An Incomplete Education - 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't

182 AN I N C O M P L E T E

French, Like
for th

Don't know the grip from
gaffer from the auteur? A

First, the French. The two mo
and, for cinema buffs, they're
scene") refers to everything th
ment of cameras, deployment
mean simply "editing," or it
Eisenstein, juxtaposes specific
what it's worth, film-theory f
pressionists montage.

Next, three terms rooted in
reference you occasionally trip
of the Cinema") founded by,
and contributed to by, among
directors as François Truffau
Chabrol, all of whom were de
atrical, studio-crafted movies
went back a generation to th
Renoir, Clair, and Vigo, wh
French tradition. They also c
Hawks and a clutch of other
mentors, would be seen as the
behind their movies, mediati
consistent vision. Truffaut firs
for The Village Voice, is most
country.

Two more French terms, by
of Hollywood and Vine. Th
"truth"), which can be used lo
technique (including the appli
strictly to describe movies tha
weight (and hence very mob
crews, and extensive on-camer

T h e other French term: film
coined by French critics to de
which the crooks aren't so m

E EDUCATION

ewise Hollywoodese,
he Movie-Goer

m the gaffer—or from the dolly? How about the
A n d what's a McGuffin for, anyway? Read on.

ost important terms are montage and mise en scène,
e opposed. Mise en scène (literally, "put into the
at takes place on the set: direction of actors, place-
of props, choice of lenses, and so on. Montage can
can mean the kind of creative editing that, à la
c shots so as to create whole new meanings. For
fans point out that realists prefer mise en scène, ex-

the Fifties and Sixties. T h e (1) Cahiers du Cinéma
p over is to a film magazine (literally, "Notebooks
among others, the French theorist André Bazin,
g others, such (2) Nouvelle Vague (or "New Wave")
ut, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, and Claude
etermined to do in, once and for all, the talky, the-
s of France's postwar years. For inspiration, they
he more spontaneous, more heartfelt Thirties of
ho, in their opinion, constituted the "authentic"
cast their gaze on Hollywood, on Hitchcock and
r, less prominent directors. Soon they, like their
e prime forces, the (3) auteurs (literally, "authors")
ing style, theme, and technique through a single
st used the term in 1958; Andrew Sarris, film critic
responsible for promoting the auteur theory in this

y the end of which we'll find ourselves at the corner
e first is cinéma vérité (the second word means

oosely to describe almost any kind of documentary
ication of such techniques to fictional subjects), or
at—starting in the Sixties—were made with light-
bile) equipment, two-person camera-and-sound
ra interviewing.
m noir (the second word means "black"), a term
escribe the kind of Hollywood gangster picture in
much bad as sick, and the passions run dark and





184 AN I N C O M P L E T E

Another genre term—strictl
which reached its height in the
directed by Howard Hawks,
which focused on sexual relatio
usually among the upper class,
of the silent era. The one othe
fred Hitchcock's McGuffin, th
drives the plot and fuels the au
served its purpose (for instance
at the beginning of Psycho).

Then there's the technical,
it's a seminal—and tricky—d
most worth paying attention t
ject with a camera, the zoom w
a variable distance between ca
the track with a moving camer
gle focus on—and consequentl
is as a result a steady process; z
distant objects can be magnifie

A pan is what a stationary
simply moving on its axis fro
shots include the tilt (the came
on its side and maybe turns o
looks up less often than one lo
eral relegated to "trick" shots, u
in Royal Wedding, seems to be

Also an issue: Getting from
fade-out (the image gradually g
perimposes one image on anoth
With a wipe, more common i
image appears to wipe off a pr
fected by out-and-out cutting.
(hero enters room) to point B
out forcing us to watch him w
with the pennants pinned to i
tion by cutting repeatedly from
another.

About the equipment: The
phone above the actors (and, w
wheels on which the camera is

A n d the personnel. T h e gaff
chief electrician responsible fo

E EDUCATION

ly American—worth noting: "screwball comedy,"
e Thirties, in such films as Bringing Up Baby (1938,

with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant), and
onships, madcap action, and verbal one-upmanship,
, and which is to be opposed to the slapstick comedy
r genre-related term not immediately obvious: Al­
he plot element or device that, according to him,
udience's interest, but that can be ignored once it's
e, the whole Janet Leigh, love-and-money business

get-to-know-your-cameraman vocabulary. Here,
istinction between the zoom and the track that's
to. Both describe ways of following a moving sub­
with a lens that automatically refocuses to allow for
amera and subject (and subject and background),
ra, usually mounted on rails, that maintains a sin­
ly a constant distance from—its subject. Tracking
zooming a fast, somewhat arhythmic one in which
ed, or close ones moved rapidly away from.
camera does when it wants to survey its vicinity,
m left to right, or right to left. Other stationary
era moves up or down) and the roll (the camera lies
over). Pans are common, tilts less so (just as one
ooks to the side), rolls least common of all, in gen­
up to and including the one in which Fred Astaire,
e dancing on the ceiling.
one scene to another. Here the choices include the
goes to black) followed by thefade-in; a dissolve su­
her, so that the screen is never entirely image-free.
in Thirties movies than in contemporary ones, an
receding one. O f course, transition can also be ef­
. A jump cut within a scene gets us from point A
(hero flops down on bed at far side of room) with­
walk by his desk, his bureau, and his bulletin board
it. Cross-cutting establishes a feeling of parallel ac­
m one scene (and mood, and set of characters) to

boom is a traveling arm used to hold the micro­
with any luck, out of the frame), the dolly a set of
s mounted so as to be able to "track."
fer, from a nineteenth-century nautical term, is the
or the placing of light. T h e grip casts the shadows,

working with "flags, nets, and silks," as a grip of o
what archaically, we thought. (The gofer makes Da
that most mysterious of all cinema terms, best boy
plays neither page to the director's knight nor para
he does is assist the gaffer or the grip, a reminder o
opposed to Cahiers, life can be.

