08-10-2016, 11:03 AM
Came across this today:
"'In Europe,' Pablo Neruda said, 'everything has been painted.' He meant that Europe is an old culture, with the implication that Europeans may be tempted to describe their experience in terms of everything that's gone before and could perhaps fall into cliche as a consequence. When you sit down to write a love-poem all the love poems you've ever read will echo in your head. How can you find something new to say about jealousy, loneliness or grief -- the universal emotions -- when Shakespeare, Goethe and Ronsard have been there before you? Neruda might not have considered himself to be hamstrung by tradition, but even for a new world poet the absence of European cultural history doesn't necessarily confer an invulnerability to to cliche. Whatever part of the glove you happen to occupy, our response to Neruda's remark would be: if everything's already been painted, we'll have to find new ways to paint it again."
~Matthew Sweeney
It seems to me that a legacy of writing like Europeans have would benefit one's own writing through (potentially) more exposure to great writers, yet I see what he's saying that it could be harder to carve out your own niche when you feel like everything's already been done.
I will say that as I've been trying to get iambic pentameter under my belt, I've gotten the urge to use more antiquated words that I would never think to use in a free write; I believe that the reason is that I've heard those words used in that meter before. So, they just come to mind. It's not fatal, but it is annoying.
So, anyways, I'm curious to explore this idea of how one's culture/location hinders or helps writing.
"'In Europe,' Pablo Neruda said, 'everything has been painted.' He meant that Europe is an old culture, with the implication that Europeans may be tempted to describe their experience in terms of everything that's gone before and could perhaps fall into cliche as a consequence. When you sit down to write a love-poem all the love poems you've ever read will echo in your head. How can you find something new to say about jealousy, loneliness or grief -- the universal emotions -- when Shakespeare, Goethe and Ronsard have been there before you? Neruda might not have considered himself to be hamstrung by tradition, but even for a new world poet the absence of European cultural history doesn't necessarily confer an invulnerability to to cliche. Whatever part of the glove you happen to occupy, our response to Neruda's remark would be: if everything's already been painted, we'll have to find new ways to paint it again."
~Matthew Sweeney
It seems to me that a legacy of writing like Europeans have would benefit one's own writing through (potentially) more exposure to great writers, yet I see what he's saying that it could be harder to carve out your own niche when you feel like everything's already been done.
I will say that as I've been trying to get iambic pentameter under my belt, I've gotten the urge to use more antiquated words that I would never think to use in a free write; I believe that the reason is that I've heard those words used in that meter before. So, they just come to mind. It's not fatal, but it is annoying.
So, anyways, I'm curious to explore this idea of how one's culture/location hinders or helps writing.