[lit-ideas] Form in literature
- From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 01:14:34 EDT
Mike Chase wrote:
In The Way we Think: conceptual blending and the mind's hidden complexities
(New York, Basic Books), M. Turner and G.
Fauconnier argue that the emphasis on Reason in work in the humanities over
the past few centuries has led to an over-emphasis on form to the detriment
of content. The obvious and analysable processes of reason, of which standard
logic is a model, are merely the most apparent end-results of more
fundamental processes -- Identity, integration, and imagination - basic,
mysterious,
powerful, complex, and mostly unconscious operations - are at the heart of
even
the simplest possible meanings. The value of the simplest forms lies in the
complex emergent dynamics they trigger in the imaginative mind.
From the writer's point of view, this description of Fauconnier's thesis
seems completely backwards. The form of writing IS the "complex emergent
dynamics"
of mostly unconscious process, and the value of these processes is that they
yield form.
When writing, you want enough organization on the page to shape the working
of your unconscious, imaginative life, but not too much structure to fetter
your process and later rewriting. The writer pulls a balancing act between
imaginative construction of a scene, and the narrative patterns that later
become
the "form" of the work.
In other words, the outward form of literature is determined by the "basic,
mysterious, powerful, complex, and mostly unconscious operations"--so that when
the writer or the reader comprehends form, they also comprehend meaning.
To say that form detracts from content is nonsense, in my opinion. Without
form, no amount of fine writing or brilliant content will save a piece of
fiction--no matter whether you are talking about traditional narrative forms or
modern modular narrative forms. Form and meaning are integral, so "form" cannot
really be overemphasized.
To put it another way, Fauconnier seems to be saying that form has value
because of the unconscious processes that form triggers. My contention is that
unconscious processes have value because they are given form, that "value" in
literature is itself form, and that form is what enables the creation and
reception of literature.
Say that a given metrical scheme mirrors a heartbeat, that I apprehend it
subliminally, and react to it. Well then, what value is a heartbeat in words?
Only that this "heartbeat" has yielded the form of the poem.
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