poetry as fiction

8/9/2019 Poetry as Fiction

1/24


2/24

Poetry

s Fiction

Barbara

ermstein

mith

p

RADOXES

make ntriguingitles, ut I am nototherwiseond

of them nd

intend,

y

the end

of

this

rticle,

o dissolve

he

onethat

ntitles

t.

I

mean

o do

this

y

elaborating

he

proposi-

tion

hat

ictiveness

s the

haracteristic

uality

f

whatwe

call

"poetry"

when

we use

the

term n

thebroad ense

equeathed

y

Aristotle,

.e.,

to

refer

o the

general

lass

of

verbal rtworks.

My primary

oncern

will

be

to

develop

conception

f

poetry

hat

llows

us

to

distinguish

it

from

nd relate

t

to

both

nonpoetic

iscourse

nd other rtforms.

The

view

presented

ere

was

nitially,

utrather

ncidentally,roposed

elsewhere.' havefound he elaborationf t ofcontinuingnterest,

however,

specially

ince

the

grounds

orthose

distinctionsnd

the

nature f those

elationships

emain,

o

my

mind,

xtremelyroblem-

atic

n

contemporaryinguistic

nd

aesthetic

heory.

Since

my

procedure

n

what

follows

may

eem

nitially erplexing,

some

prefatory

emarks

ay

prevent

onfusion. irst f

all,

shall

be

saying good

deal about

anguage

n

general

efore

say

anything

t

all

about

poetry.

Any heory

f

poetry

nevitably,

hough

ot

always

explicitly,

resupposes theory

f

anguage.

Thus,

thosewho

have at

various imes egardedoetrys inspiredpeech, rembellishedrose,

or

the

anguage

f

passion,

r "emotive"

tatements,

ave

obviously

ad

somewhat

ifferentotions

f

what

anguage

s when

t

s not

poetry-

e.g.,uninspired

peech,

lain

prose,

he

anguage

f

reason,

r

"veri-

fiable

tatements."

ince,moreover,

inguistic

heory

s now n a

very

volatile

tate,

no

general

ropositionsoncerning

anguage

an

be

of-

fered

asually

r

taken

or

ranted. One

can often

ell

more bout

man's

politics

nd

metaphysics

ow from

is

views

f

anguage

han

one

once

could

from is

class

or

religion.)

n

any

case,

lthough

am

byno meansofferingere nythinghatcouldbe calleda theoryf

language,

hefirstection

f this

rticlewill

develop

ome

general

b-

servations

n

nonpoetic

r

what

call

"natural"

iscourse,

articularly

in those

respects

hat are most

ignificant

n

distinguishing

t from

I

Poetic Closure:

A

Study of

How

Poems End

(Chicago,

1968),

esp. pp.

14-25.

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 23:08:55 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/24

260 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

poetry.

The second

section

f the

paper

will

develop

some

mplications

oftheconception fpoetry s mimetic, rwhat shall be callingfictive,

discourse.

Although

the

making

of

distinctions, efinitions,

nd classifications

will

occupy

a

good

deal

of

the discussion

hroughout,

t should become

clear that

my

ultimate nterests not

in

taxonomy

ut in

poetry

s

an

artform.

am concerned

with

how,

on

what

basis,

we

actually

do

identify

oetry,

nd how that identification irects nd

modifies

ur

experience

and

interpretation

f

a

literary

rtwork,

oth

as

distinct

from

natural utterance nd

as related

to other

artforms.

Finally, should mention hatwhat is presentedhere is actuallya

set of

extracts

rom

larger tudy

n

progress,

nd

I

am conscious

of

the fact

that

many

matters ouched

upon

in what

followsdeserve

on-

siderably

more attention

han have the

space

to

give

them.

I

By

"natural

discourse,"

mean

here

all utterances

trivial

or sub-

lime,

ill-wrought

r

eloquent,

true

or

false,

cientific r

passionate

-

that

can

be

taken as someone's

saying

something,

omewhere,

ome-

time:

i.e.,

as

the verbal

acts

of

real

persons

n

particular

ccasions

n

response

o

particular

ets of circumstances.

n

stressing

ll

these

par-

ticularities,

wish

to

emphasize

that

a

natural

utterance s an

histori-

cal event:

like

any

other

vent,

t

occupies

a

specific

nd

unique

point

in time

and

space.

A natural

utterance s

thus

an event n the

same

sense as

the

Coronation

of

Elizabeth on

January15, 1559,

or

the

de-

parture

his

morning

rom

Albany

of

Allegheny

Airlines

light617,

or

the

falling

f

a

certain eaf

from certain lm tree. Other eventsmore

or less

resembling

hese n

various

respects

may

occur

at

other imes

or

in other

places,

but

the

event tself-that

coronation,

hat

flight,

hat

utterance

cannot

recur,

or t is

historically

nique.

The

point

requires

emphasis

because

it

reflects fundamental

is-

tinction hat

may

be drawn

between natural utterances nd certain

other

inguistic

tructures

hich are

not

historical

vents

nd

which

can

be

both defined

nd described

ndependently

f

any

particular

nstance

ofoccurrence.

Dictionary

ntries,or

example,

or what we refer o ab-

stractly

s "the

word

fire"

or "the

phrase

aw

and

order" are

not them-

selves

particular

vents;

hey

re, rather,

inguistic

orms,

r the names

of

certain

ypes

r

classes

of events.

And,

as

such,

certainobservations

may

be made about them:

for

example,

the

morphemic

r

phonetic



4/24

POETRY AS

FICTION

26I

featureshatdefine ll membersfthe

lass,

r

the

yntactic

ules

ov-

erning

heir

ccepted

se

n

Englishentences,r,

of

course,

hechar-

acteristic

eaturesf the

circumstances

nwhich

hey

o occur s

part

of

utterances

in

other

words,

heir

dictionary eanings."

utthese

linguistic

orms

words,

hrases,

tc.

are

not

themselves

istorical

events

nless

runtil

hey

ccur

s the

erbal

esponses

f

particularer-

sons

on

particular

ccasions.

Obviously

the word

fire"

s a

general

class s

a

very

ifferent

ort

f

thing

rom

specific

tterance,

Fire ",

which

may

warn man

thathis

ife s

n

danger

r

send

bullet

peed-

ing

toward

im,

ery

much

depending

n the

particular

ircumstances

in

which heutterance

ccurs

nd to which t

s

a

response.

A natural tterance

ot

only

ccurs

n a

particular

et of circum-

stances what s

often eferred

o

as

its

context

but s

also under-

stood

s

being response

o

those

ircumstances.

n other

words,

he

historical

context"

f

an

utterance

oes

not

merely

urround

t but

occasions

t,

brings

t nto

xistence.

he

context f an

utterance,

hen,

is best

hought

fnot

imply

s

its

gross

xternal

r

physical

etting,

ut

rather

s the

total et of conditions

hat

has

in

fact

determined

ts

occurrence

nd

form.2

hat total et

of

conditions,

hatmakes

s

say

something

t a

particular

ime nd also

shapes

he

inguistic

tructure

ofourutterance-the

pecific

ordswe

choose,

ur

yntax,

ur ntona-

tion,

tc.-is

likely

o

be

manifold

nd

complex

o matter

ow

imple

the utterance.

Moreover,

he total et

of conditions

hat determines

whatwe

say

and

howwe

speak

s

by

no means

onfined

o

the

objects

and events

spoken

bout,"

r

what

inguistic

heorists

fvarious

er-

suasions

efer

o

as

"referents,"

designations,"

denotations,"

r

"sig-

nifications."

It is worth

oting

hat

he

xistence

fan

object

r event

r

even,

s

wesay, n "idea," snever sufficient

eason

or

esponding

o it

ver-

bally.

In other

words,

he fact

hat

omething

s true

s never

suf-

ficient

eason

for

aying

t. If

I shouldbe

heardto

say,

"It's

five

o'clock,"

hereasons

or

my

aying

o would

learly

ncludemore

han

2

Since

the

term context

has been

acquiring

increased

currency

n

contemporary

aesthetics

and

linguistics,

should

point

out that it is not

my

intention

here

to

quarrel

with

or

qualify

the sense it bears

for other theorists.

It

might

have

been

better

to

discover

or devise

another

term

altogether

for what I am here

defining

and later

elaborating,

but the

alternatives

hat

presented

themselves eemed

just

as

likely

to create

comparable

confusions,

nd

I confess

to a

temperamental

oathing

of neologisms. It should also be noted that, in proposingthat we view the context

of

an

utterance

not

merely

as its

physical

setting

but

as the

totality

f its

determin-

ants,

I am

not so

much

broadening

the

ordinary

reference

f the term

as

affirming

the existence

and

significance

f a

particular

relation,

namely

causality,

between

a

verbal event

and

the universe

n which

it

occurs.

Defined in

termsof that

relation-

ship,

the

"context"

of an

utterance

inevitably

refers

to

something

more extensive

than

what

the

common

use

of the

term

suggests,

ut also

something

more

particular.



5/24

262

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

what

time of

day

it was

just

then,

for at

any

moment

t

is

a

certain

time,but I do not announcethe timecontinuouslyhrough he day.

Perhaps,

on

this

occasion,

wished

to

remind omeone

of

an

appoint-

ment,

r

perhaps

omeone

had

just

asked me for

he

correct

ime.

Cer-

tainly

hese

circumstances ere as

significant

n

occasioning

my

utter-

ance as that

specific

ne to which

my

words,

It's five

o'clock,"

might

seem

exclusively

o

"refer,"

namely

he time of

day.

Given

any

utterable act or state of

affairs,

ross

or

subtle,

physical

or

psychological

the

state

of

the

weather,

he

color

of

swans,

or

my

opinion

of the

war

-

whether r not

will

actually

utter

t,

and how

I

will utter t,will alwaysdepend upon othervariables, .e., attendant

circumstances ther

han that fact

or state of affairs.

These variables

will

include,

among

other

things,

he

presence

of

a

potential

istener,

my

relationship

o

him,

he

nature

f the social

occasion,

the

mmediate

verbal

context

what

eitherhe or I

have been

saying)

and,

perhaps

most

ignificantly,

he

conventions f the

inguistic

ommunity

o which

we both

belong.

There

is

no

reason to maintain a

sharp

distinction etween

the

sort

of

physical

nd

social

variables

ust

mentioned

nd

what

might

other-

wise be

thought f as the internal, ersonal,mental,or psychological

springs

f

speech.

It is obviousthat

among

the circumstances

hat

pro-

voke, occasion,

and

shape

an utterance

re

conditions

eculiar

to

the

speaker's

current

tate: his

emotions,

his

feelings,

is

memories,

x-

pectations,

eliefs,

nd

desires.

I

may say

"It's fiveo'clock"

partly

e-

cause I

am

hungry

r

anxious or

bored,

and such

conditions

must

also

be

recognized

s

part

of

the context f the utterance.

We should

note,

moreover,

hat

the

speaker's

current

tate"

s

inevitably

he

product

of

his

past

as well as

his current

xperiences,ncluding,

most

ignificantly,

his

past

verbal

xperiences,

nd that

part

of his

psychological

r

mental

condition and therefore

art

of the contextof his utterance is

how he has

earnedto

use

anguage.

Although

we

may,

for certain

purposes,

describe an

utterance x-

clusively

n

terms

f ts

inguistic

orm

e.g.,

as a

certain

oncatination

of

lexemes

and/or

phonemes),

a

natural utterance an never

be

ade-

quatelyspecified

r

described s an

event

xcept

n relation o

the con-

text

n

which

t

occurred.

In other

words,

verbal

event,

ike

any

other

event,

s individuated

s much

by

its

context

s

by

its form.

Thus,

al-

though

we could

say

that

two men each

pulling

he

trigger

f a

gun

are

engaged

n actsofthesame

form,

tis clearthatMr. X

shooting

Mr. Y

is

not the

same event

as

Mr. A

shooting

Mr.

B,

or

as Mr. X

shooting

Mr.

Y

again

fifteen

minutes ater.

Similarly,

when

say, making

ntro-

ductions at a

party,

This

is

my husband,"

it

may

not

be a

unique

event

with

respect

o

its

inguistic

orm,

ut

it

is

certainly

ot

the

same



6/24

POETRY AS

FICTION

263

event

as

some

otherwoman

saying

t of her

husband

or, ndeed,

as

my

own saying t on some otheroccasion,eitherfifteenminutes ater to

some other

guest

or even

absentmindedly

o the

same one

as

before.

Moreover,

t

is

unlikely

hat

any

two natural utteranceswould

be

even

formally

dentical

f one extends ttention

o the

more

subtle

as-

pects

of

their

inguistic

orm.

For

although

each utterance ould be

transcribed

ith he

same

symbols,

uch a

transcriptionreserves

nly

a

fraction f

the total

physical eality

onstituting

ach

utterance,

reality

that

would include

not

only

a certain

equence

of

phonemes,

but

also

intonational

eatures uch

as

pitch

contours,

tress,

acing,

and

usually

facial expressions nd othergestures s well. While some linguists

may

regard

the

latter

spects

of

the utterancewith

suspicion

and dis-

pute

their

tatus

as

linguistic

eatures,

t

is

nevertheless

ecoming

n-

creasingly

videntthat there

s

no

absolute

discontinuity

etween the

part

of an act or

event that s

called "verbal" and

the

totality

f that

act or event. In other

words,

a

natural utterance s

always

continuous

withthe

speaker's

otal

ongoing

behavior and also continuous

with the

total

world

of

natural

events. The

professional

inguist's

r our own

or-

dinary description

f the

utterancereflects

n

arbitrary

emarcation

and abstraction rom hefullness,hedensity,nd thespatial,temporal,

and

casual

continuity

f all human action and

all events

n

nature.

