The Style vs Substance Problem in Literature

[stlukesguild]

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.

I don't speak Italian... and yet I certainly sense a content... feelings, emotions, drama etc... within the music, the tone of the language, vocal inflections, etc... Of course my grasp of the work is far greater when I understand what is being said... But I think it is like learning another language. With my limited German I can still read Goethe's Wandrers Nachtlied II:

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.

When I read this poem I don't translate the words in my head to English... rather I think of them in German... in the form in which they exist because the content of the poem is a result of the form wedded to the "meaning".

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.

Yet you are but cognizant of a small portion of the "style" under such a situation. Content is the result of an inseparable wedding of form/style and meaning.

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

When I speak to my dogs I have no doubt it is but "gibberish" to them most of the time. Certainly they recognize certain few words: their names, basic commands like "sit", "outside", etc... But they understand quite a lot from the inflection of my voice, body language, etc...

[YesNo]

You get a lot of substance, YesNo, because substance is not just information or data. The energy, the feeling you get from a long haired troglodyte riffing and grutting is part of the substance. There is a reason why rock and roll can have similar impact either you know the lyrics (be it grunting or not). There is a reason they feel the same either it is a solo or not. The artistic expression there is not only in lyrics. The same goes for Opera. Either you know what means Figaro or not, but you can relate to the emotions in that performance.

The way you are talking, you can only access the substance if you have a complete understanding of the artwork and that is not true, because frankly, I doubt there is such thing as complete understanding of any artwork. And art is not science, what is being shared is more than informaiton, it is feelings and experiences, things you cannot explain so well. (Even a scientific thesis is telling a bit about how you should access the thesis, the dry, direct, objective style in a thesis is a way to lead you to a more analytic approach, but you can see, they want to reduce a lot the possiblities of the text to avoid misinterpretation. But in art, misinterpretation is a legitimate form of dialogue).

I have no idea what the Turing text may be or not. It is art? It is a random set of world? No meaning at all? Hence random. It is style? or Just form?

As Gibberish, even your example showed how it is a bad example: Gibberish spoken by those being verbally abusive, intending not to communicate. So, if you know they are verbally abusive, you know some of the content. There is abuse. So there is some substance. I am sure also you can also tell by the gibberish the anger behind it. Substance.

And of course, Joyce has no substance? His destruction of language is about chaos, primordial creation of words, some sort of universal human circle. FW style is chaotic, destructive, a mix of words, because of this. There is a lot of substance.

What I am looking for are examples of style without substance. Do you know of any examples or is the distinction between style and substance irrelevant?

[stlukesguild]

One of my favorite essayists was Walter Pater (A great "stylist" by the way ). Pater's book, The Renaissance was profoundly influential upon the thinking of the Art pour l'Art movement... and ultimately Formalism/Modernism and abstract art. Paul Klee, Kandinsky, and any number of other modern artists were profoundly impacted by Pater's essay's and his notion that form and content were one in music... and that all art aspires to the same:

All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in all other kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it. That the mere matter of a poem, for instance, its subject, namely, its given incidents or situation — that the mere matter of a picture, the actual circumstances of an event, the actual topography of a landscape — should be nothing without the form, the spirit, of the handling, that this form, this mode of handling, should become an end in itself, should penetrate every part of the matter: this is what all art constantly strives after, and achieves in different degrees.

Who can separate the form from the "meaning" here?

[YesNo]

Now, you're just repeating what you've already said before like your own little mantra...despite my having shown, with actual syllogistic and textual support, that you are wrong.

You haven't shown anything.

1. There is substance to all musical or purposeful sound such as mantras. If you think you need words for substance in oral or written music, chants, or mantras, you need to re-examine your notions of musicology and phenomenology, as well as aesthetics.

We are talking about words, not music, nor images.

2. Again, the substance of a linguistic text does not depend on the reception of the text, even if a Turing machine produced it. I showed why that is true in my last post; you clearly didn't read it.

