The Art of Literature - Arthur Schopenhauer
A book can never be anything more than the impress of its author's
thoughts; and the value of these will lie either in _the matter about
which he has thought_, or in the _form_ which his thoughts take, in
other words, _what it is that he has thought about it._
The matter of books is most various; and various also are the several
excellences attaching to books on the score of their matter. By matter
I mean everything that comes within the domain of actual experience;
that is to say, the facts of history and the facts of nature, taken in
and by themselves and in their widest sense. Here it is the _thing_
treated of, which gives its peculiar character to the book; so that a
book can be important, whoever it was that wrote it.
But in regard to the form, the peculiar character of a book depends
upon the _person_ who wrote it. It may treat of matters which are
accessible to everyone and well known; but it is the way in which they
are treated, what it is that is thought about them, that gives the
book its value; and this comes from its author. If, then, from this
point of view a book is excellent and beyond comparison, so is its
author. It follows that if a writer is worth reading, his merit rises
just in proportion as he owes little to his matter; therefore, the
better known and the more hackneyed this is, the greater he will be.
The three great tragedians of Greece, for example, all worked at the
same subject-matter.
So when a book is celebrated, care should be taken to note whether it
is so on account of its matter or its form; and a distinction should
be made accordingly.
Books of great importance on account of their matter may proceed from
very ordinary and shallow people, by the fact that they alone have had
access to this matter; books, for instance, which describe journeys in
distant lands, rare natural phenomena, or experiments; or historical
occurrences of which the writers were witnesses, or in connection
with which they have spent much time and trouble in the research and
special study of original documents.
On the other hand, where the matter is accessible to everyone or very
well known, everything will depend upon the form; and what it is
that is thought about the matter will give the book all the value
it possesses. Here only a really distinguished man will be able to
produce anything worth reading; for the others will think nothing but
what anyone else can think. They will just produce an impress of
their own minds; but this is a print of which everyone possesses the
original.
However, the public is very much more concerned to have matter than
form; and for this very reason it is deficient in any high degree of
culture. The public shows its preference in this respect in the most
laughable way when it comes to deal with poetry; for there it devotes
much trouble to the task of tracking out the actual events or personal
circumstances in the life of the poet which served as the occasion of
his various works; nay, these events and circumstances come in the end
to be of greater importance than the works themselves; and rather than
read Goethe himself, people prefer to read what has been written about
him, and to study the legend of Faust more industriously than the
drama of that name. And when Buerger declared that "people would write
learned disquisitions on the question, Who Leonora really was," we
find this literally fulfilled in Goethe's case; for we now possess a
great many learned disquisitions on Faust and the legend attaching to
him. Study of this kind is, and remains, devoted to the material of
the drama alone. To give such preference to the matter over the form,
is as though a man were to take a fine Etruscan vase, not to admire
its shape or coloring, but to make a chemical analysis of the clay and
paint of which it is composed.
The attempt to produce an effect by means of the material employed--an
attempt which panders to this evil tendency of the public--is most to
be condemned in branches of literature where any merit there may be
lies expressly in the form; I mean, in poetical work. For all that, it
is not rare to find bad dramatists trying to fill the house by means
of the matter about which they write. For example, authors of this
kind do not shrink from putting on the stage any man who is in any way
celebrated, no matter whether his life may have been entirely devoid
of dramatic incident; and sometimes, even, they do not wait until the
persons immediately connected with him are dead.
The distinction between matter and form to which I am here alluding
also holds good of conversation. The chief qualities which enable a
man to converse well are intelligence, discernment, wit and vivacity:
these supply the form of conversation. But it is not long before
attention has to be paid to the matter of which he speaks; in other
words, the subjects about which it is possible to converse with
him--his knowledge. If this is very small, his conversation will
not be worth anything, unless he possesses the above-named formal
qualities in a very exceptional degree; for he will have nothing to
talk about but those facts of life and nature which everybody knows.