Most

of

us would

agree

that it is

impossible

o

provide

a

complete

and

exhaustive

description

f

a

nonverbal

historical

vent such as

the

Coronation

of

Elizabeth or

the

departure

f

Flight

6

I7.

What

the

his-

torianoffers

ill

usually

be a selection

r

abstraction

f

certain

features

of

theseevents t a

level

thought

dequate

forthe

purpose

at

hand.

It

is

clear,

moreover,

hat neither n

eye-witness

eport

nor,

f we had

it,

even

a

videotape,

would constitute

total record

of the

event;

and

neitherone, of course,would constitute he event itself. The same

limits

nd distinctions

pply

to the

descriptions

nd

records

of verbal

events:

Elizabeth's

first

peech

to Parliament

on

February4th,

1559,

or

my

farewells his

morning

o

my

family.

No

description

r

record

would

be

complete,

neither vocal

quotation

nor a

tape-recording,

n

either

f which

many

features

f

the

original

ventwould be lost.

The

fact,

however,

hatverbal

events an be transcribed

n a standard

nota-

tional

system

often

eems

to obscure

for

us

their

similarity

o

other

events.

It

is true

that

orthography

nd

phonetic

notation

llows us

to

record

or describe

natural

utterances

with considerable

ubtlety

nd

specificity

f detail

through

conventionalized

ymbols.

Moreover,

a

transcription

f this

kind

-

i.e.,

a "text" of the utterance

may

be

an

adequate

description

r recordof t for

most

purposes.

Nevertheless,

we should

not confuse

copy

of that textwith the verbal event

tself,

the

historicalct

of a

particular peaker

on a

particular

ccasion.



7/24

264

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

The

relation

of

utterances

to texts

is

of

special

interest

to us

heresince,at least in our own culture,we typically ncounterpoetry

as texts.

The relation

s

extremely

omplex,

however,

with

respect

to

both natural and

poetic

discourse,

nd,

indeed,

it

is

not

always

the

same relation.

I

have

just

been

speaking

of

texts

that

serve

as records

r

descriptions

f natural

utterances,

.e.,

inscriptions

f ver-

bal

events hat occurred t

some

specific

ime,

uch

as Elizabeth's

first

address

to

Parliament.

Not

all texts

bear

thisrelation o some

natural

utterance.

Many

texts

-

personal

letters,

or

example

-

are not

recordsor

descriptions

f

utterances,

ut

constitute tterances hem-

selves, nly

n

written

ather han

vocal

form.

t

is

true,

f

course,

hat

thereare other

very ignificantspects

to the relationbetween

writing

and vocal

speech,

and

they

are not

mutually

ndependent

r

simply

parallel

possibilities.

Nevertheless,

o the

extent hat

the

writer's ct

of

composing

nd

inscribing

s

an

historicallypecific

nd

unique

verbal

event,

t

is

analagous

to

the

speaker's

act

of

emitting

he

sounds

that

comprise

poken

discourse.

And

thus

we

may

regard

the

product

of

either

ct

as a

natural

utterance.

In view

of

the

Gutenberg

revolution,

he

question

may

arise

as

to

whether

printed or

otherwise

uplicated)

texts

can

also be

regarded

as

natural

utterances,

nd the

answerhere

s

sometimes

es

and

some-

times

no.

A

printed

ext

may

be

simply

ne of

many

copies

of

an in-

scribed

record

of

a

vocal

utterance

hat,

ike

Elizabeth's

Address,

did

occur at

some

specific

ime

and

place.

In

this

case,

the text

is

not

a natural

utterance,

ut the

transcription

f one. But

a

printed

work

may

also

be

a

naturalutterance tself n

written

orm,

xactly

ike

a

per-

sonal

letter

though

the

letter,

f

course,

usually

exists as

only

a

single

text.

It

may

be

initially

ifficult

o

conceive of

a

printed

work

as

a natural utterance

nd

thus,

by

our definition

ere,

an

historically

unique

event. We should

recognize

however,

hatno matterhow

many

duplications

of a

text

are

subsequently

roduced,

the writer's ctual

composition

f

the

linguistic

tructure

hat

constitutes hat text was

and remains

an

historically

nique

event.

("Unique"

here

does not

mean

unitary,

nd

it

is

understood

hatthe

composition

f the

textwill

often consist

of numerous

"acts"

dispersed

n

time,

from

the

initial

jottings

o theultimate

evisions.)

To summarize

hese

points,

hen:

whether

r

not a

composition

was

written

o

be

printed,

nd

no matterhow

long

t

is,

or how

long

it took

towrite, nd nomatter owremotentimeor

space

the writer romhis

ultimate

udience,

or how

eloquent

ts

style,

r how

culturally

ignifi-

cant and

otherwise

stimable t

s,

the

composition

must tillbe

regarded

as a naturalutterance

o

long

as it

may

be taken as the verbal

responses

of an

historically

eal

person,

occasioned

and

determined

y

an

his-



8/24

POETRY

AS FICTION

265

torically

real

universe.

And this

means that

most

of

what we call

"literature" n thegeneral ense of inscribed ompositions oes in fact

consist f natural utterances.This

would include

works

ranging

from

Aristotle's

Metaphysics

nd

Macaulay's

History f

England

to an article

in

a

scientific

ournal

or

an editorial

n

this

morning's

New

York

Times.

These are all as much

natural utterances s the

remarks

xchanged

be-

tween

me and a

colleague

a

fewmoments

go.

There

remains,

however,

one

other

class

of

texts

that

are

neither

natural

utterances

n

written

ormnor

the

transcription

f

natural

ut-

terances

hat

originally

ccurred

n vocal

form,

nd

this

class

consists

ofthetexts ffictive tterances,ncludingmostprominentlyhosecom-

positions

hatwe

otherwise efer

o as

works f

maginative

iterature

poems,

ales,dramas,

nd novels.

I shall

reserve

omment

n these exts

until

ater,

n connection

with he

general

discussion f fictive

iscourse;

for,

s

we shall

see,

fictive tterances ear an

altogether

istinctive

ela-

tion

to theirown textswhen indeed

(as

is not

always

the

case)

such

texts

xist.

But

we

may

return ow

from he texts o

the

contexts

f natural

ut-

terances,

nd

thereby

o the

crucial

question

of

meaning

and

interpre-

tation.

A naturalutterance

annotbe

exclusively

dentified

r described

independent

f its

context,

nor can its

meaning

be

understood

nde-

pendent

f

thatcontext.

ndeed,

what we often

mean

by

the

"meaning"

of an

utterance

s

its

context,

.e.,

the set of

conditions hat

occasioned

its occurrence nd determined

tsform.

The

view

of

meaning

proposed

here s

not offered

s an

analysis

f all

the

numerous

enses

n which

the

termhas been

or

could

be

used,

and

certainly

ot

as a

solution

o the

ever-proliferating

umberof

problems

ssociated

with

t

in

contempo-

rary inguistics

nd

philosophy.

