Two dots over a vowel - Re-writing the creative writing tradition poetic form as experimental procedure: the view from renaissance England

Writing Creative Writing: Essays from the Field - Rishma Dunlop, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Priscila Uppal 2016

Two dots over a vowel
Re-writing the creative writing tradition poetic form as experimental procedure: the view from renaissance England

CHRISTIAN BÖK

The Intentional in Conceptual Literature

Modern social trends in computing (as seen, for example, in digitized sampling and networked exchange) have so thoroughly ensconced piracy and parody as sovereign aesthetic values that not only do the economic edifices of copyright seem ready to collapse, but so do the romantic bastions of both sublime creativity and eminent authorship seem ready to dissolve into a morass of protoplasmic textualities, all manufactured at a prodigious, industrial scale by means of plagiaristic appropriation and computerized recombination. Varied pupils of the avant-garde at the listserv UbuWeb (including, among others, Derek Beaulieu, Craig Dworkin, Robert Fitterman, Kenneth Goldsmith, Simon Morris, Nick Thurston, Darren Wershler, and I) have all striven to respond to these trends by conceiving of an innovative literature that, for lack of an apter title, critics have seen fit to dub “conceptual.” Such poets disavow the lyrical mandate of self-conscious self-assertion in order to explore the ready-made potential of uncreative literature. They resort to a diverse variety of anti-expressive, anti-discursive strategies (including the use of forced rules, random words, copied texts, boring ideas, and even cyborg tools), doing so in order to erase any artistic evidence of “lyric style.”

Works by members of UbuWeb have often confronted the intentionality, if not the expressiveness, of such lyric style by offering alternatives to this normative condition of writing — alternatives inspired by such variegated precedents as the formalist writing of Perec, the aleatoric writing of Cage, the readymade artwork of Warhol, and the axiomatic artwork of LeWitt, among the work of many other writers and artists, all of whom have suppressed their subjective experience on behalf of otherwise demeaned concepts of literary activity. Poets who write conceptual literature often parody the principles of sublime egotism. Such writers might observe the self and examine the self, but they do so with such exactitude and with such detachment that the act of reportage itself borders upon a kind of fanatical obsession. Such writers might in turn generate unscripted recordings of the self, speaking, verbatim, in a kind of stream-of-consciousness, improvising without editorial revisions. Such writers might also go so far as to generate exhaustive structures for the self, pushing the fulfillment of formal rigour to the most athletic extremes. Such writers might even delegate their creativity to a diverse variety of prostheses, all of which might compose work without intervention from the self at all.

Works of conceptual literature have primarily responded to the historical precedents set by two disparate movements in the avant-garde: first, the systematic writing of Oulipian pataphysicians (like Queneau, Roubaud, et al.); second, the procedural artwork of American conceptualists (like Kosuth, Huebler, et al.) — precedents that, in both cases, reduce creativity to a tautological array of preconceived rules, whose logic culminates, not in the mandatory creation of a concrete object, but in the potential argument for some abstract schema. Ideas that we conceive for works now become systemic “axioms,” and the works that we generate from these ideas now become elective “proofs.” The concept for the artwork now absorbs the quality of the artwork itself. The idea for a work supplants the work. The idea renders the genesis of the work optional, if not needless. For the proponents of conceptual literature, a writer no longer cultivates any subjective readerships by writing a text to be read, so much as the writer cultivates a collective “thinkership”* — an audience that no longer even has to read the text itself in order to appreciate the importance of its innovation. The text no longer begs to be read clearly for the quality of its content, but rather begs to be seen blankly for the novelty of its concept.

Works of conceptual literature constitute what Dworkin might call “the writing of the new new formalism,” insofar as such literature imposes arbitrary, but axiomatic, dicta upon the writing process, doing so in order to extract an otherwise unthought potential from this structural constraint. The self-conscious attention paid by a lyrical poet to the life of the self now gives way to the self-reflexive attention paid by a radical text to the form of its idea. All aspects of both intentionality and expressiveness now find themselves governed, not by the whim of a poet, but by the rule of a game — a “language-game,” like the kind discussed by Wittgenstein, who argues that, when playing such a game, “we look to the rule for instruction and do something, without appealing to anything else for guidance” (86e, 228). The poet subordinates all subjectivity to this rule, replacing an act of volitive expression with an act of negative capability. The poet constrains the cognitive functions of the self on behalf of other aesthetic functions in the text (be these functions automatic, mannerist, or even aleatoric). The poet thereby expands the concept of writing beyond the formal limits of any expressive intentions, doing so in order to conceive of hitherto inconceivable preconditions for writing itself.

