It is nice to have someone say that there is some value in the beauty of language. While we are engaged in the daily objectification of language's utility, and whacked over the head with the concise clarity of modern stylists, it is nice to remember that even Hemingway (king of the sentence that was most nearly a grunt in length) was an adroit handler of the extended lyrical prose line.
Lanham also comes as a breath of fresh air, as we've been focused so thoroughly on the message, that it was nice to see some attention paid the medium. As much as I loved studying Graff, and have been fascinated by much of what I've learned about rhetoric and the process focused theories of Murray, Bartholomae, and Elbow, it was nice to see someone address the handling of our medium, the words themselves, with such force and precision. Bully for the idea that the correct, clear and concise is not the be all and end all of writing.
As Nick presented I was struck again by the similarities of these composition theorists to the practices that I have seen preached within my admittedly rather limited study of creative writing. This is the third place I've seen a twist on the paramedic method - or at least on the idea that a well pruned and polished draft two follows the formula D2=(D1-[D1*.33]). Like many of the ideas that I discussed in an early post on Elbow, I first encountered this one while reading Stephen King's On Writing. Then I ran into it again within Stephen Koch's The Modern Library Writer's Workshop. While neither carries the percentage to a possible high end of 50% as Lanham does, it is still a general trimming of the fat, to force our tired words into trim fighting shape. Forcing key words to bear the burden, rather than passing it off on lesser syllabic constructs.
Like any theorist worth her or his salt, Lanham could be mistakenly pigeonholed of promoting solely the idea he's most known for. And like all of the theorists we've read, he's more complicated than he perhaps appears at first. The emphasis on the mediuma as well as the message has led me to focus on style nearly exclusively. This would be a distortion. Lanham himself - through the diagrams Nick provided us with on his handout - shows an interest in balancing analysis and instruction between medium and message. If the code plays such a central role in the shaping of our perceptions, even the shaping of reality, than we ignore it in writing in order to reach "deeper" concerns at our own peril. At the same time, Lanham avoids the facile "there are no deeper concerns, language's incompleteness of meaning prevents it" routine that is passed around certain circles of literary criticism.
Instead he promotes a balanced view that pauses to admire the medium as one ponders the message. His S shaped attention curve shows the attention sliding in and out of the surface of the text. While it may come naturally to an English major to accomplish such a dual vision when analyzing a poem it seems to be entirely unnatural most other text. Perhaps with proper consideration Lanham's economics of attention will allow us to balance between the camps of idea of ideal and that of surface only. In that fashion we pay attention to medium and message privileging neither.
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It seems to me that an ideal rhetoric is one that privileges neither form nor content. But in practice, one always comes before the other, and it is the latter which struggles to keep up. So, my question is: which takes precedence in practice even while we are mindful of both?
ReplyDeleteI think it is possible to balance the two by switching emphasis. In a given time period or on a given assignment one of the two will have to be privileged; however, by alternating between the two a think a given course can handle them without prejudicing either element.
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