The Art of Literature - Arthur Schopenhauer
As exaggeration generally produces an effect the opposite of
that aimed at; so words, it is true, serve to make thought
intelligible--but only up to a certain point. If words are heaped up
beyond it, the thought becomes more and more obscure again. To find
where the point lies is the problem of style, and the business of the
critical faculty; for a word too much always defeats its purpose. This
is what Voltaire means when he says that _the adjective is the enemy
of the substantive_. But, as we have seen, many people try to conceal
their poverty of thought under a flood of verbiage.
Accordingly let all redundancy be avoided, all stringing together of
remarks which have no meaning and are not worth perusal. A writer must
make a sparing use of the reader's time, patience and attention; so as
to lead him to believe that his author writes what is worth careful
study, and will reward the time spent upon it. It is always better to
omit something good than to add that which is not worth saying at all.
This is the right application of Hesiod's maxim, [Greek: pleon aemisu
pantos][1]--the half is more than the whole. _Le secret pour
etre ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire_. Therefore, if possible, the
quintessence only! mere leading thoughts! nothing that the reader
would think for himself. To use many words to communicate few thoughts
is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much
thought into few words stamps the man of genius.
[Footnote 1: _Works and Days_, 40.]
Truth is most beautiful undraped; and the impression it makes is deep
in proportion as its expression has been simple. This is so, partly
because it then takes unobstructed possession of the hearer's whole
soul, and leaves him no by-thought to distract him; partly, also,
because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or cheated by the
arts of rhetoric, but that all the effect of what is said comes from
the thing itself. For instance, what declamation on the vanity of
human existence could ever be more telling than the words of Job? _Man
that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of
misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it
were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay_.
For the same reason Goethe's naive poetry is incomparably greater than
Schiller's rhetoric. It is this, again, that makes many popular songs
so affecting. As in architecture an excess of decoration is to be
avoided, so in the art of literature a writer must guard against all
rhetorical finery, all useless amplification, and all superfluity of
expression in general; in a word, he must strive after _chastity_ of
style. Every word that can be spared is hurtful if it remains. The law
of simplicity and naivete holds good of all fine art; for it is quite
possible to be at once simple and sublime.
True brevity of expression consists in everywhere saying only what
is worth saying, and in avoiding tedious detail about things which
everyone can supply for himself. This involves correct discrimination
between what it necessary and what is superfluous. A writer should
never be brief at the expense of being clear, to say nothing of being
grammatical. It shows lamentable want of judgment to weaken the
expression of a thought, or to stunt the meaning of a period for the
sake of using a few words less. But this is the precise endeavor
of that false brevity nowadays so much in vogue, which proceeds by
leaving out useful words and even by sacrificing grammar and logic. It
is not only that such writers spare a word by making a single verb or
adjective do duty for several different periods, so that the reader,
as it were, has to grope his way through them in the dark; they also
practice, in many other respects, an unseemingly economy of speech,
in the effort to effect what they foolishly take to be brevity of
expression and conciseness of style. By omitting something that might
have thrown a light over the whole sentence, they turn it into a
conundrum, which the reader tries to solve by going over it again and
again.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--In the original, Schopenhauer here
enters upon a lengthy examination of certain common errors in the
writing and speaking of German. His remarks are addressed to his own
countrymen, and would lose all point, even if they were intelligible,
in an English translation. But for those who practice their German by
conversing or corresponding with Germans, let me recommend what he
there says as a useful corrective to a slipshod style, such as can
easily be contracted if it is assumed that the natives of a country
always know their own language perfectly.]
It is wealth and weight of thought, and nothing else, that gives
brevity to style, and makes it concise and pregnant. If a writer's
ideas are important, luminous, and generally worth communicating, they
will necessarily furnish matter and substance enough to fill out the
periods which give them expression, and make these in all their parts
both grammatically and verbally complete; and so much will this be
the case that no one will ever find them hollow, empty or feeble. The
diction will everywhere be brief and pregnant, and allow the thought
to find intelligible and easy expression, and even unfold and move
about with grace.
