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Evelyn Waugh understands that if a writer is to develop, he “must concern himself more and more with Style.” By approaching words with the attention and craft of a tailor, the literary artist not only communicates but also gives pleasure to others.
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“What do you think you’re doing?”
It’s a question I occasionally get from friends or often frenemies who are upset when they read some essay of mine that they don’t like. Sometimes the question means that the writer does not like what I’m saying but cannot actually muster an argument against it. Sometimes it seems to mean that the writer not only does not like it and cannot argue against it but also is very annoyed that I have written it well and entertainingly. The rule seems to be thus: If I am going to write against the narrative my inquisitor has swallowed, I should write badly and in a more-sorrowful-than-happily-confident tone.
When it seems that these are indeed the meanings behind such questions, the questions make me very happy. I am happy because I sometimes ask myself what exactly I am doing when I am writing. When I do, I tend to re-read Evelyn Waugh’s 1955 essay, “Literary Style in England and America,” which can be found in Donat Gallagher’s wonderful 1983 collection, The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh.
Waugh’s essay is filled with the kind of Waughian judgments that delight the reader at every turn whether one agrees with them or not. The reason is that a Waugh essay is always possessed of what Waugh says “distinguishes literature from trash”: style. Waugh does not use types of composition, reasons for writing, or subject matter to determine whether something is literature or not, for literature is simply “the right use of language.” “A political speech may be, and sometimes is, literature; a sonnet to the moon may be, and often is, trash.” Look at Waugh’s perfectly balanced two-part sentence separated by a semicolon. The first part with the “sometimes” applied to political speech shows just the right kind of optimism for politicians and sets up the “often” applied to poets who, Waugh tells us, have largely destroyed their claim to poetry by eliminating meter.
Continued below.
Evelyn Waugh on Style & Substance in Writing ~ The Imaginative Conservative
https://i1.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Evelyn-Waugh.jpg?ssl=1
“What do you think you’re doing?”
It’s a question I occasionally get from friends or often frenemies who are upset when they read some essay of mine that they don’t like. Sometimes the question means that the writer does not like what I’m saying but cannot actually muster an argument against it. Sometimes it seems to mean that the writer not only does not like it and cannot argue against it but also is very annoyed that I have written it well and entertainingly. The rule seems to be thus: If I am going to write against the narrative my inquisitor has swallowed, I should write badly and in a more-sorrowful-than-happily-confident tone.
When it seems that these are indeed the meanings behind such questions, the questions make me very happy. I am happy because I sometimes ask myself what exactly I am doing when I am writing. When I do, I tend to re-read Evelyn Waugh’s 1955 essay, “Literary Style in England and America,” which can be found in Donat Gallagher’s wonderful 1983 collection, The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh.
Waugh’s essay is filled with the kind of Waughian judgments that delight the reader at every turn whether one agrees with them or not. The reason is that a Waugh essay is always possessed of what Waugh says “distinguishes literature from trash”: style. Waugh does not use types of composition, reasons for writing, or subject matter to determine whether something is literature or not, for literature is simply “the right use of language.” “A political speech may be, and sometimes is, literature; a sonnet to the moon may be, and often is, trash.” Look at Waugh’s perfectly balanced two-part sentence separated by a semicolon. The first part with the “sometimes” applied to political speech shows just the right kind of optimism for politicians and sets up the “often” applied to poets who, Waugh tells us, have largely destroyed their claim to poetry by eliminating meter.
Continued below.
Evelyn Waugh on Style & Substance in Writing ~ The Imaginative Conservative
