Sheidlower, David

Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de La Laguna

SOME PROSE ABOUT PROSE ABOUT PROSEDavid SheidlowerIntroductionThe dialogic view of discourse seems only natural. Viewing a combination ofvoices as answering one another, we proceed from the assumption that verbs suchas "to talk" have as their object a listener(s) who then respond(s). Hence, weperceive at least two entities in discourse. Our perception of differences in diction,tone, style and, in sum, authorship distinguish separate components of discourse:articulations. We find such an approach valuable because it allows us to establishpieces and then fit them together. (A jigsaw puzzle of a Kandinsky painting shouldseem easier to do than writing an essay about it). Or, let's just say thequestion/answer or thesis/antithesis (bipartite) structure appeals because it beginswith a statement which creates a "need" for information or reaction (that is a kindof direct development); and then, with the next statement, fills that need. Narrativesells itself in a similar way, by having the question "and then what happened?"propelling each new development.So, our first impulse is to see things as fitting together in a discourse rather thanexisting together as a unified but complex set of statements. "I cannot imaginecomposition existing in a series of blocks". A "block", here, would be thequestion/thesis or answer/antithesis. The synthesis (or moral), if there is one,becomes a third block. These blocks are clearly defined statements (they may, ofcourse, consist of more than one sentence) upon which and under which otherstatements are placed. A complete composition is not such brick laying, but rathera mass of content related by how everything snowballs into meaning.There are times when a handful of texts (procured separately, each with its owntitle and author) seem to relate to one another. Similarities between statements caneasily be discounted as having been written under different historical circumstancesor be viewed as a case of the chronologically later statement being a comment onthe earlier one. But why bother? I'm trying to arrive at "wisdom" by a simplermodel: related propositions combine to form facets (other propositions) out of theirrelationships. That is, it seems to me, that these facets have, as their shared edges,the original related propositions; not then a series of blocks, but an irregularcrystal. The working of such a model is one of the things which make literatureinteresting. It is what a Henry James' sentence does as a whole (how all the wordscombine) that makes it interesting. Diagramming it would show it also works as71REVISTA CANARIA DE ESTUDIOS INGLESESa "series of blocks" but such schematizing is of limited use. I hope that below,"Form" of thought becomes "no more than an extension of content". Or, as Jamesput it: "The form, it seems to me, is appreciated after the fact". The texts are:1. Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews (pub. 1742).2. James, Henry. The Art of Fiction (1884).3. Stevenson, Robert Louis. A Humble Remonstrance (1884).4. Stein, Gertrude. Narration (1934).5. Creeley, Robert. Notes for a New Prose (1951).Chronologically, a lexicon seems to refine (at a bumpy, but somewhataccelerating rate): eg. Fielding- "Authoring"; James- "fiction"; Stevenson- "fictitiousnarrative in prose" (italics, RLS); Stein- "narration", "composition", "prose";Creeley- "prose".ONE"Words" "for the sake of what content possible, might shape them into sense".Content does not just shape form, but informs the words themselves, gives themtheir particularness. Rhythm operates on the level of the denotative meaning of thewords in a work. What a word means and how it fits into a sentence in prosepartially dictate inflection and pronunciation. Stein most jarringly showed how theliteral meaning of a word and its place in the sentence is what separates it fromnonsense. A momentum establishes itself within a sentence: "Picking her way withMaggie through the local puddles, diving with her into smelly cottages andsupporting her, at smellier shops, in firmness over the weight ofjoints and the tasteof cheese, it was still her secret that was universally interwoven".The connotative meanings, the context, the place of a word within a structureof other surrounding words makes them musical & integrates them. The feel ormeaning of the phrase depends on this integration: "I was a result, from town totown, I thought I'd used the generation of hearing come close from the same thing,from the ample other worlds, I begin to experience three or four a year to what Icould do to, from then on one was supposed to get wet, a substitute for gettingattracted takes the same day presence of reason to control." (Peter Seaton)"We do not as yet get the basic fact, that reality is just that which is believed,just as long as it is, believed." "The ordering of conjecture will remain as "real" asthe ordering of fact, given the right hand." There is an ordering involved."Conjecture" versus "fact" isn't really the point. "Given the right hand" gets closerbut still misses. Composition &/or combination documents the imposition of orderon words. Words are facts; their combination is always "real" conjecture.Composition insists that the ordering of words relates to the order of phrases,sentences, paragraphs, chapters or whatever units are recognized (by the typography)as above words. Any writing is such a series of combinations. In prose, these serveto push the work forward &, as story is dropped or distorted, becomes the mainimpulse to go from one phrase to the next. While there are idiosyncrasies of72SOME PROSE ABOUT PROSE ABOUT PROSEstructure from one text to the next, the forward motion & the recalling of wordsand sentences to each other create any prose work's unity.For just