American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)
"Pictures of Pronunciation": Typographical Travels Through Tristram Shandy and Jacques le
Fataliste
Author(s): Michael Vande Berg
Source: Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 21-47
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sponsor: American Society for EighteenthCentury Studies (ASECS).
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"Picturesof
Pronunciation":
Travels
Typographical
ThroughTristram
Shandyand Jacques
le fataliste
MICHAEL VANDE BERG
havein thelast severaldecades
begunto tracetheoutlinesof a greatculturalshiftwhichbegan
withtheinvention
of thephonetic
alphabetand acceleratedwith
theinvention
ofprint,
andwhichsawmanproceedfromconceiving
in oraltermsto conceiving
ofit in termsof
oftheworldprimarily
historical
framework
can helpto accountfor
sight.Thisemerging
thedevelopment
ofa narrative
whichatfirst
glanceseems
technique
of littleconsequence,
and whichhas thusreceivedless attention
thanit deserves:thetypographical
practiceof authorswhowrote
theperiodin
duringthelatterpartof the"age of conversation,"
whichorally-based
wentintoitsfinaldecline.The
rhetorical
culture
cultureis especially
role of typography
in sustaining
rhetorical
in theworksof Sterneand,to a lesserextent,
in those
prominent
ofhiscontemporary
arefrequently
cited
Diderot.Thesetwoauthors
Diderot
of
having
too
freely
borrowed
from
together,
beingaccused
Sterne'sTristram
Shandymuchofthematerialin Jacqueslefataliste.Yet whilethe similarities
betweenthesetwoauthorsand
theirworks
arestriking,
forthepurposes
ofcommunications
history
thedifferences
in theirattempts
to achievea conversational
effect
in theirworkare moreimportant.
COMMUNICATIONS
HISTORIANS
21
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22
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYSTUDIES
WithSterne,"conversation"
meanstheactiveoralparticipation
ofhisreader,a verbalinvolvement
thatis basedto a largeextent
on Sterne'screativeuse oftypography,
especially
in hisheavyuse
ofrhetorical
punctuation.
For Diderot'sreader,"conversation"
stillimpliesa kindof inbutas a silentobserver
within
volvement,
thenovel'screateddramaticenvironment
ratherthanas a verbalparticipant.
Diderot's
likeourowntoday,is forthemostpartgrammatical;
punctuation,
it helpsthereaderidentify
thestructural
architecture
of thesentencespassingbeforehis eyes.This difference
betweenthe two
writers'
typographical
practiceis notsimplya matterof personal
It stemsfromtwoverydifferent
stylistic
preference.
viewpoints
abouttherelationship
between
andwriting.
In fact,tothe
speaking
extentthatSterne'sand Diderot'sbeliefsrepresent
thoseof their
respective
contemporary
national
cultures-andas wewillsee,with
regardtooralculture
theyareindeedrepresentative-their
differing
a basicdifference
between
typographical
usagereflects
Englishand
Frenchattitudes
towardlanguageandliterature
duringthesecond
halfoftheeighteenth
century.
Sterne'stypographical
within
Tristram
practice
Shandyhasbeen
comments
almostfromthemoment
of its publication,
attracting
notsurprising
Mostof
giventhenovel'sexaggerated
printdisplays.
thecriticalreactions
tothisoftenpuzzlingperformance-including
recentinsightful
commentaries
abouttheextentto whichtypogtoSterne's"conversational
raphycontributes
style"-havesuffered
a focus.Limitedto an analysisof Sterne'sworks
fromtoonarrow
alone-and usuallyonlyto Tristram
Shandy-priorstudieshave
framework
lackedthe kindof historical/linguistic
againstwhich
mustbe judgedifwe are to understand
howhe
Sterne'spractices
devicesto function-that
intendedhis typographical
is, howhe
hisreaderstoreacttothesedevicesinhistext.Thisfailure
intended
to considerthenormswhichprevailedin Sterne'sday regarding
has resuch thingsas punctuation
placementand capitalization
oftwentieth-century
linsultedin whatamountsto theimposition
theneconeighteenth-century
material.1
guisticattitudes
However,
Style"in The WingedSkull, eds.
