Flaubert & Shakespeare

The Flaubertian idea of prose style: an avoidance of sonority, redundancy, and of the rhetorical repetition of lexical items. No unintentional rhymes or "jingles." A clear, limpid surface. An attention to rhythm, but more to the end of avoiding too obvious rhythmical effects. I knew a fine academic writer of my father's generation who would not repeat the same word in one paragraph.

An older, rhetorical model of an opulent, prose, written with a taste for baroque antithesis, gradatio, hendiadys, alliteration...

Victorian prose in English is still opulent in contrast to the clipped, modern style of the 20th century, but it is not as opulent as baroque prose. The 18th century brings a certain prosification of prose that reaches its logical extreme in Flaubert, and then in Hemingway.

A modern writer will tend to reduce word play, avoiding the use of two words with the same lexical root: "And that unfair which fairly doth excel," or the use of two adjectives with similar and overlapping meanings: 'Led by a delicate and tender prince." We recognize this Shakespearian rhetoric as effective, but not in a way very useful for our prose.

There are modern prose styles, though, that allow more rhetorical flair without sacrificing the modern gains of simplicity and clarity. I find William Gass's alliterations cloying, but I'd like to allow for some linguistic flourish that isn't in the ascetic, Flaubertian line.

Prose had to be invented, freed from its rhetorical (oratorical) and poetic origins. Imagine inventing a form of writing more effective when read silently than aloud. That is a real cultural achievement.

Citation and Distinctive Language

Take a distinctive combination of words: "her labile yet exigent demeanor"; "as non-descript as a sparrow in the suburbs." When you are paraphrasing a secondary source, your own vocabulary will overlap somewhat with that source, but you wouldn't want to use a phrase like that from the source you are citing without quotation marks. An especially distinctive or felicitous phrase has more of a claim not to be repeated without attribution. By the same token, you would not say that, 'according to Fulano, HItler "invaded Poland" in 1939.' The quotation marks make no sense there, since neither the idea not the words have any claim to be distinctive. Putting those words into quotes would imply that you were commenting, in some way, on that particular combination of words.

Human language is creative in the rather ordinary sense that we can invent phrases and sentences that have (probably) never been used before. For example, I could find no examples on google where labile and exigent were even in the same vicinity in a sentence. Even a string of ordinary words can be distinctive: "As the cat stepped over the top of the jamcloset, first the right forefoot, carefully, then the hind, stepped down, into the pit of the empty flowerpot." Sure, there is a torrent of words on the internet, but if you express your own thoughts precisely, trying to say exactly what you mean, you are unlikely to duplicate the previous efforts of any other writer.

There are also facts that are banal and repeated from source to source with no change. Somebody was born in such and such a place in such and such a year. There is a standard wording for that, even.

I hate when people cite my banal statements. They have every right to do it, but I'd rather they cite me where I'm making a good point rather than for background.

What's the Harm?

Here's a paragraph:

Poets create rhythmical structures of astonishing subtlety and complexity. Within Hispanic literary criticism, however, these structures typically receive only the most cursory attention. As Carlos Piera astutely points out, “[w]hen it comes to accounting for poetic effects, traditional rhythmic theories of all kind tend to capture only somewhat mechanical aspects of metre, and leave the greater part of the perceived richness of literary language to the literary critics” (Piera, “Rephrasing Line-End Restrictions” 300). The problem, however, is that many of these critics seem to share this “mechanical” view, regarding rhythm as a pedestrian question of counting syllables and charting rhyme, to be addressed mainly at the lower levels of the curriculum. The technical detail of a rigorously linguistic approach to prosody, such as Piera’s, does not translate unproblematically into an examination of the “perceived richness” of poetic form

No suppose I had simply appropriated Piera's words as my own, like this

Poets create rhythmical structures of astonishing subtlety and complexity. Within Hispanic literary criticism, however, these structures typically receive only the most cursory attention. When it comes to accounting for poetic effects, traditional rhythmic theories of all kind tend to capture only somewhat mechanical aspects of metre, and leave the greater part of the perceived richness of literary language to the literary critics. The problem, however, is that many of these critics seem to share this mechanical view, regarding rhythm as a pedestrian question of counting syllables and charting rhyme, to be addressed mainly at the lower levels of the curriculum. The technical detail of a rigorously linguistic approach to prosody does not translate unproblematically into an examination of the perceived richness of poetic form

What's the harm in plagiarism? First, I stole those words that I didn't write; they don't belong to me. I've done harm to the original author and to the institution of scholarship.