It will be just the opposite, however, if a man is deficient in these
formal qualities, but has an amount of knowledge which lends value to
what he says. This value will then depend entirely upon the matter of
his conversation; for, as the Spanish proverb has it, _mas sabe el
necio en su casa, que el sabio en la agena_--a fool knows more of his
own business than a wise man does of others.
ON STYLE.
Style is the physiognomy of the mind, and a safer index to character
than the face. To imitate another man's style is like wearing a mask,
which, be it never so fine, is not long in arousing disgust and
abhorrence, because it is lifeless; so that even the ugliest living
face is better. Hence those who write in Latin and copy the manner of
ancient authors, may be said to speak through a mask; the reader, it
is true, hears what they say, but he cannot observe their physiognomy
too; he cannot see their _style_. With the Latin works of writers
who think for themselves, the case is different, and their style is
visible; writers, I mean, who have not condescended to any sort
of imitation, such as Scotus Erigena, Petrarch, Bacon, Descartes,
Spinoza, and many others. An affectation in style is like making
grimaces. Further, the language in which a man writes is the
physiognomy of the nation to which he belongs; and here there are many
hard and fast differences, beginning from the language of the Greeks,
down to that of the Caribbean islanders.
To form a provincial estimate of the value of a writer's productions,
it is not directly necessary to know the subject on which he has
thought, or what it is that he has said about it; that would imply
a perusal of all his works. It will be enough, in the main, to know
_how_ he has thought. This, which means the essential temper or
general quality of his mind, may be precisely determined by his style.
A man's style shows the _formal_ nature of all his thoughts--the
formal nature which can never change, be the subject or the character
of his thoughts what it may: it is, as it were, the dough out of which
all the contents of his mind are kneaded. When Eulenspiegel was asked
how long it would take to walk to the next village, he gave the
seemingly incongruous answer: _Walk_. He wanted to find out by the
man's pace the distance he would cover in a given time. In the same
way, when I have read a few pages of an author, I know fairly well how
far he can bring me.
Every mediocre writer tries to mask his own natural style, because in
his heart he knows the truth of what I am saying. He is thus forced,
at the outset, to give up any attempt at being frank or naive--a
privilege which is thereby reserved for superior minds, conscious of
their own worth, and therefore sure of themselves. What I mean is that
these everyday writers are absolutely unable to resolve upon writing
just as they think; because they have a notion that, were they to do
so, their work might possibly look very childish and simple. For
all that, it would not be without its value. If they would only go
honestly to work, and say, quite simply, the things they have really
thought, and just as they have thought them, these writers would be
readable and, within their own proper sphere, even instructive.
But instead of that, they try to make the reader believe that their
thoughts have gone much further and deeper than is really the case.
They say what they have to say in long sentences that wind about in a
forced and unnatural way; they coin new words and write prolix periods
which go round and round the thought and wrap it up in a sort of
disguise. They tremble between the two separate aims of communicating
what they want to say and of concealing it. Their object is to dress
it up so that it may look learned or deep, in order to give people
the impression that there is very much more in it than for the moment
meets the eye. They either jot down their thoughts bit by bit, in
short, ambiguous, and paradoxical sentences, which apparently mean
much more than they say,--of this kind of writing Schelling's
treatises on natural philosophy are a splendid instance; or else
they hold forth with a deluge of words and the most intolerable
diffusiveness, as though no end of fuss were necessary to make the
reader understand the deep meaning of their sentences, whereas it is
some quite simple if not actually trivial idea,--examples of which
may be found in plenty in the popular works of Fichte, and the
philosophical manuals of a hundred other miserable dunces not worth
mentioning; or, again, they try to write in some particular style
which they have been pleased to take up and think very grand, a style,
for example, _par excellence_ profound and scientific, where the
reader is tormented to death by the narcotic effect of longspun
periods without a single idea in them,--such as are furnished in
a special measure by those most impudent of all mortals, the
Hegelians[1]; or it may be that it is an intellectual style they have
striven after, where it seems as though their object were to go crazy
altogether; and so on in many other cases. All these endeavors to put
off the _nascetur ridiculus mus_--to avoid showing the funny little
creature that is born after such mighty throes--often make it
difficult to know what it is that they really mean. And then, too,
they write down words, nay, even whole sentences, without attaching
any meaning to them themselves, but in the hope that someone else will
get sense out of them.
