(urth) flying ship
Jeff Wilson
jwilson at io.com
Mon Dec 3 20:57:44 PST 2007
Tony Ellis wrote:
> hartshorn wrote:
>
>> matthew at calmeilles.co.uk writes:
>
>>> What are people thinking when it says "fountain" here? An heraldic
> fountain is a bit odd.
>
>> The reference is surely to the Vatic fountain in the House Absolute (in
>> which a ship appears when S casts in a coin) So I asssume it's that type of
>> fountain.
>
>
> The reference is surely to the White Fountain, that being the great
> achievement of Severian's life and everything. :-)
>
> I don't know what it looks like but as with the flying ship I don't
> think it matters. It's what it symbolises that's significant.
However, a symbol has to be recognized and properly identified in order
to convey the intended meaning. I suppose the symbolism could be
intended solely for the reader and have no valid context in the
fictional setting but I think most of his readers would agree Wolfe is a
bit more careful than that.
--
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
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