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Ordinary Language Philosophy & Literary Studies Online

Wittgenstein, the private language argument, and the lyric I

At first sight, the first-person voice in a lyric poem and Wittgenstein’s private language argument pull in opposite directions. A poem seems to grant immediate access to an individual consciousness: its speaker names an experience no one else can verify. Wittgenstein asks whether signs used only by one person can acquire determinate meaning through that person’s responses to sensation.

The connection becomes clearer when the poem’s “I” is treated as a linguistic practice rather than a transparent window onto its author. That is an ordinary-language question with literary consequences: interpretation can ask what the first person does, how its words borrow conventions from lyric and dramatic forms, and whether private experience can become publicly intelligible without losing its singularity.

Meaning and the solitary signer

In Philosophical Investigations, §243, Wittgenstein describes someone who labels a sensation and then uses a remembered sensation as the standard for calling the label correct. Without an independent check, the present experience cannot confirm that the remembered and current cases are alike. The case does not show that solitary thinkers are impossible; it asks whether a private ostensive definition can make a sign genuinely linguistic rather than a private notation.

The stakes concern rules and correctness. If “this” means this pain only for its maker, with no shared practice of use, the maker can perhaps react to the mark but cannot establish what would count as following the rule correctly. Ordinary words can enter deeply personal lives, yet their meanings remain answerable to uses, corrections and forms of life beyond the moment of private sensation.

The lyric I and its public conditions

A lyric “I” is not simply a psychological label. It may name a biographical speaker, perform a role, address someone else, or organise a poem’s temporal perspective. This indexical pronoun is grammatically singular, yet its apparent directness depends on pronouns, tense, syntax and genre: readers recognise a first person through conventions they already share.

This public scaffolding is evident in Australian poetry. In Gwen Harwood’s “The Mother,” a first-person persona speaks through mythic dialogue; the poem gives the persona grief and authority without requiring access to Harwood’s private memories. Readers assess the voice through dramatic structure, imagery and tonal changes, rather than through an ostensive definition available only to its maker.

The lyric I is therefore simultaneously singular and public. It presents a position from which something is said, while the possibility of saying it depends on linguistic resources and possible addressees. Personal association may enrich the poem, but it cannot by itself establish a private criterion of meaning.

Poems as language games

Wittgenstein’s language games in Philosophical Investigations locate rule-following inside activities: counting, building, playing, narrating and making guesses. A lyric poem likewise joins activities that include composing, performing, reading aloud, annotating and publishing. Metre, stanza, allusion, address and genre create expectations without dictating one interpretation.

This framing changes the question asked of a poem’s first person. Interpretation has standards: some readings fit a word’s ordinary sense, literary history and formal pattern better than others. Yet those standards do not operate like an algorithm that converts a private experience into meaning. Interpretation is a practice with shared criteria, and individual responses remain revisable rather than sovereign.

Cavell and the ethics of address

Stanley Cavell’s writing on the lyric voice treats poetic speech as more than a vehicle for propositions. When a poem speaks in the first person, it can be heard not merely as information about a speaker but as an address that asks for attention and a response. Its singularity is framed by the possibility of being answered, even when no literal addressee appears.

Cavell’s approach sharpens the contrast with a wholly private sign. A private sensation may be ineffable, but a lyric utterance makes a claim from a position and enters relations of meaning, testimony and response. The ethical issue is not whether readers can feel exactly what the speaker feels; it is how they take the utterance, including its possible demand on them. Lyric form makes the ordinary-language question of response inescapable.

A practical Australian reading pathway

For scholars and students in Australia, the topic crosses familiar archives and institutions. The following sequence offers a workable route through primary texts, literary criticism and local collections.

AustLit indexes Australian scholarship, while the National Library of Australia’s Trove connects books, journals and newspapers with digitised cultural collections. The Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) allows fair dealing for research and study, criticism and review under stated conditions; for other material, scholars can use permissions, interlibrary loan or licensed databases. This research often fits an ordinary weekday rhythm: a train or tram to campus, a library hold placed online and a specialist book ordered from a university press, Readings, QBD Books or an independent Australian bookseller.

Take part in the OLP conversation

A focused seminar can bring the issue to life by placing a short lyric beside §243 and separating what the poem communicates, what its “I” performs and what its form makes sayable. Comparing interpretations then shows how shared conventions can guide reading without eliminating disagreement.

Explore the OLP & Literary Studies Online archive, curated bibliographies and resources for students and scholars on Cavell and Wittgenstein. Subscribe for conference calls, reviews and lectures, and contribute a concise response or paper proposal that brings lyric voice into the continuing debate about criteria of meaning.