Since the reign of the New Critics (like Wimsatt and Beardsley, for example), the values of both intentionality and expressiveness have come to represent recurrent “fallacies”** of aesthetic judgment — fallacies that have served to ignore the traits of the poem itself in order to attach the merits of the work to the genius of a self. When judging a work, based upon its intentionality, the critic evaluates the emotional “origins” of the work in the mind of the writer, doing so by asking: “How successful are the lyrical motives of the poem — and does the poet exert an authentic control over the self?” When judging a work for its expressiveness, however, the critic evaluates the emotional “results” in the mind of the reader, doing so by asking: “How persuasive are the lyrical effects of the poem — and does the poet voice an authentic message from the self?” No poem can easily answer such questions on its own — and thus critics have since sought to detach the merits of the text from the genius of the self, doing so in order to account, not only for the work’s autotelic coherence, but also for the work’s technical innovation. No longer is the author an actual person who might precede a text and certify its aims so much as a “function”*** — operant, as a concept, through each reading of the text.

Poets who have produced conceptual literature have replaced the expressive intentions of such a self with a whole array of apparently impossible poetic values, arguing for the viability of work that skeptics might dismiss as uncreative, unoriginal, unengaging, unreadable, uninspired, uneventful…. Even though a poet like Kenneth Goldsmith, for example, might describe his own acts of poetic tedium as nothing more than a banal brand of data management or word processing,**** in which the poet becomes a kind of monk, doomed to recopy only the most leaden genres of boring speech in some nightmarish scriptorium; such work, nevertheless, still creates surprise and engages interest. Lest we dismiss these tactics of Goldsmith as nothing more than the mere symptoms of a creeping, literary necrosis, occasioned by the murder of the author at the hands of such postmodern theorizers as Barthes, for example, or perhaps Foucault***** — let us consider that conceptual literature might strive to accent the disjunction between intentionality (what we mean to mean) and expressiveness (what we seem to mean). If the lyric voice, for the sake of an authentic sincerity, yearns to repair this breach between what we intend to say and what we appear to say — then conceptual literature, by contrast, accentuates this discrepancy.

The Conceivable in Conceptual Literature

What if both intentionality and expressiveness do not represent “fallacies” of formalist criticism, but instead represent the vectors for specific concepts of writing? The lyric style, for example, might thus be what I call “cognitive” in its aesthetics, insofar as it demands that the author be both self-conscious and self-assertive at the same time — but other relationships between intentionality and expressiveness might also be conceivable, and the poet who must “think up” novel modes of conceptual literature does so by rethinking other less studied, if not less exalted, relationships between self-consciousness and self-assertiveness.****** When teaching poetry to my students, I strive to convey the diverse variety of aesthetic attitudes that can define the value of a given style — and I usually begin by asking questions about what kind of game a student might wish to play. I argue that, if we accept that all poetry involves both an attitude toward intentionality (i.e., the act of needing to tell) and an attitude toward expressiveness (i.e., the act of telling a need), then there are only four ways to play the game of poetry itself: cognitive, automatic, mannerist, and aleatoric. I believe that such a “quadrivium” defines the limit-cases for all the ways of conceiving both intentionality and expressiveness together.

A. Cognitive Writing

Works that embody as values both intentionality and expressiveness I might describe as “cognitive.” These works aspire to be both self-conscious and self-assertive. Their authors profess to exert control over both what they “will” in the text and what they “tell” in the text. They do so in order to minimize any discrepancy between what the self might intend and what the text might convey. Such authors embrace both voluntary self-control and voluntary self-exhibit. We might, of course, recognize this “cognitive” impulse, for example, in the tradition of Romantic lyricism, which has come to represent the style of writing aligned with autobiographic investigations like the kind seen in The Prelude by Wordsworth. We see this impulse at work in poetic genres as diverse as the imagistic poetry of William Carlos Williams and the divulgate poetry of Elizabeth Bishop — poets who strive to articulate themselves in a plainer, sincere form, equal to the tranquil emotions of retrospection. An author adopts a lyrical persona to represent the subjective experience of the self, and the reader in turn judges this persona for the mimetic realism of both its originary being and its authentic voice. We witness the self thinking to itself, alone and aloud, about itself, bearing witness to the intimacy, if not to the quietude, of its own thoughtful confession.

