10
This article was downloaded by: [The Aga Khan University] On: 27 October 2014, At: 11:58 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Quarterly Journal of Speech Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rqjs20 Review Essay: New Wine in Old Bottles: Quotations and the Rhetoric of Fiction Robert Hariman Published online: 12 Jul 2013. To cite this article: Robert Hariman (2013) Review Essay: New Wine in Old Bottles: Quotations and the Rhetoric of Fiction, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 99:2, 233-241, DOI: 10.1080/00335630.2013.777768 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2013.777768 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

Review Essay: New Wine in Old Bottles: Quotations and the Rhetoric of Fiction

  • Upload
    robert

  • View
    212

  • Download
    0

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

This article was downloaded by: [The Aga Khan University]On: 27 October 2014, At: 11:58Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Quarterly Journal of SpeechPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rqjs20

Review Essay: New Wine in Old Bottles:Quotations and the Rhetoric of FictionRobert HarimanPublished online: 12 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Robert Hariman (2013) Review Essay: New Wine in Old Bottles:Quotations and the Rhetoric of Fiction, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 99:2, 233-241, DOI:10.1080/00335630.2013.777768

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2013.777768

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

BOOK REVIEWCara A. Finnegan, Editor

Review Essay

New Wine in Old Bottles: Quotations and theRhetoric of Fiction

Robert Hariman

Gary Saul Morson, The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture (New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press, 2011), xi�340 pp. $30 (cloth).

_____, The Long and the Short of It: From Aphorism to Novel (Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press, 2012), xx�273 pp. $80 (cloth); $24.95 (paper); $24.95 (e-book).

Quotation, citation, sampling, and other uses of the words of others seem to

characterize contemporary media arts, as does the continual shortening of expressive

form. Communication has shifted from the letter to the email to the tweet, while

shards of eloquence are featured far beyond their original contexts in thousands of

anthologies, web sites, email signatures, t-shirts, coffee cups, and not a few speeches.

As Plato warned, it seems that a writer and his words are soon parted.

A conventional response to these aphoristic tendencies is to hold them up as signs

of cultural decline. Whatever happened to originality? What good can come of short

attention spans? And if people must quote and re-quote, why can’t they at least get

the words right? After all, that’s not what the Bible, Shakespeare, Einstein, P.T.

Barnum, or Sherlock Holmes actually said! As Mark Twain said, the difference

between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning

and a lightning rod. How can either literature or civic life thrive when inundated by

knockoff wisdom and 140-character arguments?

Robert Hariman is a professor in the program in Rhetoric and Public Culture, Department of Communication

Studies, Northwestern University. Correspondence to: Robert Hariman, Department of Communication

Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-1340, USA. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 0033-5630 (print)/ISSN 1479-5779 (online) # 2013 National Communication Association

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2013.777768

Quarterly Journal of Speech

Vol. 99, No. 2, May 2013, pp. 233�241

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014

Gary Saul Morson has no interest in providing a defense of postmodernism, but he

has written two excellent books that together can bring one to seriously reconsider

how language and culture work. The intertwined habits of literary brevity and

frequent quotation have a long history, as well as distinctive significance during

periods of accelerated cultural change. Morson scants the historical narrative to focus

instead on the work of classification, which then can be applied in a variety of critical

projects. There is considerable overlap in subject matter between these two books*quotations are short, and short forms persist because they are quotable*but each

book works out one half of a larger theory. The Words of Others (hereafter cited as W)

provides an analytical catalog of the functional attributes of a quotation, including

citationality, an implied author, and other techniques, while arguing against literary

fundamentalists who would insist on exact words, single meanings, and other pieties.

The Long and the Short of It (hereafter cited as LS) provides a second-order (but not

secondary) typology in terms of genres such as the apothegm and the dictum, while

arguing for a conception of wisdom set over wit and certitude, and a conception of

literature in which all genres interact dialogically on behalf of an ever larger (because

always incomplete) attempt to understand the complexity of the human world.

An initial achievement of this project is how Morson has assembled his archive.

Quotation books have been part of the history of publishing from the beginning

(including that early modern bestseller, Erasmus’s Adages), and now they spill all over

the Internet. How to select and sort within this landfill of second-hand materials?

