From Mahmood to Millay

Anyone reading my blogs, with their long epigraphs, likely can tell what type of research writing I admire. Rich, dense writing … evocative and emotive … sophisticated in its arguments … and verging on poetry in moments. I am not sure if Orwell would approve of the long sentences by Todorov, Said or Harris that I love. Regardless, he may appreciate what I do about their writings. These authors give you a feeling that they chose every word with care. They convince you that they have something to say, and are working really hard and honestly to find the best way to say it. You also feel that they are challenging you as a reader to grapple with the issues they are discussing. They expect a reader to pay attention, take time, and maybe occasionally look up a word in a dictionary. At the same time, you don’t feel that they are being pretentious, or using big words needlessly. They do, however, use a lot of big words. Again, I am not sure how Orwell would feel about that. Yet, while I admire Orwell in many ways, his work leaves me untouched. Like other people have discussed in their blog postings, his language and style do not appeal to me.   

Here is a passage I really love, by another scholar, Saba Mahmood:

“The antipathy that progressive secular intellectuals exhibit toward those forms of religiosity glossed as orthodox or traditionalist is often, paradoxically, conjoined with a certain commitment to the poetic resources of the Judeo-Christian tradition - evident in a literary and aesthetic sensibility, albeit denuded from the requirements of prophecy, doctrine, and traditional authority. This antipathy toward traditional religious authority has many earlier precedents, including Marx, who argued that the dissolution of ‘the religious claim’ was a necessary precursor for human emancipation to proceed. The certainty of this critical stance has to be attenuated by a recognition of the paucity and parochialism of this universalist vision, both because of the historical disasters it has facilitated and because of the manner in which it is currently cavorting with one of the most ambitious imperial projects in history, which seeks to make the world in a singular image. Such a total project, I fear, can only elicit an equally singular vision in response, one in which all shades of interpretive, moral, and ethical ambiguity must be levelled so as to salvage the dregs of what might have once constituted a tradition or a life-world.” (2006, 345)

This passage is a good example of the type of research writing I discuss above. Orwell may indeed not approve, but I think her language is beautiful, clear and honest.

In terms of other type of writings, I love Edna St. Vincent Millay’s writing style. As a renowned sonneteer, she was able to produce wonders in that poetic form. I appreciate her writing as an example of how creativity can flourish in constrained, highly-regulated forms for expression. I really love her sharp wit and wordplay. Here is a great example of her genius with sonnets:

I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn wtih pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again. 

References

Mahmood, Saba. (2006). “Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire: The Politics of Islamic

Reformation.” Public Culture 18(2): 323-347.