'See Eugene Hnatko,"Sterne'sConversational
ArthurH. Cash and JohnM. Stedmond(Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ,Press,
1971), pp. 235-36: Hnatko'sconclusionthatthe "speakingpresence"in thenovel
is based on ourmodernperspective
is merelyan artistic"illusion,"whileinsightful,
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
23
forSterne's
essaryhistorical/linguistic
context
canbe provided
work
to availablesecondary
byreferring
evidence-totheconsiderable
ofpunctuation
number
whichbegan
grammars
and commentaries
toappearinEnglandinthesixteenth
andwhichcontinued
century,
toappearthroughout
andbeyond
theeighteenth.
Thetypographical
practices
described
inthesecommentaries-practices
bothofwritersin placingthevariousmarks,and especiallyof readersin decodingthem-demonstrate
thatat theveryhistorical
moment
duringwhichSternewaswriting
Tristram
Shandy,hisEnglishreaders
wereprepared,
toa greater
extent
thaneverbefore
orsince,totreat
hispunctuation
symbols
as specific,
detailedverbalreadingcluesas typesof"in-text"
whichsignalledpauses,intonation,
directions
accentandemphasis-for
whattheyconceived
ofas an "accurate"
verbalrendering
ofthevoiceor voicesthatSternehad codedinto
thetext.Thisstateof punctuation
thatSterne's
practicesuggests
readersmighthavefoundhistypographical
usageidiosyncraticbutonlybecauseheexaggerated
theconventional
stratpunctuation
egiesoftheage,notbecausehe departed
fromthem.To theextent
thatSterne'seighteenth-century
Englishreaderswereaware,as we
aretoday,
ofthelimitations
oftypography
incapturing
thenuances
of thehumanvoice,theywouldhaveappreciated
Sterneall the
moreforapparently
them.
overcoming
Thelateeighteenth-century
Englishpunctuation
strategies
which
underlieSterne'susageare based on a conceptof languagefundifferent
fromour own.The difference
is merelyexdamentally
pressed,
andnotexplained,
withthetraditional
references
to "rhetorical"
versus"structural"
practice,
withtheoldersystem
signalling
therhythm,
orthepauses,within
written
discourse-with
a comma,
forinstance,
thereaderto takea shortbreath;and the
directing
newersystem(the one we in the English-speaking
worldlargely
adhereto today)usingthevariouspunctuation
marksto signalthe
grammatical
or structural
unitsof discourse-sothatthecomma
nowappearsafteran introductory
adverbialclause,and so forth.
aboutthedifferences
between
speaking
andwriting.
Sterne'scontemporaries,
who
did notyetsharethisperspective,
wouldhavetakenhisartto be a reasonable
representation
ofspeech.See inthesamecollection
LouisT. Millic,"Information
Theoryand theStyleof Tristram
Shandy";and WilliamHoltz,"Typography,
Tristram
Shandy,
theAposiopesis,
etc.";seealsoIanWatt,"Introduction,"
HoughtonMifflin
editionof The Life and Opinionsof TristramShandy,Gentleman,p.
xxvii.
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24
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES
Whatwe needto do to explainthisdifference
is to startwitha
recognition
thattodayweunderstand
muchmoreabout"Language"
as a phenomenon
thanmostpeopleintheEnglisheighteenth
century
did. Todayno one seriously
questionsthe idea thatwriting
and
speaking
areessentially
twodifferent
processes,
thattheoneis not,
andcannotbe,an accuratereflection
oftheother.
