The Sensuality and Sensibility of Verbal Characters

THE SENSUALITY AND SENSIBILITY OF VERBAL CHARACTERS

1. If one were to attempt distinguishing between sensuality and sensibility on the basis of an element/elementino-like distinction in relation to verbal characters of one sort or another, it would have to be between upper case on the one hand and lower case on the other, since that would seem to be the only basis upon which such a distinction could reasonably be made.

2. Furthermore, one would have to distinguish across the whole range of Elements ... from fire and water on the female side of things to vegetation and air on their male side, thereby allowing for metachemical, chemical, physical, and metaphysical alternatives.

3. Since I equate italics with a kind of ethereal elevation over non-italicized verbal characters, pretty much as the noumenal planes of space and time over the phenomenal planes of volume and mass, it follows that characters corresponding to fire and air will be italicized.

4. Since the noumenal distinction between fire and air is one of space-time objectivity vis-à-vis time-space subjectivity, the former axis falling and the latter one rising, it follows that characters existing on the noumenal planes of space and time will be either printed or written, which is to say, disconnected (objective) or connected (subjective), within an italicized framework.

5. Hence the character distinction between sensuality and sensibility on the metachemical axis of space-time objectivity would involve upper-case italic print on the one hand (spatial space) and lower-case italic print on the other hand (repetitive time), while the contrary distinction between these options on the metaphysical axis of time-space subjectivity would involve upper-case italic writing, or writerly text, on the one hand (sequential time) and lower-case italic writing on the other hand (spaced space).

6. Dropping to the phenomenal planes of volume and mass, wherein the Elements of water and vegetation (earth) have their place, one can argue that, contrary to the above, verbal characters corresponding to water and vegetation will be non-italicized, and thus corporeal as opposed to ethereal.

7. Now since the phenomenal distinction between water and vegetation is one of volume-mass objectivity vis-à-vis mass-volume subjectivity, the former axis falling and the latter one rising, it follows that characters existing on the phenomenal planes of volume and mass will be either printed or written, which is to say, disconnected (objective) or connected (subjective), within a non-italicized framework.

8. For the character distinction between sensuality and sensibility on the chemical axis of volume-mass objectivity would involve upper-case non-italic print on the one hand (volumetric volume) and lower-case non-italic print on the other hand (massed mass), while the contrary distinction between these options on the physical axis of mass-volume subjectivity would involve upper-case non-italic writerly text on the one hand (massive mass) and lower-case non-italic writerly text on the other hand (voluminous volume).

9. Whatever the axis, it would seem that the perceptual sensuality of literary texts will always accord with upper-case characters and the sensibility thereof with lower-case characters, since this is the only parallel we have to an element/elementino dichotomy between the outer and the inner, freedom and binding.

10. Of course, we do not write (or print) in a consistently upper- or lower-case fashion, though most of our writing (or printing) utilizes lower-case characters on a fairly consistent basis, thereby attesting, it seems to me, to a sensible bias.

11. Whether that bias is corporeal or ethereal on either noumenal or phenomenal terms could be said to depend, theoretically, on the type of person, although what could be called the traditional literary norm tends, in individual practice, to favour the phenomenal subjectivity of a predominantly lower-case non-italic writerly text, as in letter-writing.

12. Such is certainly not true, however, of books and newspapers and/or magazines, which rather tend to favour the phenomenal objectivity of a predominantly lower-case non-italic printerly text, as though in chemical deference to a female - and more specifically feminine - mean in connection with massed mass, a literary parallel, in short, to the womb.

13. And one that suggests, furthermore, a 'modern' alternative to the kind of manual writing favoured traditionally, even if, paradoxically, with a sensible bias (as in the prevailing use of lower-case print).

14. However, even if the greater proportion of such 'artificial' print, including that used in official correspondence, is more than simply heathenistic on account of the preponderance of lower-case sensibility, there is still scope, it seems to me, for the expansion of writerly texts on such a basis, so that subjectivity, within both phenomenal and noumenal planes, was given more encouragement in relation to progress towards the possibility of a new culture/civilization complex led by the subjectivity of true culture, and an enhanced sense of sensible co-operation in consequence.