The Problem and the Art of Writing, by Jacob Klein

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The Problem and the Art of Writ ing

Jacob Klein

I he subject of this lecture is Th e Problem andthe Art of Writing. And that is what I am goingto talk about. M y real them e, however, thetheme that prompts me to deliver thislecture, is—Reading. For what we do here,

are supposed to do here, most of the t ime, is — reading.I submit—and I hope you will not m ind m y saying this —that , on the whole, we do not read too well . There areobviously m any reasons for this failure, varying from in-dividual to individual, from circumstance to cir-cumstance. It would be quite a task to try to accountfor al l of them . Bu t ther e is one reason — one am ong somany—which is conspicuously noticeable. Readingmeans, first of all, to face a written text. And it seemsto me tha t we do not sufficiently reflect on wh at this factentails, on what writing itself implies or presupposes, andon what it, of necessity, precludes. To talk about Readingleads thus unavo idably to the subject of Writ ing . H encethis lecture.

In reflecting a bou t writing it is impossible to disregardthe spoken word. How could we, indeed? For humanspeech, this marvel, this greatest marvel perhaps underthe sun, is right there, behind or beneath or above thewritten word. It is difficult (although not impossible) toconceive that there could have been writ ing withouthuman speech exist ing in this world. I mean, writ ingseems to follow speaking. Writ in g and speaking exh ibit ,at any rate, com mo n aspects as well as aspects in whichthey differ. Let me discuss those similarities and dif-ferences at some length.

The differences are not as clear as one might sup-

The late Jac ob Klein taught at St. John's College, Annap olis, for over thirtyyears. For a decade, from 1948-1958, he served as Dean of the College.

pose at first. S peaking, we m igh t say, appea rs, of necessity,as an audible sequence of sounds, a sequence in t ime;actual human speech is never available as a whole, whileanything writ ten is visibly there at once, in a book oron a piece of paper or a ch unk of stone. While reading,even silent reading, takes time, as does the act o f writing,a written text, which takes up some space, is present allat once in al l i ts parts. But what about a tape-recordedspeech or conversation? Is not th e whole right there, onthe marked tape? Are not writ ten records of the pro-ceedings, say, in a law court complete in such a way asto project the tem poral sequenc e of all the speaking thatgoes on into a more or less limited space in which theentire sequence is duplicated, and thus preserved, atonce? Such projections, duplications, and preservationsof l ive speech by mean s of man ua l skills or m echanico-electrical or electronic devices amount to canning pro-cesses. The result is indeed canned speech that can bereleased again into i ts proper medium by vocal ormechanical or electrical means. The writ ten word, how-ever, is not at all canned speech. The primary cause forthe existence of the written word is not the desire toduplicate and to preserve the sound of the spoken w ord,but the desire to preserve i ts meaning so that i t couldbe conveyed to others over and over again. W riting tends,therefore, to a shorten ing of the spoken word, a shorten-ing that manifests itself in a variety of ways. Let us con-sider this phenomenon in some detail .

First of all, an y writ ing is shorthan d w rit ing. Anywrit ing will do violence to the sou nd of the spoken wordfor, al though i t cannot help reproducing words, i tsprimary purpose is to convey die mea nin g of those words.

Th e various me thods of writing show that clearly. Chinesecharacters, as you all know, although they can be read,are drawn not to be read but to be understood withoutrecourse to the medium of sounds. They are appropri-

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ately called ideograms. Egyptian hieroglyphics, at leastthe oldest ones, convey their meaning directly, eventhough out of them evolved a syllabic and alphabeticscript , something that happened to Chinese characters,too. But even alphabetic writ ing, i .e. , writ ing reproduc-

ing the sounds of words with the help of some thirty let-ters and combinations of let ters, can often be read onlyif the meanin g is grasped first . This is part icularly truein the case of English writ ing. We would not know howto pronounce, for instance, the assemblage of the threeletters BOW or ROW without the context that gives thisassemblage one of i ts several meanings. The reason forthis ambigu ity is that the nu m be r of letters is not suffi-cient to indicate the various sounds we are producingwhile speaking. Although in many cases, as in the ex-amples given, i t might be easy to remedy the si tuationby changing the spell ing, i t does not seem possible toreproduce in writ ing the sound of al l spoken words withcomplete fai thfulness. And that would probably st i l l betrue if we adopted a phonetic system of signs, as thelinguists do, unless we multiplied the number of those

signs immeasurably. It is rather remarkable that the in-adequacy of our sign systems does not really bother us.

