Paul,
Interesting essay, but there's some trouble in citing Gardner without questioning his points.
For example, the business with Shakespeare having language be subordinate to character is not so much of a fact of Shakespeare not being of the same school as the other authors listed, but the fact that Shakespeare was writing plays while the other were writing novels, and in a play you don't have the voice of the narrator, let alone viewpoint, which is the loom upon which all those marvelous language games get played. Unless your play's a dramatic monologue from a particularly high-fallutin' character.
As for randomly strung words producing meaning, I had that happen today. Spammers are now employing the infinite number of monkeys to assemble random message headers so at to get through anti-spam filters, such that a penis enlargement ad was titled "Unexpected Vatican Benefit."
But overall, an excellent essay with many good points.
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