Narration

by Gertrude Stein

  To come back again to what prose was and what poetry was and what it is if it is going to be prose and poetry again. Perhaps it is not going to be prose and poetry again. Nothing really changes everything is as it was but perhaps it is not going to be prose and poetry again perhaps it is not poetry and prose now in spite of anything and everything being always having been what it was.

  So to begin again about what prose and poetry has been.

  Prose has been a thing made of sentences and paragraphs, the sentences saying a thing and then one after the other the sentences making a paragraph the thing by reason of it succeeding one sentence succeeding another one come finally to giving a beginning and ending and a middle to anything in other words having it that a paragraph has come to give a thing the emotion that anything having a beginning and a middle and an ending can give to anything. Think of narrative from this thing, a narrative can give emotion because an emotion is dependent upon succession upon a thing having a beginning and a middle and an ending. That is why every one used to like sequels and some still do anybody still may but actually in modern writing sequels have no meaning do you begin to see now why I say that sentences and paragraphs need not necessarily go on existing. Do you begin to see what I mean by saying this thing.

  So then prose has been for a long time has been made of sentences and paragraphs, sentences which within themselves carry no emotion because a thing balanced within itself does not give out nor have within any emotion but sentences existing within themselves by the balance that holds them when they are in succession one after the other and make a paragraph have the emotion that any succession can give to anything. A sentence has not really any beginning or middle or ending because each part is its part as its part and so the whole exists within by the balance within but the paragraph exists not by a balance within but by a succession. Anybody really anybody can realize this thing and realizing this thing can realize that narrative up to the present time has been not a succession of paragraphing but a continuing of paragraphing, a quite entirely different thing.

  Let me explain again.

  A sentence is inside itself by its internal balancing, think how a sentence is made by its parts of speech and you will see that it is not dependent upon a beginning a middle and an ending but by each part needing its own place to make its own balancing, and because of this in a sentence there is no emotion, a sentence does not give off emotion. But one sentence coming after another sentence makes a succession and the succession if it has a beginning a middle and an ending as a paragraph has does form create and limit an emotion.

  So now we really do know what sentences and paragraphs are and they have to do everything in narrative writing the way narrative has been written. Because as narrative has mostly been written it is dependent upon things succeeding upon a thing having a beginning and a middle and an ending.

  Now these are two things do not forget that they are not one thing. Succeeding one thing succeeding another thing is succeeding and having a beginning a middle and an ending is entirely another thing.

  When I first began writing really just began writing, I was tremendously impressed by anything by everything having a beginning a middle and an ending. I think one naturally is impressed by anything having a beginning a middle and an ending when one is beginning writing and that is a natural thing because when one is emerging from adolescence, which is really when one first begins writing one feels that one would not have been one emerging from adolescence if there had not been a beginning and a middle and an ending to anything. So paragraphing is a thing then anyone is enjoying and sentences are less fascinating, but then gradually well if you are an American gradually you find that really it is not necessary not really necessary that anything that everything has a beginning and a middle and an ending and so you struggling with anything as anything has begun and begun and began does not really mean that thing does not really mean beginning or begun.

  I found myself at this time quite naturally using the present participle, in The Making of Americans I could not free myself from the present participle because dimly I felt that I had to know what I knew and I knew that the beginning and middle and ending was not where I began.

  So then that was the way prose was written and that was narrative writing as I say practically with everything the average English reading person was reading or writing with the exception of the Old Testament yes with the exception of the Old Testament which was not English writing, it was the writing of another kind of living, it was the writing whose beginning and middle and ending was really not existing was a writing where events in succession were not existing, where events one succeeding another event was not at all exciting no not at all exciting.

  So now we know how narrative prose was and is written and now let us begin to think about how poetry was written and had that too any sense of succession of one thing succeeding another thing as the thing really producing emotion really holding the attention.

  Yes I must have you have to hold it as I have to have you have it that gradually as English literature came more and more to be written it came always more and more to have it that it needed to have emotion in it the emotion that only could come from everything having something that came before and after that thing. In the earlier poetry in English writing it was there of course it was always there but they could feel something without feeling that thing that anything could only be anything if it was succeeding some other thing, and finally then English writing was entirely that thing, in its poetry as well as in its narrative writing that one thing came after another thing and that not anything existing aroused anyone to feeling but that a thing having beginning and middle and ending made every one have the emotion they had about anything. Did this make poetry as well as prose then. Yes it did.

