The Style vs Substance Problem in Literature

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

1. As to paragraph one, nothing you said answered my question or showed how literary substance can exist without style

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style is secondary
the importance is to have substance first which we have naturally we are substance the matter of life and reason not the edge
to make a statement is to introduce style so substance shines or makes an impression
literary substance exist without style when we converse for example
we go with our feelings because we want to be approved or we wish convention comvcition
culture is substance
it needs not a style it just needs confidence and clarity tone of voice body language and so on
call it metaphysical
that is the answer.

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2. As to paragraph two, nothing you said answered my question or showed how literary substance can exist independent of language.

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literary substance without language?
language engages a substance to turn literate
one writes and reads in order to understand because one needs to see and hear in order to perfect improvement
substance without language exists when it is not expressed it is in our body language
frustration
anger
mood swings
misbehaviour
are as a result of not expressing substance we become absent
memory is affected
so it does not really exist it more harbours

I still look forward to your answering those questions if you ever feel you can do so.[/QUOTE]

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

Plato, Derrida, Kierkegaard, Woolf, and Nietzsche were all didactic. Their different styles intermingled with their substances were all fantastic.

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ah yeah but the were definitely on something.

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Originally Posted by cacian

style is secondary
the importance is to have substance first which we have naturally we are substance the matter of life and reason not the edge
to make a statement is to introduce style so substance shines or makes an impression
literary substance exist without style when we converse for example
we go with our feelings because we want to be approved or we wish convention comvcition
culture is substance
it needs not a style it just needs confidence and clarity tone of voice body language and so on
call it metaphysical
that is the answer.

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No, that is not the answer. It was some very interesting wordplay, but none of it showed showed how literary substance can exist without style. If you want to do so, you need to choose some actual texts and show how they separate style and substance. Since it can't be done, if you actually do so, you will probably earn a chair in most English departments.

As to your second paragraph, which I couldn't quote, it was also interesting wordplay, but it didn't show in any way how literary substance can exist independent of language. Until you show how it can actually do so, the fact remains that it can't.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

P.s. for a quick example of imagery in poems, here's one from the Imagist master, Ezra Pound:

In A Station Of The Metro:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.


There is no escaping the reality and importance of the images in that poem.

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How many petals are on the bough? If those words were an image, I would know that. How many faces? Is the crowd on the right or on the left hand side of the image or does the crowd completely cover the image? Are the number of people in the crowd clearly countable or too fuzzy to count? If countable, does your count of the number of people agree with my count of the number of people in the image? Since this is about a metro, where is the train in the image? Is the train above the people or on the right or the left side of the image? Is there a station sign in the image showing us that this really is a metro? Is it on the right side or on the left side or maybe in the center of the image?

If those words represented an image, I would know that information along with a lot of other details.

My conclusion: those words do not constitute an image. They do mean something. They do have a sound. That is all they offer, which is quite a lot.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

My conclusion: those words do not constitute an image. They do mean something. They do have a sound. That is all they offer, which is quite a lot.

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Your conclusion is both unsupported and, respectfully, wrong. You can falsely deny "wet, black, boughs," "faces in the crownd" and a metro station are images all you like. They all are still images. Wet, black, boughs; faces in the crowd; and metro stations are all physical things evoking imagery when referenced. Until you can show otherwise, they are all still images in the poem.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

How many petals are on the bough? If those words were an image, I would know that. How many faces? Is the crowd on the right or on the left hand side of the image or does the crowd completely cover the image? Are the number of people in the crowd clearly countable or too fuzzy to count? If countable, does your count of the number of people agree with my count of the number of people in the image? Since this is about a metro, where is the train in the image? Is the train above the people or on the right or the left side of the image? Is there a station sign in the image showing us that this really is a metro? Is it on the right side or on the left side or maybe in the center of the image?

If those words represented an image, I would know that information along with a lot of other details.

My conclusion: those words do not constitute an image. They do mean something. They do have a sound. That is all they offer, which is quite a lot.

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I think that your understanding of what an image is might be a little limited. The poem might not exactly create a visual image of photographic precision, but do you really mean to suggest that it has no visual associations for you? I suppose that different people experience poetry differently, but personally, I found the work very evocative. The first line almost makes me think of an impressionist painting, with figures that don't have clearly defined features, but create the sense of a crowd of featureless people, with certain people growing clearer as the viewer's eye traverses the scene. And for me, the second line created the clear image of cherry blossom petals clinging to a branch after the rain. Perhaps you experienced the poem in a different way, but I feel that the imagery is definitely ingrained in the poem.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

No, that is not the answer. It was some very interesting wordplay, but none of it showed showed how literary substance can exist without style. If you want to do so, you need to choose some actual texts and show how they separate style and substance. Since it can't be done, if you actually do so, you will probably earn a chair in most English departments.

