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Sunday morning discussion question

July 15, 2012 by at 6:10 am

What is the literary equivalent of copying Old Masters?

21 Comments Filed Under: etc

Comments

  1. Fred says:
    July 15, 2012 at 7:05 am

    Writing in the style of another author. This is what my dad recommended to me, which he had learned from a professor.

    Reply
  2. Matthew Lickona says:
    July 15, 2012 at 7:54 am

    …in the rain.

    Reply
  3. The Duffer says:
    July 15, 2012 at 9:22 am

    Zadie Smith, On Beauty.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Beauty

    Or who’s the lady who rewrote Anna Karenina recently?

    Reply
    • Southern Expat says:
      July 15, 2012 at 9:26 pm

      Here I was thinking you were recommending a literary handbook of sorts, but then I clicked and saw that you provided a much more classy example of retelling a work of classic literature than I did.

      Reply
  4. Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:
    July 15, 2012 at 10:52 am

    Clever question!

    Fred’s answer focuses on style (or form); the Duffer’s, on plot and character (or matter). But neither involves making a perfect duplicate of an original text, in the way that copying an Old Master involves making a perfect duplicate of an original painting.

    When one copies a painting, one trains the eye and the hand to make the exact right movements from among infinite (wrong) possibilities. ‘Merely’ copying out a text requires much less judgment, since the range of options is limited to hitting the right 40 or 50 keys. To get the kind of practice as a writer that the copyist gets as a painter — training oneself to judge from among infinite possibilities — one must choose: One can copy an author’s style, but not his plot or characters; or his plot or characters, but not his style.

    (This does suggest the possibility that one might try copying one author’s style, and another author’s plot and/or characters, in a single text.)

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  5. Joe White says:
    July 15, 2012 at 11:25 am

    Good translation.

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  6. Fred says:
    July 15, 2012 at 12:22 pm

    “Good translation.”
    ^^ this

    Reply
  7. Big Jon, Bully says:
    July 15, 2012 at 8:51 pm

    Writing a blog post of course!

    Reply
    • Southern Expat says:
      July 15, 2012 at 9:21 pm

      Ha!

      So I’ve spent the weekend at this course on beauty in the Catholic tradition and have been steeped in the wisdom of the ages, but I haven’t come up with a paradigm that would be equivalent to studying within a particular tradition in the visual or performing arts. The idea of – is there a “form” in literature that is inherently Christian, how does one train within a particular tradition, etc. – I find it hard to carry that over into storytelling. I hope to have something more substantive to say on this eventually. I particularly love the idea of translating a work as an equivalent to copying the Old Masters. I guess we could also say Amy Heckerling was copying an Old Master when she took “Emma” and made it into “Clueless.”

      Reply
      • Matthew Lickona says:
        July 15, 2012 at 10:09 pm

        I think narrative is pretty Protestant, and has trouble trafficking overmuch in what we ordinarily think of as beauty. But that’s just me. Poetry might be more inherently Christian.

        Reply
        • Southern Expat says:
          July 16, 2012 at 5:23 am

          Interesting – why do you think that?

          Reply
          • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:
            July 16, 2012 at 7:48 am

            Not to sidetrack this train of thought, but:

            FILED UNDER: THINGS TO DISCUSS WITH WALKER PERCY OVER DRINKS

            RL: You give writers a lot of bad press in Lost in the Cosmos. Why do you suppose writers are different from others? Does their temperament differ significantly from other artists?

            WP: Also in Lost in the Cosmos: writers are in the front line of sensibility, like the canaries miners take down in the shafts to test the air. Also: writers are the “Protestants” of art, with nothing but their Scripto pencils and Blue-Horse tablets; painters are the “Catholics,” with concrete intermediaries, clay, paint, models, fruit, landscape, etc. This is why writers drink more and painters live longer.

            (Emphasis added. –AN)

            Cliquez ici to read the rest of the interview, also published in More Conversations with Walker Percy (1993), pp. 64-65.

            Here, Percy isn’t distinguishing narrative from poetry; he’s distinguishing writers from normal, healthy folk (up to and including painters). But poets — even narrative poets — are perhaps closer to painters than are prosers, since they are more concerned with the sensuous qualities of concretely-expressed (spoken, heard, and often, even printed) words. Gerard Manley Hopkins is a prime example of a poet who pushed away from discarnate writing, toward the physical.

            And now, I am very interested in seeing Mr Lickona’s own thoughts, especially since he has written both narrative and non-narative, and both prose and poetry.

            Reply
  8. Darwin says:
    July 16, 2012 at 7:54 pm

    Unlike copying a painting, the result does not itself look like a work of art, but scoring out a novel or short story in order to see exactly how an author reveals a story, character, etc. may be a similar exercise.

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