The Book of Literary Design

27. Style and Personality

Style and Personality L anguage takes shape when the emotions are moved, poetry appears with the appearance ofthe decorous thought. The progress is from within to without, from the concealed to the ostensive. But if you consider writers in terms of abilities there are the ordinary and the brilliant; ofoverall personal attributes (qi), the assertive and the resilient; of learning, the shallow and the profound; of developed style the noble and the popular. These distinctions are so many shapes made by molten temperament, products ofthe potter's wheel or the dyer's hand. They are the considerations that account for the cloud-like changes in pen-land, the billowy transformations in letters-park. It is small wonder that, whether the work is ordinary or brilliant, nothing can overturn a writer's abilities; whether the flavour is assertive or resilient, no way can be found for altering his personal attributes; whether the rhetorical figures are shallow or profound, it is unthinkable to go against his learning; whether the formal characteristics are noble or popular, hardly ever is it possible to reform his developed style. All writers follow the doctrines oftheir own prefabricated mentalities, their second natures, and are as distinctive as their faces. But if you summarize the courses they take, they all come home to roost in one ofeight styles. They are or elegant or distant, or economical or plain, or ornate or grandiose, or novel or decadent. The elegant derive their molten terms from the decrees ofthe canon and ride parallel with the Confucianists. The distant carefully cull the obscure, and cultivate family resemblance with the abstruse Daoists. The economical save up each phrase and audit every word, not sparing any possibility for hair-splitting. The plain are straight-forward in language, forward in argument, Style and Personality I 105 but really reasonable and unobjectionable. The ornate metaphorize extensively in brewing literary brilliance, fetishising mere branches and tributaries. The grandiose liberally discourse and majestically arbitrate and sparkle with uncommon effulgence. The novel put down the old in trying to be contemporary and imperil themselves in their perversity. The decadent are weakly planted and rootless, unsteady in their dependence on vulgarity. These styles fall into pairs of opposites: the elegant against the novel, the distant against the plain, the ornate against the economical, the grandiose against the decadent. All literature is in them, the leaves and the roots, the vastness ofthe imperial wildlife park itself. The eight styles constantly shift and change but they all can be acquired if you will learn: the crucial factor is the abilities in you which originate in your blood and elan vital (qi). Your elan vital gives substance to your mental activities, which in turn determine your speech: the best and the most beautiful that you breathe out derives exclusively from your feeling nature, your personality (qing xing). That is why because Jia Yi was a man ofnoble spirit his writing was pure, because Sima Xiangru was unconventional and arrogant his work was extravagant; taciturn Yang Xiong did not wear his heart on his sleeve but left you savouring, learned Liu Xiang had no side and made everything most interesting; Ban Gu was orthodox but tolerant and he planned scrupulously and thought in fine detail, Zhang Heng knew everything and he organized immaculately and wrote with great density; impatient Wang Can was sharp and incisive, "humorous" Liu Zheng was bold and startling; Ruan Ji was free as the wind and he produced the music that lingered, Ji Kang was a brave spirit and he created the exalted and burningly bright; Pan Yue who was nimble performed with both poignancy and grace, Lu Ji who was sedate achieved the complex and the restrained. In all these and other cases the surface and the inside cohere. And this is a permanent property ofnature, a rule that governs the personal talents of the individual writer. Ifa writer's natural abilities are a gift ofheaven, his knowledge of the trade he has to acquire and be careful in acquiring from the start. In cutting the catalpa tree as in dyeing silk the result depends largely on the initial uncertain stages of the process: when the vessel has been made and the colour has settled, it is too late to change your mind. So when you train a child in the intricacies ofwriting, it is essential that you begin with moral compositions that have been correctly designed. Your child can then proceed from the roots to discover the leaves...