As to your second paragraph, which I couldn't quote, it was also interesting wordplay, but it didn't show in any way how literary substance can exist independent of language. Until you show how it can actually do so, the fact remains that it can't.

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there is this analogy related to metaphysic
body and mind relationship with the outside/environment and how they transform to inform or understand

lets consider a weather clock that indicates how and when the changes occur according to the hour/seasosn
for example
in a hour it will show there will be a storm
and would explain the shift of how nature moves from being sunny in an instant to becoming snowy the next
there is a study related to that.
the study of that would oen substance because the style has indicated a shift or a movement

the clock is the main substance

the style
would the handles that move from sunny to snowy
and shows how the temperature goes up and down and why

the evidence is the style
the substance is the carrier of this edidence
the clock
without it there would no style

without a style there is clock.
a style occurs when the changes occur and not because until then it is sedate

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Originally Posted by Bartlebooth

I think that your understanding of what an image is might be a little limited. The poem might not exactly create a visual image of photographic precision, but do you really mean to suggest that it has no visual associations for you? I suppose that different people experience poetry differently, but personally, I found the work very evocative. The first line almost makes me think of an impressionist painting, with figures that don't have clearly defined features, but create the sense of a crowd of featureless people, with certain people growing clearer as the viewer's eye traverses the scene. And for me, the second line created the clear image of cherry blossom petals clinging to a branch after the rain. Perhaps you experienced the poem in a different way, but I feel that the imagery is definitely ingrained in the poem.

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What I am trying to do is point out something obvious. A poem, or language in general, is neither a set of images nor is it music without lyrics. Those are at best metaphors of what language is and I think they are bad metaphors. Language is sound that communicates meaning.

Why are they bad metaphors? Because they devalue the role that meaning has in language and attempt to see language as only style without substance.

That brings us back to the OP where the question is whether there is any difference between style and substance in language. If one is thinking that style and substance (think "meaning") are the same thing, then one could make comparisons between language and some image or piece of music without lyrics. I don't think that comparison is valid because it throws away the meaning of the words.

Consider this: we are expressing our views using language in this thread. We are using words that we mentally verbalize through sounds that intend something very specific. Suppose we wrote this thread using images or posted audio tracks of non-lyrical music. Would we be able to communicate with each other? I think it is obvious that we would not.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

Your conclusion is both unsupported and, respectfully, wrong. You can falsely deny "wet, black, boughs," "faces in the crownd" and a metro station are images all you like. They all are still images. Wet, black, boughs; faces in the crowd; and metro stations are all physical things evoking imagery when referenced. Until you can show otherwise, they are all still images in the poem.

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However you choose to understand the meaning of a word is something you as a reader do. You might see an image, hear some music or think of some idea. That is your personal experience. My experience may and probably will differ. The language that we are responding to has used style (sound) that we associate with a substance (sense) that allows us to understand. The language itself does not contain an image.

If one views style as sound and substance as sense or meaning then one can separate the two to see their difference. As speakers of English we don't experience this separation clearly, but if a paragraph of English we understand is translated into another language that we do not understand, that is, a language in which we cannot make the connection between sound and sense, then all we get from hearing the paragraph read is the style or sound. We might be tempted to think that the sound is not language until we realize that other people can make the association and understand.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

What I am trying to do is point out something obvious. A poem, or language in general, is neither a set of images nor is it music without lyrics. Those are at best metaphors of what language is and I think they are bad metaphors. Language is sound that communicates meaning.

Why are they bad metaphors? Because they devalue the role that meaning has in language and attempt to see language as only style without substance.

That brings us back to the OP where the question is whether there is any difference between style and substance in language. If one is thinking that style and substance (think "meaning") are the same thing, then one could make comparisons between language and some image or piece of music without lyrics. I don't think that comparison is valid because it throws away the meaning of the words.

Consider this: we are expressing our views using language in this thread. We are using words that we mentally verbalize through sounds that intend something very specific. Suppose we wrote this thread using images or posted audio tracks of non-lyrical music. Would we be able to communicate with each other? I think it is obvious that we would not.

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I'm definitely in agreement with the idea that poems are more than just images. When I tried to explain how I reacted to the poem, I wasn't really trying to suggest that those impressions were the only important aspects of the poem. But I'm a bit confused by why you emphasize the aural aspect of language. It's true that a major part of language is speaking and the sounds it produces, but I think that some aspects of language on the page might be important as well. While visual appearance isn't always integral, some writers are concerned with the visual patterns that words on a page create. For example, if you were listening to a free verse poem, it might not always be clear how the lines of the poem are divided. And concrete poems absolutely rely on how words are aligned. The same way we can't reduce language only to visual images or music, we shouldn't reduce it only to the spoken word.

