“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
– T.S. Eliot
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
– T.S. Eliot
In Ancient Greece, the boustrophedon, meaning literally “to turn like oxen”, was the writing of alternate lines in opposite directions, one line from left to right and the next from right to left, like the oxen would do when ploughing a field.
Common styles of boustrophedon writing include:
E.g. So again we have learned something,
Greek the about joke cheap a making of instead
civilisation upon which everything around us depends
E.g. gnihtemos denrael evah ew niaga oS
daetsni fo gnikam a paehc ekoj tuoba eht keerG
sdneped su dnuora gnihtyreve hcihw nopu noitasilivic
Some Etruscan texts have also been written in boustrophedon style, as have some early Hungarian and Polynesian scriptures.
‘With the metaphor of the Chinese box Brian McHale in his book Postmodernist Fiction explains a frequent phenomenon in postmodernist literature. The phenomenon whereby a story-line is interrupted by another story, thus creating a discontinuity that may be subtle as in the case of Hamlet’s play-within-the-play, where each story represents a different ‘world’. The purpose of these novels-within-the-novel; still-photographs-within-the-novel; films-within-the novel in modernist literature “serves as a tool for exploring issues of narrative authority, reliability and unreliability, the circulation of knowledge, and so forth.” In postmodernist literature these different interrupting worlds/narratives are so frequent that the original narrative sometimes gets lost. Attention is drawn to the fact that we can never know the complete truth, we are only capable of knowing a truth, and different Chinese boxes will give us different (sometimes conflicting) information about different worlds.’
– McHale, B. 1987. Pöstmödernist Fiction London, United Kingdom: Methuen Inc. p. 113
‘According to the current way of thinking (or not-thinking), it seems that if we are to enjoy anything then we must not have to think about it, and, conversely, if we are to think about anything, then we mustn’t enjoy it. This is a calamitous and idiotic division of functions.'[1]
– Queneau. R. 1947. Exercises in Style New York, United States: New Directions (2012) p. xiv
[1] Excerpt of the preface by Barbara Wright who translated Queneau’s Exercises de Style in 1981.
Added dexterity
Our hands are unusually dextrous, allowing us to make beautiful stone tools and write words. That might be partly down to a bit of DNA called HACNS1, which has evolved rapidly since our ancestors split from the ancestors of chimps. We don’t know what HACNS1 does, but it is active in our arms and hands as they develop.
See other: What Makes Humans Human?
When asked why he had a horseshoe on his door, physicist Niels Bohr answered, “Of course I don’t believe in it, but I understand it brings you luck, whether you believe in it or not.”
When asked in a radio interview if she thought the barriers of the British class system had broken down, Barbara Cartland answered, “Of course they have, or I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to someone like you.”
When asked by a priest, “Do you forgive your enemies,” the dying Spanish general Ramon Blanco y Erenas answered, “No, I don’t have any enemies. I’ve had them all shot.”
It is embarrassing to read how little we know about the greatest literary genius that ever drew breath – William Shakespeare, or the Swan of Avon (as P.G. Wodehouse put it).
Shakespeare died in the century of Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal and Isaac Newton; and yet, we do not know when he was born, we know little about his private affairs, his physical appearance or personal convictions – to name a few.
It is therefore worthwhile to consider those precious nuggets of information we do know about Shakespeare’s life and his legacy:
The acronym TLDR means Too Long; Didn’t Read. It is an internet phenomenon used to indicate dismay or boredom at a text which has been deemed too long to read all the way through.
Now, while one may decry a meme like TLDR because it seems to be the catchphrase of a couch potato with the attention span of a puppy, there is a good reason why we should view long winded texts with some suspicion.
“Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit…” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act 2, Scene 2)
Indeed, findings in the field of cognitive psychology indicate that a statement such as TLDR may not just be a blunt cry for simplicity and shallowness, it may in fact have a point.
A study on verbosity ironically called Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity – Oppenheimer., D.M. (2006) finds “a negative relationship between complexity and judged intelligence” in several language experiments.
Therefore, since it has now been proved that the needless use of more complex words where a simpler one would suffice has a negative effect, it seems sensible we should examine the crude yet useful mnemonic KISS meaning Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Remember the writings of the anthropologist Margaret Mead, “if you can’t explain yourself to a twelve-year-old child, stay inside the university or lab until you have a better grasp of your subject matter.”
“I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.” – Blaise Pascal
“The continuing popularity amongst students of using big words and attractive font styles may be due to the fact that they may not realize these techniques could backfire,” Oppenheimer said. “One thing seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and it’s more likely you’ll be thought of as intelligent.”