Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary [Paperback]

Marjorie Perloff (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226660605 | ISBN-13: 978-0226660608 | Publication Date: March 15, 1999

Marjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry," Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "poet." What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal.

"This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to expect from Marjorie Perloff.—Linda Munk, American Literature

"[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."—Linda Voris, Boston Review

"Wittgenstein's Ladder offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."—David Clippinger, Chicago Review

"Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic. . . . Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."—Willard Bohn, Sub-Stance

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Wittgenstein's writings, though not themselves poetry, are redolent of poetic elements. Still, perhaps only a poet?or a humanities professor such as Perloff (Radical Artifice: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media, LJ 12/92) with a poetic sensibility?would find the ordinary "strange." Surely Wittgenstein argues philosophically that it is just the non-strangeness of the ordinary that is the key to solving (or dissolving) philosophical problems. Be that as it may, this fine study, in which Perloff disclaims any attempt to explain Wittgenstein and merely wants to "examine the relationship of [his] mode of investigation...to the 'ordinary language' poetics so central to our own time," manages to show a more than elementary understanding of his thinking. Proficient in German, she often gives more accurate translations of certain central passages in Wittgenstein's original than the standard English texts. A welcome addition to Wittgensteiniana from a unique perspective; for academic collections in philosophy, literature, and poetry.?Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Mgt. Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (March 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226660605
• ISBN-13: 978-0226660608
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #334,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Easy Climb, March 21, 2003

By 

Arch Llewellyn "arch-l" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary (Paperback)

This is an engaging, down-to-earth book about the connections between Wittgenstein's aphoristic philosophy and some of the 20th-century writers who've followed his lead up the 'ladder of the ordinary.' Perloff's at her best with the close readings of difficult writers like Stein, Beckett and Creeley, who magically flower into comprehensibility under her sharp attention and good sense.

The authors she chooses to illustrate Wittgenstein's influence seemed a little arbitrary to me though. She admits that Beckett and Stein didn't read Wittgenstein, and that Wittgenstein would probably have disliked their art. So why put them 'under his sign'? It makes more sense to me to see Wittgenstein as part of a wider generation who felt dissatisfied with the pre-war language they'd inherited. With later poets like Silliman and Waldrop, who explicitly cite Wittgenstein's writings as an inspiration, I think Perloff misses what separates them from Wittgenstein: he had no earlier model to cite. Wittgenstein's faith in ordinary language led to a manner of writing and thinking that was largely self-sufficient--an interested reader can dive right in and think through the problems for herself. His more allusive postmodern heirs rely to a large extent on your prior knowledge of texts like Wittgenstein's for their effects. Where Wittgenstein himself struggled to keep his religious and hierarchical values in check through the discipline of ordinary language--concepts like beauty, God and the self seemed to have some meaning for him, you just couldn't talk about those meanings with language--later writers' easy acceptance of notions like a language game, the 'constructed self' and the fundamental indeterminacy of language seems to drain some of the drama from their writing. You don't feel the same struggle (or modesty) that you sense in Wittgenstein's open, user-friendly illustrations. Describing one of his poems, Ron Silliman writes: "Every sentence is supposed to remind the reader of his or her inability to respond." I can't imagine Wittgenstein saying something like that.

Still, the book is an interesting take on Wittgenstein and the poetic he unwittingly inspired. Well worth reading.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perloff captures Wittgenstein's poetic insights., October 31, 1999

By 

Tim Gerard ([e-mail]) (San Mateo, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary (Paperback)

Anyone interested in either Wittgenstein or poetry should read this book. It does a remarkably good job of both philosophical and literary analysis, making the case that poetry, like philosophy as conceived by Wittgenstein, embodies the curious collision of the mystical with the mundane which best demonstrates the limits of language. Tightly reasoned and methodical, the book explains why Wittgenstein has had so much influence on aesthetic and ethical projects of the Twentieth Century, and suggests why that will continue. "The pursuit of the ordinary may well be the most interesting game in town."

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Philosophy should be done as a form of poetry", January 12, 2008

By 

Matt Hill "PARATAXIS and THE CLOUD RECKONER" (Santa Cruz Mountains, Ca) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary (Paperback)

Near as I can figure out, what Perloff is attempting to accomplish in this book has to do with an examination of the "ordinary language" poetics of the twentieth century. Professor Perloff sees Wittgenstein as the "natural ally" of poets and artists via "the curious collision of the mystical with actual language practices". An attempt at a Wittgensteinian overlay (language games, ordinary language) on such diverse writers as Gertrude Stein, Beckett, on through to the so-called language poets, seems to be the basis for this vague and misty book.

Elaborating upon the dimensions of Wittgenstein's language games as they are seemingly manifest in the writings of Stein, Beckett, two obscure Austrian writers (Bachmann and Bernhard), among others, Perloff gives us her take on Wittgenstein's assertion that "Philosophy ought really be written only as a form of poetry".

Unfortunately, the vague and tenuous linkages of his influence upon the above named writers is just not plausible. The turgid writing style, along with a thesis that does not hang together, make this book a good example of the sterility of the academic mind-set. A very disappointing read, indeed.

A much better and enlightening read is Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein - his influence as it has been disseminated in the second half of the twentienth century is cogently presented there.

Perloff's book breaks down as follows:
Chapter 1: About the Tractatus; Chapter 2: About The Philosophical Investigations; Chapter 3: About Gertrude Stein; Chapter 4: About Samuel Beckett; Chapter 5: About Bernhard & Bachmann; Chapter 6: About Language Poetics.

The Cloud Reckoner

Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts