Words, Words, Words

Abstract

The title of your conference this year indicates an issue that is fundamental to literary studies, that is, the way in which we approach the relationship between words and literature. This relationship is also fundamental to all language studies insofar as it is, more basically, about the relationship between words and the meanings we give to them.  My understanding of this is very simple point was summed up centuries ago in Hamlet’s devastatingly true reply to a question about literature posed by the characteristically verbose Polonius: “ What do you read, my lord?”, he asks.  To which Hamlet famously responds “Words, words, words.”