Knowledge and Power

For the curious.

Because I often talk about what I do in the classroom, I thought I might as well provide some of the material I’m using for those who have an interest in approaches to writing. I’ve read dozens of times on the web that modern thinking about “style” can be separated between the poles of Derrida (or fill in the postmodernist of your choice) and Orwell. Just what does that mean? An Orwellian might say that you can look at writing like a game where he who is the most obtuse, wins. Or you can work for clarity. However, the counter-argument is that language is rich and that limiting oneself to the “plain-style” is ludicrous. A postmodernist wants to revel in the language game.

I chose to teach the Orwell essay that this distinction is derived from for several reasons. First, it follows fairly closely the model of the essay put forward by Cicero (which I also taught), and because it is controversial enough to make people have to think about it. Secondly, the majority of teachers in other subject fields (at the undergraduate level anyway) would hold up the “plain-style” as something close to the model of perfection. Orwell rails against the forces of obscurity in Politics and the English Language.

Written in 1946, this essay tears into the structure of hollow political and academic rhetoric. I’ve been thinking it a lot since our country declared war on a feeling. A “war on terror?” I mean, what the hell is that? It doesn’t get much more obscurantist. This morning, I was thinking about the whole “axis of evil” thing too. Lets see, in order to make the “Johnny goes marching off to war” thing symmetrical, we’ve got to imply an alliance analogous to the Japan/Germany axis by dragging North Korea into the front row. These phrases are the embodiment of what Orwell terms “dying metaphors,” metaphors so tired that they have completely lost their meaning. So I thought Orwell’s essay was appropriate, timely, and concise when it comes to representing the almost Lockean view that we should “say what we mean.”

Okay, but I needed a counterpoint. I wanted to show that language that uses some of the things that Orwell rails against can be effective too. I also wanted to differentiate creative writing from writing good non-fiction essays. So, I chose an essay that changed my outlook toward literature early on: Thomas DeQuincey’s Literature of Knowledge and Literature of Power.

That essay, sadly, wasn’t to be found anywhere on the Internet. Well, it’s there now. I scanned it and OCR’d it for the class, so now I’ve turned it into a web document. For people unaccustomed to 19th century prose, it is a bit dense. But that was the point. DeQuincey’s style is anything but plain, and yet it is still concisely defined and argued. And the issues he raises are still important today, particularly for a freshman student who might wonder just what the hell literature is, and what good it does. I raised eyebrows in the department with this one, certainly, because it isn’t my job to teach literature.

However, this is a non-fiction expository essay which strongly argues the value of literature. But it does so much more than that. First, DeQuincey expands literature to the realm of sermons, speeches, theater, etc. Just because it isn’t in a book doesn’t mean it isn’t literature. The same tools with which we approach the analysis of writing can be used in any form of discourse. I think that the distinction that DeQuincey makes in this short piece is easily transferred into life. The division of literatures is pragmatic; the primary difference is the work accomplished by the discourse.

The function of the “Literature of Knowledge” is to teach. The function of what we most commonly think of as literature, “Literature of Power” is to move. It’s the wind in the sails of humanity. Without it, we have nothing to move us along. However, I found myself arguing against some of DeQuincey’s points in class today, right along with my students. “Hey, I learn things from the novels I read . . .” etc.

A perfect case is found in his example of Paradise Lost. DeQuincey asserts that a person who reads Milton’s epic learns nothing. I asked the class the obvious question: “What did Eve eat in the garden of Eden?” The answer, which most people would jump at is: “An apple.” That’s not in the Bible; the bible just says that it’s a fruit. The apple comes from Paradise Lost. People who have never read the poem quote facts from it, filtered through its centuries of influence. I think the class was quite thrilled when I explained why Milton made the fruit an apple instead of a kiwi or a banana. It’s a Latin pun. Apple is mal in Latin, and it also means bad. But the distinction between “fact” and “fiction” is a blurry one, and it’s a distinction I’m trying to get them to make in their essays.

So that’s where I’ve been the last few days. I can’t teach literature, but I can preach it just a little. I do believe that there are answers to be found there, although it contains little in the way of “facts.”

Which brings me to Loren’s lament today, regarding commentary on On the Road:

Unfortunately when Diane and I wrote our analysis of the book, some people were upset because we missed the point of the work. NO. We DIDN’T miss the point of the novel. I knew we had missed the meaning Kerouac had for many readers, which was why I asked Jeff Ward of Visible Darkness to write about it from his perspective. But Diane and I read the book NOW, and it provides no real answers to the questions WE were trying to answer. For Diane and I, it was just another dead end road.

I didn’t write much about the book, because they covered it quite effectively. Instead, I wrote about the dangers of lumping writers into “generations” and my own response to the book when I was growing up. I was moved by the book when I was in my teens and twenties. That matches DeQuincey’s distinction precisely. However, as I’m now in my 40s, I’m looking for more depth— my questions are different too. But I cannot deny the tremendous influence of it in moving me when I was young. Everybody needs to find what fills their sails, uniquely and differently at every point in age. To say a book didn’t take you where you wanted to go is not to condemn it. There is a big difference.

William Blake went to his grave singing, with a heart filled with joy in the world, and no fear of leaving it. Yeats reflected on the folly of so many fruitless pursuits as he grew older, and yet still seemed to be happy with the quest for spirit that was his life. These are the guys I look to now, the ones who fill my sails just as Kerouac and Burroughs and Vonnegut and others did when I was younger. It’s all power, folks. You just pick what you need at the time. Literature works.

Yes, I did say reading a certain popular novel made me ready for "the icepick in the forehead" yesterday. I edited it out, because it seemed redundant with my other closing line. This phrase, by the way, is a Frank Zappa reference from Joe's Garage. The other rude line about being done was from Lou Reed. I can't help following all sorts of literary texts.