[Footnote 1: In their Hegel-gazette, commonly known as _Jahrbuecher der
wissenschaftlichen Literatur_.]
And what is at the bottom of all this? Nothing but the untiring effort
to sell words for thoughts; a mode of merchandise that is always
trying to make fresh openings for itself, and by means of odd
expressions, turns of phrase, and combinations of every sort, whether
new or used in a new sense, to produce the appearence of intellect in
order to make up for the very painfully felt lack of it.
It is amusing to see how writers with this object in view will attempt
first one mannerism and then another, as though they were putting
on the mask of intellect! This mask may possibly deceive the
inexperienced for a while, until it is seen to be a dead thing, with
no life in it at all; it is then laughed at and exchanged for another.
Such an author will at one moment write in a dithyrambic vein, as
though he were tipsy; at another, nay, on the very next page, he will
be pompous, severe, profoundly learned and prolix, stumbling on in the
most cumbrous way and chopping up everything very small; like the late
Christian Wolf, only in a modern dress. Longest of all lasts the mask
of unintelligibility; but this is only in Germany, whither it was
introduced by Fichte, perfected by Schelling, and carried to its
highest pitch in Hegel--always with the best results.
And yet nothing is easier than to write so that no one can understand;
just as contrarily, nothing is more difficult than to express deep
things in such a way that every one must necessarily grasp them. All
the arts and tricks I have been mentioning are rendered superfluous if
the author really has any brains; for that allows him to show himself
as he is, and confirms to all time Horace's maxim that good sense is
the source and origin of good style:
_Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons_.
But those authors I have named are like certain workers in metal, who
try a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold--the only
metal which can never have any substitute. Rather than do that, there
is nothing against which a writer should be more upon his guard than
the manifest endeavor to exhibit more intellect than he really has;
because this makes the reader suspect that he possesses very little;
since it is always the case that if a man affects anything, whatever
it may be, it is just there that he is deficient.
That is why it is praise to an author to say that he is _naive_; it
means that he need not shrink from showing himself as he is. Generally
speaking, to be _naive_ is to be attractive; while lack of naturalness
is everywhere repulsive. As a matter of fact we find that every
really great writer tries to express his thoughts as purely, clearly,
definitely and shortly as possible. Simplicity has always been held to
be a mark of truth; it is also a mark of genius. Style receives its
beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the
thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is
nothing but the mere silhouette of thought; and an obscure or bad
style means a dull or confused brain.
The first rule, then, for a good style is that _the author should
have something to say_; nay, this is in itself almost all that is
necessary. Ah, how much it means! The neglect of this rule is a
fundamental trait in the philosophical writing, and, in fact, in
all the reflective literature, of my country, more especially since
Fichte. These writers all let it be seen that they want to appear as
though they had something to say; whereas they have nothing to say.
Writing of this kind was brought in by the pseudo-philosophers at the
Universities, and now it is current everywhere, even among the first
literary notabilities of the age. It is the mother of that strained
and vague style, where there seem to be two or even more meanings in
the sentence; also of that prolix and cumbrous manner of expression,
called _le stile empese_; again, of that mere waste of words which
consists in pouring them out like a flood; finally, of that trick
of concealing the direst poverty of thought under a farrago of
never-ending chatter, which clacks away like a windmill and quite
stupefies one--stuff which a man may read for hours together without
getting hold of a single clearly expressed and definite idea.[1]
However, people are easy-going, and they have formed the habit of
reading page upon page of all sorts of such verbiage, without having
any particular idea of what the author really means. They fancy it is
all as it should be, and fail to discover that he is writing simply
for writing's sake.
