Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by orejones (D) on June 15, 2003 at 10:30:30

In Reply to: Clarification: I was referring to *myself* as being in the pedant mode ;-) posted by old geezer on June 14, 2003 at 12:48:00:

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

• Prosopon, Phersu, Persona