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Originally Posted by cacian

there is this analogy related to metaphysic....
a style occurs when the changes occur and not because until then it is sedate

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That, again, was some more interesting wordplay. Again, none of it showed how literary substance can exist without style or how literary substance can exist independent of language. As I said before, if you want to do so, you need to actually show some texts that do. You should also really use some syllogistic logic expressed through clear prosaic language.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

However you choose to understand the meaning of a word is something you as a reader do. You might see an image, hear some music or think of some idea. That is your personal experience. My experience may and probably will differ. The language that we are responding to has used style (sound) that we associate with a substance (sense) that allows us to understand. The language itself does not contain an image.

If one views style as sound and substance as sense or meaning then one can separate the two to see their difference. As speakers of English we don't experience this separation clearly, but if a paragraph of English we understand is translated into another language that we do not understand, that is, a language in which we cannot make the connection between sound and sense, then all we get from hearing the paragraph read is the style or sound. We might be tempted to think that the sound is not language until we realize that other people can make the association and understand.

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1. Firstly, the language itself does contain images. When the language contains a word, and/or a group of words, referencing physical objects or phemonena evoking images of them, it contains images. And readers don't have the conscious ability to control their cognitive reactions to words. For most, if not all, readers, the word "cat" will evoke an image of a cat or images of cats. So, again, language does contain images.

2. Your supposition about "viewing style as sound and substance as sense or meaning" assumes that supposition is correct; it's not . Style is much more than sound. Do you really think a writer's style is reduced to the sound of the words he or she chooses. Style exists in syntax, imagery, artistic mingling of words, and terseness in and/elaborateness of expression....it certainly doesn't just exist in sound. And substance is much more than just meaning. If you don't think there is substance in the style of brilliant writers like Dickinson, Faulkner, McCarthy, Proust, and Shakespeare, you need to read them again. There is as much substantive value in the way they wrote their literature as in the content of it.

Finally, we get much more out of translated literature than "style or sound." Translated texts by Dostoevsky for example bring profound existential examinations of man's nature. Translated texts of Proust bring meditations on memory un-matched by any writer in English. So, you may only be getting style or sound from translated texts; but you're incorrect in saying that's all that's there.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

What I am trying to do is point out something obvious. A poem, or language in general, is neither a set of images nor is it music without lyrics. Those are at best metaphors of what language is and I think they are bad metaphors. Language is sound that communicates meaning.

Why are they bad metaphors? Because they devalue the role that meaning has in language and attempt to see language as only style without substance.

That brings us back to the OP where the question is whether there is any difference between style and substance in language. If one is thinking that style and substance (think "meaning") are the same thing, then one could make comparisons between language and some image or piece of music without lyrics. I don't think that comparison is valid because it throws away the meaning of the words.

Consider this: we are expressing our views using language in this thread. We are using words that we mentally verbalize through sounds that intend something very specific. Suppose we wrote this thread using images or posted audio tracks of non-lyrical music. Would we be able to communicate with each other? I think it is obvious that we would not.

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1. Firstly, what you said isn't obvious at at all; in fact, it's incorrect. You can't just make an unsupported statement and claim it's "obvious;" it shows you are unable to support that statement. A poem is, partially, a set of images--and many more things--and I showed how in my post above. That is not a metaphor in any way; it is a statement of fact. And you can keep claiming "language is sound without meaning" all you want. It doesn't make it true, and it's not. You give no textual evidence or syllogistic logic to back that claim up, and nothing in consensual linguistics or literary study backs it up either.

2. Also, your claim about "bad metaphors" is an unsupported supposition unsuccessfully supported by another unsupported supposition. You do not prove or show in any way how Pound's images "devalue the role that meaning has in language and attempt to see language as only style without substance." If you want to actually do so, you need to actually address the images in Pound's poem and show how they do what you claim. You also have to prove your view of the "role that meaning has in language" is correct. You have yet to do so.

3. I never, and I believe nobody, asserted style and substance are the same thing. I correctly asserted they can never be fully separated, and I correctly supported that in my previous posts.