I think the example of the computer generating a verbal response that is not accepted by the human testers is a good example of style without substance. The problem is that it is an extreme example. What I suspect people are more concerned with when they talk style and substance is that they are annoyed with fraudulent style that has no substance backing it up and they wish those who provide something substantial would do it with more style.

3. If you think Finnegan's Wake, one of the greatest works in the English and Irish language is just gibberish, you need to take some more English classes. Its being too difficult for you does not make it gibberish.

This sounds like a confrontational style with no substance underlying it.

[JCamilo]

What I am looking for are examples of style without substance. Do you know of any examples or is the distinction between style and substance irrelevant?

I dont, but listen to Stlukes, style is not a technique or skill, that thee artist choose to add or remove. Da Vinci didnt paint that way because he dreammed to be photograph, no, that was part of his philosophy, it was a manifestation of his experriencies and ideas. When you develop a style is because your experience leads you there. So, if you analysee the style of work it will always say something.

[Poetaster]

You haven't shown anything.

Expect this. He claimed in a conservation with me that 'the vengeance of Clytemnestra, Orestes, Electa' referred to specific 'acts' of The Oresteia. Clytemnestra's 'vengeance' covers the entire trilogy, even after she dies with her ghost appearing to wake The Furies to pursue Orestes further to Areopagitica.

We are talking about words, not music, nor images.

Is not the point that words can create music and images?

[JCamilo]

The enttire discussion if words are images or not was an attempt to murder Semiotics.

[YesNo]

The enttire discussion if words are images or not was an attempt to murder Semiotics.

I am not following this. Could you elaborate?

[YesNo]

Expect this. He claimed in a conservation with me that 'the vengeance of Clytemnestra, Orestes, Electa' referred to specific 'acts' of The Oresteia. Clytemnestra's 'vengeance' covers the entire trilogy, even after she dies with her ghost appearing to wake The Furies to pursue Orestes further to Areopagitica.

Yeah, I remember reading that.

I do like to discuss ideas with people who disagree with me even if I think they are being irrational. It forces me to keep thinking about my position and find another way to express it. Ultimately the one I am trying to convince is myself.

Is not the point that words can create music and images?

My view is that words are composed of sound and those sounds allow us to create a communal meaning (or "sense", "understanding"). They don't create music or images, but understanding. Although there is some relationship to music, the sound of the words does not have to be metrical for understanding to occur.

There are other ways to communicate, but when words are used there is a sound basis rather than an image basis allowing us to understand each other.

[YesNo]

I dont, but listen to Stlukes, style is not a technique or skill, that thee artist choose to add or remove. Da Vinci didnt paint that way because he dreammed to be photograph, no, that was part of his philosophy, it was a manifestation of his experriencies and ideas. When you develop a style is because your experience leads you there. So, if you analysee the style of work it will always say something.

I think I agree with what you are saying if the context is limited to critiquing art, however, there are other ways to view the problem. The style and substance issue seems to have three directions it can go into.

1) Critiquing Literature and Art

Here style and substance may be the same thing. The person reviewing the art will see the style as representing something even if there is nothing that the art is about. Neither communication (understanding) nor truth is relevant.

2) Philosophy of Mind

Here the question is whether the style, words generated by a computer during a Turing test, imply that the computer understands the words. In this case style is the sound or printout. Substance is the meaning or understanding. Is there substance if there is style? I think the consensus today, based on Searle's critique, is "no", but there are some who may disagree and insist if something can generate style then that something has substance (understanding).

3) Falsification

Style can be used to justify something that is false and even prevent dissent. The RationalWiki article on what the author(s) call the "Style over Substance Fallacy" gives this argument: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Style_o...stance_fallacy One might see this during marketing or political campaigns. The most notorious example of this that I recall is when style was used to argue that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq over a decade ago. The substance came from UN inspectors who could not find any WMD.

[Poetaster]

My view is that words are composed of sound and those sounds allow us to create a communal meaning (or "sense", "understanding"). They don't create music or images, but understanding. Although there is some relationship to music, the sound of the words does not have to be metrical for understanding to occur.