I've also done damage to my own writing by flattening the effect I had achieved by citing (adroitly I hope) his quote to make my own point. I also lose some authority. It is better for me to have Piera, a linguist, say that linguistic approaches to prosody are often mechanical, than for me, a literary critic, to say the same thing. Then I can criticize other critics myself. I like that layered effect I get from quoting him and calling him astute. I look like a nice guy calling him that too, so that helps to establish my ethos as a writer from the beginning of the chapter. It is interesting that my style does not clash with Piera's. There is a smoothness there in the integration of the quote (if I don't say so myself).

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On the purely mechanical level, it can be hard to incorporate other people's words into your own writing, or to integrate paraphrase with direct quotation and your own discourse. Paraphrases should often contain words and phrases in quotes from the original text: those clarify that it is a paraphrase and not your own writing. Short quotes do not interrupt what you are saying but form a seamless part of the argumentation. Longer, block quotes are used when you really want to analyze that quote itself, not (usually) to make up for something that you should have said yourself. I almost never end the paragraph with the block-quote itself. I always end with a few lines of my own analysis.

I was disappointed when I saw a publisher recently (actually two publishers of two separate books published in Spain) just automatically begin a new paragraph after each long quote (I'm assuming the publishers did it because the authors probably wouldn't have). That is a way of losing an important distinction between a quote at the end of a paragraph and another in the middle of one. If that quibble seems to basic to you you are reading the wrong blog.

The Concluding Paragraph

The perpetual crisis of confidence in the Humanities coincides (not so coincidentally perhaps) with the dominance of the “hermeneutics of suspicion” and of the “argument for argument”—the idea that what we do in the Humanities can be reduced to the abstract and formulaic proceduralism that can be exercised in any context whatsoever, with no regard to the value of our raw materials. The inevitable reaction against these two developments has brought renewed attention to the principle I have identified here as “receptivity.” This is not a narrowing of the field or a return to a reactionary definition of the canon. In fact, receptivity entails an openness to every possible expression of human creativity and thus has the power to envigorate both our teaching and our scholarship.

Andrew Shields has been giving me a hard time about signposting--and with good reason. I thank him for that. I've been trying to write much more seamlessly. Here is my concluding paragraph. I simply conclude. The only signposting is the part I've italicized here. We know it's a conclusion because it's at the end, marked off by a few lines of blank space, and because of the conclusive tone. I don't need to write "as I have demonstrated here." Or, "in the first section of this article I showed that..."

Paragraphing

These things help to produce - although they might not by themselves entirely suffice to produce it - a general flatness that is dully excruciating. Glover is seldom, if ever, bombastic, as most of the other blank-verse writers of this time are. His inversions are not violent; nor does he often overplay the cards of Miltonic omission of articles or of apposition. An absolutely absurd single verse or phrase is not very common with him. But the midwife (no doubt a descendant of Shadwell's, as prophetic and as laconic) had laid her hand on his head at his birth and said, "Be thou flat"; and except in Admiral Hosier's Ghost (under what special disenchanting influence one does not know) he never discredited the prophecy. His verse not only cannot soar; it can hardly flap its wings. It toddles along after what Johnson (in another context) calls "the manner of the heavier domestic fowls." When we look at its inanity; when we look, on the other hand, at the faults of the "tumid and gorgeous" school - it is not surprising that in the middle of the century the heroic for a time shook off its competitor, and blank verse hardly came into competition again till the deferred advent of Cowper.