4. Finally, we have expressed our views through many aspects of language on this thread...including images. You just mistakenly, and without support claim we only verbalize sounds. Secondly, nobody claimed language and/or literature only expresses itself in images. So, your hypothetical is a red herring; however, at least you admit language does contain images. And try to stop saying things are "obvious," particularly when they are not. It looks silly when your claim is shown not to be obvious....and if you "think" something is obvious, it clearly is not.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

That, again, was some more interesting wordplay. Again, none of it showed how literary substance can exist without style or how literary substance can exist independent of language. As I said before, if you want to do so, you need to actually show some texts that do. You should also really use some syllogistic logic expressed through clear prosaic language.

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can i ask something
who says literary substance can exist without style?
how do we know for sure it does?

As you can see from my post you quoted, and my other posts, I stated clearly literary substance can't exist without syle.

You, however, have made statements suggesting the contrary:

"style is a luxury
we come around it because we feel substance has lost track of us"

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

As you can see from my post you quoted, and my other posts, I stated clearly literary substance can't exist without syle.

You, however, have made statements suggesting the contrary:

"style is a luxury
we come around it because we feel substance has lost track of us"

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Pike Bishop
i side tracked i have forgotten about this bit.
ok now i have said that i need to explain why i said that...

well the way i wrote that is because i thought that style is comparable to fashion
one addresses a piece of material to transform into something wearable as well as unwearable
it is a design made to impress rather then wear
and that is because a stylist or a fashionista can do that
it is no longer about making a garment practical so it wearable it is about making a statement
i call it overbearing
if you watch the catwalk you will see designs one simply could not wear because it is too fiddly grandiose too big too small too weird it would look
stupid in everyday life

this example i compared to substance being no longer the reason why we write
it is more for the style to show we can
and substance must retain so style can make sense
the stream of consciousness is one style that is out of substance
it is not about saying it is about styling so one does not say much but wishes to impress through insignificance

therefore literary substance can be without style
for example everyday speech one does not composition more sound and effect
a style without substance
is a show without an utterance

substance indicates syndicates so the style does not get out of hand

Nothing you said above showed how literary substance can exist without style...and vice versa.

So, I say this as friendly advice. If you want to make a salient argument, don't try to do it in poetic form or poetic "prose." The style, content, and intent do not intermingle well, and they do not do so in your "arguments." Even the best rhetorical poets--e.g. Stevens, Eliot, and Wordsworth--knew their "arguments" would lose rhetorical clarity in their poetry. So, if you actually want to make your arguments, I suggest you do so in plain language. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time and effort, and failing to make your argument.

I think the main problem with Cacian's argument here is that she does not exactly know what literary style is, which might be due to her EFL background, and she is assuming it is similar to another meaning of the word; ie, having style or having taste... Hence she is making references to fashion and so on.

Of course, this is a common problem with Cacian engaging in any discussion; she does not do her research before jumping and relies on her own assumptions to waffle on and and on... Unfortunately, communicating in solely in verse is a more recent hobby of hers, which further aids to blur the lines of her already blurry arguments, wasting not only her own time as you Pike points out but also others who have an interest in the debate.

JCamilo- Picasso didn't paint that way because he couldn't do otherwise...

True. Picasso at age 14:

https://41.media.tumblr.com/97e4d5f3...adzdo1_500.jpg

...it was the only way possible for him to express the emotions he wanted to express. It was an world view...

An artist's "style" is something that evolves slowly over the course of years like one's signature. For a visual artist this style is the result of what subjects the artist is obsessed with, his or her favorite colors, preferences for certain ways of handling light, space, texture, line, etc... One doesn't simply decide one day, "I want to paint Impressionism or Cubism." I suspect the same is true of the writer. I know that my own writing style... even though I don't in any way consider myself a writer... is something that has evolved over time. Undoubtedly I can identify certain influences... but surely not all. My style is a result of what I have read, which authors I like the most, what form and expressive intent my writing takes, etc...

cacian- style is luxury

style is secondary

Cacian, you seem to assume a false dichotomy... a separation of "style" and "substance" (or "meaning"/"content"). Quite often this is how literature is taught at the grade-school level: you have the "meaning" and the form or style is thought of as simply an artful way of communicating this "meaning"... a bit of aesthetic perfume. I find this to be nonsense. The form taken by the poet... the language of poetry... is just as essential as the "meaning" or "substance". Form and meaning/substance are interwoven in constructing what we think of as content.

It has been pointed out before that reduced to their simplest "meaning" many of Shakespeare's sonnets convey nothing more profound than "When I think of you, I feel blue." If that was all the content of the sonnets, why bother? If all that form or style achieves is but an aesthetic perfume, why bother?

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

cacian- style is luxury

style is secondary

Cacian, you seem to assume a false dichotomy...a separation of "style" and "substance" (or "meaning"/"content").

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But is it not the same dichotomy as between cause and effect? There is no cause without effect, no effect without cause. Style is the vehicle by which the artist communicates his vision (substance) to the reader. The author uses style to create the effect, tell the story, communicate the emotions, which all add up to form the substance of the work. No style without substance, no substance without style, and yet they are not the same thing, or so it seems to me. That is why I'm finding this discussion confusing. I feel that the OP's question about the relative importance of style and substance is a legitimate one, which cannot be dismissed by saying they are just two ways of looking at the same aspect of the work.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

But is it not the same dichotomy as between cause and effect? There is no cause without effect, no effect without cause. Style is the vehicle by which the artist communicates his vision (substance) to the reader. The author uses style to create the effect, tell the story, communicate the emotions, which all add up to form the substance of the work. No style without substance, no substance without style, and yet they are not the same thing, or so it seems to me. That is why I'm finding this discussion confusing. I feel that the OP's question about the relative importance of style and substance is a legitimate one, which cannot be dismissed by saying they are just two ways of looking at the same aspect of the work.

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No, it is not the same dichotomy. Cause and effect are inherently separated because their relation is diachronous, as one inevitably follows the other. Style and substance are inherently tied together synchronically, as they always exist together simultaneously. And style isn't just the "vehicle by which the artist communicates his vision (substance) to the reader." It is part of his or her vision itself. If you don't think part of the reader's artistic vision lies in his or her style, you've been reading the wrong literature. Also, the style doesn't just "create the effect, tell the story, and communicate the emotions" It is part of the effect itself; it is part of the story; and it is part of the emotions communicated. Again, you are artificially separating style from substance and mistakenly arguing the former follows and serves the latter. It doesn't.

And I certainly never denied there are relative importances to substance and style; they just are never fully separated. I also never said they are "are just two ways of looking at the same aspect of the work. I have no idea where you got that from.

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Originally Posted by Bartlebooth

I'm definitely in agreement with the idea that poems are more than just images. When I tried to explain how I reacted to the poem, I wasn't really trying to suggest that those impressions were the only important aspects of the poem. But I'm a bit confused by why you emphasize the aural aspect of language. It's true that a major part of language is speaking and the sounds it produces, but I think that some aspects of language on the page might be important as well. While visual appearance isn't always integral, some writers are concerned with the visual patterns that words on a page create. For example, if you were listening to a free verse poem, it might not always be clear how the lines of the poem are divided. And concrete poems absolutely rely on how words are aligned. The same way we can't reduce language only to visual images or music, we shouldn't reduce it only to the spoken word.

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The reason I am emphasizing the aural part of communication is because words are generally what we use to communicate meaning and words are composed of sounds. We have other ways to communicate such as sign languages or body languages or art and music, but using words gives us a precise way to communicate when we are trying to get a point across such as how we are communicating in this thread.

I would consider poems that depend on visual patterns on a page to be art that contains words, just as music could have lyrics. The words contained in the art or music, however, represent sounds and that is what provides the meaning for the words.

I am not trying to argue with this that poetry should be metrical. What I am saying applies to free verse poetry as well as fiction. Words are based on sounds.

It is true that you might picture a house in your mind when you say the word "house", but that would be a personal way to understand the meaning of the word. I would picture a different house and right now when I say the word I don't imagine anything in particular. What is common to both of us when we read or hear "house" is not an image, but the original sound. Besides, the meaning that we need to understand is often far more complicated than just "house". It might be something like, "The Smiths lived happily in their house on Cedar Street." What is the image in that string of sounds? What image in your mind helps your mind construct that meaning? I can't think of any image that would work and yet we both understand what that sentence means.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

But is it not the same dichotomy as between cause and effect? There is no cause without effect, no effect without cause. Style is the vehicle by which the artist communicates his vision (substance) to the reader. The author uses style to create the effect, tell the story, communicate the emotions, which all add up to form the substance of the work. No style without substance, no substance without style, and yet they are not the same thing, or so it seems to me. That is why I'm finding this discussion confusing. I feel that the OP's question about the relative importance of style and substance is a legitimate one, which cannot be dismissed by saying they are just two ways of looking at the same aspect of the work.

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I don't have a good answer yet to this, but I am trying to figure it out as well. What you wrote made me ask the following question: What if the author is a computer using an algorithm to generate the words?

In this scenario, I can see there being style without substance. There would be sound without meaning since the computer cannot understand the words. (See John Searle's Chinese room argument for why the computer cannot understand the language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room). However, the human listener or reader could construct some substance from the words unless the words were in a language the reader did not understand.

