. Spinning .

Unreal.  I’m up to twelve pages, single-spaced, and still working.  Although the vast majority of the text is taken up in quotations from either Poetics or Cannery Row, there is some input by me in comment.  This is not what I had intended, but this is what it grew into as a project. 

Too bad it’s only for my own purposes–wins me no degrees, no recognition, not even a lousy grade, which is why I haven’t as yet gotten into a bibliography, although I probably will add it in just to cover my ass since this is currently available online as I work on it.  And after all this, I’ll probably keep it there until I’ve gotten over myself on the effort alone.

However, I shall have learned from this endeavor that in future readings I shall simply nod and smile to myself and think: Hmmm.  Sounds like Aristotle had something to say about this.  And just keep reading.

It doesn’t look like I’ve done much yet, but I don’t have a written outline–that’s not my style of writing–so I just started from point A and with the help of my notes, will continue on from there.  But, just to prove I’m seriously doing this (It will be constantly updated as I go along):

Aristotle’s Poetics as Applied to Steinbeck’s Cannery Row

This post started out as a comment in response to those by Steve and Mark at this post of mine, but in my usual rambling manner, got too ungainly to fit into one of those little comment boxes:

I think that even if Steinbeck had not been aware of Poetics, it was learned in some manner.  What Aristotle put together was not something he made up, but rather what he observed and kindly put down in an essay as to what he found to be the "recipe for success" or at the least, the traditional and established norm, as well as discussing the roots of literature form.  Much of the nature of Aristotle’s essay can be absorbed through reading as well as studying literature and writing, although most of this, I’m sure, has been based on Aristotle’s input anyway.  Even everyday conversation gives us a feel for storytelling.

But I am intrigued by the notion of going so far back into these written basics to see what holds true in Steinbeck’s writing.  Unfortunately, I’ve gotten in deep, over my head maybe even, and I’ve starting writing it in a Word Document that will be linked here, and it will have to be broken down into sections rather than a rambling piece.  Right now I’m concentrating on the building up of Tragedy (vs. Comedy, which started me on this whole thing, the tragi-comic situation Steinbeck created) and there may need to be subheadings or whatever on Plot, Character, etc. as each is valued by Aristotle in Poetics.

In other words, it’s turned into a project.  But the easiest way to understand and post about Poetics is exactly what inspired me to do it–having read it, and then seeing it in action as it applies as I read Cannery Row.  It is easier, I think, to find the "rule" or "law" or "norm" as Aristotle lays them out and apply them to the novel, than to write of Poetics and seek out examples.  Especially since they have been recognized in Cannery Row as becoming familar.

Yes, story is important, although it need not be epic in nature, just something that touches the heart or stirs the mind to interest. 

For me, the enjoyable journey through a story is fed by good writing. 

I can’t get excited, particularly with a novel, about story regardless of its magnitude because it is just that; a product of the imagination.  Hell, there’s more in life every day to get hepped up about.  But with the narrative structure, the plot… (and here I have Aristotle to back me:

But most important if all is the structure of the incidents.  For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.  (Poetics, Part VI, para. 5)

…the plot is particularly a product of good writing.  Believe me, I know this well; my stories often fall flat because despite the flow of words, the arrangement and choice of sequence to build the conflicts to follow an arc isn’t there.

While I am still working on applying Poetics to Cannery Row (It’s actually much easier to see what Aristotle means when you read something, remember something that Aristotle wrote, then go back and reread both, his essay becomes clear.), I need to dig out the most relevant section from Poetics to examine the sequence of events in Cannery Row that I just posted on yesterday.  It may take several postings to cover all the aspects, but that’s what I’m trying to do now, pick out the most relevant and obvious of Aristotle’s statement as well as select carefully from Cannery Row to best display the theory without going into a 12-page thesis (which I see now I could easily do.  In fact, if I ever went for a Masters, I’d seriously consider applying Poetics to a literary work.)

A most interesting development in the reading…

For many chapters, Mack and the boys have been planning a party for Doc just to show their appreciation of him.  Well, it starts out as they need to make money to be able to throw a party, so they visit Doc and find that he needs frogs, at least 300 of them.  Back and forth haggling with Lee Chong for the use of his truck–for which they barter its repair, getting gas, getting there while Doc is off on his own trip collecting baby octopi, and an incredible series of mishaps to get all ready, the party is almost pulled off, but Doc is late returning home, and in the manner of Suttree‘s Harrogate, the best intentions leave a mess without proper planning.  Eight hundred frogs are traded to Lee Chong for food, booze, decorations, etc., and while the party goes on fueled by drinking and fighting and general merriment before Doc even gets there, his lab is destroyed and the frogs all escape.

That’s a brief summary without all the details that make this part of the narrative so intense and enjoyable, but the point that struck me is what do we have here? 

A comedy of errors that makes itself into a tragedy. 

So now I need go back to Aristotle to see what he would say about this, after explicitly delineating the separate branches of Comedy and Tragedy by specific values.  Plot would be primary in Tragedy, and the Characters imitative of comedy, and this may well fit with the theory.  This will take me some time…

From Section 1, Part I (Yes, I did get further along than this, the second paragraph, but figured I’d better start posting on it):

Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation.  They differ, however, from one another in three respects–the medium, the objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.  (p. 1)

Basically, art imitates life.  The medium, I am assuming is the presentation, played or written or spoken.  The objects, text or brass pipes and strings.  These do use sound–if text is read aloud–to communicate.  Communicate what?  Emotion, decision, ideas. 

Aristotle goes on to inform of the harmony and rhythm employed in the various forms of art, including the rhythm or movement of dance to show emotion, character, or action.  This can be seen when watching dancers perform to a specific piece, as well as the goings-on at the local disco where the patrons use body language to not only express their feelings about themselves, but to "speak" to a dance partner in the hope perhaps of further engagement for the evening.

I do intend to reread this section and the next few sections before going much further in posting as it seems that once understood, it will make everything else that much clearer.

One thing I do like about what little I may have read of Aristotle, is that it does seem fairly clearly laid out.  The opening:

I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each, to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of which  poem is composed; and similarly into whatever else falls within the same inquiry.  Following, then, the order of nature, let us begin the principles which come first.  (Internet Classics Archive.  http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/poetics.html p. 1)

What I as a fiction writer and poorly developed poet find interesting is the emphasis into structure and plot of poetry.  Too often the poet feels that free verse in form allows as well for a series of rambling and disjointed thoughts, or the same single emotion spread and said repetitiously with imagery the only value in mind.  There is structure, there is story, there is plot.

Took a peek at the reading list provided by the kind professor (who should have well been rid of me by now) and found the first item, Aristotle’s Poetics available online and checked it out.

Scanning it briefly, I found it more easily readable and enticing than Didascalicon, unless of course I located a version akin to My First Aristotle:  A First-Grader’s Guide to the Classics. 

Downloaded, printed and spiral-bound, it is here with me in the shop as I sit, and along with Ploughshares and other lit journals in turn will provide my next readings and commentary.