Literary Criticism the Structure of Complex Words WILLIAM EMPSON *A major dase in the “Scientific” school of literary ext- dane? bree “Me. Epon’ enays will permanently enrich the reader’ understanding -- His dscbveres ae veal and valuables ‘Shor Day B80. 21, = The Common Pursuit F. R. LEAVIS ‘No critic could bring to his work a more generous under standing, ora more srupulous esolvetoarriveat the wuth {The Corman Pusu) displays his ful ange; and ie should Be read by everyone concerned with Hterature EDW1¥ MUR Deny 820 185. Shakespeare and Elizabethan Poetry M. ©, BRADBROOK "Gan be commended for its learning and balance, and above allfora quicknes of life uncommon in works of the kind.” “Naw Stata Large Cr. Bo. 16: Elizabethan Lyrics CATHERINE ING “Avaluable and well-documented plee of eholarhip? Goln OFandn's “Abook of careinight and fe-ratelmportaice? “ " ‘Pocity Review Deny. Chatto & Windusa“ — (batter tm | at oreo or Seer oe ome SENSE AND NONSENSE chem eee Naeem To wind God back int the dance agi, | ontradction ina system, by cients to describe state- ‘ments which supposodlyclo ot tally withthe known facts ‘bymodemphitasophersto describe sentenceshich seem 0 them to depart trom the rules for making ene inthe wse of language, Ordinary people we the word Nonsense incon | ‘ection with tations or statements which do not conform to the facts as they ate generally held to be, ot which, | more simply, ace taken to be untrue. Ta every eae, the one | who employs the word must suppose that he or se knows | wba sease is the opposite of which may be aed nonsense, fiequently with a not unexjoyable fing of irritation, { “To take up some such position, making a stand upon | some particular ground and saying, “This esse, that | nonsense," seems a comparatively simple thing to do, as @ | eld draws a circle on the ground with a stick an say, “This s Tom Tiddler’s ground" But es not relly simple | at all forthe repective sphere of sense and nonwensecan= ‘not be mapped out in terms of spheres of nluence, a a | Tine could be drawn on the map of thought separating the fone from the other. The assimptin that you know what | senses, and consequently what nonsense, depends not ‘on the acceptance or rejection of blo of fact bit upon the | alloption of certain set of mental relations. Whatever holds togetner according to these relationships wil be sense, whatever doesnot will be nontene “The special people just mentioned, the logicia, the scientists and so on, will ustrate the point. Take the logician frst. He employs a system of mental relations Which basa total intolerance of whatever does not fit in 1a‘ de. 2 ‘THE FIELD OF NONSENSE with it tn loge, nonsense takes the form of contradiction, fhe breakinga thers of the game This game fea purely intellectual and abstract one, and it ean make no valid pronouncement about sease and noniemve outside its own. field, Experience, in s far as it eam be reduced to abstrac- ‘ons, can be handled by log, and ifthe rlavonships un cording to rule, that will make vense for the purposes of logic, and the contrary will be noasense, By far the freater part Af experience, however, is for logic neither Sense nor nonsense; iis merely unmanageable, because it fannot be rendered suficiently abstract. Next comes the Scientist. His world isnot wholly abstract, since his system ‘of mental relations is meant to ply to experience, Sense fom the scientific point of view will const of those hap- ‘penings nd statements which conform to the particular ‘etwork of mental relations, an increasingly mathematical fone, which scence ha ths far mapped ou as dhe pater ‘ofthe external word, All statements are required to con- form to this set of relations, adopted by science athe standard of sense. The third ease mentioned, the modem pilosphier of nguage, abo involves standard set of Felatons, conformity with which is equivalent to sense. We find one of them, A. J. Ayer, saying (Language, Tra and Logic, Ch. I, p. 43), “The wterances of