Narration (5 page)

Knowledge then is what you know at the time at any time that you really know anything. And in knowing anything you know it as you know it, you know it at the time that you are knowing it and in that way the way of knowing it knowing has not succession there may be continuous states of knowing
anything but at no time of knowing is there anything but knowing that thing the thing you know, know carefully what you do know and of course anybody can know that this is so. And once more I say the Old Testament is the thing that has the way of knowing anything as knowing anything and not feeling or thinking about anything succeeding anything. Knowing is knowing anything at the knowing the thing when that thing is what you know. The Old Testament has always been so. So there we are and in a curious way we now and in this day at this time have come again to have this as our own, that there is no succession, there is moving in any and any various direction and that being a thing existing knowing is what you know at the moment anything is being as knowing. The exciting thing about all this is that as it is new it is old and as it is old it is new, but now really we have come to be in our way which is an entirely different way from the way the Old Testament had its way we have come to be that knowledge is what you know when you know and as you know there is no succession of what you know since you do know what you know. Anyone really anyone can really know that this is so.

To come back again to what prose was and what poetry was and what it is if it is going to be prose and poetry again. Perhaps it is not going to be prose and poetry again. Nothing really changes everything is as it was but perhaps it is not going to be prose and poetry again perhaps it is not poetry and prose now in spite of anything and everything being always having been what it was.

So to begin again about what prose and poetry has been.

Prose has been a thing made of sentences and paragraphs, the sentences saying a thing and then one after the other the sentences making a paragraph
the thing by reason of it succeeding one sentence succeeding another one come finally to giving a beginning and ending and a middle to anything in other words having it that a paragraph has come to give a thing the emotion that anything having a beginning and a middle and an ending can give to anything. Think of narrative from this thing, a narrative can give emotion because an emotion is dependent upon succession upon a thing having a beginning and a middle and an ending. That is why every one used to like sequels and some still do anybody still may but actually in modern writing sequels have no meaning do you begin to see now why I say that sentences and paragraphs need not necessarily go on existing. Do you begin to see what I mean by saying this thing.

So then prose has been for a long time has been made of sentences and paragraphs, sentences which within themselves carry no emotion because a thing balanced within itself does not give out nor have within any emotion but sentences existing within themselves by the balance that holds them when they are in succession one after the other and make a paragraph have the emotion that any succession can give to anything. A sentence has not really any beginning or middle or ending because each part is its part as its part and so the whole exists within by the balance within but the paragraph exists not by a balance within but by a succession. Anybody really anybody can realize this thing and realizing this thing can realize that narrative up to the present time has been not a succession of paragraphing but a continuing of paragraphing, a quite entirely different thing.

Let me explain again.

A sentence is inside itself by its internal balancing, think how a sentence is made by its parts of speech and you will see that it is not dependent upon a
beginning a middle and an ending but by each part needing its own place to make its own balancing, and because of this in a sentence there is no emotion, a sentence does not give off emotion. But one sentence coming after another sentence makes a succession and the succession if it has a beginning a middle and an ending as a paragraph has does form create and limit an emotion.

So now we really do know what sentences and paragraphs are and they have to do everything in narrative writing the way narrative has been written. Because as narrative has mostly been written it is dependent upon things succeeding upon a thing having a beginning and a middle and an ending.

Now these are two things do not forget that they are not one thing. Succeeding one thing succeeding another thing is succeeding and having a beginning a middle and an ending is entirely another thing.

When I first began writing really just began writing, I was tremendously impressed by anything by everything having a beginning a middle and an ending. I think one naturally is impressed by anything having a beginning a middle and an ending when one is beginning writing and that is a natural thing because when one is emerging from adolescence, which is really when one first begins writing one feels that one would not have been one emerging from adolescence if there had not been a beginning and a middle and an ending to anything. So paragraphing is a thing then anyone is enjoying and sentences are less fascinating, but then gradually well if you are an American gradually you find that really it is not necessary not really necessary that anything that everything has a beginning and a middle and an ending and so you struggling with anything as anything has begun and begun and began does not really mean that thing does not really mean beginning or begun.

I found myself at this time quite naturally using the present participle, in The Making of Americans I could not free myself from the present participle because dimly I felt that I had to know what I knew and I knew that the beginning and middle and ending was not where I began.

So then that was the way prose was written and that was narrative writing as I say practically with everything the average English reading person was reading or writing with the exception of the Old Testament yes with the exception of the Old Testament which was not English writing, it was the writing of another kind of living, it was the writing whose beginning and middle and ending was really not existing was a writing where events in succession were not existing, where events one succeeding another event was not at all exciting no not at all exciting.

So now we know how narrative prose was and is written and now let us begin to think about how poetry was written and had that too any sense of succession of one thing succeeding another thing as the thing really producing emotion really holding the attention.