Therefore instead of contracting his words and forms of speech, let a
writer enlarge his thoughts. If a man has been thinned by illness and
finds his clothes too big, it is not by cutting them down, but by
recovering his usual bodily condition, that he ought to make them fit
him again.
Let me here mention an error of style, very prevalent nowadays,
and, in the degraded state of literature and the neglect of ancient
languages, always on the increase; I mean _subjectivity_. A writer
commits this error when he thinks it enough if he himself knows what
he means and wants to say, and takes no thought for the reader, who is
left to get at the bottom of it as best he can. This is as though the
author were holding a monologue; whereas, it ought to be a dialogue;
and a dialogue, too, in which he must express himself all the more
clearly inasmuch as he cannot hear the questions of his interlocutor.
Style should for this very reason never be subjective, but
_objective_; and it will not be objective unless the words are so set
down that they directly force the reader to think precisely the same
thing as the author thought when he wrote them. Nor will this result
be obtained unless the author has always been careful to remember that
thought so far follows the law of gravity that it travels from head to
paper much more easily than from paper to head; so that he must assist
the latter passage by every means in his power. If he does this, a
writer's words will have a purely objective effect, like that of a
finished picture in oils; whilst the subjective style is not much more
certain in its working than spots on the wall, which look like figures
only to one whose phantasy has been accidentally aroused by them;
other people see nothing but spots and blurs. The difference in
question applies to literary method as a whole; but it is often
established also in particular instances. For example, in a recently
published work I found the following sentence: _I have not written in
order to increase the number of existing books._ This means just the
opposite of what the writer wanted to say, and is nonsense as well.
He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he
does not attach much importance to his own thoughts. For it is only
where a man is convinced of the truth and importance of his thoughts,
that he feels the enthusiasm necessary for an untiring and assiduous
effort to find the clearest, finest, and strongest expression for
them,--just as for sacred relics or priceless works of art there are
provided silvern or golden receptacles. It was this feeling that led
ancient authors, whose thoughts, expressed in their own words, have
lived thousands of years, and therefore bear the honored title of
_classics_, always to write with care. Plato, indeed, is said to
have written the introduction to his _Republic_ seven times over in
different ways.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--It is a fact worth mentioning that
the first twelve words of the _Republic_ are placed in the exact order
which would be natural in English.]
As neglect of dress betrays want of respect for the company a man
meets, so a hasty, careless, bad style shows an outrageous lack of
regard for the reader, who then rightly punishes it by refusing to
read the book. It is especially amusing to see reviewers criticising
the works of others in their own most careless style--the style of
a hireling. It is as though a judge were to come into court in
dressing-gown and slippers! If I see a man badly and dirtily dressed,
I feel some hesitation, at first, in entering into conversation
with him: and when, on taking up a book, I am struck at once by the
negligence of its style, I put it away.
Good writing should be governed by the rule that a man can think only
one thing clearly at a time; and, therefore, that he should not be
expected to think two or even more things in one and the same moment.
But this is what is done when a writer breaks up his principal
sentence into little pieces, for the purpose of pushing into the gaps
thus made two or three other thoughts by way of parenthesis; thereby
unnecessarily and wantonly confusing the reader. And here it is again
my own countrymen who are chiefly in fault. That German lends itself
to this way of writing, makes the thing possible, but does not justify
it. No prose reads more easily or pleasantly than French, because, as
a rule, it is free from the error in question. The Frenchman strings
his thoughts together, as far as he can, in the most logical and
natural order, and so lays them before his reader one after the other
for convenient deliberation, so that every one of them may receive
undivided attention. The German, on the other hand, weaves them
together into a sentence which he twists and crosses, and crosses and
twists again; because he wants to say six things all at once, instead
of advancing them one by one. His aim should be to attract and hold
the reader's attention; but, above and beyond neglect of this aim, he
demands from the reader that he shall set the above mentioned rule at
defiance, and think three or four different thoughts at one and the
same time; or since that is impossible, that his thoughts shall
succeed each other as quickly as the vibrations of a cord. In this way
an author lays the foundation of his _stile empese_, which is then
carried to perfection by the use of high-flown, pompous expressions to
communicate the simplest things, and other artifices of the same kind.