FILM I

our acquaintance put it, some­
anish and Xerox runs.) As for
y, we re sorry to report that he
amour to the leading lady. All
of just how workaday studio, as

CHAP

^ITER

TER

ATOR E

FIVE

Contents

A Whirlwind Tour of British Poetry: If It's
Browning 188
Triple Play 196
Bellying Up to the Bard 201
Let's Pausefor a Moment and Consider Bos
A Bedside Companion to the Nineteenth-Cen
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Twelve F
You Should Have at Least a Nodding Acqua
Three Important-Sounding Fallacies (and T
Other Things) You May or May Not Want
Three Twentieth-Century Novels to Reckon
Giftsfrom the Greeks: A Few Enriching Ide
Civilization 254

Enemies of the Book, drawing by Gustave

Tuesday, This Must Be

swell's Life of Johnson 218
ntury English Novel 220
Fictional Characters with Whom
aintance 245
Two Important-Sounding
t to Watch Out For 247
n With 250
easfrom the Classic Classical

e Doré

i88 AN I N C O M P L E T E

A Wh
ofBr

IF I
THIS MU

Don't even think of unpack
to get a grip on six hundre

GEOFF

Bifel that
In Southwer
Redy to wen
To Canterbu
At night was
Wei nine and
O f sondry fo
In felaweship
That toward
The chambre
And wel we
And shortly,
So hadde I s
That I was o
And made fo
To take oure

fro
The

The first wave of English poet
being shared by twenty-nine p
Becket in Canterbury provide a
ets, and personality disorders in
the pilgrims spend their first n
And that the pilgrims, from th
come to seem as recognizable

EDUCATION

hirlwind Tour
ritishPoetry

IT'S TUESDAY,
UST BE BROWNING

king. Just wash out yesterday's socks, then prepare
ed years of poetry in motion.

FREY CHAUCER

in that seson on a day,
rk at the Tabard as I lay,
nden on my pilgrimage
ury with ful devout corage,
s come into that hostelrye
d twenty in a compaignye
olk, by aventure yfalle
pe, and pilgrimes were they allé
d Canterbury wolden ride.
es and the stables weren wide,
weren esed at the beste.

whan the sonne was to reste,
spoken with hem everichoon
of hir felaweshipe anoon,
orward erly for to rise,
e way ther as I you devise.

m "The General Prologue,"
e Canterbury Tales (1386-1400)

try (give or take Beowulf), the tales-within-a-tale
pilgrims en route to the shrine of Saint Thomas à
a bard's-eye view of social classes, economic brack­
n medieval England. Note that the Tabard, where
night out, is one of the famous inns of literature.
he Knight to the Wife of Bath to the Miller, will

a bunch of human types as, say, the ensemble in

Robert Altman's Nashville. Note, too, that three hu
Conquest, French words are almost as integral to
Chaucer's writing in) as Anglo-Saxon ones. Speaki
tackle the Tales at all, you might as well go for the a
sion rather than a lame modernization (although
footnotes you can find). And try reading the "Prol
hang of it, Chaucer's English is surprisingly melo
little like Norwegian.

EDMUND SPEN

He there does now enjoy eternall res
And happie ease, which thou doest w
And further from it daily wanderest
What if some little paine the passag
That makes fraile flesh to feare the b
Is not short paine well borne, that b
And layes the soule to sleepe in quie
Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie
Ease after warre, death after life doe

from The Faerie Quee
B

With characters like King Arthur, Queen Elizabe
Adam and Eve, and Despair (that's him above,
Crosse Knight to commit suicide), The Faerie Qu
epic, it's also its first theme park. Though Spe
books, each celebrating a different knightly virtu
the first six—to almost nobody's chagrin. Wildl
can go on for pages without producing a single lin
about, then dazzle you by summing up (and som
of personal problem you've spent the last five sess
your shrink. The two main themes (both fleshed o
ters and scenery embodying historical events and
ready, in Spenser's day, pretty much a memory)
(still, in Spenser's day, requiring some getting u
much about who's supposed to be Mary Tudor an
cis Drake. Better to keep moving, just the way yo

LITERATURE 189

undred years after the Norman
o Middle English (that's what
ing of which, if you're going to
authentic Middle English ver­
h you'll certainly need all the
logue" aloud; once you get the
odious, even if it does sound a

NSER

st
want and crave,
.
ge have
bitter wave?
rings long ease,
et grave?
e seas,
es greatly please.

ene (1590-1596)
Book I, Canto 9

th, Venus, the Angel Gabriel,
, trying to convince the Red
ueene isn't just England's first
enser meant to write twelve
ue, he managed to finish only
y uneven, The Faerie Queene
ne, image, or insight you care
metimes even solving) the sort
sions trying to thrash out with
out allegorically, with charac­
ideas): medieval chivalry (al­
) and Protestant Christianity
used to). But don't worry too
nd who's supposed to be Fran­
ou would at Six Flags.

igo AN I N C O M P L E T E

JO

Our two s
Though

A breach,
Like go

If they be
As stiff

Thy soul,
To mov

And thoug
Yet whe

It leans an
And gro

from "A Valediction: F

The first and best of the Meta
ventions of the Elizabethan so
characterized by a dense, alm
complicated imagery, a zillio
and daily life of the times, and
times to sound conversational
His poetry tends to be ironic
ing on which of his two favor
at the time (love, naturally eno
he is wise and intellectually as
dissection-of-the-psychology-
he's also more modern than yo
in the early seventeenth centur
til the twentieth.

