Beginnings

Question 1

Edward W. Said on ‘Beginnings’

Answer 1

‘A beginning is a first step in the intentional production of meaning’.

Question 2

Beginnings vs Origin

Answer 2

Culture is always, necessarily, a translational phenomenon.
No culture exists without another - the idea of borrowing stories etc from other places.

Question 3

‘Beginning and beginning - again are historical whereas origins are divine’ Edward W. Said

Answer 3

Origins are a kind of myth (e.g the Big Bang or Creation in Genesis).
Beginnings are plural, multiple and open to interpretation.
For Said, beginnings are ambiguous.

Question 4

Idea of multiple beginnings

Answer 4

The idea of a gap between two tenologies.

Question 5

Syuzhet meaning

Answer 5

The events of a narrative in the order in which they are told to us.

Question 6

Fabula meaning

Answer 6

The events of a narrative in the order in which they ‘actually happened’.

Question 7

‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth’ - Genesis

Answer 7

Leaves no ambiguity about the beginning.
T Eagleton claims the sense that stories begin with the creation of worlds - made literal in the quote.

Question 8

Some beginnings pretend they’re not the beginning

Answer 8

Idea of being thrust into a world that already exists.
‘Who’s there?’ - the first line of Hamlet.