Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 295.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2026-01-21 11:45:25+00:00
From: Mcgann, Jerome (jjm2f) <jjm2f@virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.293: on failure
Maurizio,
Briefly: “The Lamb” is in key respects a far more Trothful — more
affecting — poem than “The Tyger”. “Failure” is at the heart of “The Tyger” but
“The Lamb” lets the failing world see it needed worry about that. Troth is way
more helpful than Truth
Jerry
From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2026 at 4:12 AM
To: Mcgann, Jerome (jjm2f) <jjm2f@virginia.edu>
Subject: [Humanist] 39.293: on failure
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 293.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org<http://www.dhhumanist.org>
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2026-01-12 08:41:11+00:00
From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.279: In the wake of failure found & surviving
the past celebrated
hi Jerry,
speaking of failure at the heart of [society, people, etc.]
i cannot avoid mentioning the christian roots of our western culture
which are focused onto a radical failure which becomes the highest glory.
nor the pseudo-meme which unfortunately came to Europe from outside, of
"looser": you looser! you are a looser! i am a looser (it did come to
Europe, because let's say that when i was young this never was said).
the looser is one who encountered a failure.
and the fact that we all are here thanks to uncountable people who are
doing nothing but their normal tasks without any claim or recognition of
excellence (our primary schools teachers) - which brings to what Robert
Merton wrote in 1942 («A note on science and democracy». Journal of
legal and political sociology 1, fasc. 1 (1942): 115–26):
"The substantive findings of science are a product of social
collaboration and are assigned to the community."
let's say that those who make the substantive findings are the winners,
while those unnamed who constitute the "social collaboration" (the
baker, the school teacher, the men who maintain the roads, or drive the
train or the bus, the peasant which grows potatoes, etc.) are the
loosers whose names never will be known. but without these loosers no
finding, discovery, success, victory, will ever be possible for the
winners: would they be winners if they had to produce themselves their
food, or if they hadn't a road to go to their research institution?
Maurizio
Il 03/01/26 09:21, Humanist ha scritto:
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 279.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org<http://www.dhhumanist.org>
> Submit to:humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2025-12-31 12:12:53+00:00
> From: Mcgann, Jerome (jjm2f)<jjm2f@virginia.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.277: In the wake of failure found &
surviving the past celebrated
>
> I should probably note that the experiences and operations of “failure” have
> been at the heart of my work from the outset, though they only became its
major
> focus when John came to direct IATH in the early 90s. The topic runs through,
> often explicitly, in much of my work from my 1988 Clark Lectures Towards a
> Literature of Knowledge forward (the lectures were published in 1989). The
> issue is the main subject of this essay, which is consciously modeled on Henry
> Adams’ majestic autobiography.
>
> “The Poverty of Theory; or, The Education of Jerome McGann,” Theory
Development
> in the Human Sciences, ed. Diane H. Sonnenwald (U. of Texas Press: Austin, TX,
> 2016): 241-263.
>
> The work of two English poets, Blake and Byron, set my basic frame of
reference
> in the 1960s. Los(s) is Blake’s key artificer, and his task is to oversee the
> building of the mythic structure/city Golgonooza where he sets about "Giving a
> body to Falshood that it may be cast off for ever”, allowing the emergence of
> the redeemed human city, Jerusalem (the story is told in his illuminated work
> Jerusalem as well as other works, especially The Four Zoas (his great , never
> illuminated or printed, “failure” that, in my judgment, is in a salient view
his
> greatest single work.
>
> The career of Byron (from spectacular success to catastrophic failure) was
> remapped in his cultural history: from his 19th c pre-eminence to his virtual
> disappearance in the 20th c until the shift began in the late 1950s because of
> Leslie Marchand’s work. For me one of his greatest watchwords is this couplet
> from Don Juan: “In play there are two pleasures for your choosing/ The one is
> winning and the other, losing”.
>
> And of course Swinburne’s work and career have fascinated me as well for a
very
> long time. One of his finest works, “A Vision of Spring in Winter”, is a
> meditation on “the importance of failure”.
>
> Jerry
------------------------------------------------------------------------
the knowledge gap between rich and poor is widening
Witten & Bainbridge, How to build a digital library
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maurizio Lana
Università del Piemonte Orientale
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli
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