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Re: Melville, Goethe, and more
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AB wrote:
I feel so strong a disagreement with some of the following that my first
instinct is to suspect that I misunderstood it.
Andrew’s response is exhilarating: is the forum really moving from the
library to the debating hall? Nothing concentrates the mind better in the lists
than to have an opponent charge down at one, lance at the ready --- as the
Doctor almost observed. For a very long time now I’ve been bemused by the quip
(attributed variously to Wilde, Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Dylan Thomas and
Winston Churchill) about the language dividing the English-speaking shores, and
maybe I’ll gain a better understanding by being forced to concentrate here. I
think it has some application when comparing VN’s writing style and thought
patterns with US contemporaries.
Verbosity.
In mind I mainly had the C20th, but AB’s instance of Dickens and his verbal
diarrhoea seems ill-chosen in any case. In my experience, whenever this has
come up it has always been pointed out that Dickens was a penny-a-liner for
much of his time, and the more he wrote the more he was paid. In fact, he seems
to have partially succeeded in making a virtue of his need to earn.
Something of the same might be true of Scott.
Vic Perry wrote:
It doesn't boil down to some eternal or universal fault. Victorians are
characterized by prolixity. Schizophrenics are characterized by prolixity.
The concise and elliptical writer probably used to trust the reader more.
No, omit that craven "probably."
These pertinent points agreeably put the question into historical context.
American English and English English had not even begun to separate when
Fielding was writing. He may have used many words, but Fielding is always a
page-turner, since the reader is keen to know what happened next to Tom Jones on
his picaresque adventures, in spite of the book’s famous long digression, which
is a subject constantly discussed, in my experience. But even in those
far-off days Pope was saying that brevity is the soul of wit.
I suspect the linguistic division may justifiably be said to have started
with the Declaration of Independence. Since having recently given this seminal
document fairly close attention, I have concluded that it is little more than
splendid political rhetoric, and therefore profoundly and reprehensibly
dishonest. (Gasps of outrage).
However, the divergence by no means happened overnight. Both prolixity and
concise ellipsis are markedly present in William Blake; but I would say that
the extraordinary rantings of his prophetic books found far less favour in
England than his sweet short songs of innocence. It is just possible that the
reverse was true in America, but I don’t know enough about his reception there
to make any firm assertion. Even if they were hardly read, the impulse for
this type of outpouring was latent in the language, but found much richer
soil in America than in England. I would put Whitman and Pound as Blake’s
eventual distant heirs, not to mention Sandburg and other exponents I haven’t read
but associate with the manner, encompassing effusions like Howl, and so on.
Personally, I can’t take that stuff.
America’s fundamental contribution to world civilization is the successful
introduction of the techniques of mass production. The watershed, I submit,
took place in 1908, when it was shown beyond dispute that manufacturing
100,000 Tin Lizzies was not only more democratic but infinitely more profitable
than hand-crafting a few Rolls-Royces. Quantity, not quality, became the
touchstone. Statistics, not sensibilities, were seen to rule. The European millennia
spent arduously straining for perfection, gradus ad Parnassum, were done
for. No people evinces such a relish for numbers as the American. Many years
ago, perhaps when I was still at school, I was presented with the signal
difference between the American and European mentalities. Ask a representative of
each continent, say, who has just returned from a visit to Rome, to describe
the city. The European will talk about its ambience, its history, its
beauties, its lively, entertaining citizens, its bottom-pinchers. The American will
respond with: Rome occupies an area of n square miles. It has a population of
n million. There are n automobiles, n television sets, n telephones, and n
washing-machines per 100 head of populace; and so forth. I have had Americans
tell me directly that they just adore getting to grips with facts of this
order: they eat them up.
Perhaps no-one will see any link between this line of argument and
comparative Anglo-American lit crit. I’ll move on to Andrew’s next points.
The Adjective.
Adjectives, as Humpty noted, are weak, malleable words. I accept AB’s
contention that they have their uses. However, they tend to over-use, and can very
rapidly lose their power. It is almost axiomatic that they should be used
sparingly, and be positioned with great care, especially in poetry. Carroll saw
this, in his advice to the budding poet:
“……………. there are epithets
That suit with any word --
Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,'
Are much to be preferred."
"And will it do, O will it do
To take them in a lump --
As 'the wild man went his weary way
To a strange and lonely pump'?"
"Nay, nay! You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.”
In 1893 R.L.Stevenson (!) wrote to Henry James (!):
My two aims may be described as –
1st. War to the adjective. 2nd. Death to the optic nerve.
AB wrote:
As for Mr. Twigg’s three versions of the lines from PF, here we have
excellent proof ……. of how, in poetry, less is often not only not more , it is
often even less than it may seem, and certainly less than one needs.
…………..
Version #2, of course, needs little discussion. It is merely a lessen in
how one turns poetry into doggerel.
Version #3 wasn’t Mr Twigg’s, of course, but no matter; it isn’t discussed.
I am bound to disagree with the statement that less is not more: the pithier
the point, the greater the punch, when it comes to language. Nouns and verbs
are the bone and muscle: adjectives merely modify. Pope’s use of adjectives
is worth a look. I concede, nevertheless, that VN took pleasure in
adjectives, and, when he wasn’t being Shade, employed them effectively. Who knows what
wages he paid them? I now feel too weary to continue pumping.
I take it AB’s allusion to the curious plan of instruction adopted by the
masters at the academy attended by the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle was
deliberate, and applaud.
Charles
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