Aren't there narratives where characters in the succeeding generation
make the same mistakes as their forefathers?:
- ...The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
And the childrens teeth are set on edge.
On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 5:13 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
> In a message dated 4/26/12 6:49:53 PM, [email protected] writes:
>
>
> > I think redundancy is a poor word in this context. It's more like an
> > echo when
> > patterns are repeated because in fact they can't be really repeated in a
> > visual
> > artwork except in a wallpaper type image.
> >
> I think William is right: 'redundancy' is a word that comes with
> connotations inapt in an aesthetic context. From a writer's point of view,
> yesterday I
> should have cited poetry as supplying the most striking examples of the
> effects of a kind of repetition. Perhaps 'reiteration' or even 'reprise'
> convey a sense of artfulness better than 'repitition'. Poe's THE RAVEN, or
> Dylan
> Thomas's DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT use reiteration to great
> advantage.
>
> What I was groping for was an insight into how this element might be
> exploited in narrative. As I said, writers, especially writers handicapped
> with an
> intrusive cerebrality, can tend to eschew any sort of repetition because
> the books on narrative craft frown on it. And yet Wilson's line was very
> interesting to me:
>
> "...neurobiological monitoring...[has] shown that the brain is most
> aroused by patterns in which there is about a 20 percent redundancy of
> elements..."
>
> I'm currently much involved with a one-act play centered around a conflict
> between a philosophy professor and a resistant younger woman. In effect
> she challenges him to come with something in his specialty -- philosophy of
> language and mind -- that doesn't sound like old news to her. As a
> playwright I take on the challenge for myself, in two ways: The first
> challenge is
> for the professor to startle her (and the audience) with insights she'd
> never
> seen before; the second challenge is how to make this extremely nerdy
> stuff
> theatrical -- and clear. Curiously, I sense that theatricality and (and
> clarity) may be aided by using reiteration, and yet repetition is in most
> forms
> an alleged no-no in narrative craft/art.
>
> Jack Benny's punchline in what is often said to be the most successful
> radio joke ever applies to me. (Benny, a notorious cheapskate, is
> accosted
> at night by a mugger who says, "Your money or your life!" There follows a
> long, long, long silence. The studio audience took a bit of time to catch
> on.
> Then the laugh began -- and it grew and grew, until the mugger growls
> again: "Didn't you hear me?! I said your money or your life!" The
> laughter
> went
> volcanic when Benny finally responded:
> "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!")
