Aesthtic Narrative in AMW

7/27/2019 Aesthtic Narrative in AMW

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Novel and Film: Two Essays


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Mikhail Mikhailovich Bahktin

Discourse in the Novel


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Dialogical Discourse

A living utterance A particular historical moment A socially specific environment Dialogical threads woven about a social

object

The utterance stems from the dialogue andenters back into it participatory rather thantheoretical


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The Historical Moment of AMW

Jansenism Freethinkers-Port Royal

Still Life Painting Court Life in France Economic Development

Development of the Viol as Musical Instrument Development of Orchestration and large Ensemble

Playing.


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Jansenism

Associated with Port Royal Cistercian Conventand the Arnaud family

Port Royal pupils included Racine, Arnuad familyand Pascal

Emphasized original sin, human depravity, thenecessity of divine grace and predestination

High level of moral rectitude and religious piety Influenced by Augustine s philosophy


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Blaise Pascal

We arrive at truth, not by reason only, but also bythe heart.

[I feel] engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which knownothing of me, I am terrified The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.

However vast a man's spiritual resources, he iscapable of but one great passion. All man's troubles come from not knowing how

to sit still in one room.


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Society of Port RoyalThese were men whom the love of retirement had united tocultivate literature, in the midst of solitude, of peace, and of

piety. They formed a society of learned men, of fine taste andsound philosophy. Alike occupied on sacred, as well as on

profane writers, they edified, while they enlightened the world.Their writings fixed the French language. The example of thesesolitaries show how retirement is favourable to penetrate intothe sanctuary of the Muses; and that by meditating in silence on

the oracles of taste, in imitating we may equal them.


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Lubin Baugin 1610-1663

Master of the still-life Two distinct periods of work earlier, still life

(France); later, religious portraits (Italy) Lived outside of Paris He was openly involved in republishing the books

of the empirical doctor, David Laigneau, against bloodletting. A Protestant, Laigneau had alsowritten a treatise on alchemy. Could an interest inempiricism and alchemy exist in harmony withorthodox piety in 1660? In any case, it was thesign of a free spirit.


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St. Jerome--Bible Translator


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Socially Specific Environment

in AMWSocial Situation Discourse

Narration Simple, Elegant Prose, Sparse and Clean Hermit in Solitude Silence, Music Erotic, Dyadic Love Silence, Music Familial with Daughters Actions, Clumsy Speech, Music Fellow Animals and Plants--Actions Muisican Technique on the Instrument, Speech of the Instrument,

Nod of the Head, Raising of the Eyebrow Mentor/Student Explanations, Clumsy Speech, Music

Rural Helpmates Actions Co-religionists Performance Co-artist Silence,Technique of the Brush Stroke, Listening Royal Court Argument


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Film s Use of Dialogical Thread?


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Additional Dialogical Threadsaround the Viol

Technique: He found a new way to hold the violade gamba between his knees without allowing it torest against his calf.

He perfected the bowing technique by lighteningthe weight of his hand and exerting pressure onlyon the horsehairastonishing virtuousity.

Insturment: He added a bass stringdeeper tonesand melancholy effect.

Place: He had a hut constructed in the branchesof a great mulberry tree dating from the days of Monsieur de Sully...In this retreat he could work without disturbing the little girls


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Heteroglossia

To use language at all is to speak in manylanguages.

A social stratification of language(s) literary genres, professional usages,religious discourses, regional idioms etc.

Every speaker of language is inhabited bythese multiple forms of language in juxtaposition to one another.


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Internal Dialogization

Rather than looking for a pure and coherentimage, form or metaphor, the novelist/poet

registers in his or her discourse theheteroglossia of language

To understand any utterance, one must hear

it against the background of language andthe multiplicity of concrete utteranceslanguage allows


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From The Unbearable Lightness

of Being By Milan Kundera


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Cemetery

Cemeteries in Bohemia are like gardens. The graves arecovered with grass and colorful flowers. Modest tombstones

are lost in the greenery. When the sun goes down, thecemetery sparkles with tiny candles. It looks as though thedead are dancing at a children s ball. Yes, a children s ball,

because the dead are as innocent as children. No matter how brutal life becomes, peace always reigns in the cemetery.Even in wartime, in Hitler s time, in Stalin s time, throughall occupations. When she felt low, she would get into the

car, leave Prague far behind, and walk through one or another of the country cemeteries she loved so well.