[Footnote 1: Select examples of the art of writing in this style are
to be found almost _passim_ in the _Jahrbuecher_ published at Halle,
afterwards called the _Deutschen Jahrbuecher_.]
On the other hand, a good author, fertile in ideas, soon wins his
reader's confidence that, when he writes, he has really and truly
_something to say_; and this gives the intelligent reader patience to
follow him with attention. Such an author, just because he really has
something to say, will never fail to express himself in the simplest
and most straightforward manner; because his object is to awake the
very same thought in the reader that he has in himself, and no other.
So he will be able to affirm with Boileau that his thoughts are
everywhere open to the light of the day, and that his verse always
says something, whether it says it well or ill:
_Ma pensee au grand jour partout s'offre et s'expose,
Et mon vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque chose_:
while of the writers previously described it may be asserted, in the
words of the same poet, that they talk much and never say anything at
all--_quiparlant beaucoup ne disent jamais rien_.
Another characteristic of such writers is that they always avoid a
positive assertion wherever they can possibly do so, in order to leave
a loophole for escape in case of need. Hence they never fail to choose
the more _abstract_ way of expressing themselves; whereas intelligent
people use the more _concrete_; because the latter brings things more
within the range of actual demonstration, which is the source of all
evidence.
There are many examples proving this preference for abstract
expression; and a particularly ridiculous one is afforded by the use
of the verb _to condition_ in the sense of _to cause_ or _to produce_.
People say _to condition something_ instead of _to cause it_, because
being abstract and indefinite it says less; it affirms that _A_ cannot
happen without _B_, instead of that _A_ is caused by _B_. A back door
is always left open; and this suits people whose secret knowledge of
their own incapacity inspires them with a perpetual terror of all
positive assertion; while with other people it is merely the effect of
that tendency by which everything that is stupid in literature or bad
in life is immediately imitated--a fact proved in either case by the
rapid way in which it spreads. The Englishman uses his own judgment in
what he writes as well as in what he does; but there is no nation of
which this eulogy is less true than of the Germans. The consequence
of this state of things is that the word _cause_ has of late almost
disappeared from the language of literature, and people talk only
of _condition_. The fact is worth mentioning because it is so
characteristically ridiculous.
The very fact that these commonplace authors are never more than
half-conscious when they write, would be enough to account for their
dullness of mind and the tedious things they produce. I say they are
only half-conscious, because they really do not themselves understand
the meaning of the words they use: they take words ready-made and
commit them to memory. Hence when they write, it is not so much words
as whole phrases that they put together--_phrases banales_. This is
the explanation of that palpable lack of clearly-expressed thought in
what they say. The fact is that they do not possess the die to give
this stamp to their writing; clear thought of their own is just
what they have not got. And what do we find in its place?--a vague,
enigmatical intermixture of words, current phrases, hackneyed terms,
and fashionable expressions. The result is that the foggy stuff they
write is like a page printed with very old type.
On the other hand, an intelligent author really speaks to us when he
writes, and that is why he is able to rouse our interest and commune
with us. It is the intelligent author alone who puts individual words
together with a full consciousness of their meaning, and chooses them
with deliberate design. Consequently, his discourse stands to that of
the writer described above, much as a picture that has been really
painted, to one that has been produced by the use of a stencil. In the
one case, every word, every touch of the brush, has a special purpose;
in the other, all is done mechanically. The same distinction may be
observed in music. For just as Lichtenberg says that Garrick's soul
seemed to be in every muscle in his body, so it is the omnipresence of
intellect that always and everywhere characterizes the work of genius.