YesNo,

Words do not just contain sounds, and words are not just based on sounds. As I said before, your continually and mistakenly saying so doesn't make it true. As I've shown in my previous posts, words also contain and refer to ideas, images, and concepts; and interact with other words of their texts to form more of the same. And it doesn't matter if the image evoked by words and/or literary words are personal; they still evoke images. The word 'house' does evoke the image of a house for anybody who has ever seen a house; it does not just evoke the sound. So, the word "house" is an image. That is both the reality of words and literature and the reality of cognitive science and neurology.

Finally, the fact an image doesn't convey all a reader needs to know about that image doesn't change the fact it is still an image. So, your anecdote about "The Smiths' doesn't support your point at all. It only rightly acknowledges "house" is an image but is not sufficient to convey all the needed information on its own. So, even you correctly, if inadvertently, acknowledge "house" is an image, and images do exist in literary language.


P.s. "The Smiths," the Smiths lived happily," and "house on Cedar Street" are all images. So, well done. They all evoke physical imagery in every reader who could visually conceive what the Smiths, the Smiths living happilY, and a house on Cedar Street might look like. So, thanks again for showing imagery is a part of literary---and most other--language.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I don't have a good answer yet to this, but I am trying to figure it out as well. What you wrote made me ask the following question: What if the author is a computer using an algorithm to generate the words?

In this scenario, I can see there being style without substance. There would be sound without meaning since the computer cannot understand the words. (See John Searle's Chinese room argument for why the computer cannot understand the language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room). However, the human listener or reader could construct some substance from the words unless the words were in a language the reader did not understand.

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Whether the computer could understand the words would have no bearing on the words it wrote. The words, if legible, would still contain style and substance, neither the style nor substance would precede each other, and the substance and style would remain inseparable. The fact a computer wrote those words wouldn't change that. However, if you would like to show how it would, I'd be intrigued to see you try to do so.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I don't have a good answer yet to this, but I am trying to figure it out as well. What you wrote made me ask the following question: What if the author is a computer using an algorithm to generate the words?


In this scenario, I can see there being style without substance.

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Or the artist a monkey playing with a paintbrush and paper, creating abstract 'art'. I would say they have both style and substance, but it is purely accidental and not intentional as with a human painter - well most human painters, though I sometimes wonder about the role of happy accidents in the production of a work of art. There must be some amount of the unintentional in every work of art, unless you are Gustave Flaubert constantly revising and rewriting with a perfectionist's obsessiveness.

Here are some examples of style without substance:

1) My viewing an opera in Italian. I don't understand Italian. All I get is the style, which is the sound of the words.

2) My reciting a Sanskrit mantra such as the Gayatri mantra. I have memorized it, but I don't know what it means. It is all style for me.

3) A computer generated response in a Turing test would be another example of style without substance from the perspective of the computer since the computer cannot go beyond style and understand the words.

4) Gibberish spoken by an infant, at least to the parent.

5) Gibberish spoken by someone with mental challenges, perhaps to both the speaker and listener.

6) Gibberish spoken by those being verbally abusive, intending not to communicate.

An example of substance without style would be an idea for a poem prior to its being written.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

Or the artist a monkey playing with a paintbrush and paper, creating abstract 'art'. I would say they have both style and substance, but it is purely accidental and not intentional as with a human painter - well most human painters, though I sometimes wonder about the role of happy accidents in the producing of a work of art. There must be some amount of the unintentional in every work of art, unless you are Gustave Flaubert constantly revising and rewriting with a perfectionist's obsessiveness.

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That might be another example. With the computer, because we know it is based on an algorithm, there can be no substance at least from the computer's point of view. Perhaps the monkey is intending to communicate something.

I hadn't considered the unintentional substance in art, but that opens up the idea that there is more to us than our individual conscious existences since we can be receptive to influence without being aware that we are.

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

I think the main problem with Cacian's argument here is that she does not exactly know what literary style is, which might be due to her EFL background, and she is assuming it is similar to another meaning of the word; ie, having style or having taste... Hence she is making references to fashion and so on.

Of course, this is a common problem with Cacian engaging in any discussion; she does not do her research before jumping and relies on her own assumptions to waffle on and and on... Unfortunately, communicating in solely in verse is a more recent hobby of hers, which further aids to blur the lines of her already blurry arguments, wasting not only her own time as you Pike points out but also others who have an interest in the debate.

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i put the argument forward because i understood. it
ii would not have said it otherwise.

i don't agree with everything you said here.
Pike has invited in this thread to join in the discussion and so I did.
i wont argue with it either.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

cacian- style is luxury

style is secondary

Cacian, you seem to assume a false dichotomy... a separation of "style" and "substance" (or "meaning"/"content"). Quite often this is how literature is taught at the grade-school level: you have the "meaning" and the form or style is thought of as simply an artful way of communicating this "meaning"... a bit of aesthetic perfume. I find this to be nonsense. The form taken by the poet... the language of poetry... is just as essential as the "meaning" or "substance". Form and meaning/substance are interwoven in constructing what we think of as content.