In those long sentences rich in involved parenthesis, like a box of
boxes one within another, and padded out like roast geese stuffed with
apples, it is really the _memory_ that is chiefly taxed; while it is
the understanding and the judgment which should be called into play,
instead of having their activity thereby actually hindered and
weakened.[1] This kind of sentence furnishes the reader with mere
half-phrases, which he is then called upon to collect carefully and
store up in his memory, as though they were the pieces of a torn
letter, afterwards to be completed and made sense of by the other
halves to which they respectively belong. He is expected to go on
reading for a little without exercising any thought, nay, exerting
only his memory, in the hope that, when he comes to the end of the
sentence, he may see its meaning and so receive something to think
about; and he is thus given a great deal to learn by heart before
obtaining anything to understand. This is manifestly wrong and an
abuse of the reader's patience.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--This sentence in the original is
obviously meant to illustrate the fault of which it speaks. It does
so by the use of a construction very common in German, but happily
unknown in English; where, however, the fault itself exists none the
less, though in different form.]
The ordinary writer has an unmistakable preference for this
style, because it causes the reader to spend time and trouble in
understanding that which he would have understood in a moment without
it; and this makes it look as though the writer had more depth and
intelligence than the reader. This is, indeed, one of those artifices
referred to above, by means of which mediocre authors unconsciously,
and as it were by instinct, strive to conceal their poverty of thought
and give an appearance of the opposite. Their ingenuity in this
respect is really astounding.
It is manifestly against all sound reason to put one thought obliquely
on top of another, as though both together formed a wooden cross. But
this is what is done where a writer interrupts what he has begun
to say, for the purpose of inserting some quite alien matter; thus
depositing with the reader a meaningless half-sentence, and bidding
him keep it until the completion comes. It is much as though a man
were to treat his guests by handing them an empty plate, in the hope
of something appearing upon it. And commas used for a similar purpose
belong to the same family as notes at the foot of the page and
parenthesis in the middle of the text; nay, all three differ only in
degree. If Demosthenes and Cicero occasionally inserted words by ways
of parenthesis, they would have done better to have refrained.
But this style of writing becomes the height of absurdity when the
parenthesis are not even fitted into the frame of the sentence, but
wedged in so as directly to shatter it. If, for instance, it is an
impertinent thing to interrupt another person when he is speaking, it
is no less impertinent to interrupt oneself. But all bad, careless,
and hasty authors, who scribble with the bread actually before their
eyes, use this style of writing six times on a page, and rejoice in
it. It consists in--it is advisable to give rule and example together,
wherever it is possible--breaking up one phrase in order to glue in
another. Nor is it merely out of laziness that they write thus. They
do it out of stupidity; they think there is a charming _legerete_
about it; that it gives life to what they say. No doubt there are a
few rare cases where such a form of sentence may be pardonable.
Few write in the way in which an architect builds; who, before he
sets to work, sketches out his plan, and thinks it over down to its
smallest details. Nay, most people write only as though they were
playing dominoes; and, as in this game, the pieces are arranged half
by design, half by chance, so it is with the sequence and connection
of their sentences. They only have an idea of what the general shape
of their work will be, and of the aim they set before themselves.
Many are ignorant even of this, and write as the coral-insects build;
period joins to period, and the Lord only knows what the author means.
Life now-a-days goes at a gallop; and the way in which this affects
literature is to make it extremely superficial and slovenly.
ON THE STUDY OF LATIN.
The abolition of Latin as the universal language of learned men,
together with the rise of that provincialism which attaches to
national literatures, has been a real misfortune for the cause of
knowledge in Europe. For it was chiefly through the medium of the
Latin language that a learned public existed in Europe at all--a
public to which every book as it came out directly appealed. The
number of minds in the whole of Europe that are capable of thinking
and judging is small, as it is; but when the audience is broken up and
severed by differences of language, the good these minds can do is
very much weakened. This is a great disadvantage; but a second and
worse one will follow, namely, that the ancient languages will cease
to be taught at all. The neglect of them is rapidly gaining ground
both in France and Germany.