Nevertheless,

casual

conception

of

meaning

-

which this

s

-

has much to

recommend

t,

particularly

here,

since it

permits

s to

appreciate

better he distinctive atureof

poetic

discourse

and of

its

"interpretation."

Moreover,

t

is not

so

idiosyncratic

s

may

first

ppear,

for

"meaning"

in the

sense of causes

or determinants

ill oftenbe

found to

accommodate

or

correspond

o

familiar

sage

of theterm.

I

must

emphasize

that

I

am

speaking

here

of the

meaning

not

of

words

but

of

utterances,

distinction

ot

always grasped

even

by

those

most concerned

with

these

problems.

One

may

ascertain

he

meanings

of those

abstract

classes

called

words

by

determining

he

conventions

governing

heir

usage

in therelevant

inguistic

ommunity,sually by

consulting

ne's

experience

f the

language

or,

when

difficulties

rise,

either

dictionary-or

an

analytic

philosopher.

Dictionaries

nd

phi-

losophers

re of

only

imited

help,

however,

n

ascertaining

he

meaning

of

particular

verbal

events. When

we

speak

ordinarily

f the

meaning



9/24

266 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

of a

particular

tterance-i.e.,

what someone

has

said-we are

usually

concerned not with the definitionsf the words that compose it or

even,

in a

restricted

ense,

with what

it

"refers"

o,

but ratherwith

why

t occurred:

the

situation

nd

motives hat

produced

it,

the set

of

conditions,

external"

and

"internal,"

physical

and

psychological,

that

caused

the

speaker

to utter that

statement t that time in

that

form-in other

words,

what we are

calling

here

ts context.

For

example,

definitions

nd referents

re

not

what interest

John

when

he

asks,

"What

do

you

mean?",

in

response

o his friend's e-

mark,

"You

know,

thinkBill is

a

fool."

Pointing

o

Bill

and

offering

an analysis fthe"concept"offollywillprobablynot answerhisques-

tion.

Knowing

this,

his

friend

s

more

likely

to

describe

certain

cir-

cumstances,

bservations

e

has

made,

impressions

e

has had

(and

perhaps

also his motives

for

articulating

hem

at that

moment),

and

so

forth,

ntil

John

ays,

Oh,

well,

now

I

understand

what

you

mean,"

meaning

that he

has

located to

his

own

satisfaction he

reasons

for or

causes

of

his

friend's

emark. The

qualification

ere,

to his own satis-

faction,"

s an

important

ne,

for t

is

most

unlikely

hat

John

would

in

facthave

dentifiedll

the

determinantsnvolved.

We rarely"understandcompletely"one another'sutterances,nor

do

we

need

or

seek

to do

so.

Criteriafor

the

adequate

understanding

of an

utterance

ary

widely,depending

on the nature

of the utterance

and

the

primary urposes

nd interests

f

the

speaker

nd listener.

And

although

ometimes

for

example,

n

a

psychoanalyst's

ffice

one

may

probe

for

increasingly

ubtle

and

obscure

determinants,

oth

speaker

and

listener

re

usually

satisfied

with

considerably

ess

than

a

total identification

f

all

of them.

It

is

usually

not

necessary,

nd

of

course

t

is

usually

not

possible,

or

he istener

o ascertain ll the

con-

ditions

hat

make

up

the context

f an utterance.

It

is not

necessary

because

many

of them will be trivialand irrelevant o his concerns.

And

it is

not

possible

either

because the

speaker's

original

context

s

remote

n

time

or

space,

or

because

many

of the

springs

f

speech

are

not

apparent

from he

mmediate ontext

r,

as we

say,

are

private

or

internal

o the

speaker.

The listener

r

audience, therefore,

s

always

obliged

to

"interpret"

hat s

said

or

written.

That

is,

to the extent

hat

the

istener

as

an interest

n those unavailable

determinants,

e must

hypothesize,

magine,

r

nfer

hem.

When

we read

the

inscribed

utterance

f

a

friend,

uch

as

a

letter

from

him,

we

may

be more aware of

interpreting

s such than when

we listen

o

him

speak,

but

we do

so

in

both

nstances nd

by

the

same

process:

partly

hrough

nferences ased

on

what

we know

of him

per-

sonally,

but

mostly hrough

nferences ased

on all our own

prior

ex-

periences,

specially

ur

prior experiences

with

anguage.

And,

when



10/24

POETRY AS

FICTION

267

he

alludes

either

n

speech

or

writing

o

matters

f which we

have

no

specificknowledge--e.g.,a thirdpersonwhom we have nevermet,

a

place

we

have

never

visited we

supply

our

ignorance

by

an

imagi-

native

projection

f

what

we

do

know

generally.

t

is

important

o

em-

phasize,

however,

that

these

projections

re

attempts

o

inferor

ap-

proximate

actual

circumstances,

nd thus

are

subject

to

correction

should

our

knowledge

become more

specific.

("Oh,

you're

Charlie's

brother.

From what

he

said,

I

pictured

you

as

much

older.")

What

makes

a letter

particularly

nteresting

s

an

utterance

s

the

fact

that,

ince

t acks the

supplementary

nformation

sually

conveyed

to thelistener yintonation nd gestures s well as bysharedphysical

contexts

we

cannot

point

to

things

n

letters),

his ort

of

information

will

commonly

e

supplied

by

thewriter n other

ways: by

explicit

llu-

sions

("As

I

write

his,

am

sitting y my

studywindow-you

know,

the

one that

ooks

out over

the back

garden,

etc.")

by

graphic

substi-

tutes

for

ntonation

e.g.,

underlining, unctuation,

pacing),

and

by

more ubtlemodifications

f

the

anguage

tself

e.g.,

in

diction,

yntax,

turns

of

phrasing,

nd

metaphor).

Our

syntax

n

letters,

ecause

it

carries

greater

burden

of information

han in

conversational

peech,

not

only

can

be but must

be

more controlled.

To be

sure,

ince we

are

oftenmore or less consciousof the

generic

relationof our letters o

"literature,"

we

will

employ

forms uch

as archaisms

nd

metaphoric

imagery

that

would seem

pretentious

r

otherwise

nappropriate

n

conversational

peech.

This,

however,

does not

altogether

ccount

for

the fact

hat ome

of

us

become,

n our

etters,

ather

ncharacteristical-

ly

eloquent

and

"literary";

for,

s we shall

see,

thereare

other

reasons

why

the

linguistic

eatures

f letters ftenbear

an

interesting

esem-

blance

to

those

commonly

ssociatedwith

poetic

discourse,

o

which,

t

last,

am now

happy

to

turn.