For Franz a cemetery was an ugly dump of stones and bones.


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From Ceremony

By Leslie Marmon Silko


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Do something for me, the way you did for others who came back.Because what if I didn t know I killed one?

But the old man shook his head slowly and made a low humming soundin his throat. In the old way of warfare, you couldn t kill another human being in battle without knowing it, without seeing the result, becauseeven a wounded deer that got up and ran again left great clots of lung

blood or spilled guts on the ground. That way the hunter knew it woulddie. Human beings were no different. But the old man would not have

believed white warfare killing across great distances without knowingwho or how many had died. It was all too alien to comprehend, the

mortars and the big guns; and even if he could have taken the old man tosee the target areas, even if he could have led him through the fallen

jungle trees and muddy craters of torn earth to show him the dead, theold man would not have believed anything so monstrous. Ku oosh

would have looked at the dismembered corpses and the atamic heat-flashoutlines, where human bodies had evaporated and the old man would

have said something close and terrible had killed these people. Not evenoldtime witches killed like that.

The way


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The wayI heard it

WasIn the old daysLong time ago

They had thisScalp SocietyFor warriorsWho killedOr touched

Dead enemies.

They had thingsThey must do

OtherwiseK oo ko would haunt their dreams

With her great fangs andEverything would be endangered.

Maybe the rain wouldn t come Or the deer would go away.

That s why They had things

They must do


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Woman with Girdle

By Anne Sexton


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Your midriff sags toward your knees;Your breasts lie down in air,Their nipples as uninvolved

As warm starfish.You stand in your elastic case,

Still not giving up the new-bornAnd the old-born cycle.

Moving, you roll down the garment,Down that pink snapper and hoarder,

As your belly, soft as puddingSlops into the empty space;

Down, over the surgeon s careful mark,

Down over hips, those head cushions and mouth cushions,Slow motion like a rolling pin,

Over crisp hairs, that amazing fieldThat hides your genius from your patron


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Over thighs, thick as young pigs,Over knees like saucers,

Over calves, polished as leather,

Down toward the feet.You pause for a moment,

Tying your ankles into knots. Now you rise,

A city from the sea,Born long before Alexandria was,

Straightway from God you have comeInto your redeeming skin.


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Narratives vs. Images

Narratives take time to read, while imagesare taken in in a glance

Narrative, more than an image, invokes avirtual, as well as actual, time: story timevs. discourse time.

The time of a narrative can be orderedinternally in a manner an image cannot.


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The pai nter was busy painting a still -life on atable: a half-filled glass of red win e, a luteon its side, an open music score, a black velvet purse, some playing cards with theknave of clubs uppermost, a chessboard onwhich were arranged a vase holding threecarnations and an octagonal mirror leaning

against the studio wall. (p. 45-46)


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All that death shall take away is in its night,Sainte- Colombe whispered in his pupil s

ear, They are all the pleasures of this worldthat are taking their leave, bidding usadieu. (p. 46)


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Setting a Scene in Cinema

Everything is present simultaneously as theaction unfolds

Numerous details must be added The details can be structured visually but

are more synchronic than diachronic

Assertions of an implied narrator cannot beeasily included in the setting up of a scene. Action still occurs even when the director

has a scene stand still.


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Further in film there is a movement from scene toscene that gives the film a tempo beyond that of

the actions of particular actors within a scene:intra-scene tempo vs. inter-scene tempo Spatial element in written works that is lacking in

film. For instance, AMW has very short chapters.

Further the sentences are of simple constructionand do not dawdle. The reader is not encouragedto take pleasure in the act of relating the differentsentence parts into a coherent whole. Rather a

sentence emerges and then quickly fades, as thenext sentence emerges. Further AMW has short paragraphs. Each indentation acts much like amusical rest, a pause before one takes up the next

thread of narrative.


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The Musical Note

Music is played in the cinema and thenarrative descriptions of music from the

novel are left out. Colombe s compositions and styleemphasized the dynamics of single notes, aswell as the silences out of which notesemerge and then fade back into.

The importance of rests/pauses in music.


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Aesthtic Narrative in AMW

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