It has been pointed out before that reduced to their simplest "meaning" many of Shakespeare's sonnets convey nothing more profound than "When I think of you, I feel blue." If that was all the content of the sonnets, why bother? If all that form or style achieves is but an aesthetic perfume, why bother?

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false dichotomy?
that is what a dichotomy does separate two things and so i did just that i applied it in this case because it is allowed.
it is just another way of looking at content.
i imagine the word dichotomy comes from dictionary or diction.

an aesthetic perfume?
a perfume is sill a perfume and as you pointed out it has achieved something is it not that better then nothing?

take a dictionary for example

it takes words apart and give a meaning.
language is segregated under a form a dictionary with a list of words with full meanings.
and if every meaning of each words is put together under a form of a book sentence by sentence would it make sense?

or even consider
Jekyll and Hyde
one character one dichotomy
substance versus style

and so in all of this
do you agree that in order to find things you have to write them down?

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

That, again, was some more interesting wordplay. Again, none of it showed how literary substance can exist without style or how literary substance can exist independent of language. As I said before, if you want to do so, you need to actually show some texts that do. You should also really use some syllogistic logic expressed through clear prosaic language.

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let say this:
what is the format of a thought?
has it content/substance or style?
to think of something is content
a concept is without style

i have been reading up
Baltasar Gracian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltasar_Graci%C3%A1n
and stumbled on this

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The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Gracián's style, generically called conceptism, is characterized by ellipsis and the concentration of a maximum of significance in a minimum of form, an approach referred to in Spanish as agudeza (wit), and which is brought to its extreme in the Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (literally Manual Oracle and Art of Discretion, commonly translated as The Art of Worldly Wisdom), which is almost entirely composed of three hundred maxims with commentary. He constantly plays with words: each phrase becomes a puzzle, using the most diverse rhetorical devices.

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there is more to content then style
there is assumption
assuming something when reading one thing

.

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Originally Posted by cacian

let say this:
what is the format of a thought?
has it content/substance or style?
to think of something is content
a concept is without style

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No, all thought is molded by language and style. You don't use language just to communicate your thoughts, you use language to form these thoughts. As I am writing this, I am thinking in English, but when I'm in contact with the other natives, I think in Finnish, and when I'm alone in the woods, or in my apartment, I usually think in Finnish, but if there is a thought that somehow fits my English better, I might borrow words/concepts, and think of how I would translate it. There is no thought that is independent of style, language, and vocabulary.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Here are some examples of style without substance:

1) My viewing an opera in Italian. I don't understand Italian. All I get is the style, which is the sound of the words.

2) My reciting a Sanskrit mantra such as the Gayatri mantra. I have memorized it, but I don't know what it means. It is all style for me.

3) A computer generated response in a Turing test would be another example of style without substance from the perspective of the computer since the computer cannot go beyond style and understand the words.

4) Gibberish spoken by an infant, at least to the parent.

5) Gibberish spoken by someone with mental challenges, perhaps to both the speaker and listener.

6) Gibberish spoken by those being verbally abusive, intending not to communicate.

An example of substance without style would be an idea for a poem prior to its being written.

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You are seriously confunding substance with data, information. It's more than this. Just go to a heavy metal show in a country where english is not the idiom and you will see. The fans may not understand the lyrics but most of them will understand the violence, agression, etc of heavy metal based on the style. Plus, the examples are not good, you may not understand Opera, but that is your incapacity to access the content of the work, not that this content does not exist.

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Originally Posted by North Star

No, all thought is molded by language and style. You don't use language just to communicate your thoughts, you use language to form these thoughts. As I am writing this, I am thinking in English, but when I'm in contact with the other natives, I think in Finnish, and when I'm alone in the woods, or in my apartment, I usually think in Finnish, but if there is a thought that somehow fits my English better, I might borrow words/concepts, and think of how I would translate it. There is no thought that is independent of style, language, and vocabulary.

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do you consider a type of language to be a style?
for example french spanish.
i dont consider them style

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Originally Posted by cacian

do you consider a type of language to be a style?
for example french spanish.
i dont consider them style

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No, style is not just the language in which one expresses thought, it is the way one expresses the thought using that language. Style doesn't exist independent of a language. Translating Dante into English using the same terza rima isn't going to be easy.