If it should really come to this, then farewell, humanity! farewell,
noble taste and high thinking! The age of barbarism will return, in
spite of railways, telegraphs and balloons. We shall thus in the end
lose one more advantage possessed by all our ancestors. For Latin is
not only a key to the knowledge of Roman antiquity; its also directly
opens up to us the Middle Age in every country in Europe, and modern
times as well, down to about the year 1750. Erigena, for example, in
the ninth century, John of Salisbury in the twelfth, Raimond Lully in
the thirteenth, with a hundred others, speak straight to us in the
very language that they naturally adopted in thinking of learned
matters.
They thus come quite close to us even at this distance of time: we are
in direct contact with them, and really come to know them. How would
it have been if every one of them spoke in the language that was
peculiar to his time and country? We should not understand even the
half of what they said. A real intellectual contact with them would be
impossible. We should see them like shadows on the farthest horizon,
or, may be, through the translator's telescope.
It was with an eye to the advantage of writing in Latin that Bacon, as
he himself expressly states, proceeded to translate his _Essays_ into
that language, under the title _Sermones fideles_; at which work
Hobbes assisted him.[1]
[Footnote 1: Cf. Thomae Hobbes vita: _Carolopoli apud Eleutherium
Anglicum_, 1681, p. 22.]
Here let me observe, by way of parenthesis, that when patriotism tries
to urge its claims in the domain of knowledge, it commits an offence
which should not be tolerated. For in those purely human questions
which interest all men alike, where truth, insight, beauty, should be
of sole account, what can be more impertinent than to let preference
for the nation to which a man's precious self happens to belong,
affect the balance of judgment, and thus supply a reason for doing
violence to truth and being unjust to the great minds of a foreign
country in order to make much of the smaller minds of one's own!
Still, there are writers in every nation in Europe, who afford
examples of this vulgar feeling. It is this which led Yriarte to
caricature them in the thirty-third of his charming _Literary
Fables_.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--Tomas de Yriarte (1750-91), a
Spanish poet, and keeper of archives in the War Office at Madrid. His
two best known works are a didactic poem, entitled _La Musica_, and
the _Fables_ here quoted, which satirize the peculiar foibles of
literary men. They have been translated into many languages; into
English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in question
describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to
which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The
praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in
turn; but at last the ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary.
Whereupon the dromedary stood up and declared for the ostrich. No one
could discover the reason for this mutual compliment. Was it because
both were such uncouth beasts, or had such long necks, or were neither
of them particularly clever or beautiful? or was it because each had a
hump? _No_! said the fox, _you are all wrong. Don't you see they are
both foreigners_? Cannot the same be said of many men of learning?]
In learning a language, the chief difficulty consists in making
acquaintance with every idea which it expresses, even though it should
use words for which there is no exact equivalent in the mother tongue;
and this often happens. In learning a new language a man has, as it
were, to mark out in his mind the boundaries of quite new spheres of
ideas, with the result that spheres of ideas arise where none were
before. Thus he not only learns words, he gains ideas too.
This is nowhere so much the case as in learning ancient languages, for
the differences they present in their mode of expression as compared
with modern languages is greater than can be found amongst modern
languages as compared with one another. This is shown by the fact that
in translating into Latin, recourse must be had to quite other turns
of phrase than are used in the original. The thought that is to be
translated has to be melted down and recast; in other words, it must
be analyzed and then recomposed. It is just this process which makes
the study of the ancient languages contribute so much to the education
of the mind.
It follows from this that a man's thought varies according to the
language in which he speaks. His ideas undergo a fresh modification,
a different shading, as it were, in the study of every new language.
Hence an acquaintance with many languages is not only of much indirect
advantage, but it is also a direct means of mental culture, in that it
corrects and matures ideas by giving prominence to their many-sided
nature and their different varieties of meaning, as also that it
increases dexterity of thought; for in the process of learning many
languages, ideas become more and more independent of words. The
ancient languages effect this to a greater degree than the modern, in
virtue of the difference to which I have alluded.
