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.Sometimes language is used to represent an object, not by describing it, but bydescribing something like it.This sort of representation is found in parables andother contexts.Suppose that someone asks me whether the former AcademicVice-President of my university was seriously incompetent and I reply by saying, Let me put it this way.That is like asking whether the Pope is a Roman Catholic.I have illustrated one of the Vice-President s salient characteristics even though Ihave made no statements about it.Finally, the way words look and sound can be used, in ordinary conversation,to illustrate objects.Examples of this sort have been mentioned in passing.Recallthe child who illustrates the motion of a bicycle by saying,  It just went swoosh.This sentence is a statement, but it also illustrates the motion of the bicycle.Herethe formal properties, in this case how words sound, are used to illustrate.We find in works of literature illustrative representations similar to all three ofthe cases just described.I do not mean to suggest that these sorts of representationare exclusive.They can simultaneously be employed by a single work ofliterature.Neither do I claim that these types of illustrative representation areexhaustive of the sorts of illustration found in literature.(I have already noted thataffective illustration is common in literature.) They are, however, three commonand important forms of literary illustration.I will call the first sort of illustrationverbal illustration.In this form of illustration, words are used to directly representutterances and types of utterances.Such illustrations can also indirectly representcharacters, character-types or states of mind.The second form of literaryillustration will be called descriptive illustration.In descriptive illustration,descriptions are not employed to make statements about an object.Rather,descriptions represent since audiences can recognise a similarity between themand descriptions of the objects represented.I will call the final sort of literaryillustration, formal illustration.Works which employ this technique representsince experience of the work has something in common with experience of theobject represented.A few examples will clarify each of these types of illustration.For an example of verbal illustration in literature, consider a rudimentary workof literature such as Scott Adams s comic strip, Dilbert.Adams frequently usesverbal illustration to represent the idiocy of the pointy-haired boss.In one strip,the pointy-haired boss announces at a meeting,  Ten of our finest executives gottogether and created a statement of our core values. In the next frame, the bossreads from this statement:  We help the community and the world by producingstate-of-the-art business solutions. The difference between my illustration of theAcademic Vice-President and Adams s representation of the boss is that Irepresented a real university administrator, but the pointy-haired boss does notexist.Adams can only represent a type of manager, which is certainly what he49ART AND KNOWLEDGEintends to do.Adams does not assert that people like the pointy-haired boss aresilly twits for taking such empty verbiage seriously.Instead, he gives an exampleof the sort of thing such people say and thereby provides an illustrativerepresentation of such people and of their cluelessness.More sophisticated examples of verbal illustration than can be culled fromDilbert can be found in Dickens.In Bleak House, for instance, examples of theReverend Mr Chadband s utterances are used to represent the things said by acharacter of an unctuously sanctimonious type.The character-type itself isindirectly represented.Mr Chadband, sermonising on the subject of  Terewth ,says (in Chapter 25)  Say not to me that it is not the lamp of lamps.I say to you,it is.I say to you, a million times over, it is.It is.I say to you that I will proclaimit to you, whether you like it or not. In this passage, Dickens gives a wonderfulrepresentation of a character-type I can see every Sunday morning on television.In this example, not only what is said, but how it is said determines what isdepicted.Notice that Dickens does not assert that people like Mr Chadband aresilly and sanctimonious.Instead, examples of their discourse illustrate them insuch a way that this becomes apparent [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]