James Boyd White’s study of the relationship between the ‘law’ and the language is fascinating and revelatory in the first part, and meaningless and misleading in the second. The dividing line between the two seems to be the jump from the ancient to the modern; I have written previously here of White’s astute understanding of the roles of the philosopher, historian, and poet — of Socrates, Thucydides, and Homer. But the modern world seems to perplex him, for it is here that language for him seems to truly lose its meaning, and a fealty to reading and comprehension’s basic principles rather evasive. It is his essay on Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolutions of France that causes the greatest pain, and reduces Burke’s mastery of the English language to a debased sophistry.
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