II

Poems

are

not natural

utterances,

ot

historically

nique

verbal

acts

or

events;

indeed

a

poem

is

not an event

at

all,

and cannotbe

said

ever

to

have

"occurred"

n the usual sense. When

we read the

text

of

a

poem

or hear t read

aloud,

our

response

o it as a

linguistic

tructure

is

governed

by

quite

special

conventions,

nd it is the

understanding

that

these

conventions

re

operating

hat

distinguishes

he

poem

as

a

verbal

artwork

romnaturaldiscourse. The

operation

f these

conven-

tions

s

most

readily

pparent

n dramatic

poetry,

.e.,

plays,

where

t

is



11/24

268

NEW ITERARY

ISTORY

understood hat

the

acts

and events

performed

pon

the

stage

are not

happeningbut are being representeds happening. When we see a

production

f

Hamlet,

we

do

not

watch

a

queen

drinking

oison,

but

the enactment

f such

an

event,

which

may

be

said to "occur"

only

in

being

thusenacted.

But

among

the acts and

events

epresented

pon

the

stage

are

also verbal ones.

As

the

actor who

portrays

Claudius

leans forward

nd

extendshis arm

in

a

gesture

f horror nd abortive

warning,

hus

representing

man

leaning

forward nd

extending

his

arm,

etc.,

that

actor also utters he

words,

"Gertrude,

do not

drink,"

thus

representing

man

uttering

hosewords. We

are not aware

here

ofanyradicaldiscontinuityetween heenactment f a physical ction

and

the enactment f an

utterance

and of

course

an

utterance s

a

physical

action,

though

t

has other characteristicshat

sometimes

obscure hatfact.

Most of us would

be

quite

willing

to

grant

the

existenceof

what

could

be

called mimeticdiscourse

i.e.,

the

fictive

epresentation

f

speech

-

at least

in

dramatic

poetry.

What

I

would like

to

suggest,

however,

s

that all

poetry

may

be

so

regarded,

hat

we could conceive

of

as

mimetic iscoursenot

only

he

representation

f

speech

n

drama,

but also lyrics, pics,tales,and novels. Indeed, I wishto proposethat

this,

he fictive

epresentation

f

discourse,

s

precisely

what defines

hat

class

of

verbal

compositions

e

have so

much trouble

naming

and dis-

tinguishing,

.e.,

"imaginative

iterature" r

"poetry

n

thebroad

sense."

The

conception

f

poetry

s

mimetic

s,

of

course,

uite

ancient,

nd

modem theorists

o

continue

o

assert hat literature s

a

representa-

tional

art.

It

is

by

no

means

clear,

however,

what

or

what

kind of

thing

it

s that the

poem

"imitates"

r

represents.

One commonnotion eems

to

be

that

poetry,

pparently

n

the

analogy

of

painting,

omehow

rep-

resents imagesin words." Or, in view ofthe existence f numerous

image-less

oems

and

passages

n

novels,

hat t

represents

deas or feel-

ings,

either he

author's

or

those

of his

characters.

Or,

in

view

of how

restrictive

ven

this

formulation

s,

t

s sometimes

uggested

hat

iterary

works,

specially

narrative

ictions,

epresent

magined

events

or even

worlds

in,

t

will

solemnly

e

added,

the medium

of

anguage.

I

will

not

attempt

here to indicate all the

problems

ntailed

by

such

sugges-

tions,3

or

wish

only

to

point

out

that

they

ll

ignore

what

might

be

thought

most

apparent,

namely

that what

poems

do

represent

in the

mediumoflanguage" is language,or moreaccurately, peech,human

utterance,

iscourse.

The definition

roposed

here

attempts

o

close

in

on

poetry

from

wo directions:

one,

as it

may

be

distinguished

rom

3

I

have

considered the matter

elsewhere:

see

"The New

Imagism,"

Midway

(Winter,

1969), pp. 27-44.



12/24

POETRY AS FICTION

269

othermimetic

rtforms,

nd

two,

as

it

may

be

distinguished

rom

ther

verbalcompositions.As a mimetic rtform, hat a poemdistinctively

and

characteristically

epresents

s

not

images,

deas,

feelings,

harac-

ters,

cenes,

r

worlds,

ut

discourse.

Poetry

oes,

ike

drama,

represent

actions

and

events,

ut

exclusively

erbal

ones.

And,

as a verbal com-

position, poem

is

distinctively

nd

characteristically

ot a natural

utterance,

ut

the

representation

f

one.

A

poem represents

iscourse

n

thesame

sense

s

a

play,

n

its

totality,

represents

uman actions

and

events,

or

a

painting

represents

isual

objects.

When

we

speak

of

the

objects

represented

n

or

by

a

painting,

it sunderstoodhattheyneednotcorrespondo anyparticular bjects,

but rather o

an

identifiable

lass

of

them.

A

painting

can

depict

a

landscape

that

exists

as

a visual

object

only

in

the

depiction

itself.

Thus,

when

we

speak

of

mimesis

r

representation

n

an

artwork,

we

recognize

hat

it

does not constitute

he

imitation

r

reproduction

f

existing bjects

or

events,

ut rather

he fabrication

f fictive

bjects

and

events

f

which

there re

existing

r

possible

nstances

r

types

whether

hey

be rural

landscapes,

star-crossed

overs,

or

laments

for

dead

friends.

n other

words,

to

say

that

an artisthas

represented

certain

object

or

event

s to

say

that

he has constructed

fictive

mem-

ber

of

an identifiable

lass

of natural

(real)

objects

or events.

Part

of

what

has obscured

he

relation

f

poetic

mimesis

o

pictorial

and other

kinds of

artistic

epresentation

re

traditional

notions

that

identify

he various

artforms

n

terms

of their

characteristic

media.

Thus,

sound

is said

to be

the

medium

of

music,

pigment

he

medium

of

painting,

nd

of

course

words

or

language

the

medium

of

poetry.

The

corollary

formula-X

(artwork)

represents

(object

of

imita-

tion)

in

Z

(medium)--has

created

more

problems

han it has

illumi-

nated,

most

conspicuously, erhaps,

in

regard

to

music,

where

art

theorists,

nder

the

presumed

bligation

o

locate the

object

thatmusic

imitates,

ave come

up

with

an

amazing

assortment

f

chimeras,

rom

shapes

of

feeling

o states

f

being.

It is

another

problem,

owever,

hat

concerns

s

here.

The

plastic

materials

hat

are

presumably

he

media

of the

visual

arts

pigment,

tone,

metal,

and so forth

do not

have

an

expressive

unction

ndependent

f the artworks

nto which

they

re

fashioned.

These

materials,

moreover,

o

not in themselves

esemble

the

objects

and scenes

that

theyrepresent.

A block of marble

s a

very

different

hing

from a

human

figure.

The

corresponding

medium

of

poetry,

however,

anguage,

is not a "raw" material,but itself sym-

bolic

system

with

expressive

unctions

ndependent

of

its use in

art-

works.

For

this

reason,

t

has

been

difficult

o conceive

of

language

as

both

the

medium

of an artwork

nd also

what

is

represented

y

t.

