand as him, not any of his work, just a stone representation of his face, the connection between his name and his body.

So can names act as a symbol for the connecting force between our bodies and our souls/minds (whatever you want to call it)? Are our names just a symbol for self?

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

And yet our names remain words, they are only symbols for self. Does true identity exist in a realm where words have no meaning?

What are your thoughts? Where do names end and people begin? Is Mark Twain the same as Samuel Clemens? Is Bob Dylan the same as Robert Zimmerman? Is Yahweh the same as God?

Maybe there's an infinite list of names inside each of us.

This post is referenced by the following other contributors:

Annie Hemm	in "Becoming less superstitious / Becoming less superstitious"	(The Living Room)
Robin Layter	in "How to light a castle and 111 other things to do on a Saturday afternoon"	(Library)
Hanna Clapson	in "The death of myths"	(Library)
Arthur Mont	in "Watchmen - Dave Gibbons & Alan Moore / Watchmen - Reading group / Watchmen - Chapters 10-12"	(Library)

Reply to:

Jessie Lee

June 28, 2009 at 10:48 PM

2 followers

Hi Hanna,
Certainly one thing names possess is power. Religious sources are full of interesting pointers -- look at the various issues around the names of God in the Bible, for instance, and the fact that the true name of God is not exactly written (or at least not pronounced). The person who knows your true name has a certain power over you, it was felt. Also, changing a name often means dramatically changing the person's fate. Conversion experiences, confirmation experiences gave new names to signify the new identity. Even marriage in the old tradition marked the moment when a woman's identity would be completely subsumed into that of her husband, clearly symbolized by the fact that she was now called "Mrs. John Smith" in lieu of her own name.

The Iliad goes on for quite a bit about kleos, the glory of the warrior whose name is remembered for countless generations. I'm not sure Ozymandias' name is dead. We have this perfect miniature in the poem, of the man and his ambitions. You can see a lot of the character in that. As long as the name comes with a phrase or two, it can endure a long time. In old fairy tales, there are often secret words which conjure up various spirits or genies when spoken aloud, even by an ignorant person who happens upon a dusty book centuries later. So, certainly there were some people who felt the power of the name endured.

This post is referenced by the following other contributors:

Annie Hemm

in "Homer: The Odyssey / Why Odysseus? / Hospitality Laws"

(Library)

Reply to: or

Rick Murphy

June 29, 2009 at 4:15 PM

7 followers

The power of names connects to the general power of words, which reminds me of the great Sylvia Plath poem about words, the one which starts

Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes travelling
Off from the centre like horses...

The whole poem is great and is kind of a darker version of Ozymandias. But, this is also like what Hanna was asking about names. You are given a name but its ripples go on for a long time and sometimes have a power of their own.

Reply to: or

Hanna Clapson, I am an English major. I write and think. I...

July 3, 2009 at 12:10 AM

22 followers

great poem Rick.

And your mention of Homer and the Iliad Jessie reminds me of all the different names that Odysseus had. And then of course there is the name Homer itself. Who was he? He certainly never wrote anything down. How do we have his name? How has it been passed down to us from when he spoke his poem in his day?

All we have of Homer is his name and his legend. There's no more proof of his existence then of Zeus himself. But still we give him credit for arguably the most well known stories of all time. This raises different questions about the relationship between names and art. In the Shelley poem it's the art that preserves Ozymandias' name not his deeds, likewise it's the echoes that travel from the centre like horses, not the axes, and it is the Odyssey that carries Homer's name.

So maybe art is the best vehicle for names. It's art that extends beyond civilizations, not actions. Though, that was a hasty statement, the Caesar's and Alexanders are probably turning in their graves. For they shaped the world as much as Homer and we know they existed. But then again, their names are preserved in art. We have their portraits and their stories, not the cut knots or the leftover war fields. So maybe it wasn't a hasty statement.

And aren't historians just a certain type of artist? Don't they play with time, space, and form just as any author does? Are all words art?