this reason, the poetic line and stanza are unimportant in prose. Husserlwrites: "That the expired part of the melody is objective to me is due —one isinclined to say— to memory, and it is due to expectation, which looks ahead that,on encountering the tone actually sounding, I do not assume that that is all.""Prose is the projection of ideas, in time". Breaking, enjambment is just not theissue in prose; continuous motion (however much modulated) in both directions is.Line breaks can't matter in prose. Pauses will occur as a part of the text's place inthe language (punctuation which is always a sign of more that just a pause— i. e.the qualitative difference between a period and a comma). And there are thepauses which emphasize the structure: "As to those vacant pages which are placedbetween our books, they are to be regarded as those stages where, in long journeys,the traveler stays some time to repose himself, and consider of what he hath seenin the parts he hath already passed through" "What are the contents prefixed toevery chapter, but so many inscriptions over the gates of inns (to continue the samemetaphor) informing the reader what entertainment he is to expect". And so "itbecomes an author generally to divide a book, as it does a butcher to joint his meat,for such assistance is of great help to both the reader and the carver."The continuous motion recognized, the author sometimes breaks it up for thereader's sake, but the text would not demand it (cf. Gertrude Stein's How to Write)."sentences and paragraphs need not necessarily go on existing" "sentenceswhich within themselves carry no emotion because a thing balanced within itselfdoes not give out nor have within any emotion but sentences existing withinthemselves by the balance that holds them when they are in succession one afterthe other and makes a paragraph have the emotion that any succession can give toanything."TWOProse, since it relies on successive word order, makes story almost irresistiblyattractive. Seems like a lot's been written and said about the seductive quality ofnarrative, its ability to manipulate the passive reader. Of equal import: narrativecan seduce and manipulate the writer of prose. This is not necessarily good or bad,one gives oneself up to a structure or an impulse in writing. The novelist "will findbesides that he, who is free —who has the right to invent or steal a missingincident, who has the right, more precious still, of wholesale omission— isfrequently defeated, and, with all his advantages, leaves a less strong impression ofreality and passion [than a historian]."Story is, in prose, at one level just a structure. Any structure on prose willsucceed or fail as it accomplishes its primary purpose: allowing the successiveordering of words to create motion. To use an image more overtly metaphorical:structure at this level, the level of story or composition, is like a track upon whichat least one team of words runs a relay race. James on Turgeniff: "The first form73REVISTA CANARIA DE ESTUDIOS INGLESESin which a tale appeared to him was as the figure of an individual or a combinationof individuals, whom he wished to see in action, being sure that such people mustdo something very special and interesting. They stood before him definite, vivid,and he wished to know, and show, as much as possible of their nature. The firstthing was to make clear to himself what he did know, to begin with..."Form comes out of content, but structure comes out of knowledge. Not likeknowing what you're talking about, but grasping, perceiving, the connectionbetween the mind's statements and language. Prose is written out of thatconnection. I'm saying more here than just "writing is verbalizing what isimagined". I'm dealing with structure. Structure in prose is knowing. And"knowledge then is what you know at the time at anytime that you really knowanything. And in knowing anything you know it as you know it, you know it at thetime that you are knowing it and in that way the way that you are knowing itknowing has not succession there may be continuous states of knowing anythingbut at no time of knowing is there anything but knowing that thing the thing youknow, know carefully what you do know and of course anybody can know that thisis so". So knowledge, an unsuccessive momentary phenomenon of thought and/orperception, leads to the successive ordering of words, of language.The mind may know something in words, but these words, like prose, reflectthe structure of the language, which by its largeness cannot immediately becomethe structure of prose. "One writes the novel, one paints the picture, of one'slanguage and of one's time, and calling it modern English will not, alas! make thedifficult task any easier" and¿ at the risk of quoting a somewhat over-quotedpassage: "The only thing that is different from one time to another is what is seenand what is seen depends upon how eveybody is doing everything."Or'In the midst of these transactions, the embassy returned, which had been sent,in pious times, to Mecca."Vathek, William Beckford."William had pointed me up the brook, but I chose to go down, which was onlyfair because it was his day, though one likes as well to follow and see where abrook goes as to find one's way to the places it comes from, and its tiny springs andheadwaters, and in this case trout were not to be considered."A Dunnet Shepherdess, Sarah Orne Jewett."The wind had risen with the moon and it was occasionally sweeping over theplain in a manner that made it not difficult for the sentinel to imagine strange andunearthly sounds were mingling in the blasts."The Prairie, James Fenimore Cooper.74

Some Prose About Prose About Prose

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Some Prose About Prose About Prose

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