It is true that something very similar can be said ofspoken words (in any language) inasmuch as the samesound may convey dif femt m eanings d epending on thecontext, as for example the sounds "spell," "lie" (lye), "die"(dye), or the sound of inflections in nouns and verbs. Incases l ike those, writ ing might help to dist inguish themeanings, but i t does not always do that . The relationof writ ten signs to the sounds of words seems, on thewhole, more a mbigu ous th an the relat ion of those soundsto their meanings.

Now, what seem s to me significant is that the short-comings of our character or let ter systems appear toreflect the tendency inherent in all writing to shorten theflow of spoken words for the purpose of clarifying and,above all, of preserv ing their mean ing. Th is sh ortening

is done by reducing the number of the spoken words ,by condensing them, as i t were, and this in turn is doneby selecting and arranging them in a proper way. Thatis where the problem of writ ing begins to emerge.

Such shor tening and condensing cannot be at temp-ted, let alone achieved, unless the whole of what is to bewrit ten is in some way present to the writer— I mea n thewhole as a whole, not necessarily in all its details. Inshortening and condensing the spoken word, writ ing ex-tends the devices by which words and sentences are con-joined in l ive speech. The device of shading the mean-ing of words by inflections or preposit ional and adver-bial linkages, and above all, the device of combining notonly words but whole sentences by means of conjunc-tions and variat ions of verbal forms — the sum total ofall such devices constitutes what we call the arts and

disciplines of Grammar and Syntax. These terms referto disciplines which are the result of some reflection onthe manner of our speaking. It is not without interestto observe that such reflection bore fruit, in other words,

that those disciplines took shape, in confrontation withthe writ ten word, as the very word grammar indicates.But writ ing i tself transforms those gram matical a nd syn-tactical devices by applying them on a much larger scaleto the whole of a writ ten work. The term "syntax"(ouvxaqic) , in par t icular , acqui res a much more com-prehensive meaning. Th e word me ans "co-ordering," "put-ting things together in a certain order," "com-posing." An -ticipating the whole of what is to be writ ten down, thewriter has to fit the parts of that whole into a prop er order.We have a direct pointing to this procedure in the t i t leof Ptolemy's book that we study here: it is calledMathematical Composition (auvraqic , paOrjuaxiKTl)—"math-ematical" in contrast to a possible non-m athem atical com-posit ion relating to celestial phenomena. But the sameterm ouvxa^ig could be applied to all writ ten works. T heanticipated whole imposes upon the writer the task ofcom-posing i ts parts with the graduated emphasis dueto each of them . A nd just as the devices of such a com-posit ion are extensions of syntactical devices (in therestricted sense of the term "syntax"), the devices involved

in varying emphase s, the devices of art iculation, a ppea rto be extensions of grammatical shadings observable evenin simple sentences of live speech.

The shortening and condensing of spoken words inwrit ing demand, then, modifications and extensions ofgrammatical and syntactical devices. In writ ing, thedevices of Articulation and Composit ion add a newdimension above and beyond the o ne governed by gram -matical and syntactical rules. It is in these new devicesthat the problem of writ ing resides. That problem canbe formu lated as follows: how can th e anticipated wholebe made to unfold itself so as to become an actual whole,that is, in Aristotle's immortal phrase, to becomesomething that has a beginning, a middle , and an end?

