Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Response to Ken's Blog that I would like to investigate further....
I think another thing to think about along the lines of property is who owns Pamela's letters? She is the author and the "publisher," but they are addressed to her parents (does this transfer the ownership?), but her Master "owns" her (so does this make him ultimately the owner of the letters???). There is a lot of debate about this throughout the book from the moment where we discover the master is intercepting the letters all the way until they get married. Pamela tries to take ownership of them and fights for the ownership, but is unsuccessful. She has to distribute them to an audience that she makes clear her letters were not intended for. I wonder how the Act of Anne would apply to this or what Locke would think. Renee talks about the ideas as property, but what about the physical letters she has to give up??? Who owns them???
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Carissa,
ReplyDeleteExcellent question! If you turned this question into an early 18th-century legal case in England, it would certainly induce some very interesting arguments from the respective "barristers" (lawyers) representing Pamela, her parents, and her "master." I don't know the answer, but it might be a great paper topic! You're very perceptive in recognizing that it might not be an argument "only" about physical property, but about "intellectual property," too (which, if it existed at all at the time in some very embryonic form, still certainly didn't mean the same thing then as it does to us now). Seems like the first question that would need to be answered from a legal standpoint would be, "Are the letters to be considered as 'property' in the 'physical' sense or in the 'abstract' (intellectual/idea) sense?" And that question cuts right to the heart of what our class has been all about this semester: the difference between what we tend to think of as "print culture" and "MATERIAL print culture."
From what Maruca told me, they were not considered property, but I am def exploring this letter thing since I have become utterly obsessed with them. I've really become attatched to this and really want to look at so much more than I can do in this short of time and in 10 pages. All these questions you have posed in response have been going round and round my head. I will def share my research (once I start it...lol).
ReplyDelete