STYLE AND STYLISM

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 27

STYLE AND STYLISM

MODERN LITERATURE

EFFECT OF BROADCASTING

(By "Quivis.")

Professor Shelley, in his address on radio and reading at the time of the Libraries Conference a week or two •ago.; made some observations on the effect of broadcasting on style in literature which, I regret, passed unreported, though full of interest, at any rate to the student, and suggesting a line of thought well worth pursuing.: The purport of his..remarks,-recalled without the aid of notes and therefore subject to correction, was that modern development: in literature 'had resulted in a deeper and widen gap between the written and the spoken word, and that this might be bridged by broadcasting, because the language of the. broadcaster, must be such' that the. listener could: understand immediately. It must therefore tend towards simplicity and ;vclarity .and away from the purely literary, for "the listener, unlike the reader, could not turn ; back to see if he had got the meaning right. -Both: sides would therefore profit; the broadcaster by the necessity of making himself instantly clear and the listener by tuning in to a richer vocabulary and more orderly speech than- he- would- ever- be likely to get in ordinary conversation. Much modern literature, Professor Shelley said, suffered by an exaggerated, exotic sort, of phraseology, which .was really stylism and not style. The young author therefore who wanted to succeed —write a best-seller, the Professor put it—might well take,a-tip from the radio and try.a.plainer form of medium for putting his stuff over the audience. These are not Professor Shelley's words and I may have missed the finer shades of what he said, but roughly, 1 think, they convey his general meaning. CALL FOR A NEW TECHNIQUE. First of all, there is the distinction between stylism and .-s^le. Not all will agree with Professor Shelley. It may be that much of post-war literature which to the old school seems often topsy-turvy—the ,prose like poetry and the poetry,, like prose— marks a real advance from whichithere will be no retreat. - You will find the younger generation arguing strongly in its favour, and, if they really ;like :it and'do not*'take it up simply,as a pose,, well, the, rest will have to fall in line or fall back on the classics. The argument generally used is that modern life is so very different that a different formula must be invented to express it; that the :style of Stevenson. or Hardy or Wells, say, would never do. The subtleties and complexities of the modern scene cafl. for a new technique with •.'subtle :!'and complex language.- This is the highbrow view, as put forward by / Q. D. Leavis, ,in "Fiction and the Reading Public," a most stimulating-book, to explain the methods of the highbrow writers, of the postiwarrage7"of-whom::are-singled out T. F. Powys, D. H. Lawrence, James joyc-e, E. M. Forster, and Virginia Woolf. Of the- characteristic highbrow hie says:— ~ •: _j.a ■ ■'■:

If his interest lies in the comoedic,. he may make realistic conversation and the current idiom serve a satiric purpose, supplemented; by a style of his own for explication.. It is almost necessarily a-style which extends the of tho prose anfl exploits the possibilities of the language of the age.1':-This seems to be-the most fruitful '"field : for'-the serious novelist of the 20th century and explains why the modern novel is said to be poetic or to exhibit poetic prose.

1 The examples given are the last four writers in the highbrow list. Their ■tyorks are very difficult for,,the average reader to obtain, but from the few specimens available in the public. libraries it may be ; seen that the style generally corresponds to what has been -said of it above, except that E. M. Forster's in "A Passage to India" is not conspicuously poetic. The trouble, however, is not. with these writers, whose style is their own, but with their imitators in whom style degenerates into stylism. It is to this tendency that Professor Shelley no doubt referred. Nobody can afford to be too dogmatic about it all, for •it is not always easy to detect the borrowed colouring from the genuine article. The late C. E. Montague dealt with the whole theme ,'in one" of his brilliant essays, "Only Too Clear," m the series entitled "A Writer's ■• Notes on his Trade." In this he says, referring to Meredith, whose prose is nothing if not liis own: '

'Ton may even get glimpses today of small social groups of quick-witted 'and quick-syni-pathied people amonK whom, at moments 'of mutual stimulation, ideas can be exchanged in a condensed, highly figured code of speech. Ilka Meredith's, without seeming opaque .or contorted. And at such,times one may easily feel that it is not all affectation or precocity, bMt that perhaps these difficult people are difficult only because they know a thing or tjvo more than we do.