Right at this point , we see that the term "writ ing"may be somewhat misleading if i t is understood to sug-gest that the act of writ ing must b e don e with some k indof instrument on some visible material . A speech in apoli tical assembly, in an election campaig n, or on som eother public occasion (a lecture, for example) may wellbe delivered without any writ ten text , even any writ tennotes; the speaker could, of course, have prepared hisspeech beforehand in writ ing, but he nee d not have doneso; he mu st, however, have prepare d it somehow by tlhnk-ing about what he is going to say and about how he isgoing to say it ; he m ust thu s have anticipated the wholeof his speech and have committed this whole to hismemory, again not necessarily in all its details, but insuch a way that i ts composit ion and i ts main art icula-t ions are present to his mind. A speaker of this kind isa writer, too. His rhetorical prob lem is not different fromthe problem the writer faces. The speaker 's memory iscovered, as i t were, with the "imp rints" of the whole. O n

the other h and , a let ter, a hasti ly scribbled note, can, onoccasion, be some thing l ike cann ed speech, if that let teror note repro duces faithfully wha t would have been saidwithout writ ing.

TH E ST. JO H N 'S R E V IEW



The dist inction, then, between the spoken word andthe written word reduces itself to the distinction betweensaying something spontaneously and saying somethingin the l ight of an anticipated whole. Yet, this does not

seem sufficient. It could bec om e more m eaning ful if welooked at the effect speaking or writ ing may have or maynot have on the l istener or reader.

We all remember a phrase that Homer uses so oftenwhen describing human speech, the phrase "wingedwords" (eTtca ftTEpoevra). Whence this image? In mostcases, the phra se occurs, wh en a per sona ge, a god or aman, addresses another single personage, a god or a man.Occasionally i t is also used when someone speaks to agroup or a crowd of people. Minstrels in Homer are neversaid to utter or to sing wmged wo rds." Now, words arenot called "winged" to indicate their soaring or lofty qual-i ty. The image seems rather to imply that words, afterescaping the "fence (o r bar rier) of the teeth" (epKOC,686vTG0v), as Homer puts it, are guided swifty, andtherefore surely, to their destination , the ears an d the souland the understanding of the addressee. Words, especially

spontaneous words, can indeed be spoken in such a wayas to "sink in," as we say. But th is possibility grows m oreuncertain with the growing indehniteness of the ad-dressee. It is mo re difficult to reach a crowd of me n th ana single man. Exertions of a special kind are then re-quired. In writ ing, the indefiniteness of the addresseebecomes almost complete. Live speech is spontaneous,not confined within the boundaries of an anticipatedwhole, and more often than not endowed with wings.Writ ten speech, visibly put dow n or invisibly com mittedto memory, is prepared, composed and art iculated as awhole, and m ay yet lack wings. The problem of writ ing,then, is: how to give wings to written words so that theymay reach their destination, the soul and the understand-ing of men.

To solve this problem , th at is, to know how to com-pose and to art iculate words so as to give them wings,is to possess the art of writ ing. Howev er artful the com -position, some of us, of course, will not be touched bythe wings. There are no safeguards against that .

In the main, there are two ways in which this prob-lem can be solved.

O ne is: to say explicitly all that is necessary for the mean-ing of the writ ten text to be gra sped, that is, not to omitany l ink in the chain which binds our understanding,and not to say anything which could disrupt that chain.This kind of composit ion is conspicuously present inmathematical works, in Euclid, Apollonius, good calculustextbooks, and so forth; it is prevalent in any writingmeant to convey to us an understanding of the ways ofnature, of nature's structure, of the interlocking of naturalphenomena; its traces may be found elsewhere, too, espe-cially in legal writ ing. The art iculation of such works

tends to follow the sequence of logical inferences. In fact,it is the reflection on w hat is implied in this kind of com-posit ion that leads to the conception and establishmentof a very special art and discipline. This discipline has

as i ts subject that element in human speech, that ele-ment of the Xoyoc,, which gives it the character ofreasoned discourse. It concerns itself with the pure struc-tures of the Xoyoc, and be ars therefore the n am e of Logic.

Subsequent reflection may make us doubt whether wordsderived from actual speaking can serve as vehicles oflogical inferences. This doubt, in turn, leads to morerefined versions of the discipline of logic, leads to whatis call today Symbolic Logic. Any writ ing termedmathematical or scientific is under the spell of the ideaof a strictly logical demonstrative discipline that proceedsfrom accepted premises through a chain of inescapableinferences to ^refutable conclusions. Seldom, if ever, doesa composition embody this idea in its purity. The degreesto which this idea is being approximated form a widerange. W hat interests us here is the character of the wingsprope r to composit ions of this kind. T his character is thenecessity inherent in our thinking.

The other way in which the problem of writ ing canbe solved is quite different. Here what is most impor-tant and decisive is not said explicitly at all. Composi-

tions of this kind tend to articulate the whole in sucha way as to raise questions about the link that holds themtogether. It is ou r answer tha t will ei ther i l luminate thewhole or plunge us into further darkness out of whichwe shall be groping anew for light. Writings of this kindtaunt us. The character of the wings proper to them isthe taun ting presence of a hidden answer, yet of an answerwithin our reach. In what follows I shall try to give ex-amples of this second way of writ ing. I shall take themfrom Homer and Plato. But before embarking upon thisdangerous enterprise, I have to add a not unimportantrem ark to what I have jus t said.

I said that in the main there are two ways of solvingthe proble m of writ ing and I have tried to indicate w hatthey were. I said "in the main" because there are —asalways — bord er cases and fringe ph eno me na in writ ing

that may loom large before our eyes and glow in apeculiar light. Among the oldest cases of writing are, forexample, writ ten laws. Ther e are also mon umen ts, them -selves something l ike imprin ts on the collective mem oryof mankind, but imprints made visible, and there areinscriptions on them glorifying the deeds of some greatma n or of some great ruler or of an infamous one. T hereare epitaphs. There are short poems expressing a moodor a whim, aphorisms, sayings, and proverbs. I omit men-tioning other examples. (There are too many of them.)We tend to cherish such border cases and fringe phenom-ena and to devote special attention to them. But I shouldventure to say that they find their place on the map ofwriting in term s of coordinates derived from the two mainstems of writ ing I was talking about.

And now, let me turn to the first example of thesecond of these main stems.

Consider the Iliad. A mo ng the great many events thatfollow each other in the story and the description of whichconstitutes the whole of the poem, there are certain onesof decisive importance, which are quite familiar to us:

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(I) the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achil les whichleads to Achilles' with draw ing from the fight; (II) the vic-torious advance of the Trojans; (III) the intervention an ddeath of Patroclus; (IV) the re app earan ce of Achil les onthe field of batt le; (V) the death of Hector; (VI) thefuneral of Patroclus; (VII) the surrender of Hector's bodyto Priam. All these decisive events could be put in adiagram as follows:

X.M— x -

jr M

HSLMM3 32X3-X .

Disregarding the more or less superficial division intobooks or songs and even allowing for all kinds of tamper-

ing with, and dislocations of, the original text, there isno denying that the decisive events are crowded into thelast third of the whole. Between (I) and (II) events of greatsignificance certainly do occur, as, for exam ple, the deathand the wounding of ma ny an d imp or tant warr iors , theDiomedean terror, the wounding of two gods, the en-counter of Diomedes and Glaucus, the peaceful scenesin Troy, the unsuccessful embassy to Achilles, inconclusiveduels among men and delightfully treacherous actionson the part of the gods-—all of which co ntribute in vary-ing degrees to the unfold ing plot . In the m ain, however,the battle is swaying back and forth all the time untilfinally the Trojans reac h the ships of the Achaeans. Du r-in g all that t ime Acrulles sits in his tent, su lking, and onlyoccasionally watching the fight. The pivotal event, thedeath of Patroclus, which changes, which reverseseverything, occurs very late in the poem, in the sixteenthbook. It is as if the poem took an exceedingly long breathto reach that point and afterwards rushed with breath-taking speed to its end. This is the more remarkable sincethe entire period of t ime the poem encompasses is oneof 49 days and Patroclus' death occurs on the 26th day,that is, very nearly in the middle of that period.

Why is the composit ion art iculated in such an un-balanced way, we wonder. Let us see,

There are two events—among many others —whichI have not me ntio ned at all. Yet it is these two events thatseem to be the two foci from which all light dispersedthroughout the poem s tems.

