Creative
Spontaneity
 |
| Emile Zola |
It has become my interest whether to engage in
this topic or not. Nevertheless, the need for me to explicate with delicate
detail the position in which I took regarding the concept of literature.
The
question remains in our minds on how we should appreciate a piece of writing in
any form (excluding poetry). The teachers of our institute relay to us that the
most sublime is the most simple and what tickles the common interest of the
general public. Indeed, the way books are devoured by dozens of people indicate
that each has his own taste yet a few have came out of the fore to be enjoyed
by many and have survived the test of time thus making it sublime. Longinus
indeed was writing about this same thing. Time tests the immortality of a writer.
The survival of Dante’s Inferno gave
us the proof that Longinus might be right in some sense. I shall explicate in
this short treatise that in every way Longinus and our teacher is wrong.
The Bane of
Simplicity
Less is more this is a community favourite
and indeed how many artists have engaged n less expression and less output of
product. The unfolding of being indeed follows a rhythmic step of showing and
hiding itself again in the crepes dwelling on the show where the darkness of
anonymity hides us from the majestic entourage of being. Yet, in our life the
expression of a person is more important than the language. Although, it points
us as if in a vehicle to the meaning yet the meaning indicated by the use
itself brings us to the confusion and thus we have made methods to bring it out
of the open and this method I will tell you is more than having a critical
mind.
The
teacher told us to keep it simple and expurgate any form of complicacy of
thought or any other form of eloquence. Eloquence is simplicity and we can
converse the two as much as we want. The logic stays the same. In Longinus, the
use of language is supposed to be limited to what is needed and apt for the
situation. Indeed, he calls us to use only the apt words in prose.
Since then, even in tragedy where the natural dignity of the subject makes a swelling diction allowable we cannot pardon a tasteless grandiloquence.[1]
When he meant swelling diction, he suggests that
the writer should pick the right words in a piece of writing. Diction indeed,
is an issue among writers themselves. The use of language is confusing and
oftentimes what triumphs are the conventional and not the obscure and the
queer. Longinus advices the writers to avoid the use of such an overblown
style, in contemporary terms and especially in our institute, we are advised to
go for the simple.
In
Strunk’s Elements of Style, the
writer is advised to keep it simple and cut down the unessential. Omit needless words. These are the words
that would stick your mind as the book progresses and the teacher incessantly
insists upon these concepts. The simplicity of a particular writing can be
subjective. In a sense, the simple can be complicated and the complicated can
be simple. It is reciprocal in its essence. Yet, the judgement of whether this
writing is simple and complicated lies deeply in the distant rooms of the human
person reading.
When
I read a particular piece, what do I experience? This might be the apt question
for now as we dissect the reading subject and bring into the fore the
phenomenon of reading and its connection with understanding itself and the
judgement of its simplicity. The reading subject sits on the chair and focuses
his eyes on the jumble of words and paragraphs called a book. He reads the
meaning of the words as they generate a meaning to his mind. Whether Werther
was a pervert or a love obsessed person does not matter in its truth in the
mind. The existence of Werther’s perversity or his obsession is not the issue
rather the conscious reader finds in the text the behaviour of Werther. In this
sense, even Freud knew that Oedipus married his mother unknown to him that she
was his mother. Since Freud had already made an interpretation of this work in
lieu of his Oedipus complex it is
necessary for us now to indicate that Freud interprets Sophocles in lieu of his
psycho-analysis. Thus, the psycho-analyst who interprets with the spectacles of
a psycho-analyst gets a piece of writing that is psycho-analytic (in the case
of Freud). The use of words does not contribute to this meaning generation
rather it is the spontaneity of thought that generates this phenomenon. Freud
read Sophocles whether the question he read it better than I do is not
important rather the interpretation itself sheds a light of thought in the generation
of meaning itself. So, is there an objective standard in indicating that there
is an ideal deducible metaphysical principle to which we can grant to a piece
of writing that it is simple? Definitely not, rather it is the affective side
of the reader that generates meaning. In this sense the generation of
complicated interpretations summons the profundity of the text. If on the other
hand we have interpreted Inferno as
something theological and everyone attunes to this interpretation is it
sublime? If literature simply possesses a synchronic existence and there is no
place for duality then it is no piece of literature rather it descends into a
hodgepodge of ideological mumbo jumbo. What then is its difference with
propaganda?
