scrypt
Head-Fi's Sybil
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2002
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I don't agree that short sentences equal good writing. There is nothing inherently wrong with serpentine syntax; long sentences can be beautiful and effective in ways that short sentences cannot. De Quincey and Henry James mastered the long sentence to great advantage -- though, admittedly, they did so too well too often.
Style is rhythm, therefore monotony's the enemy. I have the same problem with George Bernard Shaw as with Henry James: Too much of a good thing. James lulls you into a coma by dragging endless ethereal veils across your face, while Shaw pummels you with short phrases until you feel woozy and punch-drunk.
That's why Yeats's prose is often said to strike the perfect balance. He reels you in with a long and sinuous sentence, then caps the thought with a pithy and resonant aphorism: "We love only the perfect, and our dreams make all things perfect, that we may love them."
Incidently, being difficult to read isn't always a problem unless you're a journalist or popular novelist. The ideal of transparent prose is but one among many. Most poetry would not exist if brevity and clarity were the only acceptable stylistic considerations. The syntax of critic Walter Pater was so difficult that even scholars complained, yet his style was gorgeous. Oscar Wilde, prodigy of the short sentence, dubbed Pater an Epicurean and genius of English prose.
Another word people like to use instead of *transparent* is *objective*. The so-called objective style of the 80s was rejected in the 90s by florid writers like David Foster Wallace.
I'd argue that both styles have their place.
Another thing to keep in mind: English is not a perfect language and so cannot be written perfectly, as can Latin-based languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. Therefore it's best to write logically and be aware of the various conventions and tendencies in English rather than to observe some rigid and imposed idea of sentence length.
My pieces for various New York publications have been filled with long sentences and, so far, no editor has complained. My piece in the NY Press about Thomas Lovell Beddoes is an example of my less-than-pugilistic syntax: It would have been obscene to write pithy and punishing sentences about a Romantic poet.
Personally, I'm a fan of writing that is musical and logical. My favorite writing manual has always been _The Reader over Your Shoulder_, by Robert Graves and Alan Hodges.
I find it more important to have a sense of rhythm when writing than to simply keep things short. I want to feel the flow, as in in Melville -- that most oceanic of writers -- not tap out some Morse code sing-song.
Anyway.
No disrespect to anyone else's education or preference in manuals. I only wanted to point out there was some basis for Andrew's confusion, just as there were reasons for his teachers' emphasis on writing that was not breathless (read: short-winded).
And I do appreciate the list of recommendations by the earlier poster. It is always nice to discover a few more useful books.
Style is rhythm, therefore monotony's the enemy. I have the same problem with George Bernard Shaw as with Henry James: Too much of a good thing. James lulls you into a coma by dragging endless ethereal veils across your face, while Shaw pummels you with short phrases until you feel woozy and punch-drunk.
That's why Yeats's prose is often said to strike the perfect balance. He reels you in with a long and sinuous sentence, then caps the thought with a pithy and resonant aphorism: "We love only the perfect, and our dreams make all things perfect, that we may love them."
Incidently, being difficult to read isn't always a problem unless you're a journalist or popular novelist. The ideal of transparent prose is but one among many. Most poetry would not exist if brevity and clarity were the only acceptable stylistic considerations. The syntax of critic Walter Pater was so difficult that even scholars complained, yet his style was gorgeous. Oscar Wilde, prodigy of the short sentence, dubbed Pater an Epicurean and genius of English prose.
Another word people like to use instead of *transparent* is *objective*. The so-called objective style of the 80s was rejected in the 90s by florid writers like David Foster Wallace.
I'd argue that both styles have their place.
Another thing to keep in mind: English is not a perfect language and so cannot be written perfectly, as can Latin-based languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. Therefore it's best to write logically and be aware of the various conventions and tendencies in English rather than to observe some rigid and imposed idea of sentence length.
My pieces for various New York publications have been filled with long sentences and, so far, no editor has complained. My piece in the NY Press about Thomas Lovell Beddoes is an example of my less-than-pugilistic syntax: It would have been obscene to write pithy and punishing sentences about a Romantic poet.
Personally, I'm a fan of writing that is musical and logical. My favorite writing manual has always been _The Reader over Your Shoulder_, by Robert Graves and Alan Hodges.
I find it more important to have a sense of rhythm when writing than to simply keep things short. I want to feel the flow, as in in Melville -- that most oceanic of writers -- not tap out some Morse code sing-song.
Anyway.
No disrespect to anyone else's education or preference in manuals. I only wanted to point out there was some basis for Andrew's confusion, just as there were reasons for his teachers' emphasis on writing that was not breathless (read: short-winded).
And I do appreciate the list of recommendations by the earlier poster. It is always nice to discover a few more useful books.