Saintsbury, History of English Prosody


Here is an admirably constructed paragraph. It begins with a topic sentence: Glover is dull because of the reasons adduced in the previous paragraph. Then three sentences that tell of flaws Glover did not have (bombast, affectation). Then a few hyperbolic sentences about the dullness itself. Finally, a concluding sentence that brings us to the real point: if blank verse was mostly either Miltonically pretentious or dull as dishwater in the 18th century, then heroic verse (the rhymed heroic couplet) had little to fear from the rival form.

We wouldn't necessarily want to write sentences like Saintsbury's today. They are too verbose and heavy handed, the metaphors and conceits too drawn out, the diction too recondite, for current taste. All the same, there is wit and humor, along with confident vigor, in the writing. These are good sentences within the Victorian ethos; post-Hemingway, they seem excessive. In terms of the structure of the paragraph, however, GS is still a model to be followed. What I most like about it is that it is self-contained, beginning and ending very strongly. The seemingly irrelevant list of faults the poet did not have turns out to be relevant at the end.

See This post by blog collaborator Thomas for a related view of paragraphs.

Coordinated Prepositions

I am not fond of coordinated prepositions, like "He drew from, and wrote about, the tradition of American Indian poetry" (invented example). They are grammatically impeccable, because you need those two prepositions to avoid a grammatical faux pas, but they are stylistically inelegant. I reviewed a book once that used several constructions like this in every paragraph (or so it seemed.) They started to weary me. To me they sound awkward and a bit fussy.

Every writer develops a set of preferences. I tend to avoid this construction, although I'm sure I might have other mannerisms in my prose that might annoy you. I get the feeling with some writers, though, that they don't even have stylistic preferences at all. They haven't even thought about their approach.

So the point of this post is not that you should avoid writing things like "She came upon, and remarked about..." but that you should have a well-thought out approach to your style and your individual preferences.

Signposting Without Signposting

I had a sentence that started like this:

In the remainder of this chapter I will look at Eduardo Milán and Blanca Varela, the two Spanish American editors of this anthology, whose poetry illustrates some of the tensions between...

Then I changed it to this:

The poetry of the two Spanish American editors of this anthology, Eduardo Milán and Blanca Varela, illustrates some of the tensions between ....

I'm still signposting, simply by beginning a new section of the chapter by introducing the topics I'm going to be addressing. The reader can expect to find a discussion of these two poets. As easy as that.

So explicit signposting is only necessary when the topics do not flow into one another seamlessly. I'm not saying that you shouldn't ever use it, but often its presence points to an organizational glitch. Like: "I know you thought I've already discussed this topic, but I am bringing it back here because it has a different kind of relevance in this new context..."

Once in a while you are going to have to do things like that. I'm sure I had way too much explicit signposting in Apocryphal Lorca, because the book was hard to organize and I needed those extra nails to keep things from falling apart.

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We are getting some attention from other bloggers,here for instance from a very cool-looking site.

Citation Failure

Bob Basil's first post came yesterday. He offers a fresh perspective, complementary to my own but a bit different in tone.

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Citation failure occurs when authors cite a text to support a claim, but in an incomplete or confusing way. Take this example from Twale & De Luca, Faculty Incivility:

Knowledge and acceptance are prerequisites to claiming any power and authority over other members of the culture (Eagleton, 2000; Said, 1993). Without recognition of the power it takes to eradicate a bully culture, it will prevail. Culture is insular and molds its members so much that when they are steeped too heavily in it, the culture blinds them to all other things. Culture may be so engrained by the majority of members as to go unnoticed by them, but it will surely be reflected in the actions of new entrants and subversives who have not fully embraced the culture (Bourdieu, 1977). [p. 96]

Putting aside the infelicitous writing, the mixed metaphors and stylistic tone-deafness, I'd like to focus on the citation practice. The first thing I notice is that the first claim is very general, almost uncontroversial, yet also imprecise. Knowledge of what? Acceptance of what, or by whom? Secondly, both Eagleton and Said are credited with this insight. Looking to the bibliography, I see that these are not academic articles, but entire books. So Terry Eagleton, at some point in his 2000 book The Idea of Culture, lends support to this idea, as does Edward Said, at some point in his book Culture and Imperialism. There are no page numbers, so a reader would have to judge whether these claims are supported by looking holistically at these books. "Bourdieu 1977" is also an entire book. Here the claim is a little more specific, but how and where and to what end does Bourdieu make this claim, in his book Outline of a Theory of Practice? Do the authors of this study on academic bullying really understand Said and Bourdieu, or are they just name-dropping? How do the claims Twale and De Luca make on their own in this paragraph relate to the claims attributed to their cited references?