Returning
to Longinus, common appreciation is the key to the sublime.
When the effect is not sustained beyond the mere act of perusal but, when a
passage is pregnant in suggestion, when it is hard nay impossible to distract
the attention from it and when it takes hold on the memory then we may be sure
that we have lighted on the true sublime.[2]
The inference to memory is important in the
cultural impact of a piece of literature. Before the invention of printing,
memory is placed as a valuable tool in the art of oration. The way in which an
orator can bring into the living world the memory of the past is a measure of
his skill in oratory.[3]
Collective consciousness plays an
important role in the appreciation and immortality of a literary piece. How
often have I entered into polemics that this is wrong! The want of many versus
the want of micro collectives places us into a parallel position in the
existence of literature in a social dimension.
Addressing
this particular topic, It would be important infer to what Sartre does in his essay
Why write. A writer writes as much as
a painter paints the world in front of him. Both the painter and the writer
produce an image. While the painter made a picture for the eyes, the writer
paints a picture in the mind. The artist paints a hovel yet the hovel stays as
a hovel and no significance is ever there to tickle the reader.[4]
The writer can generate symbols out of a simple picture or a simple concept and
unleash a bombardment of meanings. Let us take an example from Emile Zola’s Nana chapter 14:
Venus was decomposing: the germs which she had picked up from the carrion people allowed to moulder in the gutter, the ferment which had infected a whole society, seemed to have come to the surface of her face and rotted it. The room was empty. From the boulevard below there came a great desperate gasp, making the curtains billow. ‘On to Berlin! On to Berlin! On to Berlin![5]’
Here, Zola paints the death of Nana. Should the
ending be tragic or is it a transition? The question remains. The reader might
infer to the proposition that the words ‘on to Berlin’ footnotes one of Zola’s
other works most obviously The Debacle.
Will the death of an anti-heroine be a tragedy? We can have multiple
interpretations of this particular verse which can range from the freewheeling
to the most critical.
What
is our point of emphasis here? Simplicity is a sin against literature. To aim
for simplicity is to aim for mediocrity. What then is the difference of me
writing and me speaking in front of you; the voice of my lips, the movements of
my body? In writing the writer is in praxis, the intention behind every word is
hidden from plain view. The reader seeks this very meaning in which the writer
hides in his novel or short story. If simplicity is to be followed then
literature would descend into the level of gossip. Should it be like gossiping
that to be literary is to be like the seller of fish? Indeed not!
Words and
Diction
Here we shall address again the
second issue to which our concern takes us i.e. on diction and how we should
pick the right words. I have said above that Longinus advises the writer to
avoid the useless eloquence of speech. This is ambiguous because in another
passage he says
I shall now proceed to enumerate the five principal sources as we may call them from which almost all sublimity is derived assuming of course the preliminary gift on which all these five sources depend, namely command of language. The first and the most important is grandeur of thought...The third is a certain artifice in the employment of figures which are of two kinds, figures of thought and figures of speech. The fourth is dignified expression which is subdivided into two parts the proper choice of words and the use of metaphors and other ornaments of diction.[6]
Longinus expresses with strong insistence on the
use of words as the true constituent of a sublime piece of literature. Indeed,
we might agree on him on the use of metaphors and the use of eloquent speech.
However, if interpreted with an eye for simplicity it is simplicity that he
might be insisting. The way in which information is disseminated is part of the
ideological utilization of language. Indeed, if we propose that a particular
word point us to an idea x and not to an idea y. Then the idea x gets much
attention and y descends into freewheelingness and arbitrariness. How then
should it be interpreted? The question of interpretation is within the grounds
of language and the use of language is supposed to signify us to somewhere and
point to a reality as Augustine emphasized then everything is to be direct. The
straight discourse of the modern literary theory places emphasis on straight direct to the point discussion and
places no outlet for different paths of interpretation.