Writing
is widely
takento be a spatialandvisual,ratherthanan oral,phenomenon,
withits owndistinctconventions
regarding
syntax,diction,and
ratherthananyoverlapping
Thesedistinctions,
punctuation.
similarities
between
speaking
andwriting,
arenowstressed,
forinstance,
in teaching
composition;
anda beginning
writer
mustmasterthese
ifheorsheis towriteacceptableEnglishprose.
writing
conventions
thesedifferences
werefullycodified
durHowever,
onlyrecently,
the readerand writertrainedin the
ing the nineteenth-century:
rhetorical
tradition-atradition
whichheldswayroughly
fromthe
timeof theancientGreekrhetoricians
until,and to someextent
of writing
in
evenbeyond,theadventof romanticism-conceived
oral terms,treating
thewritten
wordas an adjunctto,and as a
reflection
of,thewriter's
spokenword.Rhetoric,
understood
to be
whichparadoxically
oraldelivery,
theartgoverning
emergedas a
discipline,
as WalterOng has shown,onlywiththeappearanceof
of prestructures"
writing,
"perpetuated
[the]oralpsychological
within
thewritten
literate
society
byenshrining
theseoraltraditions
word:
in writing.
It is an
Rhetorical
cultureis basicallyoralcultureshrouded
senseofthisterm,
oralculture
whoseinstitutions
(inthesociological
ways
ofdoingthings,
ofbehavior)
havebeencodified,
patterns
putintomanuals,
and thusboth
and of reflective
madetheobjectof reflection
training,
which
andreinforced
sustained
artificially
bywriting-the
veryinstrument
obsolete.2
wasultimately
to maketheseinstitutions
in rhetorical
culturecontradiction
Therethusexistedan inherent
ofthought,
theolder,prea tension
between
twocompeting
systems
withdisputeand
oralworld,one whichwas preoccupied
literate,
as a social,
andwhichviewedlanguageinall itsforms
commitment,
2Thefirstquote appears in Presenceof the Word:Some Prolegomenafor Cultural and Religious History (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1967), p. 31; the
second in Rhetoric,Romance and Technology:Studies in the Interactionof
Expressionand Culture(Ithaca: CornellUniv.Press, 1971), p. 261.
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
25
ofpersuasion;
external
and theemerging
instrument
visualworld,
a silentworldpreoccupied
withspace,onewhichwouldeventually,
in eclipsing
theolderpatterns
ofthought,
cometo treatlanguage,
written
especially
language,as a silentandvisualphenomenon,
an
ofindividual
instrument
reflection
uninvolved
withcomrelatively
munication.
As bothOng and MarshallMcLuhanhaveshown,thistension
betweentheoraland visualwas introduced
withtheinvention
of
thealphabetjustbeforethedawnofrhetorical
culture-aninventionwhich,
inallowing
fora roughcorrespondence
between
specific
written
symbolsand individually
spokenvowelsand consonants,
thatseeingletterswas somehowequivalentto hearing
suggested
sounds.Twomajorhistorical
eventsintensified
thissound/sight
tension.First,movabletypewasinvented
in thefifteenth
the
century,
regularity
and uniformity
of whichhelpeddissociatewordsfrom
theiroralrootsbyaccelerating
more
reading
speed,andledreaders,
thanbefore,
to treatlanguageas a "thing,"
as something
strongly
tobe conceived
ofspatially,
rather
thanas anintegral
partofhuman
behavior.Second,the Renaissancehumanists
revivedLatin languageand culture,thereby
theinstitutions
of theold
revitalizing
rhetorical
tradition
and forestalling
therapidsubmersion
of oral
culture.3
Sixteenthandseventeenth-century
hardpressed
linguistics,
to balancetheirlinguistic
explanations
betweenthesespatialand
rhetorical
pressures-toexplainlanguage,
an oralbehavior,
in spatialterms-relied
increasingly
on a languagemodelthatpresented
as a kindofperfect
writing
mirror
ofspeaking.
ThusRobertRobinson,arguingin 1605thatit is possibleto ensurea perfect
"fit"
betweenall spokensoundsandwritten
defines
as
symbols,
writing
"an artificiall
ofcertainmarksand characters
framing
different
in
formeand shapeforeveryseverallsoundin mansvoice,whereby
eachsimplesoundhavinga propermarkappointed
to it selfe,may
be thesameas apparently
seento theeye,as thesoundit selfeis
discerned
sensibly
bytheeares."4
It isthisviewoflanguage,
seeking,
as Ong puts it, "to assimilatethe worldof sound ... in a bizarre
3Seetheabove-cited
worksofOngandMcLuhan,TheGutenberg
Galaxy(Toronto:
TheUniv.ofToronto
Press,1962)fordiscussions
ofcommunications
history.
