In my previous comment was something of a speculative proposition. I actually maintain that if you claim you understand the general, perhaps even know something like "poetic form" well enough to teach it as you suggest, that you really do not understand it if the execution following from that so-called understanding (which here we're freely admitting is of the abstract schematic ideas) is without exception unsuccessful. Invariable failure demonstrates spectacularly that such an "understanding" should be in question. The ground for questioning it, in the case of the English-teacher, is that the form taught schematically is not a teaching of the form, nor is it a passable comprehension of it. It's like saying "I know how to build a house" but because I am completely untrained in any techniques necessary to build a house my attempt, with minimum preparation, will also most likely fail. Was I wrong to claim I know how to build a house? The answer is yes. Just because I have a notion of a house's structure, even if building a very basic four-wall structure with a roof and a minimal foundation, I can barely believe I know what building a house involves. I know what a house is though. Also I know what a sonnet is, so understood as a form of poetry identified by rhyming scheme and meter. This reminds of the museum-goer that looks at a Mondrian and says "I can do that," but the proclamation always seems to beg the question. By abstraction, sure most of us can conceive similar compositions and with not nearly the amount of practice necessary to copy a Rembrandt possess the necessary skill to produce it. But even with that skill and vision, will it quite match the effect? Again, I am doubtful for most. Of course many people can, just as many people can write decent sonnets without a conscious "yes, that line is 10 syllables, okay so now the next line needs to rhyme".
As for the track-coach in Chariots of Fire, I deny that such a person can know everything about fast running yet lack the capability to do so, because I am certain the experience of someone who does have that capacity extends beyond heuristics for fast running. Such abilities involve subtleties (the modifications in muscular movement for excellent runners compared to most of us that sit most of the day) that fall outside of the domain of general heuristics, even if we think it's just running. For some reason we want to believe the coach really knows everything, but he cannot because he begins and ends in the universal. Formal considerations can generate the kernel of a work, but once material comes into its own, then the form of that work is determined. Form is a result, not a blueprint. -Brian -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 3:20 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: a suggestion In a message dated 3/19/08 12:00:26 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > As you > suggest many storytellers have an awareness of method for producing tension > or impact, just not specifics, but I think have a general idea leads one to > specifics. The general never really leaves its particulars behind. > Alas, this is flatly untrue. Believe it: many editors, directors and teachers have had a deep understanding of "the general", and many of them tried to write -- novels, plays, both. As a book publisher I saw numerous manuscripts from such people -- oh, so well-constructed, well-made: and dead as balsa wood. Indeed, I used the phrase "an editor's novel" frequently to convey to colleagues the difficulty with yet another submission from a college prof, and even from editors-in-chief of major New York houses. You yourelf probably had a college English-teacher whose knowledge of the sonnet-form was awesome. But I bet he couldn't write one worth a damn. Do you remember the movie "Chariots of Fire", and the track-coach Sam Mussabini? He knew more than any other coach about "the general" components of fast running, so he could teach it -- but he couldn't do it.