The first takes place when Thetis, Achil les ' mother,is visiting Zeus to ask for his help on behalf of her son,reminding Zeus of the help he once received from her.She wants Zeus to turn the scales of the war, to let the

the Trojans have the upper hand until finally, in the hourof the Achaeans' greatest peril, Achilles, and only Achilles,might be able to save them from certain defeat, lead themto victory, and thus rega in his honor, w hich he allegedly

lost through Agamemnon's action. It is then said (I ,511-12): "But Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, said nothing atall to her and sat in silence for a long while (8fjv)." Anawful silence Th etis repe ats he r plea. At last, Zeus con-

sents and nods, a sign of an irrevocable decision. Olym -pus shakes. Thetis depa rts, appare ntly satisfied that shehas accomplished her mission. Has she?

The second event occurs after Patroclus' death(XVIII. 165-229), while the batt le for Patroclus' bodyrages before the ships between Hector and the Aiantesand while Thetis is on her way to get new arms for herson from Hep haestu s. H era sends Iris to Achilles, withoutZeus and the other gods knowing anything about the mis-sion, to urge Achilles to intervene in the struggle forPatroclus' body. Since Achilles has no ar ms at this junc -ture, he is asked by Iris to do nothing but to show himselfto the Trojans, to frighten them by his mere appearan ce.Achilles, "dear to Zeus" (203), obeys and does more thanwhat H era through I r is asked him to do. Pallas Athene,who is nearby, does her share: she casts the tasseled aegisaround his shoulders and she sets a crown in the guise

of a golden cloud about his head and from it issues ablazing flame. Thus he appears—alone, separated fromthe other Achaeans —in the sight of the foe, a flamingtorch. But no t only does he appea r, he shou ts, three times,a terrible shout, clearly heard—and "from afar PallasAthen e uttered her voice" (217-18). Unspeaka ble confu-sion and terror seizes the Trojans. Patroclus' body issaved.

Wh at kind of shout is this? Is it one of trium ph? Ofthreat? Is it an ordinary war cry, raised to a very highpitch? It is certainly not like the beUowing of the wo undedAres (V,

v859, 863). Two verbs are used to describe that

shout, one of a rather neutral taint , and, at the decisivemoment , another , ict%00 (22S), which has a rang e ofmean ings. On e of these meaning s is "crying out in grief,Shortly before (29) the same verb was used in preciselythis meaning to describe the lament of the maidens atthe news of Patroclus' death. It wil l be repeated shortlyafterwards (XIX, 41) to describe Achilles' shouting whenhe rouses the A chaeans to battle. W hy does Achilles shoutnow, though not urged to do so by Iris? Certainly, tofrighten the Trojans, to make them desist from Patroclus'body. But can this shouting fail to express the unspe akablepain th at fi lls his heart , the pain which had just brou ghthis mother to him from the depth of the sea? Here in-deed is a terrible sight to behold: a man raised to hishighest glory by Pallas Athene, wearing the aegis,crowned by flames, radiant, truly god-like—and this sameman crushed by grief, miserable in his awareness of hav-ing himself brought the immensity of this grief uponhimself. The apotheosis of Achilles is the seal of his doom,An d it is his voice, his braze n voice (XV III 222), his terri-ble shouting, w hich brings terror to the foe, that expresses

his misery and his doom. Pallas Athene's voice seems buta weak echo of that of Achilles or is even completelydrowned out by the lat ter 's intensity.

But are not these two events related?

TH E ST. JO H N 'S R EV IEW 19



TPTrVTO T

Does not A chilles' shout son orously echo Zeu s' si lence?Can we not guess now why Zeus remained si lent for along while? Surely, he had to take account of the suscep-tibilities of his wife, as any husband would —and in hismarital relat ions Zeus is no exception—but is it onlyHera whom he was si lently thinking about? Must he nothave been concerned about the whimsical nature ofAchilles' plight and Thetis' plea? And, on the other hand,how could he have refused to satisfy T hetis in whose debthe was? Is i t not right then and there th at Zeus decided,in wisdom and sadness, irrevocably too, to accede toThet i s ' demand, to give honor and glory to Achilles, but