The
choice of words then is placed as the point of debate. What words were to be
chosen? Rather should we ask how should words be chosen? Here the question of
utilization comes out of the dark recesses of the writer’s mind. If Zola
altered the words in the final paragraph of Nana
will the effect be the same so as to indicate the death of a social germ?
Definitely not, here the words create the mental images that emboss pictures in
the mind. As much as the painter generates a visual picture with his palate and
his brush, the writer generates a picture within the mind yet that picture is
not void of meaning. Sartre emphasizes the muteness of painting and visual arts
the image is an image yet the tumult in the subject is not summoned unlike the
words of the writer. If we read the words of Marx: “A spectre is haunting
Europe.[7]” Does the picture of a man
holding a rifle or a worker wearing a red scarf change my conception of it?
Does the armed man raise my hearts into a fit of rage? No, the words of Marx
unleashed the person into a fit of rage that he would have a 180 degree turn
and thus remove himself away from the corrupt society of his period.
Marx’s
choice of words is indeed useful for us here. The utilization of the words spectre is utilized in such a way that
the importance of the small thing that haunts Europe is elevated as the great
event that would soon unleash the praxis of the working class. The word spectre
brought us into the idea of revolution. If Marx used the word: “a small thing
haunts Europe” would the effect be
still the same that it would introduce us into the most important document of
political writing? Definitely not, for the word of Marx is as perfect as it can
be showing the meaning that he wanted to convey.
This
proves my theory is right. Writing is a relative skill as much as a blacksmith
would utilize different techniques to produce the same product is the writer
with his words. When I mean x will I use a literal meaning y? The interplay of
words would mean nothing if the writing activity itself follows a linear
movement. If to say x is to bring me to y, then what is the difference between
literature and gossip? What is the difference between a novel and a hodgepodge
of words written on paper? Here the rhetorical device of the writer is utilized
up to its biggest potential. Meaning x can be meant without telling a literal
narrative y. Longinus then in his concept of diction swelling is completely and
utterly absurd, so much is Strunkian writing sense. Words do not necessarily
mean the same as applied into literature. The use of words in a particular writing
implies that the word itself undergoes a metamorphosis. The dictionary meaning
loses its sense and is juxtaposed somewhere. The word loses its original
meaning and assumes a different meaning and symbolizes another thing that would
in some sense be different to what the word originally meant in the first
place. Fr. Mike’s lectures on the concept of sapere[8] indicate that
knowledge possesses a certain taste in the knower. If the words of Marx were to
be changed as I have mentioned above would be changed the impact and the
affective relation of the sentence to the reader loses its sense.
Thus,
diction simply exists in relativity. No one has the power to omit needless
words and the question remains is it needless? The use of a word indicates the
writer or the enunciator’s claim. Thus, as Frege says:
In writing, the words are in this case enclosed in quotation marks. Accordingly, a word standing between quotation marks must not be taken in its original meaning.[9]
Regardless, of the conventions of writing, diction
will always remain as the sole property of the writer.
Creative
Spontaneity
This
part leads us to the most important part of the article. Above, I have
enumerated that there is no objective rule to which a writer can ascribe
himself. There is no rule rather the writer is tasked of putting himself and
only himself on paper. Here the fundamental question is the placement of the
writer. Where is the writer? Is he simply a person who holds a pen or types in
a computer? The question of personage indeed is the problem here. If a person
writes a note on the floor saying SHIT does it indicate him as a writer? Is a
writer focused on politics, philosophy, criticism et cetera? Indeed the
question brings us to the problem of personage. Who is the writer? Again, we
may ask a very stupid question here but who is the writer in reality? Suppose a
picture of man holding a pen and another just sitting or maybe holding a bottle
of beer, who is the writer? The one holding the pen or maybe the one sitting is
the answer. Is it a question of distinction? What is the difference between
Shakespeare and the tabloid article writer? Who is the greatest or is anyone
the greatest at all? The inquiries we have in our mind should persist but as
time progresses like a river and life slowly ebbs away from our grasp the
question is the identity of the one who embossed a few letters into paper and
made out of that meagre sign a literary piece. Suppose you see a handwritten
manuscript by Tolstoy. Immediately you would worship the paper and yell at
anyone that what you are holding is a Tolstoy note. Yet, if you see a person’s
notebook undistinguished that he is and dismiss him as a fool would the effect
be still the same?