I have alluded to the tediousness which marks the works of these
writers; and in this connection it is to be observed, generally, that
tediousness is of two kinds; objective and subjective. A work is
objectively tedious when it contains the defect in question; that is
to say, when its author has no perfectly clear thought or knowledge to
communicate. For if a man has any clear thought or knowledge in him,
his aim will be to communicate it, and he will direct his energies
to this end; so that the ideas he furnishes are everywhere clearly
expressed. The result is that he is neither diffuse, nor unmeaning,
nor confused, and consequently not tedious. In such a case, even
though the author is at bottom in error, the error is at any rate
clearly worked out and well thought over, so that it is at least
formally correct; and thus some value always attaches to the work. But
for the same reason a work that is objectively tedious is at all times
devoid of any value whatever.
The other kind of tediousness is only relative: a reader may find a
work dull because he has no interest in the question treated of in it,
and this means that his intellect is restricted. The best work may,
therefore, be tedious subjectively, tedious, I mean, to this or
that particular person; just as, contrarity, the worst work may be
subjectively engrossing to this or that particular person who has an
interest in the question treated of, or in the writer of the book.
It would generally serve writers in good stead if they would see that,
whilst a man should, if possible, think like a great genius, he should
talk the same language as everyone else. Authors should use common
words to say uncommon things. But they do just the opposite. We find
them trying to wrap up trivial ideas in grand words, and to clothe
their very ordinary thoughts in the most extraordinary phrases, the
most far-fetched, unnatural, and out-of-the-way expressions. Their
sentences perpetually stalk about on stilts. They take so much
pleasure in bombast, and write in such a high-flown, bloated,
affected, hyperbolical and acrobatic style that their prototype is
Ancient Pistol, whom his friend Falstaff once impatiently told to say
what he had to say _like a man of this world._[1]
[Footnote 1: _King Henry IV_., Part II. Act v. Sc. 3.]
There is no expression in any other language exactly answering to the
French _stile empese_; but the thing itself exists all the more often.
When associated with affectation, it is in literature what assumption
of dignity, grand airs and primeness are in society; and equally
intolerable. Dullness of mind is fond of donning this dress; just as
an ordinary life it is stupid people who like being demure and formal.
An author who writes in the prim style resembles a man who dresses
himself up in order to avoid being confounded or put on the same level
with a mob--a risk never run by the _gentleman_, even in his worst
clothes. The plebeian may be known by a certain showiness of attire
and a wish to have everything spick and span; and in the same way, the
commonplace person is betrayed by his style.
Nevertheless, an author follows a false aim if he tries to write
exactly as he speaks. There is no style of writing but should have a
certain trace of kinship with the _epigraphic_ or _monumental_ style,
which is, indeed, the ancestor of all styles. For an author to write
as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak
as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at
the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
An obscure and vague manner of expression is always and everywhere a
very bad sign. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it comes from
vagueness of thought; and this again almost always means that there is
something radically wrong and incongruous about the thought itself--in
a word, that it is incorrect. When a right thought springs up in the
mind, it strives after expression and is not long in reaching it; for
clear thought easily finds words to fit it. If a man is capable of
thinking anything at all, he is also always able to express it
in clear, intelligible, and unambiguous terms. Those writers who
construct difficult, obscure, involved, and equivocal sentences, most
certainly do not know aright what it is that they want to say: they
have only a dull consciousness of it, which is still in the stage of
struggle to shape itself as thought. Often, indeed, their desire is to
conceal from themselves and others that they really have nothing at
all to say. They wish to appear to know what they do not know, to
think what they do not think, to say what they do not say. If a
man has some real communication to make, which will he choose--an
indistinct or a clear way of expressing himself? Even Quintilian
remarks that things which are said by a highly educated man are often
easier to understand and much clearer; and that the less educated
a man is, the more obscurely he will write--_plerumque accidit ut
faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidiora multo que a doctissimo
quoque dicuntur_.... _Erit ergo etiam obscurior quo quisque deterior_.
An author should avoid enigmatical phrases; he should know whether he
wants to say a thing or does not want to say it. It is this indecision
of style that makes so many writers insipid. The only case that offers
an exception to this rule arises when it is necessary to make a remark
that is in some way improper.