[{"node":{"title":"Parker005","Collections":"Hopdance","Contributor":"Linen Hall Library","Coverage":"1970","Creator":"Linen Hall Library","Date":"Tuesday, April 26, 2016","Format":"TIFF","Identifier":"Parker005","Item Description":"Manuscript","Keywords":"Student, Beckett","Language":"English","Path":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/parker005","Publisher":"Linen Hall Library","Relation":"Linen Hall Library","Rights":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA","Scanned image":{"src":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Parker005_0.jpg","alt":""},"Source":"LHL Archive","Transcript":"\ufeff- 3 -\n    -Then you are either a remarkably obtuse young man, since tradition is\nof course synonymous with meaning, or else a deliberate solipsist, which\nappears the more likely case whilst being an equally inappropriate position\nfor an honours student in this Department, Cuddling his knees closer, the\nsneery grin widening to fill the whole room.\n\n There was a paper to be turned in for each of the three terms, Tosh\nhad elected to write his first one on the Scots Border ballad of Thomas\nRhymer, provoking Larmour's gleeful scorn.\n\n -You don\u2019t consider a solitary ballad rather a meagre subject, Mr,\n\nTosh?\n\n -It\u2019s a far from meagre poem.\n\n -It is undoubtedly a fine flower of the oral tradition, but it will\nscarcely sustain the same degree of detailed scrutiny as a conscious\nliterary artefact,\n\n -That\u2019s only one of the things which I admire about it.\n\n -You are not intending to rhapsodise over the beauty of its impersonal\nvoice for the entire three thousand words?\n\n Tosh launching his offensive.\n\n -The ballads are not impersonal, Least of all this one. It\u2019s a pre-\npersonal voice. It pre-dates the psychological need for signature. It has no\nvestige of signature, and yet it has a clear distinctive unmistakable voice,\na tone all its own. A point of view. The view of a whole community\ncrystallised into a single voice, It is pre-personal, by the same token that\nBeckett\u2019s work is post-personal.\n\n -That should certainly get us to the bottom of page one, once you\nhave finished defining your terms. What else?\n\n -Thomas lies on Huntley Bank. He spies a woman riding towards him,\n","Type":"Text"}}]