Again,
who is the writer? Is to abide by a rule and by some conventions place you as a
writer? Is to be easily understood a measure for your identity? What should
writing constitute then?
Homer’s
poem speaks to us this day. For thousands of years, the verses of Homer are
still alive. No one can easily grasp a certain passage and say that this is its
meaning. We are still at awe at the way in which Homer characterized Achilles
and the interplay of imagination and impressive wordplay is involved in the
fascination of the mind. Franz Kafka, his novels and short stories captivate
the reader because of his melancholic narrative. The struggle of K to enter the
castle, what does it mean? Even the most impressive of critics cannot unlock
what Kafka really meant yet we award persons who write like Kafka and we even
have the word Kafkaesque. Even if we
read Kafka in German appreciating it in its true vitality, it seems
insufficient.
Should
these persons lose their identity because they have not been understood fully?
Suppose that I have read a Meier novel in the twilight series. A single volume has more than 500 pages. Indeed
each novel in the twilight series is
a long novel. It gained popular notice and there is no doubt that Meier is
already bathing in royalties from the books and the movies based on her novels.
Nicholas Sparks is an ideal example of a love story writer. He has many novel
and they have enjoyed familiarity among young teenagers in search of love.
These persons are appreciated today. Meier is a modern storyteller of vampires
and Werewolves and Humans. Sparks is a modern love bard. However, what
separates a Meier novel from Stoker’s Dracula
which started the whole vampire craze in the first place? What is the
difference between Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili[10] with Sparks’ novels,
both are tragic? This leads us to the question I have already raised above,
i.e. should familiarity be the measure?
Here
we have a guide to which we can again reposition the writer’s situation: 1. the
use of narrative and 2. the writer’s telos.
What
is the difference between noise and music, literature from architecture, and
sculpture from engineering? Stand by the hut and imagine the greatness of the
surroundings. What do you see, the plants, flowers, trees, the person with a
pen? All of these things are constituted in a great bowl that holds everything
yet, who shows us this bowl, which is the question we are contemplating. What
is this world? Even if I show it my film would not suffice. Even if I have
colour film I cannot contain the whole world into reels of film containing the
earth’s bounds. Simply it is black and white, without meaning and without sense
there are simply mute images of the earth. It is mere parroting. When I read
Kafka’s The Castle, what do I read
about? Is it about the sinister unnamed chapters the number and the like or is
it the meaning I relate with it. Objectively speaking, hermeneutics does
whatever it can to unlock the objective meaning of a particular text. If to say
word x in reference to meaning z and context y then it has a meaning in
connection with z and y, should there be a synchrony first or a diachrony of
meaning? This indeed is the problem and Ricoeur highlights this.
For the interpreter, it is the text which has multiple of meaning; the problem of multiple meaning is posed for him only if what is being considered is a whole in which events, persons, institutions and natural or historical realities are articulated. It is an entire economy an entire signifying rule, which lends itself to the transfer of meaning from the historical to the spiritual level......Today double meaning is no longer simply a problem of exegesis in the biblical or even the secular sense of the term rather it is an inter disciplinary problem.[11]
The problem of multiple interpretations and the establishment
of an objective literary message indeed is a problem. In the interpretation of
the bible, it is necessary indeed that one has to look for metaphors and
allegories. Literal interpretation also is an alternative but it does not work
always. Thus, authors of writing manuals stress the need for vigorous writing.
