Kern Your Enthusiasm (23)

By: Whitney Trettien
August 23, 2014

wilkins-550

One of 25 installments in a series of posts analyzing and celebrating a few of our favorite (and least favorite) typefaces.

WILKINS’S REAL CHARACTER | JOHN WILKINS | 1668

It was the 1660s in London, and philosophy needed fixing. In the wake of Francis Bacon’s “great instauration,” the Royal Society had begun a program to improve natural knowledge by grounding it in experiment and observation. But, pondered John Wilkins, what good were these experiments if one couldn’t precisely communicate their results to others? Spoken language is too slippery, and written language too inconsistent, with vowels and consonants “promiscuously huddled together.” To advance knowledge, science needed an equally advanced system of communication — one in which the babble of words dissolves into the material certainty of things.

In his Essay Toward a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668), Wilkins designs this system. He begins by enumerating the entire known universe, hierarchically subdividing all things according to a binary system of difference. For instance, a “tiger” is a viviparous (rather than oviparous), cloven-footed (rather than whole-footed), rapacious cat-kind beast, with shorter legs but a larger body than other cats, characterized by its spots. Each of these distinguishing traits then forms the basis for a particular mark or diacritic within the signifying ideograph, the “real character.” Anyone who knows the system could, in theory, decode a given character’s meaning — decode its place in the world’s natural hierarchy — regardless of his mother tongue. Thus Wilkins fixes and universalizes scientific communication by tethering orthography to ontology, building each signifier out of a natural description of the thing it signifies.

To cut the type, Wilkins enlisted Joseph Moxon, a hydrographer and printer who would later pen a Vitruvian treatise on the beauty of letterforms. The resulting characters dance like stick figures across the walls of a fire-lit cave. While they aren’t beautiful, exactly, there’s something pleasingly kinetic, even mystical in their permutations. Angles, lines, and curls merge, disassemble, then recombine in a cabalistic ballet of symbols, each new combination signaling a shuffle in the fundamental matter of reality. The idea of a divinely perfect Adamic language enamored Wilkins, as it did many of his contemporaries; to recover this prelapsarian system of communication would be to rediscover the natural order of the universe, to read the Book of Nature with godly eyes, solving the mysteries of science.

Perusing Moxon’s type today, I don’t find Adam in the Garden of Eden but a grotesque admixture of semi-Hebraic marks and proofing symbols, rooted in Restoration-era beliefs about print, science, and the mysteries of nature. As ideographs, Wilkins’ failed characters ironically signify the limits of their human maker, drawing attention to their own historical contingency — which is, of course, precisely why they continue to captivate us.

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2014: KERN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (typefaces): Matthew Battles on ALDINE ITALIC | Adam McGovern on DATA 70 | Sherri Wasserman on TORONTO SUBWAY | Sarah Werner on JOHNSTON’S “HAMLET” | Douglas Wolk on TODD KLONE | Mark Kingwell on GILL SANS | Joe Alterio on AKZIDENZ-GROTESK | Suzanne Fischer on CALIFORNIA BRAILLE | Gary Panter on SHE’S NOT THERE | Deb Chachra on FAUX DEVANAGARI | Peggy Nelson on FUTURA | Tom Nealon on JENSON’S ROMAN | Rob Walker on SAVANNAH SIGN | Tony Leone on TRADE GOTHIC BOLD CONDENSED NO. 20 | Chika Azuma on KUMON WORKSHEET | Chris Spurgeon on ELECTRONIC DISPLAY | Amanda French on DIPLOMA REGULAR | Steve Price on SCREAM QUEEN | Alissa Walker on CHICAGO | Helene Silverman on CHINESE SHIPPING BOX | Tim Spencer on SHATTER | Jessamyn West on COMIC SANS | Whitney Trettien on WILKINS’S REAL CHARACTER | Cintra Wilson on HERMÈS vs. HOTDOG | Jacob Covey on GOTHAM.

