Literary Miscellany
Alex Palmer
Literary Miscellany
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Literature
Copyright © 2010 by Alex Palmer
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Palmer, Alex, 1981-
Literary miscellany : everything you always wanted to know about literature / Alex Palmer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
9781616080952
1. Literature--Miscellanea. 2. Literary curiosa. I. Title.
PN43.P36 2010
802--dc22
2010027205
Printed in China
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world.
—William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
GREAT OPENERS
PART I - WRITERS
WHAT DO HOMER AND JAY-Z HAVE IN COMMON? - Bards and epic storytelling
HOW DID STARVING WRITERS PAY THE BILLS? - The patrons, odd jobs, and odder merchandising of the masters
IS COFFEE OR OPIUM BETTER FOR CREATIVITY? - Writers and their rotten habits
WHY ARE THE BEST AUTOBIOGRAPHIES SO EMBARRASSING? - Humiliating confessions from St. Augustine to Augusten Burroughs
WHY COULDN’T F. SCOTT FITZGERALD WRITE A DECENT MOVIE? - Hollywood adaptations and why most novelists shouldn’t quit their day jobs
ARE SHORT STORY WRITERS LESS MATURE THAN NOVELISTS? - Why size matters, and when a novella is really just a novel
HOW DO YOU WRITE THE GREAT AMERICAN (OR BRITISH OR FRENCH) NOVEL? - Writing habits of the greats
PART II - READERS
CAN BIG BOOK SALES LEAD TO MASS SUICIDE? - The history of bestsellers from John Bunyan to Dan Brown
WHY DON’T TODAY’S WRITERS HAVE AS MANY GROUPIES AS LORD BYRON? - The rise and fall of literary celebrity
DID ROBINSON CRUSOE TEACH JAMES FREY TO LIE? - The long history of fake memoirs and literary hoaxes
WHO’S AFRAID OF JANE AUSTEN? - Novelists’ battle for respectability
WHEN DOES BOOK BURNING ACTUALLY HELP FREE SPEECH? - The follies of censorship and its backlash
WHAT DID CHILDREN READ BEFORE THERE WAS CHILDREN’S LITERATURE? - The battle for fun in kids’ books, from hornbooks to Harry Potter
PART III - WORKS
WHO ELEVATED INSULTS TO AN ART FORM? - When authors attack (with invective and satire)
WHAT MAKES SOMETHING ODE-WORTHY? - The surprising range of the lyrical poem
WHEN DID LITERATURE FINALLY GET SEXY? - How Shakespeare and others slipped sex into their works
WHY IS SATAN THE GREATEST BAD GUY EVER? - Literary villains and why we love them
WHY DID ROMANTICS LOVE TERROR (AND NOT HORROR)? - Gothic fiction and ghost stories
WHY DO SOME DETECTIVES USE THEIR MINDS AND OTHERS THEIR FISTS? - The crime-solving skills of Holmes, Marlowe, and more
WHAT OTHER UNCONTROLLABLE MONSTER DID DR. FRANKENSTEIN INVENT? - The birth and spread of science fiction
CONCLUSION: LAST WORDS
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Ann Treistman and Skyhorse Publishing, without whom this book would not exist, as well as my wonderful friends and family, whose support and suggestions made this a much better book than it otherwise would have been. Special thanks to Nick for all his input and to Jenn for her patience and general wonderfulness.
INTRODUCTION
The writing of this book began with some simple questions: Who was the first literary villain? What’s the difference between a novella and a novel? These soon led to other, often more complicated, questions. I tackle some big topics here, from the rocky beginnings of the novel to the history of children’s literature, but every chapter ultimately comes down to the same question for the reader: Why should I care? It’s my hope that you’ll find an answer to this question on every page (or at least every few pages).
This book looks at diverting aspects of the great works and authors, while also offering plenty of facts that you’ve always wanted to know about literature, or perhaps have never considered. Who knew that satire, from Gulliver’s Travels to The Daily Show, can be traced back to two ancient Romans who mastered the art of insulting people—one who was pretty nice, one who was a certifiable jerk? Or that some of literature’s greatest authors have perpetrated some seriously shocking (and often hilarious) hoaxes?
I hope this book helps remind you just how much fun books can be—perhaps even entertaining enough to compete with reality TV shows and Facebook. Many epic poems and dense novels have just as much sex, drugs, and violence (and, of course, relevant, thought-provoking ruminations) to keep even the shortest attention span riveted.