JO

High on a thr
Outshone the
Or where the
Showers on h
Satan exalted
To that bad e
Thus high up
Beyond thus

E EDUCATION

OHN DONNE

souls therefore, which are one,
h I must go, endure not yet

but an expansion,
old to airy thinness beat.

two, they are two so
twin compasses are two;
the fixed foot, makes no show
e, but doth, if th' other do.

gh it in the center sit,
en the other far doth roam,
nd harkens after it,
ows erect, as that comes home.

Forbidding Mourning" (1633)

aphysical poets, Donne broke away from the con­
onnet and the courtly love poem to invent a poetry
most incomprehensibly learned style, extremely
n offbeat references to the arts, sciences, crafts,
d a fractured meter and syntax that were meant at
l, at other times simply to knock your socks off.
and erotic or heartfelt and impassioned, depend­
rite obsessions—love or death—he is focusing on
ough, in the early poems; death later on). In both
stute, and in the love poems—more precisely, the
-of-love poems—he's not only sharp and smart,
ou are. Metaphysical poetry enjoyed a brief vogue
ry, but Donne didn't really come into his own un­

OHN MILTON

rone of royal state, which far
e wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
e gorgeous East with richest hand
her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
d sat, by merit raised
eminence; and, from despair
plifted beyond hope, aspires
high, insatiate to pursue

Vain war with Heaven; and, by suc
His proud imaginations thus displa

"Powers and Dominions, Deities
For, since no deep within her gulf c
Immortal vigour, though oppressed
I give not Heaven for lost: from thi
Celestial Virtues rising will appear
More glorious and more dread than
And trust themselves to fear no sec

from Paradise Lost (1658-1

Milton claimed to have written it to "justify the wa
be smart to interpret it as his attempt to one-up H
outcry by a no-nonsense Puritan against the high
and an exercise in style-as-substance, with loftines
ments. The most celebrated English poet after S
major edifice, gilded and soaring, where Spenser
Keep three things in mind as you read: (1) It's stil
north, that time during which man was trying to g
was even as he (or she) sought to outperform the
own games; (2) it's not the theology that matters
sweep, effect; and (3) you aren't the only one who
nitely more interesting than Milton's God. Not en
get Paradise Lost and read "Lycidas," Milton's bite-
sailor friend—sweet and intimate, yet abristle with
you came to him for in the first place.

ALEXANDER PO

Know then thyself, presume not
The proper study of mankind is m
Placed on this isthmus of a middle
A being darkly wise, and rudely gr
With too much knowledge for the
With too much weakness for the s
He hangs between; in doubt to act
In doubt to deem himself a god, or
In doubt his mind or body to prefe
Born but to die, and reasoning but
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little, or too
Chaos of thought and passion, all
Still by himself abused, or disabuse
Created half to rise, and half to fal
Great lord of all things, yet a prey

LITERATURE I^I

ccess untaught,
ayed:—
s of Heaven!
can hold
d and fallen,
is descent

n from no fall,
cond fate!—"

665), Book II

ays of God to man," but you'd
Homer, Virgil, and Dante; an
h-flown Church of England;
ss the upshot in both depart­
hakespeare, Milton erected a
r had gone for sheer acreage.
ll the Renaissance, at least up
get a bead on who he (or she)

Greeks and Romans at their
s most here, it's the scheme,
thinks Milton's Satan is infi­
nough hours in the day? For­
-sized elegy on the death of a

the kind of poetic conviction

OPE

God to scan;
an.
e state,
eat;
sceptic side,
stoic's pride,
t, or rest;
r beast;
er;
to err;
h,
o much;
confused;
ed;
l;
to all;

AN I N C O M P L E T E

Sole judge of t
The glory, jest

fro

Poor Pope: He was a hunchb
Catholic, on account of the l
Protestant) Tradition of Engli
than anybody ever (with the po
you don't even know you're qu
thing," "Damn with faint prais
on through column after colu
gustan Age (also starring Swif
had come to fancy itself the
ordered era when rhyming cou
gardens were all you needed to
was himself one of the smugs.
haven't been beat.

WILLIA

Our birth is bu
The Soul that

Hath had
And co

Not in en
And not
But trailing clo
From Go
Heaven lies ab
Shades of the
Upon the

But
Beholds the lig

He sees it
The Youth, wh

Must trav
And by th
Is on his
At length the
And fade into

from "Od

E EDUCATION

truth, in endless error hurled:
t, and riddle of the world!

om An Essay on Man (1733-1734),
Epistle II

back, he was barely five feet tall, and he was a
last of which he stands outside the Grand (read
ish poetry. His revenge: being more epigrammatic
ossible exception of Oscar Wilde) and so quotable
uoting him—e.g., "A little learning is a dangerous
se," "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," and
umn of Bartlett's. Historical note: This is the Au­
ft, Addison, and Steele; so called because London
equal of Augustus' Rome), a conservative, well-
uplets, fine manners, powdered wigs, and elaborate
o get a reputation as a tastemaker. Not that Pope
. For sheer venom, spleen, and bile, his satires still

M WORDSWORTH

ut a sleep and a forgetting:
rises with us, our life's Star,
d elsewhere its setting,
ometh from afar:
ntire forgetfulness,
in utter nakedness,
ouds of glory do we come
od, who is our home:
bout us in our infancy!
prison-house begin to close
e growing Boy
he
ght, and whence it flows,
t in his joy;
ho daily farther from the east
vel, still is Nature's Priest,
he vision splendid
way attended;
M a n perceives it die away,
the light of common day.

de: Intimations of Immortality" (1807)

A revolutionary in a revolutionary age and the first
Byron, Keats, and Shelley were the others, Blak
hated Pope, arguing that memory counted for m
more than reason, and nature for more than gazeb
subjective, and basically all het up, he introduced a
sational (though you wont), favored an everyday
matter (look for lyrics written to "The Idiot Boy," "
Female Vagrant"), and redefined poetry famousl
tranquillity." Two big don'ts: D o n t think you h
longest, most ambitious, and most lethal poem. A
as your mentor: Wordsworth the revolutionary is
into Wordsworth the reactionary, a nasty old man
the abolition of slavery, the reform of Parliament,
to animals.