The

difficulty

ere,

however,

s

really

he traditional

oncept

of

the



13/24

270

NEW

LITERARY

HISTORY

art medium

tself,

articularly

ts

mplicit

dualism of form nd matter.

This dualism i.e.,thenotion

f

theartmedium s formlessmatter

not

only

creates

problems

with

regard

to

poetry

for

language

is

ob-

viously

not

formless

matter),

but it

also

obscures

he

nature of

other

artforms.We

could

just

as

readily

nd,

I

think,

more

fruitfully,

hink

of

the

medium

of the visual arts

not

as

pigment

nd stone

but as

the

visuallyperceivedproperties

f matter

r,

indeed,

as

the

elements

nd

dynamics

of

visual

perception

tself.

And,

if

we

must have a

corres-

ponding

"medium"

for

poetry,

we would do betterto

locate

it not

simply

n

words or

language

conceived

abstractly,

ut

in

the whole

dynamiccomplex

of

verbal

behavior and

verbal

experience.

But

if

we

are content

o do without he

traditional otionof the

art

medium

altogether,

we

may

be better ble

to

appreciate

the

essential

nature

of

poetic representation

nd

its

relation

o

artistic

mimesis

en-

erally.

As

I

suggested

bove,

we

may

conceive

of

an

artwork ot as

the

imitation,

n some

different

matter,"

of

the

"form"

of

particular

b-

jects

or

events

lreadyexisting

n

nature,

but

as

the creation

f a fictive

member

f a certain lass

of natural

objects

or events.

Thus,

paintings

are

fictive

nstances

f

what,

in

nature,

are

visually

perceivedobjects.

Musical

compositions

re fictive nstances

of

acousticallyperceived

events,

n otherwords

designed

sounds as

distinguished

rom ounds

simply

occurring

n

nature.

And

poems

are

fictiveutterances.

The

kinds

of natural events

represented

n

poetry

re,

of

course,

quite

spe-

cial: utterances re themselves

uman

constructions,

nd

in that sense

"artificial."

This should

not,

however,

bscure

he sense

n

which

they

are nevertheless atural

events,

ike the

flight

f

birds,

the

falling

of

leaves,

and all the

particular

ctions

of

individualmen

moving

about

in,

and

being

moved

about

by,

the

natural

universe.

We

can,

I

think,readily

conceive

of

a-man-walking

s

a

natural

event and

should be able to conceiveof

a-man-talking

s

such;

for,

s

I

have

already

uggested,

here

s no real

discontinuity

etweenverbal

and

non-verbal ctions.

A

painting

can

represent, hrough

visual

configuration

f

line

and

color,

a man

walking

or

a

child

sleeping,

e-

cause

such

events

are

ordinarily erceived

primarily

s

visual

events.

And

although

a visual

artist

an also

represent

man

talking (one

may

think,

or

example,

of

some

of

Daumier's

prints

f

awyers

n

ani-

mated

conversation),

he cannot

represent ictorially

he utterance

t-

self,

for

speech

is

not

perceived

as a

visual

event-except

of

course,

whenit is in written

orm,

matter o whichI will return ater. But

fornow

let us

pursue

the

example

of

Daumier a

bit

further.As a

visual

artist,

e was

of course

extraordinarily

ensitive

o the

expressive

nd

otherwise

nteresting

ualities

of the

appearances

of his fellow crea-

tures:

the

way

they

tood

and

grouped

themselves

ogether,

he "ex-



14/24

POETRY AS FICTION

27I

pressions"

n

their

aces,

he

gestures

f

their

hands,

and so forth. Had

he also

been,

as some

people are,extraordinarily

ensitive o

the

expres-

sive and otherwise

nteresting

ualities

of the

speech

of

his

fellow

crea-

tures,

he

might

have

sought

o

represent

hat

too. But how

could

he do

so? The answer

am

suggesting

ere

s

that he could

fashion

fictive

representation

f

speech,

i.e.,

a

poem

-

something,

perhaps,

like

Browning's

The

Bishop

Orders his

Tomb,"

which

I

thinkwe

might

recognize

s

a

verbal

counterpart

f a

satiric

Daumier

print:

ut

pictura

poesis.

The

relation

f "dramatic

monologues"

o dramatic

poetry roper

s,

of

course,readily ppreciated,

nd

we

can

see how either ould

be

re-

garded

as

mimetic

iscourse.

My

claim

here,

however,

s

more

general,

for

what

is

central o

the

concept

of the

poem

as

a fictive tterance s

not that the

speaker

s

a "character"

distinct

rom he

poet,

or that the

audience

purportedly

ddressed,

he

emotions

xpressed,

nd

the events

alluded

to

are

fictional,

ut

that

the

speaking,addressing, xpressing

and

alluding

are themselves

ictive

verbal acts.

To

be

sure,

a fictive

utterancewill

often

resemble

possible

natural utterance

ery

closely,

for

the distinction

s not

primarily

ne of

linguistic

orm.

Moreover,

although

certain

formal

features

verse,

most

notably

often do

mark and indeed

identify

orthereaderthe fictivenessfan

utterance,

the

presence

of such

features

re

not themselves

he crux of the

dis-

tinction.

The

distinction

ies,

rather,

n a

set

of conventions hared

by

poet

and

reader,

ccording

owhichcertain

dentifiable

inguistic

truc-

tures

re

taken

to

be

not the

verbal

acts

they

resemble,

ut

representa-

tions

of such

acts.

By

this

convention,

eats's

ode

"To Autumn"

and

Shakespeare's

onnets

re

precisely

s fictive

s "The

Bishop

Orders

His

Tomb"

or

Tennyson's

"Ulysses."

All

of these

poems

are

understood

not

as

the

nscriptions

f

utterances

ctually

uttered

y

men who

spoke

poetically,

ut rather s linguistictructuresomposedbymenwhom

we

call

poets

because

they

compose

such structures.

The

statements

in a

poem

may,

of

course,

resemble

quite

closely

statements

hat

the

poet

might

have

truly

nd

truthfully

ttered

s an historical reature

n

the

historical

world.

Nevertheless,

nsofar

as

they

are offered

nd

recognized

s statements

n

a

poem,

they

re fictive.

To the

objection,

"But

I know

Wordsworth

meant

what

he

says

n that

poem,"

we

must

reply,

You

mean he would

have meant

them

f he had

said

them,

but

he

is

not

saying

hem."

As I shall

explain

ater,

we

may

choose

to

re-

gardthecomposition ot as a poembut as an historical tterance, ut

then

the

conventions

y

virtue

fwhich

ts

fictiveness

s understood

nd

has

its

appropriate

ffects

re

no

longer

n

operation.

Another

matter

hould,

however,

be

clarified

t

this

point.

I

have

said

that

novels

and

tales,

as well

as

lyrics,

pics,

and dramatic

poems



15/24

272

NEW LITERARY HISTORY

are

also fictive

epresentations

f discourse. The fictiveness

f

prose

fictions, of course,commonly cknowledged, ut

it

is more

radical

than

s sometimes

upposed.