Morson’s system is simple and supple*indeed, systematization is one of the topics

put under the glass by some of the aphorisms and Morson himself. Instead of

bothering with the formats used by anthologies, which typically feature topics or

authors, he focuses on basic properties of language in use: first, those features of an

extract that make it quotable and that prompt appropriation, literary judgment, and

policing by self-appointed custodians of verbal propriety; second, a conception of

genre that presumes ‘‘a particular social setting, a distinct role for the reader or

audience, and a specific attitude to the moment of uttering’’ (LS, 5�6). The first

approach could be traced back to Wayne Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction, while the

second is explicitly indebted to Mikhail Bakhtin, not least because of Morson’s

distinguished career as a Bakhtin scholar. Readers of this journal also will note strong

affinities with Kenneth Burke’s ‘‘Literature as Equipment for Living,’’ which not

incidentally featured the proverb as its representative literary form. In any case,

Morson has collected a thousand fragments of a fugitive literature into a classificatory

system that produces many subtle discriminations while remaining flexible, dialogic,

and open to revision.

Although each book stands on its own, The Words of Others sets out key

assumptions and distinctions that support the typology of genres. Morson is not

merely assembling a curiosity cabinet; he believes that quotations are fundamental to

language, culture, and the ethical formation of the self. Thus, after a virtuoso

demonstration of how quotations suffuse discourse, he invites speculation that

‘‘language*words, gestures, tones, all of it*itself [may be] the residue of former

quotations,’’ and that writing may have begun ‘‘so as to preserve the words of others’’

234 R. Hariman

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014

(W, 8, 34). Instead of a theory of the evolution of language, however, he develops a

careful exegesis along the lines set out by Wittgenstein and Bakhtin: meaning is

defined by use; words can serve multiple functions; mixing and other types of

appropriation have important effects; and scholarly discriminations between types of

discourse remain provisional attempts to identify what are inherently dynamic

processes.

Morson’s anatomy of how quotations work begins by considering how some words

acquire the ‘‘aura’’ of quotability. A wide range of usage is charted, from the explicit

citation complete with quotation marks and references to direct expression in one’s

own words. This continuum proves also to be a measure of relative assimilation,

which is why we don’t put quotes on ‘‘a la carte’’ or ‘‘yogurt’’ or the writing on the

wall. Instead, speech sifts through idioms, cliches, slogans, air quotes, stylistic

allusions, parodies, and other fragments, copies, or retellings. To zero in on how a

quote works, Morson parses this melange of usage by distinguishing among citations,

extracts, and quotations proper. The citation is the broadest term and is defined by

three criteria: (a) a repetition of another’s words, actions, or other defining features;

(b) as a reenactment of the original involving some purpose (W, 80); (c) that often

involves a comment on the situation or other added value (W, 294n.7). Morson then

defines the extract as a verbal citation, and a short extract valued for its literary

qualities as a quotation.

But what are the qualities that define ‘‘aphorisms, witticisms, maxims, proverbs,

wise sayings, and many other short literary forms?’’ (W, 80) The key is that the words

must be able to function as a free-standing text outside of their original context. (For

example, no one would ever use the previous sentence, or this one, as a quotation.)

To do that, the quotation must contain its own frame, which means here that it can

be read as a whole, rather than only as a part of another text. Obviously, some words

can function as both extracts and quotations, and the difference will depend on

context, intention, cultural literacy, and other situational factors*in short, on how

specific conventions of usage are employed. These conventions include the second

speaker, who is an ascription rather than the literal author (though they may share

the same name), and who may be a ‘‘genre speaker,’’ that is, someone whose name

and quotes stand for a particular type of statement: Oscar Wilde for wit, Churchill for

eloquence, or Dan Quayle for stupidity. So it is that some quotes are often attributed

to different authors; the variation reflects not lack of precision but consistent

articulation in different contexts. Quotations also reflect a ‘‘translator’s range’’ in

wording, as the literal words in the original text often are not the same as the

quotation, and sometimes because they could never be quoted unless they were

altered. A lesser example is ‘‘Play it again, Sam,’’ which perhaps could have been

memorialized as it was actually said, although the ‘‘misquote’’ communicates the

contextual meaning better than the original words alone*which were, of course,

surrounded at the time by the rest of the film. More telling is the injunction to ‘‘turn

the other cheek,’’ which is a rewording of the phrase in Matthew 5:39 to ‘‘turn to him

also the other.’’ By rewording the extract, words having almost no meaning out of

context become framed as a quotation.