ROBERT BROWN

I, painting from myself and to myse
Know what I do, am unmoved by m
Or their praise, either. Somebody re
Morello's outline there is wrongly tr
His hue mistaken; what of that? or
Rightly traced and well ordered; wh
Speak as they please, what does the
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed
Or what's a heaven for? All is silver
Placid and perfect with my art: the w
I know both what I want and what
And yet how profitless to know, to s
"Had I been two, another and myse
Our head would have o'erlooked the

No doubt.

from "Andrea de

His contemporary, Tennyson, got most of the atten
Browning who's become the hero, for blazing the
with his jagged-edged dramatic monologues (in wh
about himself he has no idea he's revealing) and h
confessional style of the Romantics in favor of firs
though pre-Freud, manages to come across with a
even more psychoanalyzable content. On the neg

LITERATURE m

t of the Romantics (Coleridge,
ke a precursor), Wordsworth
ore than wit, imagination for
bos and topiary hedges. Visual,
a style he thought of as conver­
y, even tabloid sort of subject
"The Mad Mother," and "The
ly as "emotion recollected in
have to read The Prelude, his
And don't adopt him wholesale
s notorious for having turned
given to campaigning against
and the prevention of cruelty

NING

elf,
men's blame
emarks
raced,

else,
hat of that?

mountain care?
d his grasp,
r-gray
worse!
might gain,
sigh
elf,
e world!"

el Sarto" (1855)

ntion at the time, but lately it's
trail of modernism in poetry

hich the speaker reveals things
his jazzy beat. Jettisoning the
st-person narrative, Browning,
fair amount of sexual heat and
gative side: He tries too hard

194 AN I N C O M P L E T E

ever to seem cool or command
expect-from-a-Victorian mora
he's writing for children. Perso
people, Mr. Elizabeth Barrett.

WILLIA

That is no co
In one anoth
—Those dyi
The salmon-
Fish, flesh, o
Whatever is
Caught in th
Monuments

An aged man
A tattered co
Soul clap its
For every tat
Nor is there
Monuments
And therefor
To the holy c

from

Yeats (pronounce that "yates," p
oh, let's just go ahead and say
mystical, pardy earthy, and par
ation as the Last of the Roma
poetry varies from period to pe
phy, but it tends to be made up
some of it folklore, some of it o
by symbolism and sensuality, al
bad press for becoming a Fasci
into a bore, and his "mature" p
laureate of old age, a subject w
better-known poems, like the o

EDUCATION

ing; he can drift off into stupid, just-what-you'd-
alizing; and sometimes he sounds as if he thinks
onal note: Before he got famous, he was, for most

M BUTLER YEATS

ountry for old men. T h e young
her's arms, birds in the trees
ing generations—at their song,
-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
or fowl, commend all summer long

begotten, born, and dies.
hat sensual music all neglect

of unageing intellect.

n is but a paltry thing,
oat upon a stick, unless
hands and sing, and louder sing
tter in its moral dress,
singing school but studying
of its own magnificence;
re I have sailed the seas and come
city of Byzantium.
m "Sailing to Byzantium" (1927)

please) is generally ranked as one of the greatest—
the greatest—of twentieth-century poets. Partly
rtly just plain Irish, he saw himself and his gener­
ntics, and resisted all further categorization. His
eriod, as does what can be deduced of his philoso­
of anecdotal material—some of it autobiography,
occult theory, some of it current events—overlaid
ll honed for maximum precision. Although he got
ist later in life, he did not, like Wordsworth, turn
period is considered his best. In fact, he's the poet
with which he became obsessed, and several of his
one above, provide models for growing old.

HOW TO TELL KEA

John Keats
Keats is the one you'd play squash with. H e w

and less the outcast than Shelley, and it shows
spirited, a bit of a hellion; Shelley was always
Keats wrote letters that his friends couldn't wait
delightedly pore over alongside his poetry; Shell
self a little too much, and it's his essays—philos
the scholars note. O f all the Romantic poets, K
by more than a point or two; Shelley's has waver
his poetry "an affair of adolescence" and Lione
haled through a gas pipe." Be that as it may, it's
want by your side at the barricades.

As for the poetry, Keats' is sensuous, concre
overtones. (It was he, after all, who wrote, " 'B
know on earth, and all ye need to know," thoug
being sarcastic.) Keats was a craftsman, with no
pare him, in the richness and confidence of hi
from "Ode to a Nightingale":

Thou wast not born for death
No hungry generations tre

The voice I hear this passing
In ancient days by empero

Perhaps the selfsame song th
Through the sad heart of R
She stood in tears amon

TS FROM SHELLEY

Percy Bysshe Shelley
wasn't happy exactly, but he was better adjusted
s. (As a kid, Keats had been noisy and high-

coming home from the playground in tears.)
to get, and that literary critics and biographers
ley wrote letters in which he talked about him­
sophical, high-flown, full of abstractions—that
eats has worn the best, his stock never varying
red significantly, ever since T. S. Eliot branded
el Trilling said he "should not be read, but in­
Shelley, high-principled and farsighted, you'd
ete, and concentrated, with art-for-art's-sake
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'—that is all / Ye
gh there's some question as to whether he was
o theory to speak of; it's commonplace to com­
is language, to Shakespeare, as in these lines,

h, immortal Bird!
ead thee down;
g night was heard
r and clown:
hat found a path
Ruth, when, sick for home,
ng the alien corn;. . .