B. Automatic Writing

Works that embody as values less intentionality and more expressiveness I might describe as “automatic.” These works aspire not to be self-conscious but to be self-assertive. Their authors profess to exert control, not over what they “will” in the text, but only over what they “tell” in the text. They do so in order to maximize what the text might convey at the expense of what the self might intend. Such authors forfeit voluntary self-control, but embrace potential self-exhibit. We might recognize this automatic impulse, for example, in the kind of Surrealist outpouring that has come to represent the style of writing aligned with graphomaniacal psychoneurosis, like the kind seen in The Immaculate Perception by André Breton. We see this impulse at work in poetic genres as diverse as the rhapsodic liturgies of Kurt Schwitters and the rapturous diatribes of Allen Ginsberg — poets who strive to articulate themselves in a complex, baroque form, equal to the ecstatic feelings of deliriousness. An author avoids conscious, editorial censorship of the self in order to give vent to an unexpurgated stream-of-consciousness, and the reader merely judges the quality of vertigo in this flow. We witness the self speaking to itself without thinking about itself, bearing witness to the outburst of its own irrational exuberance.

C. Mannerist Writing

Works that embody as values more intentionality and less expressiveness I might describe as “mannerist.” These works aspire to be self-conscious, but not to be self-assertive. Their authors profess to exert control over what they “will” in the text, but not over what they “tell” in the text. They do so in order to maximize what the self might intend at the expense of what the text might convey. Such authors embrace potential self-control, but forfeit voluntary self-exhibit. We might recognize this “mannerist” impulse, for example, in the kind of Oulipian elegance that has come to represent the style of writing aligned with formalistic constraints like the kind seen in A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems by Raymond Queneau. We see this impulse at work in poetic genres as diverse as the programmatic alexandrines of Raymond Roussel and the anagrammatic translations of Unica Zürn — poets who strive to articulate structures in a precise, orderly form, equal to the rational precepts of scientificity. An author wilfully enslaves the self to a rule in order to excavate a newfound liberty from such a test of will, and the reader merely judges the quality of triumph in these results. We witness the self as it subordinates its own subjectivity to a rigorous procedure, thereby bearing witness to the outcome of a formalized experiment.

D. Aleatoric Writing

Works that embody as values no intentionality and no expressiveness I might describe as “aleatoric.” These works are neither self-conscious nor self-assertive. Their authors profess to forfeit control, both over what they “will” in the text and over what they “tell” in the text, doing so in order to maximize the discrepancy between what the self might intend and what the text might convey. Such authors forfeit both voluntary self-control and voluntary self-exhibit. We might recognize this “aleatoric” impulse, for example, in the kind of Dadaist anarchy that has come to represent the legacy of Tristan Tzara and his poésie découpé. We see this impulse at work in poetic genres as diverse as the “mesostics” by John Cage and the “asymmetries” by Mac Low — poets who strive to articulate structures in an uncanny, vagrant form, equal to the oracular surprise of synchronicity. An author delegates authorship to the otherness of chance (often doing so through the replicated pretexts of readymade poetry, the randomized cuttings of respliced poetry, or the programmed machines of googlized poetry), and a reader, in turn, judges the uncanniness of these results. We witness the self as it subordinates its subjectivity to an arbitrary procedure, thereby bearing witness to the outcome of a stochastic experiment.

Cognitive, automatic, mannerist, aleatoric — this “quadrivium” of literature exhausts every means of permuting the relationship between intentionality and expressiveness. Each relationship constitutes a “language-game” subject to its own rules of engagement — and hence we might consider the degree to which these games might in fact conform to the celebrated categories first conceived by the poet Roger Caillois, who classifies games according to four sets: mimesis (games of mimicry), ilinx (games of vertigo), agon (games of prowess), and alea (games of fortune).******* Cognitive writing (with its demand for a realistic depiction of subjective experience) might thus be a game of mimesis; automatic writing (with its demand for a delirious depiction of subjective experience) might thus be a game of ilinx; mannerist writing (with its demand for a virtuosic overthrow of a procedural constraint) might thus be a game of agon; and aleatoric writing (with its demand for a receptive deference to all stochastic exigencies) might thus be a game of alea. If conceptual literature has already explored each concept of writing beyond the “cognitive,” perhaps such literature must now imagine unthought varieties of writing beyond these four categories in order to imagine a new way of “playing” at literature.