Review Essay 235

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014

But don’t tell this to the language guardians. Morson elaborates his analysis by

debunking those who insist on correcting the pervasive misquoting that occurs

throughout the archive of quotations. Writers such as Paul Boller head a cottage

industry of small time censors who, I should add, often are interesting to read and

may be expanding the audience for short forms. Morson demonstrates why their

literalism is mistaken, and in doing so illustrates more of the nuance and flexibility

characterizing popular usage. ‘‘The border between accuracy and inaccuracy shifts

with context, convention, and purpose’’ (W, 152), and so too the semantic inflection

of the words can vary with the occasion of their use. Morson develops this

orientation with an initial foray into genre classification by studying last words,

epitaphs, anthologies, the commonplace book, and the functions of wisdom

literature. Death is an occasion of some significance, anthologies can be very big

books, and all these forms have been vital resources for self-reflection and ethical

living. Obviously, Morson is raising the stakes as the book progresses. The anatomy

continues as well, as ‘‘stringing,’’ decomposition, and other techniques are aligned

with aesthetic principles of separation, spontaneity, and incompleteness to explicate

how discourse works in an intermediate zone between truth and falsehood (W, 190)

and between direct statement and citation (W, 231, see also LS, 127). This is a zone of

possibility, or what classical rhetoric would have recognized as the space of

invention*that is, the manner in which language itself is inherently generative.

Morson further elaborates this realm of possibility by suggesting that the short forms

encourage distinctive ways of reading, which he describes by turns as collecting,

browsing, roaming, harvesting, and so forth. In other words, the short attention span,

digressiveness, self-selection, eclecticism, and other supposed vices of digital media

are valorized as long-standing, worthwhile, intelligent, productive ways to be literate.

Morson understates this argument for the relevance of his project, and no caveat need

be dislodged, but it does suggest a broad basis for reconsideration of how both new

and ancient communication arts can be obscured by narrowly drawn norms of print

culture.

The full significance of the short form is set out in The Long and the Short of It,

which examines several genres of the aphorism. These are the quotations that fall

‘‘somewhere between literature and philosophy’’ (LS, 1) and comprise a significant

portion of wisdom literature and the ‘‘informal philosophy’’ (LS, 3) that shapes

individual and collective character. Morson’s system of genres is built directly on

Bakhtin’s conception of ‘‘worldviews seeking expression’’: ‘‘formal features do not

define a genre but follow from the sense of experience that does’’ (LS, 5). The

conventions that develop over time do matter, especially as they articulate a social

setting, role for the reader, and attitude. Morson also emphasizes how the genres are

interactive and generative: they address and play off of one another as they are paired

or otherwise aligned in ordinary usage and as they become incorporated into larger

literary works. Most important, short forms generate long forms, with the central

example being the arc from prosaic apothegm to the realist novel.

To capture how the aphoristic genres interact to form a complex web of utterances,

Morson follows the classical custom of paired definitions. Thus, we get eight

236 R. Hariman

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014

categories of the apothegm and the dictum, wit and witlessness, wise sayings and

sardonic maxims, the summons and the thought. Because each of these can include

variant developments, internal paradoxes, and extension into more than one long

form, quotations come to exemplify many of the qualities of literature while serving

as an informal philosophy; in short, they prove to be a serviceable rhetoric for doing

ethical work across a wide range of situations.

The apothegm is the hero of the book, while the dictum has to be the bad guy. Our

hero is no action figure, however, but rather moody and enigmatic. ‘‘Nature loves to

hide.’’ ‘‘There is hope, but not for us.’’ Apothegms tell us that something is not

known, not present, not capable of being directly communicated. Dicta, by contrast,

express certainty and totality. ‘‘Nothing happens without a reason,’’ and ‘‘where there

is matter, there is geometry.’’ (One could ask whether Gorgias’s three propositions

about ‘‘nothing’’ are apothegms or dicta; the answer provides two very different

interpretations of what he said.) Dicta speak without self-reference and in the

unmarked present tense of timeless truths to set out self-evident conclusions that

stand on their own. Apothegms are fragmentary beginnings of quests already

postponed that point toward mystery, paradox, or the unexpected. One can’t step in

the same river twice, and what can’t be said must be passed over in silence. ‘‘The

dictum must be complete or it is nothing. But we sense the emptiness around an

apothegm as part of it. The dictum says Something. The apothegm shows Something

Else’’ (LS, 50).

