Lyricism and lyrically crafted fiction

Continued from August 31

Part 3

By Dilshan BOANGE

Continuing the discussion of the use of the simple present and progressive verbs in prose narratives to create lyrical quality in the form of the 'lyric tense' as propounded by George T. Wright, the focus now moves to another facet of how lyrical quality may be evoked (and heightened) by the use of the 'lyric tense'. When the notion of lyrical quality is discussed in a certain work of literature, it is inextricably bound with the reader's perceptions from a point of the emotional response within. Some may feel that a lyrical poem or prose was laced with sensuality and thereby gave a sense of sensuousness in the reading experience, where as another work may find its lyrical quality for its deep seated emotional sense evoked in the reader, and certain other works noted for lyrical quality may present the reader with a feeling of having entered a dreamy state, and perhaps somewhat lulled from the tedium of reality.

The dreaminess effect

Michael Ondaatje

George Wright in his scholarly essay expresses the view that while the use of the lyric tense through the stages of western poetry may have served a number of artistic purposes, the contemporary poets (according to Wright) seem to employ the lyric tense chiefly to produce a dreamlike effect on the reader. On this line of argument, Wright says -"It is true that the progressive is sometimes used by modern poets, with some effect of strangeness, to describe those dreamlike sequences of events which film seems especially well suited to present and has probably made us more alert to it." On the line of discussion on how the 'dreamy' quality of poems are crafted with the employ of the 'lyric tense' (in both the progressive and simple present verb form) a poem of American poet and writer Robert Bly is cited. The poem is "Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River" and of it Wright presents the beginnings of the poem -"I am driving; it is dusk; Minnesota...The Soybeans are breathing on all sides"

Note how the progressive form is captured with the words -"am driving" and "are breathing" in the afore cited lines. And Wright also presents the ending of that poem by Bly which he notes is in the simple present as well as the progressive form.

The lamplight falls on all fours in the grass.

When I reach the river, the full moon covers it:

A few people are talking low in a boat.

The first two lines carry the simple present form in the words -"falls" and "covers" respectively. And the final line caries the progressive form in the words-"are talking". This would show how both the simple present and the progressive form can be coalesced in a single work to generate a lyrical quality.

The lyric tense as a feature in Michael Ondaatje's narrative style

Although what Wright presents is his analysis in relation to poetry and cites examples of the lyric tense from poetry, one may as easily identify these textural traits in prose based fiction works as well. Consider for example the following excerpt from an edition (published -1987) of "In the Skin of a Lion" by Michael Ondaatje.

"In the tunnel under Lake Ontario two men shake hands on an incline of mud. Beside them a pickaxe and a lamp, their dirt-streaked faces pivoting to look towards the camera. For a moment, while the film receives the image, everything is still, the other tunnel workers silent. (p.105).

Looking at it attentively the excerpt above evinces Ondaatje's characteristic craft of lyrical prose built on the 'lyric tense' propounded by Wright. The simple present is captured in the words -"shake hands", "film receives", and the progressive form can be seen in the words -"everything is still". When an authorial voice narrates in the lyric tense form, such a technique can have a gripping effect on the reader's psyche, drawing the reader more intensely into the situational, fictionalized scenario and to a great extend make the reader feel a sense of immediacy of the actions and emotions.

Lyric quality through simplicity

Another device that may be seen as a textural feature that works in the manner of a lyrical property in the fabric of the text is short sentencing in the manner of presenting the charm of simplicity. This perspective taken on an academic argument presented analytically in the scholarly article "The Lyric" by Elder Olson published in The Bulletin of the Midwest Modern Language Association (Vol: 2) in 1969. Olson bases his analysis from a number of approaches to understanding what constitutes lyric poems, and how one may view them from a point of qualitative features. The idea than briefness is poetic and becomes a form of lyrical expression is built by Olson based on the concept of the Japanese form of poetry known as haiku.

Before beginning to assume that all forms of creative expression may be condensed to the form of poetic briefness hat one finds in haiku, it must be noted that not every work can be rendered a poetic form akin to haiku through condensation. The idea that the work carries in its organic essence will surely dictate the length aspect of a work. And Olson in fact does touch on this matter when he says -"Homer could not have written the Iliad, or Shakespeare Hamlet, in ten words or less." Similarly we of the East can say that lyrical works of great poetic value in the genre of epics such as the likes of Meghaduta of Kalidasa or Valmiki's Ramayana from India, or a Sri Lankan composition like Dunuvila Hatana by Dunuvila Gajanayaka Nilame will not be works that can find its true sense of poetic being in narratives structured in brevity. However surely as the Japanese haiku which is characterized by the virtues of simplicity of expression, its economy of words and rich imagery and metaphor the Sinhala poetry, both the traditional four lined 'kavi' and free verse 'nisandas' too can claim to have in it a lyric form built on the idea propounded by Olson. On the matter of simple short expression for poetic effect Olson says citing the haiku -

"Naturally one thinks at once of the more stringent verse-forms, the haiku particularly. Here is a haiku by Issa, called Spring Day:

Departing, the spring day

Lingers

Where there is water.

Is this a poem? Certainly. A lyric poem? Surely. Is it the simplest kind of poem? It must be: it conveys only a single perception; if we try to divide that into parts, we have nothing. But if this is true then we have already established one boundary of lyric poetry; it beings with the very simplest kind."

What Olson propounds seems to be that expressions which carry the briefness of a haiku narrating a simple idea bound with imagery and possibly resonating a metaphoric sense within the picture it creates to the reader's consciousness is strongly subjective. It bespeaks the poet's idea as an expression that seeks nearness to the reader's psyche and senses through an aesthetic form replete with visual potency. What if a prose narrative, a novel, were to present sections, which resonate a haiku likeness in its narrative structure? Such a scheme would arguably create flows of short sentences that appear as utterances unburdened by grandiose sentential flows seeking grand descriptivism, and capture in its briefness a sense of the beauty borne in simplicity and clarity of conveying the emotion as an image.

One notable feature that characterizes the craft of Michael Ondaatje is that many of his novels are made up of prose narratives that at times present a notable economy of words in their sentential essence. This 'briefness' maybe viewed in the light of Olson's theoretical grounding as carrying a quality of lyricism. The virtues of simplicity and the pristinely built clear conveyance of ideas is very likely a form that can craft a prosaic work of fiction with an unmistakable touch of the poetic that captures the reader as lyrical.