A fifteen page list of references seems to add scholarly gravitas to this work, but citation failure this pervasive undermines this impression--especially for a reader like myself who is somewhat familiar with the ideas of Said, Eagleton, and Bourdieu. To be fair, I should point out that not all the references in this book are this sloppy, only a few I've checked so far. I wouldn't want to be an academic bully!

So what is the correct path to successful citation? First, the claim itself must be specific and concrete, something distinctive. Secondly, the reader must have the tools to find specific support for the claim in the cited source. A page number perhaps. You can cite the entire article with no page numbers, if you are citing the central claim of that article. You could even get away with citing an entire book with no page numbers, if you were referring to the central argument of that book and made it clear what that argument is. A 200-page book will contain many sets of claims.

You can either cite directly, taking language from your source verbatim, or paraphrase. If there is direct discourse, a page number is obligatory. If you paraphrase a specific claim, you also need a page number or numbers, unless, by implication, the claim is that of an entire article.

I've seen this loose style of citation more in some less rigorous branches of the social sciences than in my own field, but I still think it is instructive to look at weak examples--as opposed to more subtle ones where citation failure is more a matter of nuance.

See also this post by Thomas that also addresses some issues related to the rigor of citations. I read his post before writing my own and owe some of my interest in this topic to him.

Collation

I don't have a good system yet for bibliography. What I'm doing is, once I finish a chapter, collating its bibliography into a master bibliography for the whole book. When I do this collation, I eliminate duplicate entries. Then, when the book is complete, I have to make sure each reference in each chapter is in the master list, that all references are unambiguous, etc... For example, I cannot say "Mayhew 12" when there are seven work by Mayhew in the bibliography. Page 12 of what work by Mayhew?

Problems come when I revise a chapter, and have to keep the bibliography up to date; when I eliminate a chapter and have to expunge references in the bibliography. Also, the longer the master bibliography, the harder it is to collate with a list of new entries. Maybe I should keep copies of individual bibliographies, for each chapter, for my own reference, rather than folding them into the cake batter?

Ordering the Manuscript

I take a file folder on my MacBook Pro and put all the chapters of a book in progress into it. I keep them in order by beginning the title of each chapter with a number, like so:

000preliminatires.doc
001chapteroneinsulas.doc
002chaptertwoLorcaduende.doc

That way the computer automatically keeps them in order. (I use 000 for the title page, table of contents, etc... so that chatper one can always be 001.) I can look at the ordered list and see the last time I worked on each chapter. The chapters switch order on me, as sometimes happens? I can rename the documents. Other documents in the folder that aren't actual chapters--article versions of parts of the book, for example--will not get numbers: the computer will list them afterwards so they won't clutter the list.

Writing in Ink with Feldman

I've always hated pencils for writing, associating them with elementary school where I was a slow learner. I use pens for everything, including crossword puzzles. The composer Morton Feldman was in my camp:

As a rule I write in ink. It sharpens one's concentration. Erasure gives you the illusion you're going to make a more meaningful solution. If Beethoven wrote in ink he would have had an easier time of it.

(Give my Regards to Eighth Street, 207)

I work with a pen and that's a very interesting phenomenon because when I work with a pen everything is crossed out. Some pages there is nothing crossed out and it's usually those pages when there is something of a continuity.

(Ibid. 162-63)

I have always found it more beneficial to experiment with fountain pens than with musical ideas.

(Ibid. 63).