Literary Miscellany makes no claim to be comprehensive. Some major writers and works get less attention here than one would probably expect, and others more: As a pioneer of detective fiction, short stories, and alcohol abuse, Edgar Allan Poe pops up frequently in these pages, while a giant like James Joyce is only occasionally mentioned. Popular fiction writers like J. K. Rowling and Stephen King get slightly more ink than masters like John Dryden and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Although we can’t cover everything in these few pages, I expect you will find each chapter an entertaining and informative read.
GREAT OPENERS
“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”
—Murphy by Samuel Beckett
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
—Neuromancer by William Gibson
“A screaming comes across the sky.”
—Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”
—David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
—The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
“I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.”
—The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
“Call me Ishmael.”
—Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
PART I
WRITERS
The lives, habits, and bizarre personalities of the greats
WHAT DO HOMER AND JAY-Z HAVE IN COMMON?
Bards and epic storytelling
Be
fore novelists, publishers, or Amazon.com existed, bards, or oral poets, ruled the literary scene. So this seems like the right topic to begin with. Proliferating through medieval Europe, and Britain in particular, until around the seventeenth century, these poets were multitaskers, composing and memorizing stories and reciting them for their audience, often while playing a harp, lyre, or some other ancient instrument.
Their tales celebrated the deeds of great men, catalogued the genealogies of kings and princes, and relayed the exciting historical events and victories of the tribe down through the generations. They preceded the rhapsodes and king’s poets of later generations, but also share some striking similarities with another type of performer prevalent today: rappers and hip-hop stars.
Bards were boosters. Like a rapper giving love to his music label or mentor, a bard would weave in positive stories about the wealthy royals who sponsored him and offer eulogies and tales of glory about his employers’ ancestors. Since it was almost entirely an oral culture, it was up to the bards to remember the key details of past glories and family history and to pass these on to the rest of their tribe—so the leaders of the day made sure to take care of their poets.
Terms for the oral poets varied by region, with different class designations for each. In Ireland, bards ranked below the class of poets known as fili. To become a fili required more formal learning. A fili could move up the ranks as he learned more stories and improved his skill, the highest level being the ollam, who could recite 350 stories, which took some twelve years to learn:
ollam—350 stories
drnuth—175 stories
clí—80 stories
cano—60 stories
doss—50 stories
macfuirmid—40 stories
fochlocon—30 stories
drisoc—20 stories
toman—10 stories
oblaire—7 stories
In Wales, bards shared similarities with the Irish fili—receiving the level of respect that a smith, cleric, or other highly trained professional earned. The Welsh had just three levels of bards, the highest of which was pencerdd (“master-poet” or “chief of song”). To avoid getting too technical, in this chapter the term “bard” will encompass all these terms.
Once they graduated from this learning, the poets would travel from house to house and village to village, getting VIP treatment from those they dropped in on. The poets traveled with an entourage of assistants and lower bards (the Welsh sometimes dubbed these lower bards bardd teulu, or “bard of the bodyguard”).
As with rappers, bards proved their skills by competing with each other, sometimes in highly publicized events. The national Eisteddfod, an annual festival that began in Wales as far back as 1176, developed into the biggest of such events. Over a period of several days, bards performed their songs and poems before judges. The one chosen as the winner received a carved oak chair, which he used to tell stories and instruct young poets.
This served as both a test for young bards and a proving ground for the already established poets. The Eisteddfod was discontinued in the late seventeenth century, but then revived a century later. The annual National Eisteddfod is still a huge cultural event for Wales; more than 6,000 poets competed in the 2006 summit, which welcomed 150,000 visitors—more fans than a typical Jay-Z concert can boast!
Did You Know?
John Dryden once famously played host to his own poetry competition. He and a group of wits, including the earls of Dorset and Buckingham, decided to each write a selection, with Dryden selecting the best one. After reviewing most of them, he got to the Earl of Dorset’s and immediately awarded him the prize. His poem? “I promise to pay John Dryden, / or order on demand, / the sum of 500 pounds.”
Villagers treated a bard well when he went on tour, because someone who disagreed with a poet (or with his employer) could wind up in one of the poet’s derisive satires. If a host acted rudely, or a patron neglected to pay what he had promised, the poet called him out in a glam dicin, ensuring a rotten reputation as a cheapskate or worse. Some believed that a really pointed satire caused boils to appear on the target’s face.
