TECH: Burke Bits (1)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 23:38:04 EDT


Since I have recently been relaxing with Kenneth Burke, and have made
some notes which may contribute their own tangency (no, that's
tanginess...zest, flavor, saviour...something like that at lease...
well, let's get on with the tossing, okay?)

Some Bits for the Salad

(p. 10) "A poet's identification with imagery...is...merely a concern with _terms for transformation in general._"

"When considering transformation in general, we may stress the respects in which many different kinds of image can perform the same function."

(p. 12) "The range of images that can be used for concretizing the process of transformation is limited only by the imagination and ingenuity of poets. But the selective nature of existence favors some images above others--and high among them, naturally, is the imagery of Life and Death, with its variants of being born, being reborn, dying, killing, and being killed."

"For the so-called 'desire to kill' a certain person is much more properly analyzable as a desire to _transform the principle_ which that person _represents._"

from
A Rhetoric of Motives
Kenneth Burke
University of California Press 1969

I can feel the celery snap, I can taste the dressing now...
lettuce ahead, croutons all around, and mashed sardines at base:
words tossed everywhich way!

Re: TECH: Fictional Places

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 19:19:25 EST

On Thu, 27 Feb 1997 15:17:27 EST, Chris wondered:

:) I am currently working on a novel in which one phase of the action
:) takes place in California's Sierra Nevada foothills. I am familiar with
:) many of the small towns that lie within this area, but, for reasons of
:) plot, I would prefer to have my setting be a fictional amalgam of these
:) towns. The other settings in the novel are real places, and I will try to
:) make my description of them as accurate and detailed as necessary. I have
:) two questions: 1) Can anyone offer some general critical observations
:) concerning the use fictional places as settings? 2) Can anyone suggest any
:) problems I might face in having part of my story occur in a fictional place
:) while the other parts occur in real places?

Don't get out the butterfly nets and straightjackets yet, but I'm puzzled...

How does the "reality" or "fictionality" of a place influence the description of it which is all that is found in a novel?

I'm very serious. I don't really know that I can tell from the verbal description (or whatever use you may make of the setting) whether or not the place is "real." I might notice that the description seems inconsistent (when we drove into town, the chapel was in the hills, and now it's on the beach? Something funny there...), but I can't tell whether or not the description has a simple one-to-one correspondence with something "out there" that I can point to or visit.

It may be easier to keep the description of a real place consistent--you can just look at it--(but don't be fooled, you still have to do the work to make the description complete and carefully consistent), but that doesn't mean that I (as reader) will know whether the "model" behind the description was "out there" or "all in your imagination."

I do think there is a tendency to overdo the accuracy and detailing of descriptions of scenes (either real or imagined) in the hope that the overload of details will force the reader to believe in them. Something like the "superrealists" in art. I sometimes think the selection and arrangement of a few careful details can do more--something like the artist blocking in a cloud of "forest" with one trunk carefully picked out in the sunshine, making the whole "forest" believable.

Anyway, I don't believe the "reality" or "imaginarity" of your place settings will make a difference in whether people believe in them--it is the way the characters, action, and scenery interact that makes us believe in the whole world--whether it is one that the prosaic would agree can be found on a map or not isn't all that important.

Now you can get out the cuffs or whatever, if the question still doesn't make any sense...

hehe, hoho...
and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats...