[Ttha-potm] Smart Birds

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Ah -- I see. Sorry Betty ==  I entirely overlooked the point.

I wasn't thinking so much of rote learning of the kind disparaged as parrot 
fashion.

The "rapturous rote" is all I had in mind -- that is the stimulus of 
hearing -- the stimulus of  recitation.
It's a community thing.  Bonding, too.

This "rote" is only ever rapturous -- as you yourself know when you can 
recall a rhyme from childhood -- the experience you have when suddenly and 
somehow you intuitively recall a long lost phrase or rhyme once learned by 
subtle rules --maybe rhyming phrases? They are like magic- 
they  reappear  like magic.  I'm not at all thinking of what has recently 
been derided as rote learning and I don't feel Hardy has that in mind at 
all. Rather the apprentice at the loom: we watch, we try to emulate the 
motion, we join in the recitations and after a while we start to sing the 
working songs  -- songs of the group, of the work, of affinity, of bonding 
and of the territory (of course, with birds -- and maybe also with us too).

Cheers
R


>>Then what might  Hardy mean by the term "rapturous rote" Rosemarie?
>
>>  On Jul 7, 2009, at 1:54 PM, Rosemarie Morgan wrote:
>
>>Fascinating --
>>
>>I wouldn't say that Hardy's bird was learning by rote.
>
>
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Rosemarie Morgan
Research Fellow, Yale University
President, The Thomas Hardy Association
Editor, The Hardy Review
124 Bishop St, New Haven, CT 06511

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