'~lt may be so, but as Montague says a bit later in the book in the essay '."Easy, Reading, Hard Writing," the "hardest reading has often been the easiest writing," and it is the writer that suffers, as Meredith and Henry James did. . '.'■'. .

TO LISTEN OR TO READ? ' Now what can Professor Shelley's radio do to alter this? If broadcasters go to their job without the most careful preparation they cannot expect to get listeners, and the whole business is apt to fall flat. How many radioowners actually, listen in to talks en anything but sport or material things in which they have an interest? It is impossible to say, but I for one prefer music. Professor Shelley is well aware of the difficulties, for, in the published report of his address, he said: —

A lecture over the air Is entirely different from a lecture delivered from the platform. . . . A person sitting by the fireside listening to the radio is,, in much the same position as a person reading a book, except'that listening is easier. "A speaker over the air can give the right inflection, pauses, etc., to his narrative lo mafcp his meaning more full, but n reader Has to put these into the printed page. :

A speaker. can give the right inflection, pauses, etc., but how many do? I used to listen to speakers over the air at one time, but there was too much annoyance with affectation and formal elocution of the school type for the experiment to last very long. It was the same with announcers who gave out a "popery" of songs, when they mean "pot poutrri," and pronounced the name of the old English dance "minuay." Neither was the broadcasting of Parliament a great success. Some speakers pleased, but for the most part it was a weariness to listen. Intrinsically, broadcasting must be a very difficult art, but, if the art tides in "The Listener" —especially "The Listener" of two or three years ago—are anything to go by. they do things much better in the B.B.C.From "The Listener"—in its palmy days the best value for the money in weekly print— one could easily imagine an effect on literature such as Professor Shelley optimistically anticipates—optimistically, for he will have a truly Herculean task to get matter on the ' air of the same quality and standard out here. The more-om thinks about it the harder.it seems. Still it, is. not impossible. Britain has certainly bene-

fited from the service of the • B:B.C. Returned Visitors report that people there do habitually listen to the voice of authority on various subjects that comes from the loudspeaker. We out here can read with, pleasure in "The Listener1' what has passed over the air to-the fireside in Britain weeks before. Of how very few : broadcasts in New Zealand could this be said!" Yet once Or'twice miracles do occur, and one does' 'get something wholly satisfying that shows what can be done. But it must be done over and over again without such dreadful 'interims, if it is to have any effect on popular speech and popular writing. INFLUENCE OF THE CINEMA. More potent for; the .moment is the influence of the c|nema, and here again there must be vast scope '• for the development' of ..:a. : hew-technique.. Let us consider this point: Shakespeare's plays, by the consensus of all authority, must have been popular on the stage in the author's lifetime, and, well acted, they have been popular ever since. It is seriously proposed in America .that Hollywood .take up Shakespeare for the screen. If it could be done properly,1 it would be a magnificent thing for the enrichment of : the language^ spoken and written. Is Hollywood" equal to it? It would need the pick of the world's players and all the resources of film technique.; Shakespeare over, the air in full measure one could not even contemplate, except with horror, until such, a time as television really comes. These kindred' arts of the screen and the radio, have it in their power, or the power of those who control.them, to do much for good or evil. Whether it be their influence or the fruit of a different system of education,;'it does seem: a fact 'that. the . spoken, and the written language, are much nearer each other in America'than they are in the British Empire. The language of the book, the magazine,. and the newspaper is more adequate, if less literary, and spoken words'are more expressive.'The vocabulary in each case is much the same, and writers have already followed the.line suggested by Professor Shelley with great effect, as exemplified by the ■ Hemingway .School and

"The Postman Always Knocks Twice." There are imitators in Britain. ;

...The whole subject is fascinating, but full. of; difficulties, ! and one need- not wander further into 'a-wilderness of conjecture... •'.. 'The*.'radio . and.the film will 'be what people .make of ,them. .