The Cluttered Page

Too many footnotes, "scare quotes," too many paren(theses) within words, too many semicolons, and "[b]rackets to conform to style manuals" will give your page a "cluttered" look. That might be what you're after, so by all means put in more of all of these things if that's the desired effect.

Semicolon and Other Punctuation Notes

I hardly ever feel the need to use a semicolon. I think this particular punctuation mark muddies the page (visually) and obscures the relation between ideas. You can get by pretty well with periods and commas, with colons used to introduce quotes. The semicolon is used only to connect two short sentences that really can't stand on their own, or to separate items on a list when these items are phrases with interior commas rather than single words. In the first case, I just write two separate sentences. If they are choppy, then I recast one of them, or combine them into a single sentence.

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I reviewed an article the other day for a nameless journal. The article was written in Spanish and the author had the most annoying habit of separating the subject and the verb of a sentence with a comma. Writers of Spanish do this sometimes when the subject is a longer one, but it is not correct usage.

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You usually don't need a comma after thus or and at the beginning of a sentence.

Fountain Pens and Calfskin Drumheads

Roland Barthes gave an interview about writing instruments once. He referred to his use of fountain pens and the newer (at the time) felt pens. Like Barthes, I have an "obsessive relation to writing instruments," and hate what he refers to as the "bic style." In other words, if you write with a bic (cheap ballpoint pen) you aren't respecting your craft. Haven't you ever seen an old postcard written in a fountain pen? You can tell the difference right away, because the bic just has one thickness of line.

Ironically, I tend to do most of my writing directly on the computer, since I have horrible handwriting, but I do like to maintain that connection with the "craft" of writing.

One thing that makes jazz after the mid 60s sound different is the use of plastic drumheads which don't have the same resonance as the old, temperamental calfskin heads. Those skins are especially effective with wire brushes. There's just a different sound there, thicker and tastier. But hey, who wants to mess with fountain pen ink and humidity-sensitive skins?

I'm not against technology. The fountain pen itself was at one time a modern gadget, after all. I'm just saying there is a difference.

Titles

You've got to have a good title for everything you write. I'm working on a title now for an article. So far I have the first part: "What Lorca Knew: ... " I'm very pleased with that but I need a subtitle after the colon. Having my complete title be "What Lorca Knew" would be rather provocative, though. I might opt for that. Titles should be brief and informative, prosodically effective. The scholarly convention most in favor now is to have an evocative phrase, often time a quote, followed by an informative subtitle that tell you what it's really about. The title "What Lorca Knew" is brief and both evocative and informative... but not quite informative enough perhaps.

There's a problem with having too great a title and then having the subject matter revealed in the subtitle be too mundane.

Degrees of Certainty

One Spanish composition textbook I taught from once had a section on degrees of certainty. Basically, the idea was that you could do any one of three things in any particular sentence: simply assert one's conclusions, assert them with a phrase like "sin duda" [without a doubt] that affirmed one's certainty, or assert them with a qualifier that implied some degree of doubt. The idea is to calibrate one's own relation to the subject matter by distinguishing between what needs to be reinforced as a certainty, what can simply be stated baldly as a fact, and what needs more qualification. There is a whole spectrum of rhetorical possibilities.

Now obviously I knew how to calibrate degrees of certainty before seeing this textbook, but I had never really sat down to analyze the phenomenon before. The purpose of this calibration, I believe, is to reassure the reader that you have thought about how you know what you know, to what degree or extent, how much you are putting yourself out on a limb.

One exercise might be to write a paragraph, interpreting a very difficult text, with no markers of degree of certainty at all. What's the problem? If it's a difficult text, then you can't really be sure of every aspect of your interpretation, so now add some qualifications. Ok, but there are some parts of the interpretation that are pretty solid, so add some anti-qualfiers here, like of course, or without a doubt. Leave some statements unmarked for degree of certainty: that's like the zero degree of something that can be asserted without rhetorical reinforcement.

Ironically, the strongest statements are those without any marker of certainty. It would sound odd to say, "Without a doubt, I am writing these words in 2010." The negation of doubt implies doubt in such a case. Why would anyone think differently?