Yes I must have you have to hold it as I have to have you have it that gradually as English literature came more and more to be written it came always more and more to have it that it needed to have emotion in it the emotion that only could come from everything having something that came before and after that thing. In the earlier poetry in English writing it was there of course it was always there but they could feel something without feeling that thing that anything could only be anything if it was succeeding some other thing, and finally then English writing was entirely that thing, in its poetry as well as in its narrative writing that one thing came after another thing and that not anything existing aroused anyone to feeling but
that a thing having beginning and middle and ending made every one have the emotion they had about anything. Did this make poetry as well as prose then. Yes it did.

The fact that anything was existing was moving around by itself in any way it wanted to move did not arouse any emotion it was only anything succeeding any other thing anything having middle and beginning and ending could and did and would arouse emotion.

A great deal perhaps all of my writing of The Making of Americans was an effort to escape from this thing to escape from inevitably feeling that anything that everything had meaning as beginning and middle and ending.

And it was right and quite a natural thing that the book I wrote in which I was escaping from the inevitable narrative of anything of everything succeeding something of needing to be succeeding that is following anything of anything of everything consisting that is the emotional and the actual value of anything counting in anything having beginning and middle and ending it was natural that the book I wrote in which I was escaping from all this inevitably in narrative writing I should have called The Making of Americans. I did not call it this for that reason but I called it this and this is what is happening, American writing has been an escaping not an escaping but an existing without the necessary feeling of one thing succeeding another thing of anything having a beginning and a middle and an ending.

And now all this has everything to do with poetry and prose and whether now whether there really is now any such thing.

Poetry and prose. I came to the conclusion that poetry was a calling an intensive calling upon the name of anything and that prose was not the using the name of anything as a thing in itself but the creating of sentences that
were self-existing and following one after the other made of anything a continuous thing which is paragraphing and so a narrative that is a narrative of anything. That is what a narrative is of course one thing following any other thing.

If poetry is the calling upon a name until that name comes to be anything if one goes on calling on that name more and more calling upon that name as poetry does then poetry does make of that calling upon a name a narrative it is a narrative of calling upon that name. That is what poetry has been and as it has been that thing as it has been a calling upon a name instead of a succession of internal balancing as prose has been then naturally at the time all the time the long time after the Elizabethans poetry and prose has not been the same thing no not been at all the same thing. Before the end of the Elizabethans and then in the eighteenth century when the inner balancing of sentences really invaded poetry and poetry was less the calling upon a name of anything than it was an inner balancing of anything, Pope is an excellent example it is hard telling really about the eighteenth century whether there is any really any internal feeling that makes poetry poetry and a different thing from prose.

But during the nineteenth century there was no doubt no doubt about it. Prose was the sentence and paragraphing and the use not of nouns but of parts of speech that made their use that use and poetry was the calling upon names the really calling upon names. There has always been this real difference between prose and poetry, that prose is dependent upon the sentence and then upon the paragraph and poetry upon the calling upon names. There have been some centuries never forget that a century is always more or less about one hundred years, but always there has been this difference
and now well now is there this difference is there this difference and if not why not.

Very well then.

It is certain that there has been this thing prose and poetry and narrative which is Toughly a telling of anything where anything happens after any other thing.

In the beginning there really was no difference between poetry and prose in the beginning of writing in the beginning of talking in the beginning of hearing anything or about anything. How could there be how could there have been since the name of anything was then as important as anything as anything that could be said about anything. Once more I tell you that the Old Testament did this thing there was not really any difference between prose and poetry then, they told what they were and they felt what they saw and they knew how they knew and everything they had to say came as it had to come to do what it had to do.

Really can you say that there was any difference between prose and poetry then. No not at all. Not then.

And then slowly they came to know that what they knew might mean something different from what they had known it was when they knew simply knew what it was. And so they began telling about it then how one thing meant something then and how something else meant something else then and in poetry they tried to say what they knew as they knew it and then more and more then they simply tried to name it and that made poetry then, anything made poetry then and they told anything and as they told anything they felt it as a telling of anything and so it meant more and more that they called it by its name as they knew it and that more and more made poetry then.

At the same time as I say they began to feel what they said when they said anything when they knew anything and this made them then think about how they said anything how they knew anything and in telling this thing telling how they knew anything how they said anything prose began, and so then there was prose and poetry. Before that there had been only one thing, the one thing anyone knew as they knew anything.

Prose and poetry then went on and more and more as it went on prose was more and more telling and by sentences balancing and then by paragraphing prose was more and more telling how anything happened if any one had anything to say about what happened how anything was known if anyone had anything to say about how anything was known, and poetry poetry tried to remain with knowing anything and knowing its name, gradually it came to really not knowing but really only knowing its name and that is at last what poetry became.

And now.

Well and now, now that we have been realizing that anything having a beginning and middle and ending is not what is making anything anything, and now that everything is so completely moving the name of anything is not really anything to interest anyone about anything, now it is coming that once again nobody can be certain that narrative is existing that poetry and prose have different meanings.