to do that in a ma nn er which neith er The tis nor Achillessuspected? The long stretch of the poem which cor-responds to Achilles' inactivity fills Zeus' silence. Whilethe t ide of the batt le is being reversed, Patroclus' ap-proaching death is announced twice (VIII, 476; XV,64-7), the steps which lead to it are carefully pointed out(XI , 604, 790-804, especially 792-3). Achilles will getwhat he wants, but at the price of the greatest loss hecould suffer — the loss of his beloved friend, his othe r self(XVIII, 79-82). In the hour of his tr iumph he will bethe most miserable of me n. T he ways of Zeus are as wiseas they are crooked. Zeu s does not know ab out Iris ' mis-sion. But do the strong-headed and l ight-minded god-desses, Her a and Pallas Athen e, know wha t is going on?The y do not, nor does Achil les' mo ther (X VI II, 74-5 ).While Pallas Athene transfigures Achilles into a god,Achilles is mortified. He has grasped Zeus' intent. He

says himself (XVIII, 328): Not al l the thoughts of mendoes Zeus fulfill"; as Homer has said before (XVI,250-2 ), com men ting o n Achilles ' prayer before the slay-ing of Patroclus: "One thi ng the father gran ted him , theother he denied." Zeus denied him the safe return ofPatroclus. He denied it for Achilles' true glory's sake. For,as Zeus confides to Poseidon, mortal men are his con-cern even in their perishing (XX, 21). That is whatnei ther Hera no r Pallas Athene un ders tand. He ra doesnot understand the bit ing irony of Zeus' remark to her(XVIII , 357-9) : 'Wel l, then,you have accomplished this,yo u have aroused Achilles free of foot. Verily, the flowing-hai red Achaeans must be year children."

Achil les ' suffering at the moment of his tr iumph isAchil les ' own. It cannot be matched by anything onOlympus. It is as much the prerogative of a mortal as

i t is the attribute of a hero. H om er is the teacher n o lessof Aeschylus than he is of Plato.

This, the n, is one exam ple of the way in which a pieceof writ ing taun ts us to und erstan d w hat is being said n ot

in so many w ords, but thro ugh the art iculation and com-posit ion of the whole. The answer I have given may notbe the right one or may not suffice. It is up to you tofind a better one.

Let us turn to the second example, Plato's Phaedrus.This example has the virtue of being not only an exam-ple of writing, but also a piece of writing the main themeof which is writing itself. The two people who do the talk-ing in this dialogue are Socrates and Phaedrus. Phaedrusis a young man who loves passionately everything con-nected with words. He is a (piXoXoyoc, and so is Socrates.Th e conversation is between two lovers of words and takesplace, on a sum mer day, outside the walls of Athen s, ne ara cool brook, und er the shad e of a tree in which cicadasmake a continuous and, I suppose, sometimes deafen-ing noise.

The dialogue is divided as follows: there is an in-troductory part which I shall omit , al tho ugh i t is highlysignificant. Then there are two clearly dist inguishableparts as follows:

The whole dialogue is framed, as it were, by twofigures. One is Lysias, a famous speech-writer, who, atthe very beginning of the dialogue, appears o n the scene

in the most suitable mask, to wit, as the scroll inPhaedrus' left hand. (The scroll contains a speech writ-ten by Lysias.) Lysias remains present in that guise(although presumably not always in Phaedrus' left hand)throughout the entire dialogue. The other figure isIsocrates, another famous speech-writer, who is conjuredup by Phaedrus and given stature and dignity by Socratesat the very end of the dialogue. One emerges as a pastmaster of bad writ ing and the other as full of promiseof becoming a writer of superior standing. Between thesetwo extremes Phaedrus is confronted with the problemof Speaking and Writing—and so are we.

In the first part, three speeches are heard, the onewrit ten by Lysias and read by Phaedrus, the other twospoken by Socrates who keeps attributing their author-ship variously to somebody he cannot remember, or tothe local deit ies, the Nymphs and Pan, or to the poet

Stesichorus, or to the cicadas, or to Phaedrus. The twospeeches spoken by Socrates are, at any rate, painstak-ingly elaborate, and, if they are not to be taken strictlyas writ ten speeches, can hardly be conceived as impro-

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vised unless, indeed, they are "inspired," that is, dictatedby divine or superior powers.