The other genres fall between these strong polarities. Wit, for example, can be

smugly certain and yet valued because it surprises, while witlessness can be full of

unmerited confidence and yet also include the inside out wisdom of Yogi Berra or

Sam Goldwyn. Morson’s catalog of witticisms begins with Aristotle’s valorization of

practical judgments, which are true only on the whole and for the most part, and

emphasizes the wit’s mastery of verbal agility, style, and timing. Wit also is highly

oriented toward an audience, suggesting the virtual setting of a salon. Thus, because

they are so situational, quoted witticisms typically have to be accompanied by a story

of who was speaking to whom. This contextualization, along with an equally

important interest in competitive play, provides endless opportunities for creating,

retelling, and relishing witticisms. And that is part of the problem: the short form

most noted for its quick intelligence can lead to shallowness. Morson identifies two

forms of wit, one in which agility is enjoyed for its own sake and the other in which it

serves a higher value. If his own writing is any guide, Morson’s commitment to

seriousness can’t go as far as Tolstoy’s ‘‘war on wit,’’ but he does give Wilde a

C���. This internal squabble about wit is doubled by the pairing with witlessness,

which comprises a fair share of the larger archive of quotations. Morson helpfully

catalogs various forms of idiocy and apparent idiocy, including bumbling (politicians

loom large here), self-betrayal, wise folly, and assumed innocence. Not surprisingly,

perhaps, witlessness also follows the division between superficial and serious

intentions: we have an endless store of nonsense and long forms of the literature

of defamiliarization (including the Menippean satire and Alice in Wonderland) and

Review Essay 237

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014

the literature of wise folly (including the first Letter to the Corinthians, Don Quixote,

and The Idiot).

But for every aphorism there is a season, and so we turn to wise sayings, which

include proverbs and other maxims from the wisdom literature. These might seem to

be intellectually uninteresting*wisdom often is*for ‘‘from the perspective of this

genre, nature and human nature derive from an underlying, fundamentally moral

order. Therefore the two broad counsels wise sayings offer*be righteous and be

prudent*are ultimately the same’’ (LS, 114). Yet Morson teases out varied

techniques for adapting wisdom to its recalcitrant audience, and then extends the

genre through the dialogue and the fable to reach Tolstoy’s claim that the real

challenge to art is not complexity but rather making ‘‘the truly simple effective’’ (LS,

133), which could be a statement of principle for the art of rhetoric. Nonetheless, just

as he opposed dicta and apothegms, wise sayings are countered by anti-sayings,

which counsel against received wisdom with a confidence equal or greater to its

exponents, and by the sardonic maxim, which discredits any faith in the human

capacity to comprehend reality. ‘‘Treason is a matter of dates’’ is an anti-saying, as

Talleyrand doesn’t doubt the variability of moral ascription. But when Chekhov

observes that ‘‘The university brings out all abilities, including stupidity,’’ now

stupidity is not merely a deficit but a force in the world and at home even within the

citadel of learning. Perhaps because it has so much to work with, the sardonic maxim

exhibits a number of forms and extends far into long-form prose composition.

Gibbon and Dostoevsky are masters of the genre, and Morson hints that the sardonic

attitude and a corollary misanthropy have spread widely throughout learned culture,

perhaps because the mode is closely tied to prose composition. Despite his own

mastery of the form (e.g., see the ‘‘Devil’s Dictionary’’ appended to his parody of

Russian literature, And Quiet Flows the Vodka), at this point Morson reveals where his

heart is: the answer to the ‘‘maximist’’ is the Good Samaritan. ‘‘The Samaritan

response acknowledges all the sardonic maxim asserts, but encourages us to rise

above it and value compassion’’ (LS, 172).