For

not

only

re

the characters nd events

narrated

n

a novel

fictional,

nd not

only

s

the narratorwhose

voice

relates

he

events

fictional,

ut

most

significantly,

o also is

the entire

structure

f

discourse

hrough

which the narration s

presented.

In-

deed,

as

we

all

know,

many

novels such

as

War

and Peace allude

to

quite

real

persons

nd

events,

consideration

hat

has

created

theoreti-

cal

problems

for

many literary

heorists.

The

essential

fictiveness

f

novels, however,

s of all

literary

rtworks,

s

not to

be discovered

n

the

unreality

f the

characters,bjects,

nd

events

lluded

to,

but n

the

unreality

f the

alludings

hemselves.n other

words,

n a novel or

tale,

it

is

the

act

of

reporting

vents,

he

act

of

describing

ersons

nd refer-

ring

o

places,

that s fictive.The novel

represents

he verbal action

of

a

man

reporting,

escribing,

nd

referring.

Consider

he

following

wo

passages:

(a)

"He

was

a

gentleman

f

good family

n

Buckinghamshire,

nd

bornto a

fair

fortune,

nd

of

a most ivil

nd affable

eportment.

n

his

entrance nto the

world,

he

indulged

himself ll

the

icense

n

sports

nd

exercisesnd companywhichwasusedbymenofthemost ollyconversa-

tion;

afterwards

e

retired

o

a more reserved nd

melancholy

ociety."

(b)

"He had

been a

member f

the

Court

of

Justice,

nd died at

the

age

of

forty-five.

is

father

had been an

official

who,

after

erving

n

variousministries

nd

departments

n

Petersburg,

ad

made

the sort

of

career

which

brings

men to

positions

romwhich

by

reason

f

ong

ervice

they

annot

e dismissed."

The

first

s

from the

description

f

John

Hampden

in

Clarendon's

History

of

the

Rebellion;

the second is from

Tolstoi's

"Death

of Ivan

Ilyitch." (In both,we mightnote,allusionsare made to real places,

Buckinghamshire

nd

Petersburg.)

I

am

suggesting

ere

that the

re-

lation

between

he two

passages

s

that

the

second s

a

representation

f

the

kind

of

thing

he

first

eally

s,

namely

a

biography.

"The

Death

of

Ivan

Ilyitch"

s

not

the

biography

f

a

fictional

haracter,

ut

rather

a fictive

iography.

The fiction

ttaches

no

more to the narrated acts

of

Ilyitch's

ife han to the

factof

someone's

narrating

hem.

Tolstoi

s,

if

you

like,

pretending

o be

writing

biography

while

actuallyfabri-

cating

ne.

If we consideriteraturerom hepointofview amdevelopinghere,

it becomes

evident

hatthe various

genres

f

iterary

rt for

xample,

tales,

classical

odes,

and

lyrics

can often

be

distinguished

rom

ach

other

ccording

o what

types

f

naturaldiscourse

hey

epresent:

here,

respectively,

necdotal

reports

f

past

events,

ublic speeches,

nd

more



16/24

POETRY

AS FICTION

273

or

less

private

or

personal

utterance.4

Poetry

tself,

s

distinctnow

from

novels

and

stories,raditionallyepresents

ariouskinds

of

spoken

discourse.

Certain

types

f

discourse,

owever,

re themselves

ypically

textual

nscriptions;

.e.,

they

xist

haracteristically

n written nd often

in

printed

form for

example,

chronicles,

ournals,

etters,

memoirs,

and

biographies.

And

certain

genres

of

literary

rt,

roughly

what

we

refer

o as

"prose

fiction,"

haracteristically

epresent

uch

varieties

f

inscribed

iscourse.

Novels,

for

xample,

a

distinctively

ost-Gutenberg

genre,

have

typically

een

representations

f

chronicles,

ournals,

etters,

memoirs,

nd

biographies.

This

aspect

of

prose

fictionhas some

in-

terestingmplications

orthe natureof novels as

texts,

ut

they

will be

better

ppreciated

afterwe have

given

some attention o

literary

exts

generally.

A

poem

-

i.e.,

a

fictive tterance

consists

ntirely

f a

linguistic

structure,

nlike

natural

utterance,

which

consists

f a

linguistic

vent

occurring

n

an historical

ontext.

n

a

non-literate

ulture,

.g.,

among

Northwest

ndian

tribes,

he

inguistic

tructure

hatwould

be identified

as

that

ong

or

story

s

preserved

nd

duplicated,

f at

all,

only

n

being

remembered

nd recited.

But

in a literate

ulture,

he

identity

f

the

poemmay

be

preserved

nd

reproduced hrough

standard

notational

system,

.e.,

in a written ext. The text of a

poem,

however,

bears a

quite

special

relation

o

the

utterance

f

which

t is

presumably

n

in-

scribed

counterpart.

For it is

neither

transcription

f

an

utterance

that

actually

occurred

t some

specific

rior

time,

ike

Elizabeth's

first

speech

to

Parliament,

nor

s

it a natural

utterance

n

written

orm,

ike

a

personal

etter.

t

is,

rather,

ike

the score

of

a

musical

composition

r

the

script

f a

play,

.e.,

formal

pecifications

or

the

physical

produc-

tion

of certain

events.

The

text of the

poem

tells

us,

in

other

words,

how

to

produce

the verbal

act

it

represents.

his

is evident

nough

for

a

playscript,

whichdirects he

performer's

erbal actions

along

with

other

more

obviously

physical

actions:

e.g.,

"enter,"

"exit,"

"is

stab-

bed,"

"falls,"

says

"I am

dead,

Horatio;

wretched

Queen,

adieu."

But

this s

true

of

any poetic

text,

.e. of

any

verbal

artwork

hat

represents

spoken

rather han written

iscourse.

The text

of

a

novel

must be

re-

garded

somewhat

differently,

s

I will

explain

below.

But,

allowing

for

this

exception,

he text

of

any

poem

is

to be

interpreted,

n the

first

n-

stance,

s,

in

effect,

score

or

stage

directions

or

he

performance

f

a

purely

verbal

act that exists

only

n

being

thus

performed.

poem

is

neverspoken,not evenby thepoet himself. t is alwaysre-cited;for

whatever

ts relation

o words

the

poet

could

have

spoken,

t

has,

as

a

4

"Private

or

personal

utterance"

may

be extended

to include

not

only

overt

but

interior

peech.

The

representation

f the

latter,

particularly

n romantic

and

modern

yrics,

s discussed

n Poetic

Closure, pp.

139-50.



17/24

274

NEW LITERARY

HISTORY

poem,

no initial

historical ccurrence. What

the

poet

composes

as

a

text s not a verbal act but rather linguistictructurehatbecomes,

through

eing

read

or

recited,

he

representation

f

a verbal act.