4The PhoneticWritings
of RobertRobinson(1605; rpt.London:OxfordUniv.
Press, 1957), p. 19.
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26
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES
punctherhetorical
thatunderlies
to theworldofvision,"5
fashion
whichprevailed
inEnglandfromthesixteenth
tuationconventions
puncSuchrhetorical
century.
untiltheearlypartofthenineteenth
But
century.
were
in
force
the
sixteenth
to
prior
conventions
tuation
climateof
withinthesamehistorical
it was duringthiscentury,
regardcontorted
explanations
Robinson's
whichprompted
thought
practices
punctuation
"fits,"
thatrhetorical
sound/sight
ingperfect
ofrhebybeingplacedin manuals.The history
codified
werefirst
untiltheromantic
practicefromthismoment
toricalpunctuation
of thetensioncreatedin thisclashbetween
periodis thehistory
and printculture-theclash
soundand sight,betweenrhetorical
and systematization
or oral language
createdin the codification
word.
theprinted
habitsthrough
inEngofpunctuation
Wecansee intheveryearliesttreatments
of speech:JohnHart's
is a reflection
lishthe beliefthatwriting
thedue orderand
"conteyning
is subtitled,
1569An Orthographie
reason,howeto writeor printthimageofmannesvoice,mostlike
in theceninherent
tension
to thelifeornature."The sound/sight
in Hart'sdistowardwritten
languageis reflected
tury'sattitudes
which"mayeyieldethe
of punctuation,
cussionof theusefulness
muchthereadierto thesenses,as wellto theeie as to the
matter,
continueth,
us howtoreste:whenthesentence
eare.Forit sheweth
andis not
whatis written,
andwhenit endeth:howtounderstande
of theroleof puncHart'sawareness
needfuleto thesentence."6
boththe"eie" and "eare"is echoedin Francis
tuationin serving
in 1587:Clementnotesthat
Clement'sThePetieSchole,published
themeaning
"thebreathis relieved,
is observed,
whenpunctuation
the
and
all
sensessatthe
eare
the
delited,
directed,
coceived, eye
BothHartand Clementattendto thisdual roleof puncisfied."7
betweenloose advice
theiressays,alternating
tuationthroughout
the eye"placingpunctuation-"directing
aboutgrammatically
for
as cues
pausing-apforreadingpunctuation
and suggestions
ofthepausessignalled
by
pealingto "theeare."Hart'scomparison
the
withthepausesin musicalnotation-for
instance,
punctuation
'Presence,p. 64.
6An Orthographie(1569; rpt. Menston,England: The Scolar Press, 1969), p.
40. The paragraph'slaterquote is on p. 40A.
7ThePetie Schole (1587; rpt.Menston,England:The Scolar Press, 1967), pp.
24-25.
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
27
comma"is in readingtheshortestrest,nearethe timeof a Crachet
in musique"-will reappearin punctuationcommentaries
throughout the seventeenth
and eighteenthcenturies:Sternehimselfwill
lean on the analogyin his pointingof TristramShandy.
withfewexceptions,became
Seventeenth-century
commentaries,
moreexplicitlyrhetoricalin theirpunctuation
discussionsthanhad
In Simon Daines' 1640 work
theirsixteenth-century
counterparts.