HOW TO TELL KEA

Shelley's poetry is less solid, mo
volatile. Unlike Keats, who was at h
was capable of both greed and earthi
self, "You know, I always seek in wh
thing beyond the present and tangib
dress an unsuspecting skylark, "Hai
full o f black despair, Shelley, like W
the age." This is how that voice soun
tual Beauty":

I vowed that I would dedicate
To thee and thine—have I
With beating heart and str

I call the phantoms of a thous
Each from his voiceless grave

O f studious zeal or love's
Outwatched with me the
They know that never joy illu
Unlinked with hope that
This world from its dark

Shelley had the more interesting—
an aristocrat (whereas Keats' father
be regarded as an atheist, a revolutio
addition, married to Mary Wollstone
ical social philosopher William Go
with whose half-sister Byron would
fair. Keats didn't hang out with Sh
with the financial and medical probl
matic relationship with a girl name
Shelley died miserably, Keats in Rom
ley off the Italian coast in 1822 whe
Keats was twenty-six, Shelley thirty.

T

You say the dishes are don
ken? Good: This is your
literary devices. And we don'
for high-school sophomores.

ATS FROM SHELLEY

ore shifting and translucent, more
ome in the world of things and who
iness, Shelley was able to say of him­
hat I see the manifestation of some
ble object." (He was also able to ad­
il to thee, blithe Spirit!") A radical,
Wordsworth, was deemed "a voice of
nds, in the early "Hymn to Intellec­

e my powers
not kept the vow?
reaming eyes, even now
sand hours
e: they have in visioned bowers
s delight
e envious night—
umed my brow
t thou wouldst free
k slavery,.. .

—and marginally longer—life. Born
owned a livery stable), he came to

onary, and an immoralist; he was, in
ecraft Godwin, daughter of the rad­
odwin and author of Frankenstein,
later have a much-remarked-on af­
helley and Byron, was preoccupied
lems of his brothers, and had a trau­
ed Fanny Brawne. Both Keats and
me in 1821 from tuberculosis, Shel­
n his boat was swamped in a squall.
.

Triple Play

ne, the kids are in bed, and the D V D player is bro­
opportunity to take a few minutes and bone up on
't mean foreshadowing and onomatopoeia. They're
If you want to sound like an adult, it's wit, irony,

and ambiguity you've got to be able to field—and
what, exactly, are they? We don't blame you for no
trapped in some way. The first has a complicated his
many shapes and sizes, and the third leaves you wo
bad. To, er, wit:

WIT

At its best, it's—as you've doubt­
less heard—like a rapier: fast,
clean, intensely civilized. And it's
immediately recognizable: Oscar
Wilde, Dorothy Parker, and Tom
Stoppard are witty; Groucho
Marx is funny, even trenchant,
but too interested in being uncw-
ilized to be witty; nor is David
Letterman (too scattershot, too
sloppy). Not that wit is necessar­
ily grand or preening: The Simp­
sons provides a pretty fair version
of it.

But that's lately. In past cen­
turies, the word was both more
incendiary and more central, and
how you used it revealed which
side of the politico-literary fence
you were on. From its original
Anglo-Saxon sense of "mind,
reason, intelligence," it had come
by Elizabethan times to be used
of anything clever or ingenious, especially if it was
ical, or farfetched. The Metaphysical poetry of Jo
which, as Dr. Johnson noted, "The most heterogen
lence together," was the height of wit in this se
equated with the spirit of poetry itself. S o far, so g

Enter the Augustans of the eighteenth century, w
proportions and strictures of ancient Rome, had
insisting that, properly used, wit tended not towar
quence and precision. Alexander Pope (see page

LITERATURE
every so often manifest. But
ot being sure; each is booby-
story, the second comes in too
ondering whether it's good or

Oscar Wilde
also a little bizarre, paradox­
ohn Donne (see page 190) in
neous ideas are yoked by vio­
ense—which was soon being
ood.
who, enamored of the classical
d other plans for the word,
rd bizarrerie but, rather, elo­
191) used the word at least

AN I N C O M P L E T E

forty-six times in his Essay on
is nature to advantage dresse
pressed"; John Dryden said, a
beats o'er and ranges thro' the
after." Their point: that every
physicals (whom the August
until T. S. Eliot spoke up for t
ing it with them.

The nineteenth century d
among others, imagination) a
soon synonymous with mer
Chaucer—not to mention Po
"witty": H e lacked high seriou
to mention Pope—has achiev
ousness is out (like heavy meal
quantly, is, like the perfect sor

Socrates

T h e word derives from eiro
the trickster who pretends he's
veal his most ludicrous side. N

E EDUCATION

n Criticism, most memorably in the lines "True wit
ed, / What oft was thought, but ne'er so well ex-
mong other things, that wit, "like a nimble spaniel,

field of memory, till it springs the quarry it hunted
ybody should stop associating wit with the Meta-
tans loathed, and who wouldn't be reconstructed
them a couple of centuries later) and start associat-

didn't care much for the word "wit" (preferring,
and allowed it to languish, to the point that it was
re levity; Matthew Arnold, for instance, struck
ope—from the list of great poets because he was
usness. Now the word, like the Metaphysicals—not
ed respectability once more: It's not that high seri-
ls), just that getting it said fast, and maybe even pi-
rbet or the perfect chèvre salad, very much in.

