The problem with this formulation, I think, is that it leads one either to
dismiss large bodies of significant work that is not the product of
conscious restriction or to find such in work that one likes whether the
author worked that way or not. Viz. your examples of Austen, Frost and
Wordsworth.
Olson nicely defined, and dismissed, the issue, I think: "Limits are what
we're all inside of."
Mark
At 07:08 AM 1/14/2001 -0800, neville attkins wrote:
>It is agreed,I think that, 'poetic' is a term of abuse
>when applied to poetry, if not also for prose, this
>has led I think to searches for forms that express
>'one's own voice', which it is hoped won't be 'poetic'
>but individual poetry.
>
>I wonder is there much mileage to the proposition that
>form is adopted because it imposes limits on
>expression. So the reason that a person may write a
>haiku is not because there is anything so very
>expressive about 13 syllables. It is because there is
>nothing so creative as impediment. On a simple level
>if I have to have some very strict rhyme scheme I have
>to find some words that rhyme before starting which
>gives me something to be getting on with instead of
>all of the things that stop me from writing:
>the white page
>the why bother questions
>writing to this group
>work
>waiting for 'inspiration'
>etc.
>It is a cliche that the oppressed writer that must
>communicate in parables is some how fortunate, for
>example the widely held belief that after the fall of
>the Berlin wall that writing would dry up in Russia
>because there was no persecution on writers.
>
>My belief is that only by adopting strict nearly
>impossible rules will the writer be able to get at
>saying anything other than reiterations. for just as
>the census/secret police etc needed writing around so
>as it were does the writers 'better instincts'.
>
>However the particular form of stricture the writer
>adopts is not neutral it may have rhythmic effect, but
>this is not all there is to limits in writing can. In
>reading for example George Perec's novel translated in
>English as 'A void', a work which does not use the
>letter E, there is a palpable sense of something not
>right or something missing, the doesn't quite come off
>in English, but in French E is pronounced the same as
>eux them so there are none of 'them' in the novel. The
>novel is a parable of the dissapearance of the jews in
>the holocaust. This doesn't come wholly from the text
>directly but from the doubleness of the writing of the
>words and the feeling of the restriction under which
>it is written. This shouldn't be suprsing. We imagine
>that we can sense the writers life in certain works
>but this might not be because of the ostensible
>character of the writer rather in what we know of
>their biography i.e. America in Frost, or the
>restricted life of Jane Austen, landscape in
>Wordsworth.
>
>My interest is in finding forms of restrictions that
>have this sort of expressive potential, is any one
>else?
>
>
>
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