There are other ways to communicate, but when words are used there is a sound basis rather than an image basis allowing us to understand each other.

I really like that, though I don't necessarily agree with it, if that makes sense.

[JCamilo]

I think I agree with what you are saying if the context is limited to critiquing art, however, there are other ways to view the problem. The style and substance issue seems to have three directions it can go into.

1) Critiquing Literature and Art

Here style and substance may be the same thing. The person reviewing the art will see the style as representing something even if there is nothing that the art is about. Neither communication (understanding) nor truth is relevant.

Ok, I am more than willing to say we are talking about this, Cacian about something however

2) Philosophy of Mind

Here the question is whether the style, words generated by a computer during a Turing test, imply that the computer understands the words. In this case style is the sound or printout. Substance is the meaning or understanding. Is there substance if there is style? I think the consensus today, based on Searle's critique, is "no", but there are some who may disagree and insist if something can generate style then that something has substance (understanding).

Again, be more specific about Turing. Isnt Turing test accused of failing to answer to aesthetical emotions? In this case wouldnt that be rather than no style or substance, but poor style and substance?

Anyways, substance is neither meaning or understanding (or only them). In Art, understanding is not primary, in the lack of a better word, enchantment is what first matters. The substance may be ephemeral, you know the stuff Ariel is made off.

3) Falsification

Style can be used to justify something that is false and even prevent dissent. The RationalWiki article on what the author(s) call the "Style over Substance Fallacy" gives this argument: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Style_o...stance_fallacy One might see this during marketing or political campaigns. The most notorious example of this that I recall is when style was used to argue that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq over a decade ago. The substance came from UN inspectors who could not find any WMD.

That is not lack of substance, it is false "substance". By the way, that a bunch of idiots let themselves be fooled by falacies is not about style without substance. It is style hiding substance. That is why some poeple can spot lies.

About the semiotics: because a written word is sign and by definitiion a sign is not the thing it represents. That simple. It is neither sound or image. Anyways, that would be irrelevant for the discussion, you do not use semiotics for what a poem means. If it suggeests imagens or music, it is like a painting suggesting movement, light, dimensions. Part of the Art that is artificial.

[Ecurb]

Isn't literature written? Aren't written words visual images, not sounds? (I'm not sure this is relevant to the style vs. substance discussion, but it seems to call YesNo's theory into question.)

[JCamilo]

I think Yesno means they arent the image of the object they represent or the scene they describe, not that written words are not graphical signs.

[WICKES]

It's an interesting question. There are writers I enjoy almost entirely for their style: Evelyn Waugh is a good example. He was a dreadful human being, whose cold, hate-filled snobbery and sadism is apparent throughout his novels. Of all the writers I admire he is the one I would least want to meet. Though he IS very funny and can create strong, believable comic characters, I love him above all for the polished beauty of his writing. He really has nothing of interest to say to me, with the exception of the Sword of Honour trilogy, which explains the attraction of war to a certain kind of man in a very insightful way. There are also poets I read for their style rather than what they have to say: Larkin for example, a technically brilliant poet who wrote very beautiful verse, but a man with nothing to offer but despair and misery. I also love the poems of Betjeman and de la Mare, but again for the beauty and rhythm of their poems rather than what the poems contain. Oh and Tennyson, who wrote some of the most beautiful stuff I've ever read, yet was no visionary- a "lawn poet" and "rectory prude" as Joyce called him.

Others I read almost entirely for what they have to say rather than how they say it- Blake's prophetic books for example. I also find the ideas contained in the works of D H Lawrence and Oscar Wilde more attractive than their style. Same goes for the poetry of Robert Graves and Ted Hughes- especially Ted Hughes. I very rarely enjoy his poetry AS poetry, and never find it as beautiful as, say, Larkin's or Hardy's, but he interests me more than them.

Sometimes I love both the style AND substance of a writer's works. Aldous Huxley for example, also Blake's lyric poems, T S Eliot's Four Quartets (so far as I can understand them) and the essays of Bertrand Russell.