This moral seriousness becomes increasingly evident through the rest of the book,

although without ever lapsing into didacticism. Instead, Morson explicates additional

genres known for their seriousness: the summons, the thought, and the prosaic

apothegm. The first two are paired, and the binary will be familiar to scholars of

rhetoric. The summons contains all those ringing words by great political leaders in a

time of crisis. The time is now, the challenge cannot be avoided, we must be true to

our values or perish, and so we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Curiously, one of the features of this genre is the speaker’s modesty, while words

matter and power lies ultimately with the common people rather than the heroic

individual. One could identify paradoxes that result from this genre’s close affiliation

with political excess, although Morson traces the theme through longer forms and

dissident voices, culminating in War and Peace. That trajectory then leads to the

paired genre of the thought, which is private rather than public, diffuse rather than

directive, etc. Indeed, thoughts push against the defining edge of the short form:

‘‘they belong to the family of short genres while more closely resembling an

238 R. Hariman

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014

unfinished longer one. The masters of the form have made the most of this paradox’’

(LS, 195). The exemplar is Pascal’s Pensees, and so we enter a world of inner struggle,

incompleteness, probabilities, and a renewed sense of how ‘‘possible’’ options are

available means even if not actually present. Curiously, the thought ends up being a

genre not only of reflection but also of new beginnings, and so its long forms include

Christmas stories.

There will not be a merely sentimental ending to Morson’s book, as he ends by

returning to his modal form, the prosaic apothegm. We can’t know the world in full,

but there need be nothing mystical at stake: for this genre, ‘‘language is not worldly

enough. Our ways of speaking do not match the real complexities of experience’’ (LS,

214). Montaigne, the later Wittgenstein, and other writers extending through the

major figures of the realist novel all have developed this renewed commitment to

describing the world while reflecting on the futility of doing so completely. No

wonder this genre leads to such big books, and so once again the short form seems to

be exploding, and now to release all that had been contained within. Thus, the short

form ‘‘undefines’’ words to make room for new language games, while the novel

incorporates all other genres into dialogic interaction. Truth is found only between

people, collectively and provisionally, as they are able to compare different

worldviews in an ongoing conversation, and not to settle on any one but to see

ever more widely and finely. This is a worldly vision firmly grounded in a conception

of human fallibility, yet without the cynic’s resignation. After all, Rome wasn’t built in

a day.

The rhetoric of fiction was an important initiative in the twentieth century revival

of rhetoric: it was the primary context for Kenneth Burke, received explicit and

influential exposition by Wayne Booth and others, and may have underwritten the

idea that there was a literature of public address. That shouldn’t surprise, however,

because literary study also figured prominently in the classical emergence of the art

that began in part with Gorgias deconstructing Homeric myth while crafting

techniques of prose composition. Each moment was quickly eclipsed, however,

whether by the civic art in antiquity or the spread of cultural studies more recently.

Rhetoric still includes literary study, but scholars are far more interested in just about

everything else, and not least in avoiding cultural hierarchies while promoting

vernacular life. Morson’s project stands out in part because of how well it can be

applied to both literature and popular culture, and to both traditional media and

digital media. Short forms suffuse both art and ordinary speech, while they exemplify

reading practices that are both ancient and flourishing in new media environments.

So it is that these two books offer a rhetoric of fiction that is directly relevant to

contemporary scholarship.

Note that I said ‘‘a’’ rhetoric of fiction; much is not covered. That said, the project

expands the conception of literature to include the short forms, both on their own

terms and as keys to critical understanding of much larger texts, discourses, and

cultures. As the short form unlocks a larger work, interpretive recalibration can

include everything from the canon to reconfiguring stock debates. For example, the

realist novel gets a classical pedigree, while literature is centered on moral fiction but

Review Essay 239

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014

with the proviso that morality is not limited to dicta. In that spirit, Morson advances

specific attitudes toward literature, life, and scholarship: these include being

grounded in uncertainty, plurality, and fallibility; comparing discourses to obtain

multiple perspectives on complexity; being committed to the intermediate zone

between certainty and skepticism, philosophy and literature, and high and low

cultures; and admitting to a worldly humanism that values compassion more than

being smart. In addition, Morson offers a thoroughly rhetorical worldview and set of

conceptual tools for explicating how language necessarily is tangled up in social

relations and crucial for forming collective judgments, while shifting the study of

both rhetoric and literature from the modern valorization of knowledge to the much

more fraught task of discerning and sharing wisdom. Indeed, the commitment to

wisdom might be one of the few real scandals in a modern university.