OrthoepiaAnglicana,the potentialof punctuationmarksforcapturingthe voice in printhas greatlyincreased.A comma is to be
used, forexample,"in the mostconvenientplaces to make a small
pause for the necessityof breathing;or in Rhetoricallspeeches
(whenmanywordsare used to one effect)to make a kindeof Emphasis and deliberationforthe great majestyor state of the Elocution."8The writer's"Emphasis,"or his tone,could additionally
be expressedin printthroughthe use of capital letters.The last
spellingrule in Elisha Coles' The CompleatEnglishSchoolmaster
indicateshowcommonthe practiceof rhetoricalcapitalizationhad
become in 1674:
Whatsoever
wordstheauthorlaiesanykindofstressorforceupon,these
he eitherwritesin a different
or elseprefixes
a Capitalbefore
character,
butstrength
of
them,or both.Hencethosethatthinktheywritenothing
willscarcevouchsafe
witandthunderbolts,
youtwowordstogether
without
a Capital.Theyareindeedso muchinfashion,
thatI reckon
thisis a good
ruleto go by,viz:
Whensoever
youareindoubt,whether
youhadbestwritea littleletter
or a greatone,be sureyouwritea greatone.Forthisis thesafesthand
to erreon.9
Nearly a centurylater the practicewas being describedin much
the same way: Ann Fishernotesin one rule of her 1750 A New
Grammarthat"any Partof Speech,whenthereis a Force,or Emphasis, laid upon it, maybe printedwitha Capital."10
Not onlywere seventeenthand eighteenth-century
readersand
writerstaughtthatpunctuation
couldsignal"Force"or "Emphasis"
8Orthoepia
Anglicana(1640; rpt.Menston,
England:The ScolarPress,1967),
p. 70.
9TheCompleatEnglishSchoolmaster(1974; rpt.Menston,England:The Scolar
Press,1967),p. 107.
'OANewGrammar
(1750; rpt.Menston,
England:The ScolarPress,1968),p.
135.
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28
STUDIES
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
as well as pauses; the fourmostcommonmarksof punctuationthe comma,semicolon,colon and period-also came to signal,in
longerpauses in reading.In
preciselydefinedways,progressively
Daines' 1640 work,the analogy betweenpauses in readingand
musicalreststhatHart had touchedon in 1569 has been expanded
intoa teachingtechnique:
taughtme to keeptime,by tellingfrom
I remember
mysinging-master
to thenatureof thetimewhichI was to keep,and I
1, to 4, according
tome,tillI wasperfect
thereof
mucheaseandcertainty
thepractice
found
toinsure
init.ThesamecourseI haveusedtomypupilsintheirreading,
ofthepauses,andfoundit no lessesuccessfull."1
themto thedistinction
Such preciseattentionto therelativedurationof pauses in reading
seems morethana bit fantasticto us today,withour emphasison
in
rapid visual reading.Yet such statementsappear so frequently
discussionsof pointingas to
and eighteenth-century
seventeenthamountto a commonplaceof the rhetoricalpunctuationtradition.
In A Treatiseon Stops, an anonymous1680 workwhichwas the
to punctuation,
firstofmanyEnglishgrammarsdevotedexclusively
the commonplaceis expressedin even morepreciseterms:
Stop:No more,
A Commais a Breathing
Stopat it whileyoumaytellone,Therefore.
placedis; Thereyou
WhereSemi-Colon
Maypleasto makea Stop,whileyoutelltwo.
A colonis a longerStop;Therefore,
Stopat each Colon,whileyoumaytellFour.
Ye Stop,whileyoutellSir,do notforget,
Whereyoudo see a periodto be set.
commentaries,
As is thecase withmostofthecentury'spunctuation
littleadviceto writers
grammaticalplaceregarding
thisworkoffers
mentof the marks;it does, however,repeatfivetimesa chargeto
12 The English
readersto "giveeach ofthemarks... theirdu time."
within
existed
a
structure
centurywas awarethatthere
seventeenth
"P. 70.
'2A Treatiseon Stops (1680; rpt.Menston,England:The Scolar Press, 1968),
pp. 4-5.
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
29
language,but it paid relativelylittleattentionto it in dealingwith
punctuation.
