Date Posted:11:59:41 09/06/01 Thu Author: mark van dyk Subject: Re: Modern Voice In reply to:
Adilbrand
's message, "Re: Modern Voice" on 21:46:14 09/05/01 Wed
I pretty much agree with you here. I don't think you will find too many authors writing today in the Victorian style. Though, I must say I do not actually know. You made the statement that Twain and Hemingway were masters at the choice of words, and this is really where the art lies. The choosing. In certain ways I find myself writing in rather long, verbose sentences from time to time, and know that it is the influence of men such as Hesse and Dostoevsky, who were anything but Romantic, but still favored a little lengthier sentence. I can even remember being accused in a Poetry writing class of assuming an antiquated voice. Perhaps I did, but I remember at the time that it was a thing my professor frowned upon. Of course my inner poet told him to go roger himself sideways, but it also made me think about why I was fond of this style. I think, in many ways, it comes from what we might call "High" english. It is arguable, even in the Modern Age where we seem to have one voice, that there is a high speech and a low one. Call it my own pomposity at the time or something, but the Victorian voice does seem to have a certain snootiness about it. As the Mountaineer put it, these books were being bought by people with time and money on their hands, the rich and affluent. Books were rare commodities at this time for the general populous, and those that were afforded the masses were no doubt of a "lower" english. I could be guessing about this, but I think it is a workable theory.
I think Hemingway's movement was about abandoning this high brow tone and writing in what we might still call "low" english, but making it beautiful in a way that few have done since. I suppose this is the mark of a great author. Using the language, and all of its words, all of its voices in such a way that concrete images and feelings are evoked.
Perhaps the reason that such "Victorian style" books are not written anymore is because the middle class has just as much access to books now as the aristocracy? I don't really know. As I said, it is a tenable theory...