Lysias' speech is the plea of a man to a young boy,in which i t is contended that i t is better to favor a non-lover than a lover. Phaedrus considers i t a wonderful

speech, "charming," as he wo uld say today. Socrates findsplenty of faults in i t and proceeds to deliver a betterspeech on the same theme, except that this speech blamesthe lover and stops short at the point where it is supposedto begin praising the non-lover. Pha edrus does not suc-ceed in making Socrates finish that speech. It remainstruncated. Instead, Socrates, by way of recantation —because he has offended Love — delivers ano ther speechin praise of Love. This speech, the most eloquent, oc-cupies the middle part of the dialogue and is spoken bySocrates while the sun goes through i ts highest course.

There is a definite change in the tenor of the dialogueafter the speeches are done with, an d this changed tenorpersists through out the second part . Th e conspicuous dif-ference in the tenor of the two parts poses the problemof the dialogue's composit ion.

Socrates and Phaedrus begin to speak, quietly andsoberly, about the spoken and w rit ten word and continuedoing so unti l the very end of the dialogue. Phaedrusagrees with Socrates that the real problem concerningwrit ing is to dist inguish good writ ing from bad writ ingand is ready to embark on a discussion on this subject .It is here (258E-259D) that Socrates calls Phaedrus' at-tention to the cicadas over their heads. He tel ls a storyabout their origin: they were once human beings, evenbefore there were Muses; now, in their present form, sosays Socrates, they are supposed to report to the Musesand to te l l them who among men honors whom amongthe Muses; they are watching, says Socrates, him andPhaedrus now, at noontime, and if they see both talkingto each other and not asleep —like sheep and mostmen — they might be pleased and report accordingly. Thequestion arises: why does Socrates tell this marvelou s a nd

fantastic story of the cicadas' origin and nature at thismoment? It seems to be done to underscore that , fromnow on, Phaedrus and Socrates, instead of exchangingelaborate speeches, tha t is, written o r dictated wo rds, will,in leisurely and sober fashion, converse about speech-making and speech-writing and thus restore to the spokenword i ts prop er and un challengeable function. T he trou -ble is that Socrates' tale interrupts this sober conversa-t ion. And let us not forget that this sober conversationis embodied in a written text.

In what follows, we witness the previous speeches be-ing cri t icized and analyzed. The beginning of Lysias'speech is subjected to a special scrutiny. And in the courseof i t this beginning of Lysias' speech is made to repeatitself, twice (262E; 263E-2 64A ), word for word. We hearSocrates interpretin g freely the speeches he himself made,assuming the role of their "father," so freely indeed thatthey appear somewhat changed: the doubtful is omitted,the wording is modified, addit ions are ma de (264E ff.).I t is Socrates' way of suppo rting and defending the truth

they might contain. We observe Socrates and Phaedrusbearing d own on various books which claim to teach theart of speaking. Phaedrus, the "lover of the Muses," isnot altogether satisfied with this kind of conversationwhich he describes as "somewhat bare" (262C).

At the crucial point , when the discussion seems torevert to the problem of good and bad writ ing (274B),i t is again interrupted by Socrates. He suddenly asks:"Do you know in w hat way you would best please divinityin the matter of words, either in making speeches or talk-ing about the m?" Phaed rus replies: "I certainly do not.Do you?" Socrates: "A tale, no m ore , I can tell from hear-say; a tale that has come down from our fore-fathers;as to the knowledge of the truth, it is theirs alone." AndSocrates casually ad ds: "But should we ourselves fin histruth, would any human fancy or opinion (fioqaoua)abou t it still be of any conc ern to us?" To which Pha edrusreplies: "A ridiculous question " Urged by Phaedrus toreport what he heard, Socrates proceeds to tel l the taleof Theu th and Tham ous, legendary Egyptian personages,a tale in which Theuth is reported to have invented let-ters, and thereby writ ing, and to have presented this in-vention to the god-king Tha mo us. I shall read now whatThamous, according to Socrates, says (274E-275B):"Most artful Theuth, one man has the abil i ty to begetartful things, an other th e abil i ty to jud ge of theirusefulness or hamfulness to their users; and now you,who are the father of letters, have been led by your af-fection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of thatwhich they possess. For this invention will prod uce forget-fulness in the minds of those who learn to use i t, becausethey will neglect their memory, inasmuch as their trustin writ ing will make them recollect by means of exter-nal marks which are no part of themselves and will notmake them recollect from vrithin through their own ef-fort. You have thus discovered an aid not to memo ry b utto reminding. And you give to those who learn not truthbut merely the appearance of wisdom: they will become