IRONY

Unlike wit, its meaning, or rather
bundle of meanings, has held fairly
steady over time: Always it's im-
plied that there are two sets of
listeners keyed in to the same state-
ment, story, or piece of informa-
tion, and that one of them gets
it—sees it for what it is, in all its
poignancy or complexity or awful-
ness—and the other one doesn't. If
you're in the former set, congratu-
lations: The ability to recognize
irony, especially in writing (where
there are no facial expressions or
vocal inflections to help it, and you,
along), has for centuries been re-
garded as one of the surest tests of
intelligence and sophistication.
on, one of the basic character types in Greek drama,
s ignorant, thereby provoking somebody else to re-
Not that this technique was confined to the stage:

Socrates, for instance, acted the part of the eiron wh
pointless, naive questions of his students, only to
Thus was born Socratic irony, where those who are
ingly as their master's feigned ignorance routs dog
ular wisdom.

More common is dramatic irony, also called tra
knows something—or many things—the characte
quently can read doom into all the innocent, triv
know: Oedipus vows revenge on the murderer of hi
because we're already familiar with the tale, as e
Greece, or whether because the omniscient chorus
pus was out of earshot) gasp.

Verbal irony, by contrast, is no more compli
hundred-pound linebacker Tiny, or saying "Br
when what you really mean is that he's a junkya
complicated than sarcasm, which is almost alwa
tic (and spoken), and it can sometimes leave yo
the intended meaning is. It can also be extreme
tio says, o f his death wound in Romeo and Juliet
well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enou

For the graduate student: You'll also want to tak
God mocks, thwarts, or sports with us mere-mor
here is the last sentence of Thomas Hardy's Tess of
dent of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had
And of romantic irony, especially prominent—as th
nineteenth century, in which the author reveals th
tions, after all, being created and manipulated by h
poem "Don Juan" (pronounced, just this once, "JO

And everybody: Given that you've bothered to re
above, promise you'll stop saying, "It's ironic," whe
it's a little odd.

AMBIGUITY

You're right to be suspicious of it in a contract,
ambiguity—from the Latin ambi-, "both," plus ag
not such a bad thing in literature, especially poetry
between meanings the way he might have to in a co
Classic example: in Shakespeare, Hotspur's drumm
IV by saying, "We must have bloody noses and cra
current too"—where the crowns in question are fir

LITERATURE

hen he asked those apparently
demolish the kids in the end.
e in on the game smile know­
gma, superstition, and/or pop­

agic irony, where the audience
ers on stage don't, and conse­
vial remarks they make. You
s father, and all of us (whether
even children were in ancient

spilled the beans while Oedi­

icated than calling a three-
rutus is an honorable man"
ard dog. It is, though, more
ays heavy-handed and caus­
ou wondering what, exactly,
ely moving, as when Mercu-
t, " N o , 'tis not so deep as a
ugh, 'twill serve."
ke note of cosmic irony, where
tal types; the classic example
f the D'Urbervilles: "The Presi­
d ended his sport with Tess."
he name suggests—in the early
hat his characters are just fic­
him, as in Byron's long satiric
O-en").
ead (and we to write) all of the
en all you mean, really, is that

Y

even in a conversation. But
gere, "drive"—is, it turns out,
, where nobody has to choose
ourtroom or on a street corner.
ming up antagonism to Henry
ack'd crowns / And pass them
rst of all coins, second heads,

zoo AN I N C O M P L E T E

William Empson

unconnected meanings contain
together clarify an author's state
that the reader has no choice b

Empson goes on and on ab
membering is that, even in poe
Empson's words, "intricacy, de
(reflective of "weakness or thin
ous" when what you really mea
feeling conflicted about someth
ambiguity; people feel ambival

EDUCATION

and third what kings wear, and
where a single word thus manages
to hint at the action, and the most
important theme, of the play.

The final authority on ambigu­
ity, by the way, is William E m p ­
son, the British literary critic who
wrote, in 1930, Seven Types of Am­
biguity, still beloved of English
professors and comp-lit grad stu­
dents, where he defined "ambigu­
ity" as "any verbal nuance, however
slight, which gives room for alter­
native reactions to the same piece
of language." T h e seven types, for
the record, range from seemingly
ned in a single word, to alternative meanings that
e of mind, to a statement that's so obviously loopy
ut to invent his own meaning.
bout all this, but all you have to worry about re­
etry, ambiguity can be a good thing (involving, in
elicacy, or compression of thought") or a bad one
nness of thought"). That, and not using "ambigu­
an is "ambivalent"—when you mean somebody is
hing, is of two minds about it: Language exhibits
ence.

mmmmm

T t ' s not just that we don't know much about Sha
A that what he wrote presents so many obstacle
complexities, the outmoded theatrical conventions
all been played by Richard Burton); it's that there'
meaningful relationship with him. Sorry, we can't
introductions; what the two of you do in the clinch

In the meantime, whether things ultimately wo
ought to know what the plays are all about. Like
them up into four categories. Also, we've asked H
scholar neighbor of ours, for some deep backgroun
gory, plus a once-over of the rest. Still don't know
business? Take a look at what some other literary
Shakespeare over the years.

As to who it is, precisely, that you're spending tim
the source of endless gossip. Skeptics have ascribe
plays to everyone from Francis Bacon and the seve
Arab sheik named Zubair.