  The fact that anything was existing was moving around by itself in any way it wanted to move did not arouse any emotion it was only anything succeeding any other thing anything having middle and beginning and ending could and did and would arouse emotion.

  A great deal perhaps all of my writing of The Making of Americans was an effort to escape from this thing to escape from inevitably feeling that anything that everything had meaning as beginning and middle and ending.

  And it was right and quite a natural thing that the book I wrote in which I was escaping from the inevitable narrative of anything of everything succeeding something of needing to be succeeding that is following anything of anything of everything consisting that is the emotional and the actual value of anything counting in anything having beginning and middle and ending it was natural that the book I wrote in which I was escaping from all this inevitably in narrative writing I should have called The Making of Americans. I did not call it this for that reason but I called it this and this is what is happening, American writing has been an escaping not an escaping but an existing without the necessary feeling of one thing succeeding another thing of anything having a beginning and a middle and an ending.

  And now all this has everything to do with poetry and prose and whether now whether there really is now any such thing.

  Poetry and prose. I came to the conclusion that poetry was a calling an intensive calling upon the name of anything and that prose was not the using the name of anything as a thing in itself but the creating of sentences that were self-existing and following one after the other made of anything a continuous thing which is paragraphing and so a narrative that is a narrative of anything. That is what a narrative is of course one thing following any other thing.

  If poetry is the calling upon a name until that name comes to be anything if one goes on calling on that name more and more calling upon that name as poetry does then poetry does make of that calling upon a name a narrative it is a narrative of calling upon that name. That is what poetry has been and as it has been that thing as it has been a calling upon a name instead of a succession of internal balancing as prose has been then naturally at the time all the time the long time after the Elizabethans po
etry and prose has not been the same thing no not been at all the same thing. Before the end of the Elizabethans and then in the eighteenth century when the inner balancing of sentences really invaded poetry and poetry was less the calling upon a name of anything than it was an inner balancing of anything, Pope is an excellent example it is hard telling really about the eighteenth century whether there is any really any internal feeling that makes poetry poetry and a different thing from prose.

  But during the nineteenth century there was no doubt no doubt about it. Prose was the sentence and paragraphing and the use not of nouns but of parts of speech that made their use that use and poetry was the calling upon names the really calling upon names. There has always been this real difference between prose and poetry, that prose is dependent upon the sentence and then upon the paragraph and poetry upon the calling upon names. There have been some centuries never forget that a century is always more or less about one hundred years, but always there has been this difference and now well now is there this difference is there this difference and if not why not.

  Very well then.

  It is certain that there has been this thing prose and poetry and narrative which is Toughly a telling of anything where anything happens after any other thing.

  In the beginning there really was no difference between poetry and prose in the beginning of writing in the beginning of talking in the beginning of hearing anything or about anything. How could there be how could there have been since the name of anything was then as important as anything as anything that could be said about anything. Once more I tell you that the Old Testament did this thing there was not really any difference between prose and poetry then, they told what they were and they felt what they saw and they knew how they knew and everything they had to say came as it had to come to do what it had to do.

  Really can you say that there was any difference between prose and poetry then. No not at all. Not then.

  And then slowly they came to know that what they knew might mean something different from what they had known it was when they knew simply knew what it was. And so they began telling about it then how one thing meant something then and how something else meant something else then and in poetry they tried to say what they knew as they knew it and then more and more then they simply tried to name it and that made poetry then, anything made poetry then and they told anything and as they told anything they felt it as a telling of anything and so it meant more and more that they called it by its name as they knew it and that more and more made poetry then.

  At the same time as I say they began to feel what they said when they said anything when they knew anything and this made them then think about how they said anything how they knew anything and in telling this thing telling how they knew anything how they said anything prose began, and so then there was prose and poetry. Before that there had been only one thing, the one thing anyone knew as they knew anything.

  Prose and poetry then went on and more and more as it went on prose was more and more telling and by sentences balancing and then by paragraphing prose was more and more telling how anything happened if any one had anything to say about what happened how anything was known if anyone had anything to say about how anything was known, and poetry poetry tried to remain with knowing anything and knowing its name, gradually it came to really not knowing but really only knowing its name and that is at last what poetry became.