acquainted wi th many things vrithout proper teachingand will seem to know, while remaining for the most partignora nt a nd h ard to get along with since, instead of get-t ing wise, they will mere ly have acqu ired the reputa tionof being wise."

We should not forget that this is a tale and that wehave been warned by Socrates: hearsay is no substi tu-tion for our own discovery of the truth. Again, we shouldnot forget that this tale presents itself to us as a writtentext which, according to the very content of the tale, can-not be relied upon without proper teaching. Neithershould we forget that the discussion of the problem ofgood and bad writ ing has, once mo re, been successfullyinter rupted.

What follows in the written text is a description ofwrit ing that makes i t appea r a playful thing, u nderta kenfor "amusement 's sake" (276B-D ). On e canno t expectwritten words to be serious. For, as Socrates says (275D),"you would think that they (the writ ten words) speak asif they had un derstan ding, b ut should you, from a desire

TH E ST. JO H N 'S R EV IEW



to learn, ask them anything about what they say, theydo nothing but repeat always one and the same thing."They cannot, therefore, defend themselves against mis-understanding and abuse. Furthermore, they cannot anddo not discriminate between those to whom they speak.Any auth or who holds that there could be muc h solidityand clarity in his written work, whatever its subject,deserves to be blamed for that, regardless of wheth er thereis anyone to voice the blame or not (277D-E; 275C).

What, then, about the dist inction between good andbad writing that Socrates and P hae dru s set out to discuss?Nothing is said abou t i t . Th e answ er to that question hasbeen — of necessity, it seem s — playfully w ithhe ld. Still,whatever has been said about the pro blem of writ ing hasbeen enacted in the dialogue. T he repeti t iousness of thewritten word, its inability to defend itself, the superior-ity of the spoken word in spontaneous conversation whichinterprets with understanding what was writ ten down —all tha t has be en enactedhy Socrates and Phaedrus in thedialogue. Must we not continue the conversation to solvethe problem of good writ ing, to find the answer which

was not stated in the dialogue? And does not preciselythe Phaedrus, as it is written, offer an example of how goodwrit ing can be done?

I have few concluding remarks.Is Plato right in at tributing superiori ty to the spoken

word, to any conversation in which winged words canbe exchanged spontaneously? There is a point at whichthis superiority seems to disappear altogether,

A most remark able sirnilari ty obtains between words,spoken words of live speech, and money, money that isavailable in coins and bills. Both are precious, both cir-culate freely, coins and bil ls from han d to han d, words

from mouth to mouth. The imprints on coins and bil lsare gradually erased, effaced, rubbed off, just as themeanings of words seem to become fuzzy, blurred andempty with the passage of t ime. There is evencounterfeiting in language as there is in money. H um anspeech, that greatest marvel perhaps under the sun, canand does indeed deteriorate to an extent which rendersit obnoxious and totally wingless.

It is at this point that the writ ten word may cometo its rescue. As we so aptly say, words can be "coined."This happens both ways: words can be coined in sup-port of cliches, fostering a nd increasin g the ever-presenttendency to diminish the vigor and meaning of speech;but words can also be coined afresh.

In a letter to a friend, Virgil, a writer, says that hegives birth to verses in the man ne r of bears and accord-ing to their custom parere se versus modo atque ritu ursino ,

that is to say, that he ha ndles his verses the way the m otherbear handles her newly born cub: assiduously and per-sistently she licks it into its prope r shap e. Such assiduouswork, performed on the writ ten word and undertakento assure the right art iculation of a com posed whole, canand does restore and preserve the integrity of humanspeech. It is thus that the written word repays its eternaldebt to the spoken word.

22 SUMMER 1984

Documents

The Problem and the Art of Writing, by Jacob Klein