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2013: HERC YOUR ENTHUSIASM (old-school hip hop tracks): Luc Sante on “Spoonin’ Rap” | Dallas Penn on “Rapper’s Delight” | Werner Von Wallenrod on “Rappin’ Blow” | DJ Frane on “The Incredible Fulk” | Paul Devlin on “The Adventures of Super Rhyme” | Phil Dyess-Nugent on “That’s the Joint” | Adam McGovern on “Freedom” | David Abrams on “Rapture” | Andrew Hultkrans on “The New Rap Language” | Tim Carmody on “Jazzy Sensation (Bronx Version)” | Drew Huge on “Can I Get a Soul Clap” | Oliver Wang on “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” | Douglas Wolk on “Making Cash Money” | Adrienne Crew on “The Message” | Dart Adams on “Pak Jam” | Alex Belth on “Buffalo Gals” | Joshua Glenn on “Ya Mama” | Phil Freeman on “No Sell Out” | Nate Patrin on “Death Mix Live, Pt. 2” | Brian Berger on “White Lines (Don’t Do It)” | Cosmo Baker on “Here We Go (Live at the Funhouse)” | Colleen Werthmann on “Rockit” | Roy Christopher on “The Coldest Rap” | Dan Reines on “The Dream Team is in the House” | Franklin Bruno on The Lockers.

2012: KIRK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (Captain Kirk scenes): Dafna Pleban: Justice or vengeance? | Mark Kingwell : Kirk teaches his drill thrall to kiss | Nick Abadzis: “KHAAAAAN!” | Stephen Burt: “No kill I” | Greg Rowland: Kirk browbeats NOMAD | Zack Handlen: Kirk’s eulogy for Spock| Peggy Nelson: The joke is on Kirk | Kevin Church: Kirk vs. Decker | Enrique Ramirez: Good Kirk vs. Evil Kirk | Adam McGovern: Captain Camelot | Flourish Klink: Koon-ut-kal-if-fee | David Smay: Federation exceptionalism | Amanda LaPergola: Wizard fight | Steve Schneider: A million things you can’t have | Joshua Glenn: Debating in a vacuum | Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons: Klingon diplomacy | Trav S.D.: “We… the PEOPLE” | Matthew Battles: Brinksmanship on the brink | Annie Nocenti: Captain Smirk | Ian W. Hill: Sisko meets Kirk | Gabby Nicasio: Noninterference policy | Peter Bebergal: Kirk’s countdown | Matt Glaser: Kirk’s ghost | Joe Alterio: Watching Kirk vs. Gorn | Annalee Newitz: How Spock wins

2011: KIRB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (Jack Kirby panels): Douglas Rushkoff on THE ETERNALS | John Hilgart on BLACK MAGIC | Gary Panter on DEMON | Dan Nadel on OMAC | Deb Chachra on CAPTAIN AMERICA | Mark Frauenfelder on KAMANDI | Jason Grote on MACHINE MAN | Ben Greenman on SANDMAN | Annie Nocenti on THE X-MEN | Greg Rowland on THE FANTASTIC FOUR | Joshua Glenn on TALES TO ASTONISH | Lynn Peril on YOUNG LOVE | Jim Shepard on STRANGE TALES | David Smay on MISTER MIRACLE | Joe Alterio on BLACK PANTHER | Sean Howe on THOR | Mark Newgarden on JIMMY OLSEN | Dean Haspiel on DEVIL DINOSAUR | Matthew Specktor on THE AVENGERS | Terese Svoboda on TALES OF SUSPENSE | Matthew Wells on THE NEW GODS | Toni Schlesinger on REAL CLUE | Josh Kramer on THE FOREVER PEOPLE | Glen David Gold on JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY | Douglas Wolk on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY | MORE EXEGETICAL COMMENTARIES: Joshua Glenn on Kirby’s Radium Age Sci-Fi Influences | Chris Lanier on Kirby vs. Kubrick | Scott Edelman recalls when the FF walked among us | Adam McGovern is haunted by a panel from THE NEW GODS | Matt Seneca studies the sensuality of Kirby’s women | Btoom! Rob Steibel settles the Jack Kirby vs. Stan Lee question | Galactus Lives! Rob Steibel analyzes a single Kirby panel in six posts | Danny Fingeroth figgers out The Thing | Adam McGovern on four decades (so far) of Kirby’s “Fourth World” mythos | Jack Kirby: Anti-Fascist Pipe Smoker