Michel Foucault notes that “writing unfolds like a game that inevitably moves beyond its own rules and finally leaves them behind” (116). My four concepts of writing itemize all ways of permuting intentionality and expressiveness. The two categories of expressive writing (“cognitive” and “automatic”) constitute the domain of, what I might call, a “Wordsworthian subjectivity,” concerned with the sublime affirmation of a self on behalf of some poetic “identity,” whereas the two concepts of non-expressive writing (“mannerist” and “aleatoric”) constitute the domain of, what I might call, a “Keatsian subjectivity,” concerned with the extreme sublimation of a self on behalf of some poetic “alterity.” The avant-garde has colonized three of these four domains (the “automatic,” the “mannerist,” and the “aleatoric”) — and while any poet might traverse all four with ease, playing with multiple concepts of writing, switching from one to another, perhaps even doing so within the same work, no poet can play in more than one domain at the same time. I suggest that, ultimately, poets who write conceptual literature must now begin to probe the limit-cases of this “quadrivium” in the hope of imagining more neoteric concepts of writing situated elsewhere, far beyond this potential playfield.

TABLE OF CONCEPTS FOR WRITING

COGNITIVE

MANNERIST

intentional

intentional

expressive

non-expressive

(poetic game of mimicry)

(poetic game of prowess)

AUTOMATIC

ALEATORIC

non-intentional

non-intentional

expressive

non-expressive

(poetic game of vertigo)

(poetic game of fortune)

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” The Rustle of Language. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1986. 49—55. Print.

Caillois, Roger. Man, Play and Games. Trans. Meyer Barash. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1958. Print.

Dworkin, Craig. The UbuWeb Anthology of Conceptual Writing. 2003—. Web.

Foster, Hal. “The Expressive Fallacy.” Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics. Port Townsend: Bay Press, 1985. 59—77. Print.

Foucault, Michel. “What Is an Author?” Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ed. Donald F. Bouchard. Trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1977. 113—38. Print.

Goldsmith, Kenneth. “Conceptual Poetics: Kenneth Goldsmith.” Harriet.Poetry Foundation, 9 Jun. 2008. Web.

. “A Week of Blogs for the Poetry Foundation.” The Consequence of Innovation: 21st-Century Poetics. Ed. Craig Dworkin. New York: Roof, 2008. 137—49. Print.

Wimsatt, W.K., and Monroe C. Beardsley. “The Intentional Fallacy.” The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1954. 3—18. Print.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell and Mott, 1974. Print.

* Kenneth Goldsmith has remarked that “conceptual writing is … interested in a thinkership rather than a readership,” and for him, “conceptual writing is good only when the idea is good; often, the idea is much more interesting than the resultant texts” (“Conceptual Poetics”).

** W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley discuss the “intentional fallacy” in the discourse of literature by arguing that “intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work” (3), because “the poem … is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it” (5). Likewise, Hal Foster studies the “expressive fallacy” in the discourse of aesthetics by arguing that “even as expressionism insists on the … interior self, it reveals that this self is never anterior to its traces,” and thus “’the artist’ is less the originator of his expression than its effect” — a condition that such expression both reveals and rejects (62).

*** Michel Foucault notes that, among its many traits, the “’author-function’ … does not refer, purely and simply, to an … individual insofar as it simultaneously gives rise to a … series of subjective positions that individuals of any class may come to occupy” (131) — and in fact, “we can easily imagine a culture where discourse would circulate without any need for an author” (138).

**** Goldsmith notes, “I am a word processor…. The simple act of moving information from one place to another today constitutes a significant cultural act” (“A Week of Blogs” 143—44).

***** Roland Barthes notes that “the removal of the Author … utterly transforms the modern text … or — which is the same thing — the text is henceforth … read so that the author absents himself from it at every level” (51—52). Michel Foucault also notes that “to know the writer in our day, it will be through the singularity of his absence and in his link to death, which has transformed him into a victim of his own writing” (117).

****** We wish to emphasize, of course, that despite the professed attitudes of any author about being either self-conscious or self-assertive during the process of writing, authors can never exert perfect control over what they will and what they tell — and indeed, critics nowadays spend much of their time “deconstructing” the disparity between what the author means to say and what the author seems to say, showing the degree to which the self reveals more about itself than it might, otherwise, claim to show or deign to hide. We do not wish to repeat “fallacies” of either intentionality or expressiveness in our own discussion, but we do want to show that, during the process of writing, authors can only ever choose from among a limited variety of vantages about their own self-consciousness and their own self-assertiveness — and in turn, these vantages make available to the author only a limited variety of possible concepts about the very process of writing itself.

******* Caillois notes, “I am proposing a division into four main rubrics, depending upon whether, in the games under consideration, the role of competition, chance, simulation, or vertigo is dominant,” and hence, “I call these agon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx” (12).