ABSTRACT
A consequence of the same metaphorical organization of the different fields has been an identification, through the symbolic opposition of light and darkness, of their respective terms. Truth, goodness and lucidity fall together in the sunlight, just as falsehood, evil and obscurity fall together in the shade. The rationalist demand for clarity is what underpins Middleton Murry’s ideal of good style as a proposition in Euclid. Behind the powerful desire for clarity there is all the combined force of the moral and pragmatic indictment of obscurity. Obscurity is used, in a wide range of different ways, to produce new kinds of significance. Again this is the opposite of many previous moments when a new way of seeing gave rise to charges of obscurity from contemporaries. Only in the analysis of diverse forms and uses of obscurity can we understand this fundamental aspect of modern writing.
