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57<br />
"the whole question of pornography seems to me a question<br />
of secrecy. Without secrecy there would be no pornography.'<br />
•••<br />
This ’dirty little secret* has become infinitely precious<br />
to the mob of people today."(PAO 71)<br />
Lawrence goes on to say that “the mob knows all about obscenity“<br />
(PAO 65) and "when it comes to the so-called obscene<br />
words, (I) should say that hardly one person in a million escapes<br />
mob-reaction.** (PAO 67) Ana to define “obscene” is perhaps more<br />
difficult than to define “pornography11.<br />
According to the Oxford<br />
Dictionary the term comes from the Latin obscenus. or ob+scena.<br />
Lawrence understands it as “that which might not be represented<br />
on the stage.“(PAO 61*) In this case, Lawrence probably is simply<br />
describing what happened in the late 1700*s, when the censors<br />
ascribed their power over English drama. If he is working from<br />
the genetic meaning of the word, I cannot entirely agree with him,<br />
or his definition is not clear enough. Scena means “stage”, but<br />
ob means “in front of!t, “in direction to“, or “because of“.<br />
preposition - ob - changed its semantic value inside Latin, for<br />
the adjective obscenus already had the meaning “dirty, ugly,<br />
filthy, funest, dishonest, impudent, lewd“ in Latin. By analogy<br />
This<br />
we can say that ob never changed its meaning to a negative value,<br />
i.e., “out of“,"contrary to“, or “in opposition to“.<br />
See, for<br />
instance, obvius - “obvious"? that which goes to meet something;<br />
obstare - to be in front of, hence the English “obstacle“;<br />
obscurus, in the dark or invisible because of the dark, hence the<br />
English “obscure“.<br />
So, I would say that the original meaning of<br />
“obscene“ was that which happens, is said or is represented in<br />
front of the stage or because of the stage representation.<br />
or