As

I

pointed

out

above,

worksof

prose

fiction

re

characteristically

representations

ot of

spoken

but

of

inscribed

utterances,

nd for

this

reason the

texts

of

novels

are,

interestinglynough,

closer

to

pictures

than to musical scores.

What

the text

of

Richardson'sClarissa

repre-

sents s

not

the

speech

of certain charactersbut a

collectionof

their

letters;

what

David

Copperfield epresents

s not the

spoken

reminis-

censes

of

a

man,

but his

autobiography.

Each novel

itself,

.e.,

the

marksprinted n itspages and, ifyou like,thepages themselves, lus

covers

nd

binding,

s

a

depiction

f a

fictive

nstance f

-

a

kind of

book.

Indeed,

in

view

of ts

three-dimensionality,

he

copy

of

the

novel

we hold

in our hands

could be

conceived

of

as

a

sculpture,

where the

sculptor

has

not

satisfied

imself n

representing

he

gross

physical

nd

visual

qualities

of a

book,

but has

sought

to

represent

he

very

text

of

one.

But,

rather

han

complicate

matters,

we

may

at

least

agree

that

what the text

of a novel

represents

s,

precisely,

text.

In

what

follows,

shall be

speaking

gain

of

poetry

n

the narrower

sense, .e., as representationsfspokendiscourse, sually nverse. Some

of

the

points

shall

be

making

would

require

a

somewhatdifferent

r

additional

formulationwith

respect

to

novels

or

representations

f

written

iscourse,

ut

I

will not have the

space

here

to

develop

them.

Although

a

poem,

unlike a natural

utterance,

onsists

ntirely

f a

linguistic

tructure,

e

obviously

o not

respond

o

poems

as

pure

forms

or

merely

s

organizations

f

sound,

any

morethan

we

respond

o

plays

as

purely

formal tructures

f

movement

r

to traditional

aintings

s

pure

configurations

f

line and

color.

For

each of these s understood

to be a representationalrtform, nd the spectatorreadily nfers

meaning

or

context-though

a fictional ne

-

for

the

objects,

ctions,

and

events

represented.

The curtain

rises

on

Hamlet,

and we

see

a

human

figure

blowing

his

fingers

nd

stamping

his feet

on

a

dimly

it

stage.

Beforea word is

uttered,

we have

already

nferred t

least a cold

night

s

the context

orhis

speech.

We

read or hear recited

a

sonnet

by

Shakespeare:

"To

me,

fair

friend,

you

never can be

old

...,"

and no matterhow

littlewe

know

about William

Shakespeare

of

Stratford

nd the

various

earls withwhom he

may

have been

intimate,

we

immediatelybegin

to create

for

those

words

a

plausible

and

appropriate

context:

at the

minimum,

a

speaker addressing

some

other

person

whom he

regards

as

fair

and,

in

some

sense,

as

his

friend.

All

our

experiences

with

anguage

and

the contexts n

which

men

speak

not

only

enable us to make this nference

ut

really oblige

us to make

t.



18/24

POETRY

AS FICTION

275

Throughout

ur ives

as

verbal

creatures,

e

have learned

to

respond

to

inguistic

tructures

n

a certain

way: namely

o

nterpret

heirmean-

ings,

.e.,

to

infer

heir

ontexts rom

heir

forms.

The

effects

f

poetry

as a

representational

rtform

epend upon

the

strength

f our

habitual

tendency

o infer

ontexts

rom

erbal structures.

We

should

note that

Milton,

n

Paradise

Lost,

does

not createEve

or

Eden;

what he

creates,

rather,

re statements bout "Eve" and "Eden"

that

lead

the reader

to

create

a

woman and

a

place

-

in

order,

s it

were,

to

provide

refer-

ents

for

those

statements.

Other

representational

rtforms

depend

for

their

effects

pon

comparable

tendencies n the

spectator:

illu-

sionist

painting,

for

example, depends upon

fundamental

habits

of

visual

perception

o transform

configuration

flinesand colorson a

flat

urface

nto

the

appearance

of a

three-dimensional

cene

or

object.

It

is

only

because

of

perceptual

conditioning roduced by

our

exper-

iences

in the

natural visual world that

we can

see,

as a

cow

grazing

in

the

distance,

what is

actually

only

a

few brushstrokesf

color

on the

upper

part

of a

canvas.

This

process

of

interpretive illing-in

r

per-

ceptual

nference

s

very

imilar

o the

process

by

which we

infer,

rom

a few

ines n

a

poem,

a rich context f

motives,

eelings,

nd situations.

"To

me,

fair

friend,

you

never

can be

old .

..

." Nine

small words

that summonup forus a man,his consciousness f thepathosofmuta-

bility,

nd his

mpulse

o

deny

ts

hold

upon

his

friend.

Thus,

although

a

poem

is a

fictiveutterancewithout

a real

and

particular

historical

ontext,

ts

characteristic

ffects

to

create

ts

own

context

r,

more

accurately,

o invite nd enable the

reader

to create a

plausible

context

or

t.

And what we mean when

we

speak

of

inter-

preting poem

is,

in

large

measure,

precisely

his

process

of

inference,

conjecture,

nd indeed

creation

of

contexts.5

But

these contexts

i.e.,

"meanings"

-

that

we half create

and

half

perceive

can

be

no

morethan

"plausible,"

forthe

poem

is a

fictive

tterance nd its con-

texts

an be

neither iscovered

or

verified

n

nature

or

history.

As we

saw

earlier,

when

we

interpret

natural

utterance,

we

seek to

ascertain

its

real

historical

eterminants,

he context hat did in

fact

occasion its

occurrence

nd form. However

complex

and

elusivethat

context,

t

is

nevertheless

istorically

eterminate nd

particular.

The contextof

a

fictive

tterance, owever,

s

historically

ndeterminate.

his

is not

to

5

I

should

emphasize

that I am

not

specificallyreferring

ere to

those

formally

and publiclyarticulated"interpretations" fpoetrythat we associate withacademic

or

professional

riticism,

ut

rather

to

the

informal nd

often

enough

private

activi-

ties

of the reader

as

such,

or what we

might

otherwise

peak

of as

his

response

to

or

experience

of

the

poem.

Of course much

formalcriticism s

an

extensionof these

informal

activities,

but

the

very

fact that

professional

critics

are

offering

public

statements ntails

other concerns and

responsibilities,

nd

I

am not

presuming

here

either

to limit or

to

account for

them.

See, however,

fn.

7

and

p.

280,

below.



19/24

276

NEW LITERARY HISTORY

say

thatwe must

egard

he

poem

s an

anonymous

ift

ropped

rom

theEmpyreanr gnorehefact hat twascomposed ya realman

at a

particular

ime

nd

place.

It is

to

say,

rather,

hat

we must

is-

tinguish

etween he

poet's

ct

of

composing

he

poem

nd theverbal

act

that

the

poem represents,ust

as

we

would

distinguish

illiam

Shakespeare's

ct

in

composing

amlet

nd the

acts

of

the

Prince

f

Denmark

poetry as fiction

Documents