From what I have said, it is obvious that to imitate the style of the
ancients in their own language, which is so very much superior to ours
in point of grammatical perfection, is the best way of preparing for a
skillful and finished expression of thought in the mother-tongue. Nay,
if a man wants to be a great writer, he must not omit to do this: just
as, in the case of sculpture or painting, the student must educate
himself by copying the great masterpieces of the past, before
proceeding to original work. It is only by learning to write Latin
that a man comes to treat diction as an art. The material in this art
is language, which must therefore be handled with the greatest care
and delicacy.
The result of such study is that a writer will pay keen attention to
the meaning and value of words, their order and connection, their
grammatical forms. He will learn how to weigh them with precision, and
so become an expert in the use of that precious instrument which is
meant not only to express valuable thought, but to preserve it as
well. Further, he will learn to feel respect for the language in
which he writes and thus be saved from any attempt to remodel it by
arbitrary and capricious treatment. Without this schooling, a man's
writing may easily degenerate into mere chatter.
To be entirely ignorant of the Latin language is like being in a fine
country on a misty day. The horizon is extremely limited. Nothing can
be seen clearly except that which is quite close; a few steps beyond,
everything is buried in obscurity. But the Latinist has a wide view,
embracing modern times, the Middle Age and Antiquity; and his mental
horizon is still further enlarged if he studies Greek or even
Sanscrit.
If a man knows no Latin, he belongs to the vulgar, even though he be
a great virtuoso on the electrical machine and have the base of
hydrofluoric acid in his crucible.
There is no better recreation for the mind than the study of the
ancient classics. Take any one of them into your hand, be it only
for half an hour, and you will feel yourself refreshed, relieved,
purified, ennobled, strengthened; just as though you had quenched your
thirst at some pure spring. Is this the effect of the old language
and its perfect expression, or is it the greatness of the minds whose
works remain unharmed and unweakened by the lapse of a thousand years?
Perhaps both together. But this I know. If the threatened calamity
should ever come, and the ancient languages cease to be taught, a new
literature will arise, of such barbarous, shallow and worthless stuff
as never was seen before.
ON MEN OF LEARNING.
When one sees the number and variety of institutions which exist
for the purposes of education, and the vast throng of scholars and
masters, one might fancy the human race to be very much concerned
about truth and wisdom. But here, too, appearances are deceptive. The
masters teach in order to gain money, and strive, not after wisdom,
but the outward show and reputation of it; and the scholars learn, not
for the sake of knowledge and insight, but to be able to chatter and
give themselves airs. Every thirty years a new race comes into the
world--a youngster that knows nothing about anything, and after
summarily devouring in all haste the results of human knowledge as
they have been accumulated for thousands of years, aspires to be
thought cleverer than the whole of the past. For this purpose he goes
to the University, and takes to reading books--new books, as being of
his own age and standing. Everything he reads must be briefly put,
must be new! he is new himself. Then he falls to and criticises. And
here I am not taking the slightest account of studies pursued for the
sole object of making a living.
Students, and learned persons of all sorts and every age, aim as
a rule at acquiring _information_ rather than insight. They pique
themselves upon knowing about everything--stones, plants, battles,
experiments, and all the books in existence. It never occurs to them
that information is only a means of insight, and in itself of little
or no value; that it is his way of _thinking_ that makes a man a
philosopher. When I hear of these portents of learning and their
imposing erudition, I sometimes say to myself: Ah, how little they
must have had to think about, to have been able to read so much!
And when I actually find it reported of the elder Pliny that he was
continually reading or being read to, at table, on a journey, or in
his bath, the question forces itself upon my mind, whether the man
was so very lacking in thought of his own that he had to have
alien thought incessantly instilled into him; as though he were a
consumptive patient taking jellies to keep himself alive. And neither
his undiscerning credulity nor his inexpressibly repulsive and barely
intelligible style--which seems like of a man taking notes, and very
economical of paper--is of a kind to give me a high opinion of his
power of independent thought.