Among the scores of interesting experiments in composition and style exhibited in Ulysses, not the least novel is Mr. Joyce’s attempt to develop a theory of harmonics in language. By compounding nouns with adjectives and adjectives with adverbs, Mr. Joyce tries to convey to the reader a complex of qualities or ideas simultaneously instead of successively. “Eglintoneyes looked up skybrightly.” In such a sentence agglutination has been carried beyond the ordinary level of particles into the plane of words, and the effect is to present a multitude of images as if they were one. Thus “a new and complex knowledge of self” finds its “appropriate medium of expression in terms of art.” I am not so sure that Mr. Joyce has not carried the experiment too far, but this, again, is a virtue rather than a defect in a pioneer. Moreover, the world needs a few studio-magazines like the Little Review, and a few studio writers like Mr. James Joyce. What does it matter if, in his enthusiasm, Mr. Joyce travels beyond the limits of good taste, beyond, that is, the already cultivated, if only a single new literary convention is thereby brought into common use?

The Best is Yet to Be.—“One dreams of a prose,” says The Times Literary Supplement, “that has never yet been written in English, though the language is made for it and there are minds not incapable of it, a prose dealing with the greatest things quietly and justly as men deal with them in their secret meditations ... the English Plato is still to be.” Alas, however, that The Times should be just a little misled, for the “quiet” of meditation is not the real genius of the English language, and the emphasis in the phrase, “English Plato,” should be on the word English. Greek Plato translated into English would not give us what we are seeking. What we need is Plato’s mind. It is characteristic, however, this demand for quiet, or, rather, quietism, in The Times Literary Supplement, since, on the whole, the Supplement is about the deadest mouse in the world of journalism. Above all, it is suggested, writers must keep their voices low, speak in whispers, even, perhaps, a little under their breath as if in meditation, in case—well, in case of what? Is there not a hush in the Literary Supplement which is not the hush of reverence for literature, but of fear and prudence?

Our writer observes very acutely that prose is usually thought greatest when it is nearest poetry, and he properly dissents from this common opinion. Prose, we should say, can only be great as it differs from poetry, and the greatest prose is furthest away from poetry. And the difference, we are told, is the difference between love and justice. The cardinal virtue of poetry, he says, is love, while the cardinal virtue of prose is justice. May we not rather say that the difference is one of plane of consciousness, prose being at the highest level of the rational mind, and poetry at the highest level of the spiritual mind? Yes, but then, in all probability, The Times would regard us as fanciful, for note, anything exact about spiritual things is likely to be dismissed by the Literary Supplement as fanciful and dangerous. Again, “prose is the achievement of civilisation”; in other words, it is the norm of social life. True, but let me add that it is the register of Culture, marking the degree to which Culture has affected its surrounding civilisation. Prose without poetry is impossible, and the greatest prose presupposes the culture of the greatest poetry, for the “justice” of prose is only the “love” of poetry with seeing eyes. Finally, we must agree with our essayist when he quotes with approval the excellent observation of Mr. Sturge Moore that “simplicity may be a form of decadence.” Simplicity is a sign of decadence when it sacrifices profundity of thought to simplicity of expression—as in the classical case of Voltaire, who positively dared not think deeply lest he should be unable to write clearly, clarity of expression being more to him (and often to the French genius generally) than depth of thought. And writers like Mr. Clutton Brock are just as certainly symptoms of the decadence of simplicity in our own time and place. On the other hand, I still dream of a profound simplicity, the style of which is transparent over depths; and in this, if no English writer has ever been a master, Lao Tse is the world’s model, at least in fragments. We must learn to distinguish between a puerile and a virile simplicity, between innocence and virtue; and perhaps the first exercise in such judgment should be to put the Literary Supplement in its proper place.

This brings us back to quietism and the question whether the perfect English prose would deal with the highest things in the spirit of man’s secret meditations. I do more than doubt it. Secret meditation is incommunicably secret; it is thought without words, and disposed to poetry rather than prose. I suspect our writer really means rumination, in which case, however, he is no better off. For the genius of the language does not run easily in reverie, it is a language that loves action and life. It has few cloistered virtues, and to employ it for cloistered thought would be to use only one or two of its many stops, and those not the most characteristic. Lastly, I cannot but think that the choice of “quietism” as the aim of perfect English prose is a sign of decadence, for it indicates the will to retire into oneself, and to cease to “act” by means of words. The scene it calls up is familiar and bourgeois: a small circle of “cultured” men week-ending in a luxurious country house and confessing “intimately” their literary weaknesses. It is the prevalent atmosphere of the Literary Supplement and the Spectator. It is essential that there be “equality” between them, that none should presume to wish to inspire another to any “new way of life,” that action, in short, should be excluded. Once granted these conditions of sterility, and the perfect prose, we are told, would emerge.

The rest of us, however, have a very different conception of the perfect English prose. The perfect English prose will be anything but a sedative after a full meal of action. It will be not only action itself, but the cause of action, and its deliberate aim will be to intensify and refine action and to raise action to the level of a fine art. Anything less than a real effect upon real people in a real world is beneath the dignity even of common prose. The very “leaders” in the penny journals aim at leaving a mark upon events. Is the perfect prose to be without hope of posterity? On second thoughts, I shall withdraw Plato from the position of model in which I put him. Plato, it is evident, is likely to be abused; without intending it, his mood, translated into English, appears to be compatible only with luxurious ease; he is read by modern Epicureans. And I shall put in Plato’s place Demosthenes, the model of Swift, the greatest English writer the world has yet seen. Yes, Demosthenes let it be, since Plato is being used for balsam. We seek an English Demosthenes.

Index

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