During the eighteenthcenturythe English continuedto point
rhetorically,
usingthe variousmarksto help createthe "conversational"qualitytypicalof theirage, a qualitywhichdepended,as
Stedmondobserves,on a "blurringof the stylisticdistinctionbeof course
and prose.""3The degreeof creativity
tweenconversation
variedfromauthorto author,but mostof the age's fictionalprose
writers-fromBehn throughSwift,Defoe, Richardson,Fielding,
Sterne,and to some extentthroughAustenand even beyond-did
intheirworksas one meansofachievrelyon rhetorical
punctuation
ing what The Tatler called "an air of commonspeech."14 Such
rhetoricalusage, identifiable
throughwhatseemsto us todayto be
an excess of punctuationmarksand italics,and also in the use of
verylong "periods,"or sentences,is evident,forinstance,in this
passage fromthe original(1719) editionof RobinsonCrusoe:
Animated
withthis,he tooktheMusket,I had givenhim,in hisHand,
anda Pistolin hisBelt,andhistwoComradeswithhim,witheachMan
a Piecein hisHand.The twoMen whowerewithhimgoingfirst,
made
someNoise,at whichoneoftheSeamen,whowas awake,turn'dabout,
and seeingthemcoming,
cry'doutto therest;butit was toolate then;
fortheMoment
he cry'dout,theyfir'd:
I meanthetwoMen,theCaptain,
widelyreserving
hisownPiece:Theyhad so wellaim'dtheirShotat the
Men theyknew,thatone of themwas kill'don theSpot,and theother
verymuchwounded....15
treatises,we
Withtheknowledgeprovidedbytheage's punctuation
can imaginehowexpressively,
ofvoice,
withwhatcarefulsuspensions
wouldhave
precisepausingand emphasis,Defoe's contemporaries
read these two sentences-the second of whichcontinueswithout
a fullstop foranothernineteenlines.
The punctuationtreatisesalso tell us, however,thatDefoe probably dependedto some extenton structuralas well as rhetorical
criteriainpunctuating
hissentences.The factthateach ofthemarks
'3JohnStedmond,The ComicArtof LaurenceSterne(Toronto:Univ.ofToronto
Press,1967),p. 32.
'4Quotedin Q. D. Leavis,Fictionand theReadingPublic(London:Chatto&
Windus,1965), p. 125.
'5DanielDefoe, The Life and StrangeSurprizingAdventures
of RobinsonCru-
soe (London:W.Taylor,1719),pp. 304-05.
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30
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYSTUDIES
gramratherthanwithin,
withintheabovepassagefallsbetween,
phrasesand clauses-does notin
maticalwordclusters-between
usingthe
structurally,
itselfindicatethatDefoewas punctuating
his
as wedo today.Foronething,
marksas visualparsingsymbols
use of italicsindicatesthathe expectedhis readersto reactrheIn addition,
mostofthenotablepauses
to histypography.
torically
in speakingfallbetween,
ratherthanwithin,
thatoccurnaturally
ofmarks
Andfinally,
highnumber
therelatively
thesewordclusters.
Defoe
uses
demonstrates
that
he-like
other
late
seventeenththat
to encodein his
writers-wastrying
and earlyeighteenth-century
writing
as manyofthesepausesas he couldforhisreader.On the
ofhistypography-the
fact,
andregularity
otherhand,theprecision
marksdo all act as parsingsymbols,
again,thathis punctuation
thatwhileDefoewas
andthatonlynounsarecapitalized'6-suggest
inprintthenuances
ofencoding
indeedsensitive
tothepossibilities
tothelogicalstructure
ofthevoice,hewasalsorelatively
responsive
within
language.In thistoo,Defoewas typicalofhisage.
tosweepover
wasbeginning
Fora greatsurgeofgrammaticality
While
decadesoftheeighteenth
century.
Englandduringthefirst
thanfifty
inalltheyearsleadingupto1600fewer
grammars
English
withvocabulary,
had beenpublished-andthosedealingprimarily
in theperiodfrom1700-1750alonealmostfifty
notwithsyntax,
appeared;and between1750 and 1800 overtwo
newgrammars
for
This rage forstructure,
hundrednewtitleswerepublished."7
alteredatprofoundly
languageas a spatialphenomenon,
treating
The commentaries
beganto treatpunctitudestowardtypography.
