Thursday, February 05, 2009

Pondering ...

... What shapes literature.

I'm with David on this. (I would add, though, that quite a few people - Somerset Maugham was one, I believe - have pointed out that prose was affected by the switch from writing by hand to writing at a typewriter. I think the computer has had a similar effect. The fact that I can write at this keyboard almost as fast as I can think, can immediately print out what I have written, hyphenated and justified - does have an effect on the nature of what I write. Regarding scrolls vs. books, it is interesting that we are now back to scrolling. The ease and sphistication we are able to bring to what we do has to have an effect on the end product, it seems to me. I wouldn't exaggerate the effect, but I wouldn't underestimate it, either.)

1 comment:

  1. I find that my poetry flows better if I work on the first drafts by hand, but the prose works better typing. That may be related to the different ways I approach the different kinds of writing and poetry has always been a more contemplative process. With prose/story, I need to get the ideas down as fast as my fingers can capture them.

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