Morson’s books are not flawless, although he fends off a lot of criticism with his

erudition and perhaps even more with his wit. His style contains a fair amount of

indirection, in two senses. First, there is the paradox of speaking on behalf of

uncertainty, but always with an authorial voice suffused with confident command of

his subject. To draw on two writers he contrasts, the books read as if Darwin were

being restated by Freud. Frankly, the inconsistency didn’t bother me, perhaps

because, as Thoreau said, a foolish consistency is the behemoth of little minds, but

the tendency would bear watching in other hands. The more misleading incon-

sistency is the author’s misrepresentation of himself. By larding technical exposition

of rhetorical conventions with hundreds of puns, misquotes, and other witticisms,

many of them shameless (and obviously contagious), one might think this is frivolous

work, a divertissement, something that might deserve a C���. Instead, each book

is at bottom a work of ethical criticism: one that addresses the fundamental question

of how scholarship can contribute to the daunting but inescapable task of trying to

live well with others. Together, the books can be judged by the company they keep,

including the Biblical writers, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Erasmus, Montaigne, Bacon,

Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, George Eliot, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein,

Kafka, and many other very serious thinkers. If nothing else, the rhetoric of fiction

has the opposite problem of so much rhetorical study: instead of laboring to uncover

the intelligence behind texts that are themselves all too limited, world literature offers

a dense archive of endlessly rich and rewarding texts. Morson’s detailed study of the

genius in small form composition is particularly useful because it can be taken in

either direction.

Which brings one to consider the work that remains. Despite Morson’s analytical

commitment to reading texts as if they were situated speech, he gets to an explicit

sense of pragmatics only late and weakly; for example, at some moments we want

confidence, and at others skepticism (LS, 235). Here the focus on literature and the

status of literary genres may have slowed the pace of theoretical development.

Another shortfall comes in the implications for non-realist genres and modes of

representation. Morson acknowledges Walter Benjamin’s sense of the parable as a

‘‘ruin which stands on the site of an old story’’ (LS, 131), but the allegorical sensibility

that is part and parcel of that observation could be given more development, not least

240 R. Hariman

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014

with respect to how quotations are used in various media arts. Realism was not and is

not the only line of development for larger use of the short forms. Indeed, Benjamin’s

metaphor highlights one of the very few weak spots in Morson’s critical sensibility.

For all his erudition and previous work on temporality, in these two books the

quotations, parables, and other short forms seem to be excessively shiny, durable

objects that can rattle around the pinball machine of history without ever losing their

sheen. Benjamin suggests that criticism should include the more troublesome

consideration of how time erodes all, and he demonstrates how melancholia*an

attitude scanted by Morson despite its presence in his archive*can be turned into a

critical attitude for renegotiating temporal discontinuities.

Morson’s seriousness also can be redirected slightly to prompt additional

reconsideration of how culture works. He has done both literature and rhetoric a

service by providing a rigorous, positive, and compelling answer to the question of

whether short forms are a mode of serious thought, and he has provided an original

and insightful demonstration of how short forms can provide the hermeneutical keys

for deeper understanding of the great works of prose fiction and non-fiction. In short

(!), he makes the case set out in his subtitles, as his argument moves from quotations

to culture and from aphorism to the novel. Precisely because he makes the case so

well, one can also consider how things might work in reverse. Could serious thought

converge on short forms, rather than merely starting or being tested or circulating

there? And could long forms function as winnowing sheds or laboratories for

extracting the ideas and attitudes that will become realized fully only through further

condensation and circulation across audiences over time?

The easy answer is ‘‘both-and.’’ While genius is found at both extremes, think of

how many of the most influential figures have worked directly in the short forms, and

consider how difficult it is to imagine the culture makers known as ordinary people

doing anything else. If there is any merit in these speculations, then one would do

well to double down on Morson’s example, from his dialogical imagination to his

critical acuity to his clear and engaging style. Stated otherwise, the rhetoric of fiction

has been revived, not as it was but as a program for understanding both high and low

culture and especially that intermediate zone of social interaction that is the province

of rhetoric. Of course, I don’t know how this effort would end, but these two books

are a very good place to begin.

Review Essay 241

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Aga

Kha

n U

nive

rsity

] at

11:

58 2

7 O

ctob

er 2

014