the meta- Physic who bs alerting to expound a vision are ter: Ally senseles” Once again the senseand-nonsense touch- Stone ica pater held in a particular mind, inthis ase a set of linguistic relations ‘The ordinary individucl, who is neliher scientist, logi= cian nor philosopher, has nevertheless a clear working Lnowlge of what constewtes sense and nonsense. The latter will probably take one of two forms, Fit it may Be sclleeion of words which in hee ateral composition of Tettrs and syllables or in ther selection and sequence do ‘not conform to the conventional pattems of language to ‘which the particular mind is accustomed, One's own ‘ather-tongue sense, the reminder ares0 much Greek SENSE AND NONSENSE or double dutch, Or Nonsense may appear a 2 callkcn Gionot events ora verbal dacrpdon of such a calleeon, Acree the onder and eatonsigedfe fom thre held 1 tp mormal Eventhough the ordinary mind may nt be Ela with logic or higher thought in genera wes teil the same staat of elerence ied pater of tment elitons between let, words o eves (eb ‘We can begin, therefore, by dering nonsense as "| 7 i collection of words or events which in thee arrangement | {dp ot into worse rosognized sytem in 8 particular tind, In practic the erm nonsense’ sore often applied. tb eallecion of words thant cllecone of things th Meant Se ngage ps i evtrumens for wig renee of things nd events ‘Fhe infrene that ene mo les than nonsense slrgely al mrt we cat or ta eh iii tow. The appearance of nonsense aco con- in the material in gusto -may-be dae eer tog anc internal lations af tem of whch the mind eae 7 These two poses thay lok asi hey asoun to much these thing, ie, fr the concloss mind reas system which is une perceived oqivalet to there being no mem a all Fer lea dfetence, however ad one that has practic, rel Hfyousmumeanabenceofrlatonsyoucan etna” funhe,buyou are rea to potalatereans ayn percevedinheparticalar materia omethingmay bappen ‘Our material her, seletyed Nonsense, cons fr place ef the work of Edward Lear ad Lei Crvl.) eats Nonsense rons so soc two hundred. Riercks Gwen nonsense song (anger an mally narrative i ‘Guracter, comprising tome of his betlrown works such SS The Out ea te Pay Cet and The Tonly-Bongly 0), tho smal collection: of nonsense conker and monense tovany, si nomense alphabets an two shor tls rose, Te iyo the Par ite Cer Whe Wet RewndS proferedi¢to the ordinary mind. That mind can recive Cc EE ‘ THE FIELD OF NONSENSE ‘he World and The History ofthe Seen Feil of he Lake Pipple Poppe. Carrols Nonsense consist of i's dor lars in Wonderland, Through te Loking- Glas, The tag of te Snark, snd two partial Nonsense erations, See and Bromo and Syne and Brow Conclude. Te other works of ‘Lear and Csrrall will be availabe for consultation, but do not form part of the material proper TFrom now on, Nonsense for us wil mean primarily the work of these two, acknowledged maser of their craft tvho practised Nonsense deliberately, chiefly in words ad {Cimon of tice ways the mind Wate eaten A dogmatie reli, i can dain Nonsense a kimi ( Sfamble sci long with dreamy age, ley, rl End oerauchscteotmenareatonretic dst core ‘pond wth what this mindeas‘ealipysa sto sted ‘atom erated t be ted, coven em wich Cenc tele or eye A ond ple ~) ‘tind ito rognd Nonseme a an alan fel tn eicher of ngunge or epee and ey 1 sowranecabie ant BainaCeoechy Paowing fipeaiag tx mind fom sof Ymrat ooo {The third pobiy ito segura Nowense ara aPecuReD) eld together by valid mental elation =) 2 ntke isto tho tre tere i oo arguing. Lear, Carol his tk nd uch ele Bese are it fr hes Thr mument here a between the toed and thd Many people, ive, would ld the sccm views tha ‘omeae fut what i mt syst y Sgt at Stematcaton could oy nr’ sabe and mabe ttl pleaur, One mets te ne expat repard to pct hat fis eaence 6 ofsoch a nd the fo bing inecttal seating to bear pon it at est mistaken canny ands worst acre This ot, however, ow Forts ad about pty, ne perhaps, Nomen Tout Nonsense It nabs