  And now.

  Well and now, now that we have been realizing that anything having a beginning and middle and ending is not what is making anything anything, and now that everything is so completely moving the name of anything is not really anything to interest anyone about anything, now it is coming that once again nobody can be certain that narrative is existing that poetry and prose have different meanings.

  Let’s make our flour meal and meat in Georgia.

  Well believe it or not it is very difficult to know whether that is prose or poetry and does it really make any difference if you do or do not know. This.

  And so things moving perhaps perhaps moving in any direction, names being not existing because anybody can know what any body else is talking about without any name being mentioning, without any belief in any name being existing, I have just been trying to write the history of some one if his name had not been the name he had and I have called it Four In America and it is very interesting. You can slowly change anyone by their name changing to any other name, and so slowly just knowing the name of anything and so making anyone remember about such a thing the thing whose name its name anybody has happened to be mentioning cannot really very much interest anyone, not really very much, and so perhaps narrative and poetry and prose have all come where they do not have to be considered as being there. Perhaps not I very much really very much think perhaps not, and that may make one thing or anything or everything say itself in a different way yes in a different way, who shall say, and all this now and always later we will come to say, perhaps yes, perhaps no, no and yes are still nice words, yes I guess I still will believe that I will.

  You will perhaps say no and yes perhaps yes.

  LECTURE 3

  NARRATIVE concerns itself with what is happening all the time, history concerns itself with what happens from time to time. And that is perhaps what is the matter with history and that is what is perhaps the matter with narrative.

  I am now going to talk not about the successes in narrative and history but the way they who write narrative and history do not do what they say they will do when they start out to do what they are about to do.

  Let us think of newspapers, of novels, of detective stories of biographies of autobiographies of histories and of conversations. Let us think about them. I do not say let us know about them because it is hard to know what you do know about a thing that does not do what it does do.

  And so what does the newspaper do and what does it not do.

  But before we begin with anything that does or does not do what it is to do what it says it would if it could do that thing let us think again of narrating anything of beginning anything of ending anything.

  It does happen it is bound to happen that the way of telling anything can come not to mean anything to the one telling that thing. When that does happen that the way of telling anything has come not to mean anything to the one telling that thing perhaps then one does go on telling the thing in the way that telling that thing does not mean that thing to the one telling that thing or one stops telling anything or one starts telling that thing in some other way that mayor may not come to mean anything.

  The choice of one of these three things is of course a perfectly natural thing although it is usually called experimenting because it is really not experimenting, experimenting is trying to do some thing in a way that may produce a result which is a desired result by the person doing it but telling something is not an experiment it is a thing that has to be done since anyone since every one inevitably has to tell something and has to tell something in the way that makes it feel that that something is what that thing is.

  That is what narrative is and always at a time no one can go on telling anything in the way he has been telling that thing because no one is listening and even if that does not make any difference to him then he himself is not listening and perhaps eventually that does that can that will that may make a difference to him. Anything may make a difference to anyone but that certainly can or may make a difference all the difference any of the difference to him.

  Think about how anyone is no longer listening when some one is telling something and you will know all about this thing.

  Narrative is what anybody has to say in any way about anything that can happen has happened will happen in any way.

  That is what narrative is and so of course there always is narrative and anybody can stop listening to any way of telling anything. This undoubtedly can and does happen, even if it is exciting enough or has been. Anybody can stop listening to any telling of anything.

  And
this brings us to everything how anything is told will be told or has been.

  There we are.

  What do you tell and how do you tell it.

  If you tell it very well how do you tell it and if you do not tell it very well if you do not tell it well at all how do you tell it.

  This anybody knows since everybody is everybody and everybody is always one or many of them to always tell it.

  There are many ways that anybody has that is anybody who is everybody and everybody and anybody is anybody and everybody there are many ways that they have to tell what they tell and to have anybody or themselves or everybody or not themselves or any combination of themselves or any combination of anybody or everybody to listen to it, listen while they tell it.

  This makes narrative and at any time there is a great deal of it anybody can say at any time that there is not enough or just enough or too much of it. Anyway anybody everybody can say anything about narrative their own or anybody else’s narrative but one thing is certain and sure that anybody telling everything even if it is nothing that they are telling or is either telling what they want to tell what they have to tell what they like to tell or what they will tell they tell a narrative.