Opsimathy

Sun, Jul 13, 2008

I applaud the OED lexicographers who cite the recently departed Thomas Disch’s Camp Concentration in the entry for “opsimath.” They believe that everything rational must come into being.

My own opsimathy will extend to botany, as I have decided that I want to be able to identify every plant species growing in my yard, out of some proto-Adamic impulse or another. I hope to be able to fold the taxonomic aspects of this learning into a project on the cladistics of genre and narrative technique, such speculations suggested originally by Moretti’s GMT.