LITERATURE 20I

kespeare the man; it's not just
es (the overwhelming textual
s, the fact that the heroes have
's so much riding on having a
do much more than make the
hes is your problem.
rk out for you or not, you still
e everyone else, we've divided
Henry Popkin, a Shakespeare-
nd on one play from each cate­
w what to make of the whole
y titans have had to say about

me with here, well, that's been
ed authorship of Shakespeare's
enteenth Earl of Oxford to an

202 AN I N C O M P L E T E

TH

Shakespeare's history plays—
from the end of the fourteenth
abeth, the woman who gave
King John, is set roughly two
contemporary analogue to wha
as they are with civil strife and
novel comes to mind, of cour
joyed, the way they came out
cused on certain rich, ingrow
Sopranos we really should be ta

Close-up: Henry IV, Part

Can honour set to a leg?
wound? No. Honour hat
word. What is in that w
He that died o' Wednesd
insensible then? Yea, to t
Why? Detraction will n
mere scutcheon—and so

A Scene from
Henry IV, Part I

thing to heart beyond simple
gland (at least not an England

E EDUCATION

HE HISTORIES

—there are ten of them—tell the story of England
century to the reign of Henry VIII, father of Eliz­
us the adjective "Elizabethan." (One, about Bad
centuries earlier than the rest.) It's hard to find a

at Shakespeare was doing in his histories, obsessed
d rebellion, with "order and degree." The historical
rse. But in terms of the popularity these plays en­

in installments, and the extent to which they fo­
wn, and acrimonious families, it's probably The
alking about.

tI

? No: Or an arm? No: Or take away the grief of a
th no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A
word honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it?
day. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. T i s
the dead. But will [it] not live with the living? No.
not suffer it. Therefore, I'll none of it. Honour is a
o ends my catechism.

Act 5, scene 1

A play that got away from its
author. While surely intended to
focus on Hal, the future Henry
V, as the embodiment of the per­
fect prince, a model of courage,
common sense, and fidelity to his
father, King Henry IV, it winds
up lingering most fondly over—
and etching most sharply—the
volatile young rebel Hotspur and
the Rabelaisian old reprobate
Falstaff. Granted, the former,
full of foolhardiness and childish
resentments, and the latter, with
his steadfast refusal to take any­
e self-preservation, could not have governed En­
d we could bear living in), but we'd rather share a

pot of ale (or a container of yogurt) with either t
blooded paragon.

The first half of the play enforces the contrasts
tween the conspiracy that Hotspur, his father, an
Percy family, who had helped Henry IV depose Ri
selves unfairly ignored—lead against the King, an
planned by Falstaff. Hal eventually scotches both
plan to rob the King's treasury at Gadshill and Ho
realm at Shrewsbury. The dual successes may mak
make him any more endearing.

The genius of the play lies in its integration of s
into a chronicle-play format and in its depiction o
fool, philosopher and con man, hypocrite and debu
a favorite of Elizabethan audiences that he was br
Part II and The Merry Wives of Windsor (and his d
of Henry V). Critics disagree on whether Falstaf
whether he really expects his lies to be believed, bu
tain not only that he is the most superbly rendered
speare, but that, in six centuries of English litera
Bath gets off anywhere near the same number of g

The Other Histories

Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III—Early Shakespear
England's sixty-three-year Wars of the Roses, bet
and that of York, and guaranteed to induce such
uninitiated as: What's the plot? Who's the hero? I
And how can you do that to Joan of Arc? The thre
problems created by a king who is weak and who
throne. Shakespeare would deal more neatly with
later, with Richard II, his study in weak character,
bious title.

Richard III—You may want to think of it as Hen
gray here: Richard is totally evil. He's also totally
the throne by slaughtering a clutch of its legitima

Iremember, the Players have often mentioned
ing, (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted
blotted a thousand.

LITERATURE 203

than with Shakespeare's cold­

by cutting back and forth be­
nd his uncle—the redoubtable
ichard II and now think them­
nd the highway robbery being

schemes, thwarting Falstaff's
otspur's plan to rob him of his
ke a man of Hal, but they don't

omething like realistic comedy
f Falstaff—equal parts wit and
unker. In fact, Falstaff was such
rought back in both Henry IV,
death reported at the beginning
ff is a coward or not, and on
ut the majority of them main­
d comic figure in all of Shake­
ature, only Chaucer's Wife of
good lines.

e, set against a background of
tween the House of Lancaster

objections on the part of the
Isn't there too much going on?
ee-part sequence examines the
has only a dubious title to his
h the same issues a few years
and Henry IV, his study in du­

nry VI, Part IV N o shades of
y entertaining, and ascends to
ate heirs. Eventually he's over-

d it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writ­
out a line. M y answer hath been, would he had

Ben Jonson

204 AN I N C O M P L E T E

thrown—by a prince not in th
dynastic claims are impeccable
whose granddaughter will turn
wooing of the Lady Anne an
early supporter. The most fam
horse!" and "Now is the winter
sun of York."

King John—He o f the M a g n
stead of a royal hero, a royal v
the Bastard Faulconbridge, s
here than poetry, it's often sa
temporary political issues as
heritance by primogeniture,
ones.

Richard II—Richard loves to
poetry on the subject, but he
advisors, and he is eventually
who'll take the throne as Henr
acter" in the English drama—
second, or mature, history cy
and Henry V. M o s t famous s
this little world, / This preci
God's sake, let us sit upon th
kings."

