No one disturbs the eternal silence of the universe
Long time, no blog. It's been a while...but more about that later.
First, I'd like to tell you (all four of you) about Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian literary critic and seminal language theorist. Bakhtin sees language exclusively as the product of its social context. Words and sentences, the basic building blocks of language, manifest themselves in the form of "utterances" (written or spoken). Words have no meaning in and of themselves; they achieve meaning only through the context of the utterance. Each utterance, Bakhtin asserts, is part of a greater whole, a larger, ongoing dialogue. All our utterances occur in response to previous utterances, and in anticipation of utterances that may follow. Utterances are simultaneously reactive and proactive, never exclusively the latter.
My point? Everything I write has dialogic overtones. I haven't blogged in a long time, probably because I had nothing to which I could react. I simply had no reason to engage in what Bakhtin would call "the chain of speech communion." The chain is infinite. No one (not even me) speaks as the Biblical Adam, the first speaker to "disturb the eternal silence of the universe."
I'm not so much "creating" on this blog as I am responding and addressing. Some bloggers (and self-proclaimed "creative" writers) would have you believe that they have a "gift" for spontaneous creation, that cohesive, beautifully eloquent prose simply emanate from their brains at will. But even freewriting (journals, diaries, poetry, etc.) carries with it certain constraints, demands and expectations. These constraints - however tacit - are generally based on the the inherent reponsiveness and addressivity of the utterance. My love for Kerouac notwithstanding, I tend to wonder how "free" writing can realistically be. Some people, undeniably, have a greater aptitude for it, but good writing is not created in a vacuum. Sure, it's more romantic to think of it as such. But to some degree, every piece of writing is predicated upon utterances that preceded it.
So...call it writer's block if you must, but I'm just waiting to be inspired or provoked by an utterance. Until then, who am I to disturb the eternal silence of the universe?
First, I'd like to tell you (all four of you) about Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian literary critic and seminal language theorist. Bakhtin sees language exclusively as the product of its social context. Words and sentences, the basic building blocks of language, manifest themselves in the form of "utterances" (written or spoken). Words have no meaning in and of themselves; they achieve meaning only through the context of the utterance. Each utterance, Bakhtin asserts, is part of a greater whole, a larger, ongoing dialogue. All our utterances occur in response to previous utterances, and in anticipation of utterances that may follow. Utterances are simultaneously reactive and proactive, never exclusively the latter.
My point? Everything I write has dialogic overtones. I haven't blogged in a long time, probably because I had nothing to which I could react. I simply had no reason to engage in what Bakhtin would call "the chain of speech communion." The chain is infinite. No one (not even me) speaks as the Biblical Adam, the first speaker to "disturb the eternal silence of the universe."
I'm not so much "creating" on this blog as I am responding and addressing. Some bloggers (and self-proclaimed "creative" writers) would have you believe that they have a "gift" for spontaneous creation, that cohesive, beautifully eloquent prose simply emanate from their brains at will. But even freewriting (journals, diaries, poetry, etc.) carries with it certain constraints, demands and expectations. These constraints - however tacit - are generally based on the the inherent reponsiveness and addressivity of the utterance. My love for Kerouac notwithstanding, I tend to wonder how "free" writing can realistically be. Some people, undeniably, have a greater aptitude for it, but good writing is not created in a vacuum. Sure, it's more romantic to think of it as such. But to some degree, every piece of writing is predicated upon utterances that preceded it.
So...call it writer's block if you must, but I'm just waiting to be inspired or provoked by an utterance. Until then, who am I to disturb the eternal silence of the universe?
posted by Pj at 2:04 AM
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