Despite—or perhaps because of—this fear, not everyone loved the bards. When Edward I conquered Wales in 1277, he supposedly sent hundreds of the poets to their deaths in an attempt to keep them from inciting rebellion and retelling a version of history he would rather not hear.
How did epic storytellers remember all those lines?
A bard earned respect for his ability to remember lengthy stories full of historic details as much as how well he told his tales. So how did he remember all that? Historians believe bards learned formulas of specific meter and alliterative rhyme, which gave their works a consistent, memorable flow. This explains the regular, repeated phrasing and episodic structure of epics like The Iliad and Beowulf. Like lyric-heavy rap songs with catchy hooks, these formulas allowed them to transition easily from one part to the next, making their storytelling smooth and casual.
We don’t know much about any bards, but Homer may be the most mysterious of them all. While it is widely agreed that he lived in the eighth century BC in Ionia (what is now considered Turkey), that is about all that is agreed on. It is unclear that The Iliad and Odyssey were written by the same person, as they are significantly different tales, though there is not enough evidence to disprove this, either.
Because he delivered his work orally, Homer almost certainly borrowed (or perhaps sampled) ideas and anecdotes from his contemporaries. However, he imbued his epics with his unique sense of narrative and tone, just as a musician might remix elements of other songs. As critic Daniel S. Burt explains in The Literary 100, “To achieve the dramatic unity and coherence of his epics ... is almost unthinkable and a testimony to Homer’s unmatched skill as a poet and storyteller.”
Did You Know?
The novelist Samuel Butler studied Homer extensively and, after considering the historical and geographical information in the poem, as well as the poet’s particular techniques, determined Homer must have been “a very young woman” living in Sicily. He published The Authoress of the Odyssey, outlining this theory, in 1897.
The extensive literary and cultural traditions built around oral poetry helped ensure its longevity, and it thrived from generation to generation for centuries. After the Frenchspeaking Normans conquered England in 1066 and eventually took control of Ireland and Wales, the poets were incorporated into the court as entertainers and genealogists. The Gaelic culture waned, and the duties of the bards shifted to involve written literature; their function evolved into the roles of court poet and troubadour, with the more familiar patron/artist relationship becoming the standard (see next chapter). By the mid-seventeenth century, the role of oral poets, with their emphasis on the social function of their work, had largely been ceded to the individualism and private enterprise of the new class of poets.
Calling All Poets
The term “bard” has also come to mean any serious poet, the bestknown example being William Shakespeare, also known as “The Bard of Avon.” Many other poets have been dubbed with much snappier titles. These include:
The Blind Bard
Homer (c. 750 BC) was called “The Blind Bard,” but there is little actual evidence that he was blind. Some believe the character of the blind poet Demodocus in the Odyssey is meant to represent the work’s author himself.
The Bard of Democracy
Walt Whitman, who wrote The Democratic Review (1841–1845) and Democratic Vistas (1871).
The Bard of Hope
Thomas Campbell, the author of The Pleasures of Hope (1799).
The Bard of the Imagination
Mark Akenside, author of The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744), a long didactic poem about the enjoyment of beauty, philosophy, and the study of man.
HOW DID STARVING WRITERS PAY THE BILLS?
The patrons, odd jobs, and odder merchandising of the masters
William Somerset Maugham once said, “Money is like
a sixth sense—and you can’t make use of the other five without it.” Making a living as a writer has never been easy, and throughout the history of literature, authors and poets have engaged in some surprising, and sometimes embarrassing, gigs to keep food on the table as they pursued their passion.
For centuries, writers did not have the option of making a living solely from writing. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, writers, such as bards and kings’ poets, focused their energies on finding patrons who would support their work, developing a two-way relationship: the patron paid the writer’s way, while a great writer helped boost the aristocrat’s prestige or political strength. Since power and glory could be fleeting things, members of the court saw immortalization in a poem as a valuable thing worth a decent amount of cash. The job was not all courtly poetry and grand odes; working for a patron could often involve writing inscriptions and histories or serving as a tutor or diplomat when the occasion required.
Did You Know?
Legend has it that when Edmund Spenser failed to receive payment from his patron, he sent a piece of paper to Queen Elizabeth reading, “I was promised on a time, / To have reason for my rhyme; / From that time unto this season, / I received nor rhyme nor reason.”