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In Reply to: In the pedant mode: Actually, "persona" ... posted by old geezer on June 13, 2003 at 17:58:55:
Thank you for your intention to clarify what you took for a wrong assumption on my side about the origin, and meaning, of that word.But it happens that I was not being pedantic, nor wrong. Please look at the document in the link, and there you´ll find (second page, second paragraph, and third page) some details about the probable origin of the word "persona", which, not denying what you say, agree with what I had exposed in my futile attempt to explain why I liked that film, and maybe, just maybe will make clear what I was trying to say:
"...However, the concept person has a meaning complex whose core has at last two aspects. One of them is designated by the Latin persona (person), which is a composite of per/sonare meaning to sound through, as in the case of a mask through (per) which resounds (sonare) the voice of the actor. There is some doubt as to whether the origin of the world is Latin, since one view is that it is of Etruscan origin phersu (mask), and another is that phersu is borrowed from the Greek prosopon which means primarily mask, and secondarily the role played in the drama. Either way the institution of mask is a characteristic of each of these civilizations and suggests the notion of role (personage), type, or character when persona is used. That is, persona is understood as the image or mask superimposed on the individual...
The other aspect of the meaning complex is designated also by persona, and signifies the human and even divine personality (personnalité). The idea characterizing this aspect is that of tearing away superimposed layers. The objective is to lay bare the nature of the role-player, or to reach through to that which is one in itself (per se una) which is a whole..."
Now, that concept of "persona" happens to be crucial to the development of human beings when in a society, as it refers to the face we show to others, and which is slowly forged through our interaction with others, to make clear to them what are we claiming to be (what role we are playing) at each time; and thus, we show different personas in different situations, as a man can be a businessman (or an engineer, a physician, a soldier, a politician...), and a lover (or an enemy), and a father (or a son, a friend,...), and..., and depending on each situation, we play different roles, and show to others the persona corresponding to the role we are playing at that time.
We frequently see children as "more authentic", as they have not still developed different personas, and so they show themselves in a more spontaneous way. And we frequently complain about "the loss of innocence", what usually means that that child is no longer behaving in such a spontaneous way, but hiding himself behind some persona, and we no longer are seeing his true nature.
Developing personas, and using them in front of others, is not wrong in itself: actually, it is necessary when interacting with others, as it can smooth those interactions by giving others some cues about the role we are playing along these interactions. The problem develops when we become identified with roles, and we even think and feel ourselves not as individuals, but as role-players, thus depriving our actions, and ourselves, of authenticity: when that happens, we lose contact with our inner self, and then we are in risk of becoming just hollow masks, devoid of true contents, as our lives lose true meaning in the process, and we become fragmented, lacking unity and authenticity. And that is a bad thing.
And that is exactly what had happened to that man Schmidt, who had become so identified with his different roles, that he had built his whole life around them and, once the curtain fell for his persona as an insurance man (that´s how it all starts in the film, with Jack Nicholson sitting in front of a clock, waiting for the last minute in his working life, while not knowing that that same minute will be the first one in his forced search for himself), he finds out that his life, which he had structured around his job, is empty of true meaning, and he starts feeling that painful emptiness, and he then tries to come back to his working place, expecting to be accepted by some kind of counselor... to no effect, as this stage of his life has come to its natural end. He becomes first puzzled, then angry,..., but that door is firmly closed.
Then, a second persona falls down, when his wife suddenly dies, and he is left alone, once more pushed to confront his life, whose external structures are shattering, and falling into pieces..., and after a short time, he starts his journey, which becomes kind of an odissey, the details of which I´ll spare you now, and along this journey, his meeting with her own daughter, and that prodigious feminine, vital force Cathy Bates, and all his peripeteia, he slowly goes on, leaving aside persona after persona, which no longer will be of use to him, and is forced by life to meet himself, and become the man he really is: not an insurance man, not a husband, not just a father,..., but himself.
And then, and only then, his journey ends, and he can come back home, and face life. And prepare to accept death, as a necessary part of life itself.
Sorry for the long, boring explanation. But English is not my mother tongue, and I find it somewhat difficult to explain myself at times.
Regards
BF
Follow Ups:
It would have been unwarranted and disrespectful to address you in that fashion.Your points about the film are well taken and valid, regardless of whether one agrees with them or not. My comments did not go the merits of your arguments; I just found the etimology a little weird, and reading Khan's text confirms that impression. He indulges in some fancy homophonic games, such as "per se una", to bring grist to his mill ;-)
Let me ratchet up the pedantics a notch or two..
If "persona" comes from "prosopon" (which has "face, countenance, appearance, facial expression" as its primary meaning, while a more specific word for mask is "prosopeion": see Liddell-Scott, Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon,OUP), it is because it latinizes the Greek phoneme (or the Etruscan "phersu", assuming the latter comes from "prosopon"), not because of any semantic association with "personare" (sound through). No Latin dictionary I know makes the connection between "persona" and "personare".
Also, the Latin language had the word "prosopopoeia" (personification), imported straight from the Greek without channelling it through "persona".
BTW, as far as I'm concerned your English is as good as it gets in this forum. Remarkable, considering how arduous it is to demodulate from the patterns (and related cultural mindset) of a Romance language.
Sincerely,
og
Aren´t we?For, no matter the meanders the word has gone through, its actual meaning is the same, and it fits to the end I was using it for. Even the differences between "prosopon" and "prosopeion" are subtle to that effect, as both words designate aspects of the mask.
Yes, probably you are right and "prosopon" (or "prosopeion", if you so prefer) comes from "phersu", as in tragedy, which is at the root of theatre, and which is of Greek origin, when playing, actors always weared masks, just to make clear to the public who they were at that time: not just actors, saying words, but characters interacting in a way that would produce illumination through catarsis, thus changing for better the spectators themselves. And, being plays dedicated to a god, Dionysos, they probably adopted aspects of other religious plays, and the use of masks would be one of them. And later, the Latin word "persona" could have derived from "phersu", while with a meaning closer to the Greek word than to the Etruscan one, as "phersu", by what I´ve seen, is a ceremonial mask, making the wearer to become an impersonation of a demon, while the mask used by Greeks had a more terrenal meaning. And, more interesting, Etruscan language was not Indo-European, while both Greek and Latin were...
Anyhow, piqued by this apparent contradiction, I have been doing some search, and found a very interesting article, which gives more weight to your opinion (look at link). It is in Italian, but it´s worth the pains to translate it.
And the way I was using "persona" was as per the Oxford Dictionary, which says: "Persona: ... b. In Jungian psychology, the set of attitudes adopted by an individual to fit himself for the social role which he sees as his; the personality an individual presents to the world; also loosely. Opp. anima.", which coincides with Jung´s own description: "The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual.
"The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.305"Then, the relation to "per/sonare" is not philological, but an amplification to make more sense from a psychological point of view, as when wearing a mask, the wearer is speaking through it, and is not perceived as who he really is, but as the character he represents by wearing the mask..., and so, by adding this (accidental) aspect, the concept of "persona" is enriched.
Back to cinema, and if you are interested, there´s an excellent film by Kurosawa ("Kagemusha", 1980), in which the process of the wearer becoming identified with the mask he must wear is described in a most detailed, beautiful way.
Now, let me thank you for your most knowledgeable remarks, and for helping me learn a bit more on a most interesting matter!
With best regards
BF
To your post: It is with fun and satisfaction that I read your post.
It would have been unwarranted and disrespectful to address you in that fashion.Your points asbout the film are well taken and valid, regardless of whether one agrees with them or not. My comments did not go the merits of your arguments; I just found the etimology a little weird, and reading Khan's text confirms that impression. He indulges in some fancy homophonic games, such as "per se una", to bring grist to his mill ;-)
Let me ratchet up the pedantics a notch or two..
If "persona" comes from "prosopon" (which has "face, countenance, appearance, facial expression" as its primary meaning, while a more specific word for mask is "prosopeion": see Liddell-Scott, Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon,OUP), it is because it latinizes the Greek phoneme (or the Etruscan "phersu", assuming the latter comes from "prosopon"), not because of any semantic association with "personare" (sound through). No Latin dictionary I know makes the connection between "persona" and "personare".
Also, the Latin language had the word "prosopopoeia" (personification), imported straight from the Greek without channelling it through "persona".
BTW, as far as I'm concerned your English is as good as it gets in this forum. Remarkable, considering how arduous it is to demodulate from the patterns (and related cultural mindset) of a Romance language.
Sincerely,
og
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