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Originally Posted by North Star

No, style is not just the language in which one expresses thought, it is the way one expresses the thought using that language. Style doesn't exist independent of a language. Translating Dante into English using the same terza rima isn't going to be easy.

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but then Dante is not easy translated or not.
again
would it not be better for someone to read/learn a new language in order to read literature instead of resorting to translating it?
i believe in conservation of original work because once they are at the hands of others they lose their meaning
i think it does more damage then good long term it creates misunderstanding and dogma when it comes to studying it
i believe that people should entertain learning new languages to read literary material in their original format

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Here are some examples of style without substance:

1) My viewing an opera in Italian. I don't understand Italian. All I get is the style, which is the sound of the words.

2) My reciting a Sanskrit mantra such as the Gayatri mantra. I have memorized it, but I don't know what it means. It is all style for me.

3) A computer generated response in a Turing test would be another example of style without substance from the perspective of the computer since the computer cannot go beyond style and understand the words.

4) Gibberish spoken by an infant, at least to the parent.

5) Gibberish spoken by someone with mental challenges, perhaps to both the speaker and listener.

6) Gibberish spoken by those being verbally abusive, intending not to communicate.

An example of substance without style would be an idea for a poem prior to its being written.

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1. Whatever the perceiver of an art form receives does not dictate the style and/or substance of an art work. The style and substance are inherent elements of the art work itself. Using your logic, a blind person looking at a Van Gogh painting would erase its style as well...he or she wouldn't.

2. Again, your not knowing the meaning of a Gayatri mantra does not erase its meaning and/or substance at all. Your performance of it may have less meaning, but the meaning of the mantra stays the same.

3. Whether a computer or a human didn't understand the words of the literary or non-literary work would have no bearing on the still-existing substance of the work. Most, if not all, writers do not fully grasp the substance of their written work. That doesn't magically erase or affect that substance.

4-6--Actual gibberish has very little substance. However, like all written or oral expressions, the speaker of it has no impact on that substance.

7. One cannot form an idea for a poem without words, otherwise that "idea" is just subconscious, pre-conceptual pap, not an actual idea. So, an idea for a poem would always have style as well.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

You are seriously confunding substance with data, information. It's more than this. Just go to a heavy metal show in a country where english is not the idiom and you will see. The fans may not understand the lyrics but most of them will understand the violence, agression, etc of heavy metal based on the style. Plus, the examples are not good, you may not understand Opera, but that is your incapacity to access the content of the work, not that this content does not exist.

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There is plenty of enjoyment from attending an opera in a language one does not understand because there is more going on than the lyrics. The same would apply to the heavy metal band whose lyrics may not be understandable even to native speakers. My point is one does not get substance from the language, only style.

The same thing goes for the Gayatri mantra which can be beneficial as sound without knowing the meaning of the words.

The computer response in a Turing test when the response makes no sense to the human listeners would be an example of style without substance from the perspective of both the computer and the listeners. This is not just data, but an actual string of words.

Gibberish coming from various sources is probably a good example of style without substance. I am thinking of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake as one example of that.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

1. Whatever the perceiver of an art form receives does not dictate the style and/or substance of an art work. The style and substance are inherent elements of the art work itself. Using your logic, a blind person looking at a Van Gogh painting would erase its style as well...he or she wouldn't.

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From the perspective of the blind viewer there is nothing there.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

2. Again, your not knowing the meaning of a Gayatri mantra does not erase its meaning and/or substance at all. Your performance of it may have less meaning, but the meaning of the mantra stays the same.

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What I am trying to bring out in this example is the power of the style of language even if one does not understand it. I think sound is more powerful than an image which is one of the reasons why I am puzzled with the image metaphor that is used to describe poetry.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

3. Whether a computer or a human didn't understand the words of the literary or non-literary work would have no bearing on the still-existing substance of the work. Most, if not all, writers do not fully grasp the substance of their written work. That doesn't magically erase or affect that substance.

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In the case of the computer making a response in the Turing test (and failing the test), the words the computer generated had no substance from the computer's perspective nor from the perspective of the human listener. They were pure style.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

4-6--Actual gibberish has very little substance. However, like all written or oral expressions, the speaker of it has no impact on that substance.

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What you just wrote doesn't make any sense to me. So it would be pure style. It seems like you are saying that gibberish is an example of style without substance and then there is the however clause that follows that doesn't make sense.

So, I would use this passage as another example of style without substance.

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

7. One cannot form an idea for a poem without words, otherwise that "idea" is just subconscious, pre-conceptual pap, not an actual idea. So, an idea for a poem would always have style as well.

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I think one needs to have some language to start with but I don't think it is clear what else is involved. Our thoughts can range in emotional content, but at this point it is not a poem.