Preface: After thinking this through, I feel like I could (almost want to..almost) write an essay on this, but since this a blog post I'll more or less streamline some of my thoughts.
So what lies in a phrase? By that, I mean, why are certain phrases famous? What defines a great phrase? For example, in "The Waste Land", why is the phrase "April is the cruellest month" renowned, while another similar phrase like "The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne" is not? Or, why not "The skies in their magnificence, / The lively, lovely air, / Oh, how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!" from Traherne's "Wonder"? All of these phrases describe something: the first describes the month of April, the second describes a chair, and the third the skies and air. All convey certain images in the reader's mind. So all of them should be equivalent phrases, right? Well, obviously not. But why? Just what makes "April is the cruellest month" so special? What sets it apart from the others?
I believe there are a few common elements that all of these lasting phrases share. One of them is concision. Generally, they are only a few lines long at most, and contain roughly 10 syllables or less. Actually I just made that syllable part up, but you get the point. The beauty lies in its brevity. But then again, there are a lot of short lines. So besides brevity, another common feature famous phrases share is a certain degree of abstraction and open endedness. What I mean by that is evinced in the first two phrases: "April is the cruellest month", and "The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne" - both are concise phrases, but the difference between them is that the the first phrase is much more open ended and abstract. That is, how can a month literally be cruel? And if we take this month to be cruel, what makes it cruel? Cruellty can elicit different meanings for different people. On the other hand, the second phrase clearly just describes a chair. There is no room for interpretation, and a chair that is throne like is concrete and anything but abstract.
However, I don't really find that laying out specific parameters as a means to define what is great or not does these phrases any justice. In my opinion, what truly makes these phrases universally great is that certain feeling you get after reading it. It's as simple as that. I can't really describe it very well - the feeling is both intrinsic and ineffable. But the moment you read it and feel it, you know: this phrase is powerful, engimatic, and beautiful.
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
"Had we but world enough, and time," (from To His Coy Mistress)
Each of these phrases is well known and revered for their - ...beauty? I don't know, but they are considered famous. However, I do know why they're famous: because the first time I read each of these lines, I was moved. It was only later did I find out that I wasn't special, that these phrases were universally considered to be great. So this leads me to the conclusion that the elements I mentioned above are simply emergent properties of these phrases. That is, those properties don't form a great phrase - they are part of and come from the phrase as a whole. I would find it hard to believe that these phrases were considered great by all of those critics and conoisseurs of poetry because after they read it they thought to themselves "oh wow this phrase is very concise and abstract and mysterious therefore it must be great". Instead, I believe they felt something similar to what I do when I read these: an intrinsic, indescribable feeling, and an explicit knowledge from within - that this phrase is truly something special.
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2 comments:
Do you think this reaction to certain phrases comes naturally, or with some kind of training?
At minimum, learning to read is probably involved. Anything else?
WOW...This is a very interesting post. I probably would never give a phrase that much thought. I think that a lot of the so called great phrases are given to us in the manner where we are told they are great, or famous. I don't think that some of these phrases are good because they are common I think that they are good because at one time, someone important said so, and now we come to just accept the fact that a phrase is good because we are told it is. I really don't think any of us hear a phrase whether is is told to us that it is great or famous, or not, and consider its meaning and if it really if that "great". Many of us just accept what we are told.
On the other hand there are many commonly used phrases that may not be considered great in literature but they certainly are famous. And I think the reason for that is that the phrases are catchy or fun. It is a play on words or just something that sticks in your head For example... I think that many of us have heard the saying "see ya later alligator... after a while crocodile" This may not be a great phrase in the eyes of literature and meaning, but it is a very common and famous saying, and I think that it is merely because it is catchy and cleaver.
I think a lot of times we give these so called "great" phrases too much thought, because we are told that they are great but not really why. Isn't it possible that sometimes what we are told is wrong, what is commonly accepted is not correct but accepted nonetheless. I think for a phrase to be great, it must be well known or famous... and the public must come to a general consensus with out being told, that the phrase is "great".
I do agree with the part in your blog when you said it is about the feeling you are supposed to get after you read the phrase... but sometimes we are almost told what to feel, especially when hearing or reading the phrase out of the context of its original work. I don't think a phrase by itself can evoke all that much feeling without its surroundings, that is why I think that the public must come to the idea on there own that a phrase is "great" because otherwise we are just going off of what we are told about the phrase, and never know for ourselves, why it is so great in the first place.
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