Nontense a product of chance “perang a the mental level, comparable with Semen SENSE AND NONSENSE 5 Tierature which seeks to suppress any conscious contol of the mind’ How of images. “There are a numberof things to be sad against thi. int, Nonsense a practised by Lear and Carrol dos not, cevenon alight acquaintance give the impresion of being fomething without laws and subject to chance, or some~ {hing without limit, tending towards ify. Sir Edmund Strachey, writing about Lear's Nonsense in the Qsaraly Reviee, 1888, called i child of genius, one of the Fine ‘Arts, Now a Fine Artis not the produet of chance, nor i it the result of absence of imitation, for the mind can do othing with infty, that most unmanageable commodity. ‘The unfailing mental delight, if one may wse such phrase, afforded by Lear and Carell does not suggest En enc succesonof random events than which nothing ‘i more boring, nor does t point toa universe cut of cone ‘tol frighteningly akin to Iamacy. The mention of Art ia ‘conection with this Nonsease and dhe absence of bore- dom or disquiet suggest that we may be able to role out both chance and surrealism. We are going to asume that [Nonsense snot merely the denial of sence, a random reve sal of ordinary experience and an escape from the Himita- | tions of everyday ile into a haphazard infty, but is on | the contrary a carefully imited world, controlled and | tlirected by reason, a construction subject to its ows laws. | "The argument that this will destroy the very inwardnesé of Nonsense is surly mistaken. Ifa mental structure of ‘whatever kind cannot submit o examination then there is omething shaky and insecure about it, and this as tue fof Nonsense as of anything else. Poetry, for instance, oes not cllapee atthe touch of logic, and there i m0 reason why Nonsense should dos ether. To fear a logical fpprosch fs in some way to impugn the integrity of the fubject matter, ‘There i something bogus about these Inia exences which are said to evaporate on close ine spection. Nonsense, wih is immense ense of balance and isbefterbult than tha one might as well expect the« THE FIELD OF NONSENSE splendid visionof greatbildingtodsappearinsmokebe- {Rice the ming happened vo knots proportions interns ‘mathematic. There on record atleast one example ra von being submit to exact masurement with 1 aril, and either he sogel nr the prophet Ezekiel Sees to have en troted bya ses offal desecration SF Nonsnse amar t mn haves own las of con sercton, and the Invedgation of eae brings ws a nce fo toch wit logis study of mental rations withe ina particular ld The initation hel wl explain tertin omisions. For stance, thi is no going to be 2 stay of Humour or ofthe Comic Laughter inedentl 0 ‘Nonsense but not caenal of Many people confuse the two, but a moments recollection ofthe work of Lear or Carrll slaw that mach tha happens im the world of ‘Noten pot comieat all. Nether shall we be con- cerned with poychounaysis. Tis would bea posible a _pronch tothe minds of both writers but Me am ere (Rogaland not pyshologial. Prychology i concerned ‘Wii the interpretton, cording to some particular theory, of the product ofthe imagination in terms of tnaial expeience. or the logician, however, even or to amateur one a myself, his question of interpretation doer not arse, and the imaginary word may be com- ‘Sere as valid sructore wih Ta own consteny which flocs no need tration ftp Ge terms of some eter “space or way of thinking Tis wll ot bean attempt ‘hd out what the Old Nan witha Beard or the Mock ‘Ture stand frit flees that they stand. We sal ot tring light the Sab-consciou” of eter arti term fp not propre to employ a al What we can ope do {fo dacover ie sructore of Nonsense full and do this there wil be no need to embrace any" particular School of thought fr logic has this great advantage over Fpychology that the mind's processes in logic are no a Tract of contoveny. And after all, one of oar 0 Nonsense writers was profesional login himself