Henry IV, Part II—In which
Falstaff for the sake of higher d
sume not that I am the thing
though, and Falstaff (especiall
characters put together. Perhap
really shameless opportunist in

Henry V—Prince Hal, now a h
dies get the worst of it again,

ohakespear, (whom you and e
Style the divine, the matchless
For gain, not glory, wing'd his
And grew immortal in his own

E EDUCATION

he least evil and much less entertaining, but whose
e, whose marriage ends the Wars of the Roses, and
n out to be Elizabeth I. The best scenes: Richard's
nd the downfall of the Duke of Buckingham, his
mous lines: "A horse! a horse! M y kingdom for a
r of our discontent / Made glorious summer by the

na Carta, which means another history with, in­
villain. But not without a hero altogether: That's
son of Richard the Lion-Hearted. More rhetoric
aid, specifically much noodling about such con­
the rights and duties of kings, the wisdom of in­

and the relation of secular rulers to spiritual

play at being king and gets off some rather good
is the victim of indecision, effeminacy, and bad
y overthrown by the hard, efficient Bolingbroke,
ry IV. The first really developed "tragedy of char­
—and the first of the four parts of Shakespeare's
cle, to be followed by the two halves of Henry IV
speech, hands down: "This happy breed of men,
ious stone set in the silver sea." Runnerup: "For
he ground, / And tell sad stories of the death of

Prince Hal is required to reject the irrepressible
duty: "Reply not to me with a fool-born jest: / Pre­
g I was." Comedy looms larger here than history,
ly with Hotspur gone) larger than any other three
ps to make Hal look better, the play also gives us a
n the person of his brother John.

hero-king, conquers France. His old drinking bud­
being unfavorably contrasted with a cross-section

ev'ry Play-house bill
s, what you will)
roving flight,
n despight.

Alexander Pope

of doughty British soldiers (reminiscent of the bo
War II, with Wales and Scotland correspondin
Chicago). The two most famous lines: "Once more
once more," and "We few, we happy few, we band

Henry VIII—This play, Shakespeare's last, has ha
didn't write it alone, the portrait of the King is b
burned down when wadding from onstage cannon
duction. Still, the characters of Catherine of Arag
managed to catch the occasional fancy of actors an

THE COMEDI

It helps to keep in mind that, during the Renaissa
a barrel of laughs to be called a comedy; any dram
generally optimistic point of view fulfilled the req
volved around a temporarily troubled love affair, y
genre that, from about 1595 to 1600, was Shake
peak with his three so called joyous comedies, Mu
Like It, and Twelfth Night, all of which satisfied t
capist entertainment. After 1600, with a more so
gland and theater audiences becoming both m
cynical, the tone of the plays changed; the three "p
Cressida, All's Well That Ends Well, and especial
seem like comedies at all, except for those inevita
happy endings.

Close-up: Twelfth Night

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laug

What's to come is still unsure
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come and kiss me, sweet a

Youth's a stuff will not endure

Ac

Illyria is a center of self-indulgence, a morass of
tion of life—or the overeager embracing of it, some
duke, Orsino, wastes most of his energy being l
spurned him. She, having renounced life to mour

LITERATURE

omber-crew movies of World
ng roughly to Brooklyn and
e unto the breach, dear friends,

of brothers."

ad its problems: Shakespeare
blurry, and the Globe Theatre
charges ignited during its pro­
gon and Cardinal Wolsey have
nd/or audience.

IES

ance, a play did not have to be
ma with a happy ending and a
uirements. If the plot also re­
you had romantic comedy, the
espeare's forte and that hit its
uch Ado About Nothing, As You
their audiences' desire for es­
omber mood reigning in E n ­
more sophisticated and more
roblem" comedies, Troilus and
lly Measure for Measure, hardly
able—and barely believable—

ghter;
e:

and twenty,
e.
t 2, scene 3

f misplaced love and the rejec­
etimes by the same person. Its
ovesick over Olivia, who has
rn her dead brother, switches

2o6 AN I N C O M P L E T E

Twelfth Night

over to another losing proposit
drag. Malvolio, obsessed by se
about him as he is about himse

That most of the major cha
making fools of themselves is
closest thing Shakespeare ever
breaking into a pavane or one
(like the one above), and nearl
day, like they did in old Fred
Night was named for a holiday

Viola, of course, is taking a
man. But although Malvolio a
of this play's comic effect de
comes from the human failing
minor ones—that really make
Shakespeare's most lovable her
character everyone remembers
abethan drama and partly beca
characters was immensely satis
pathy from modern ones.

iSnakespeare approximates the remote, and fam
represents will not happen, but if it were possibl
assigned; and it may be said, that he has not on
gencies, but as it would be found in trials, to wh

EDUCATION

tion, a fixation on Cesario, who is really Viola in
elf-love, is soon convinced that Olivia is as crazy
elf.
racters spend most of the play mooning about or
s not surprising, given that Twelfth Night is the
r wrote to a musical comedy—someone is forever
e of those apparently tuneless Elizabethan ditties
ly everyone in the play seems to be taking a holi­
Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies. In fact, Twelfth
y, the twelfth night of Christmas.
holiday from her true identity by dressing up as a
and Sebastian also disguise themselves, very little
pends on mistaken identity. Instead, its humor
gs of its characters. It is the characters—even the
e Twelfth Night. T h e sensible Viola is probably
roine, and the conceited, priggish Malvolio is the

best, partly because narcissists were rare in Eliz­
ause the rather cruel way he's treated by the other
sfying to Elizabethan audiences and wrings sym­

miliarises the wonderful; the event which he
le, its effects would probably be such as he has
nly shown human nature as it acts in real exi­
hich it cannot be exposed.

Samuel Johnson