Writing which is concise and straight. This makes writing the same with
mathematics. If 1+1=2 then should writing follow the same paradigm? Word x
should lead us to meaning y, the interplay of words following a linear diagram
that when I want to go to the start to point a I can by just following the
linear movement. If that were to be the case then writing and literature itself
is as precise as mathematics. To say x is to mean y, the straight to the point
discourse is what the modern pedagogues envisioned. Vigorous writing is concise says Strunk. However, should it be as
straight and mathematical?
To
answer this question goes deep into the writer’s very substance. To answer this
problem is to equalize the writer as a da-sein.
Da-sein’s being-in-the-world brings it to the disclosedness with beings. Its
relation with the world takes it under its yoke. Da-sein immerses itself into
the world as it journeys into the realm of being. When Da-sein enunciates he
brings into the world a separate being. A being which is its instrument of
disclosing being, the written word poses the same being with the enunciated
word. On the contrary with Heidegger who placed more importance to the spoken
word, literature is the most clear and distinct expression of da-sein to the
world. Juxtaposing poetry, literature in itself is the world at our hands. When
the novelist placed a small event into his work, he puts the entire world under
his pen. With all his strength, he expressed the being of his world into the
other. When it is written it is now the monopoly of the common world. It is the
world that you and I share. Yet, the writer does not fully give what he means.
He makes use of devices to alter the other’s understanding. Why? For the same
reason that we talk in analogies, we make use of different devices that tickle
the imagination of the reader. Tolstoy’s account of the battle of Austerlitz
diverts our imagination into the violence of the battlefield and thus if we
read the whole novel itself we are at awe at what Tolstoy meant. This ambiguity
of understanding and interpretation is the life and strength of literature if
it is to be differentiated with other forms of expression. In what way do we
enjoy the novels and stories of Kafka? His novels were unfinished but why do we
devour its pages and even go to the point of even formulating an adjective Kafkaesque that can only lead us to
Kafka’s opus. If writing is to be like mathematics, then it loses its power. If
a piece literature is easily understood then it loses its strength and sinks
into anonymity. Neither common appreciation is the measure for it is a matter
of relativism. To like a novel and not to like it is not a question of its
sublimity. If literature is to be appreciated for its common appreciation then
what is the difference with ideology which is an instrument of terror. These we
simply cannot allow.
The
writer is in a situation where as Ricoeur puts it:
The formal resemblance is valuable: it permits me to understand the relations between myself and my body and myself and my history in terms of mutual analogy. History and my body are two levels of motivation, two roots of the involuntary. Just as I have not chosen my body, I have not chosen my historical situation but both the one and the other are the locus of my responsibility.[12]
The writer is simply responding to the call of his
existential situation. Whatever, he has written is an expression of his being
sublimity, subsists in that level. Let nothing hinder him from it.
J.R. Garcia
December,
2011
[1]
Longinus, On the Sublime, trans. H.L
Lavell, (www.gutenberg .org) p. 3
[2]
Ibid, 5
[3]Alan
Gowing, Empire and Memory,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 15
[4]Jean
Paul Sartre, What is Literature ed.
Stephen Ungar,(Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1988) p. 27
[5]Emile
Zola, Nana, trans. Douglas Parmée, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009), p.425
[6]Longinus,
p. 5
[7]Karl
Marx and Frederich Engels, The Communist
Manifesto, trans. Samuel Moore (New York: Washington Square Press, 1964)
p.55
[8]Lt:
to taste, It: to know
[9]Gottlob
Frege, “On Sense and Meaning,” trans. P.T Geach and Max Black, in Analytic Philosophy: Beginnings to the
Present, (London: Mayfield Publishers, 2001), p. 63
[10]Poliphilio’s
Strife for Love in a Dream
[11]Paul
Ricoeur, “The Problem of Double Meaning,” trans. Kathleen McLaughlin, in The Conflict of Interpretations, ed. Don
Ihde (Evanston: North-western University Press, 1974), p. 64
[12]Paul
Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature: the Voluntary
and the Involuntary, trans. Erazim V. Kohak, (Evanston: North-western
University Press, 1988) p. 125
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