whileontheonehandtheycontinued
incontradictory
terms:
tuation
in
defined
ways,todecodethevarious
toinstruct
readers, precisely
directed
readingcues,theyalso increasingly
marksas rhetorical
crito structural
to placethemarksaccording
andprinters
writers
EnglikeColes'TheComplete
commentaries
'6Aswehaveseeninpunctuation
lish Schoolmaster,and Fisher's 1750 A New Grammar,English writerswere
bytheearly
nouns.However,
or"Force"bycapitalizing
advisedtoencode"stress"
inmostEnglish
ofnounshadbecomesoroutine
century
thecapitalizing
eighteenth
alonein a textcannotbe
feature
booksthatthepresenceof thistypographical
routine
Theincreasingly
intentions.
rhetorical
ofan author's
as evidence
regarded
were
evidencethatauthorsand printers
use of capitalizednounsin factoffers
thestructure
toidentifying
speechproperties
from
encoding
theirconcern
shifting
oftheirsentences.
'7ArthurKennedy,A Bibliographyof Writingsabout the English Language
Univ.Press,1927).
(London:Oxford
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
31
themselves
exercised
teria.Thereis no questionthattheprinters
influence
ontypography,
frequently
an important,
andconservative,
inthesamewaythat
rhetorical
standardizing
authorial
punctuation
they"corrected"
phonetic
spelling.
Moxon,in his 1683Mechanick
ofwhatshouldbe donewithan
theproblem
Exercises,addressing
ofsomegood
author's
"faulty"
copy,declaresthat"thecarelessness
has forcedPrinters
Authors,
and theignorance
of otherAuthors,
tointroduce
a Custom,whichamongthemis look'duponas a task
on theCompositer,
viz.to discernandamend
anddutyincumbent
the bad Spelling,and Pointingof his Copy. ... it is necessary...
that[an author]haveso muchSenseand Reason,as to Pointhis
A printer
with"theSenseandReaconcerned
Sentences
properly."
wasnotlikelyto tolerate
rhetorical
that
sonofsentences"
pointing
of sentences;
and withthe
did nothelpidentify
thearchitecture
aroundtheendoftheseventeenth
century,
passingofthecustom,
ofhiscopy,
ofallowingtheauthorto attendin persontheprinting
increased
ofthatcopybeingalteredbytheprinter
thepossibilities
A writerwhocaredabouthis punctuation
greatly.
stillcould,of
in theproofsthattheprinters
of theday
course,makerevisions
normally
sentback to thewriterforperusal;but as thecentury
progressed,
moreand moreauthorsappearto haveleftdecisions
aboutspellingand pointing
to theprinter.
Smith,in ThePrinter's
in 1775,complains
expect
Grammar,
published
that"mostAuthors
thePrinter
to spell,point,and digesttheirCopy,thatit maybe
andsignificant
were
intelligible
totheReader."118
Thuswhilereaders
stillbeingtrained
toreadpunctuation
intheeighteenth
rhetorically,
thebookstheywerereadingwereincreasingly
century
beingpunctuatedgrammatically
Withwriters
and printers
by the printers.
morestrictly
and fewer,
applying
regularized,
marksthanbefore,
thevisualworldwas steadilyundermining
theoral habitsof the
rhetorical.
Once begun,theshiftfromrhetorical
to structural
punctuation
in An
strategies
rapidlywentto completion.
In 1785 Robertson
notedthatwithless and less punctuation
Essay on Punctuation
within
appearing
printed
texts,rhetorically
trained
readers-inthe
'8Moxonand Smithare quotedin PercySimpson,
Proof-Reading
in theSixteenth,
Seventeenth
andEighteenth
Centuries
(London:Oxford
Univ.Press,1935),
p. 53; see pp. 42-104foran overview
oftheinfluence
thatprinters
on
exercized
rhetorical
typography.
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32
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES
absenceofverbalreading
cues-couldcontinue
toreadexpressively
onlyby dramatically
improvising:
"[B]ooksare no certainguides;
formostofthemare carelessly
and irregularly
pointed;andmany
in reading,
pausesare necessary
whereno pointis inserted
bythe
printer."
Thushecontends
thatsince"nothalfthepausesarefound
in printing,
whichare heardin thepronunciation
ofa goodreader
orspeaker;. . . ifwewouldreadorspeakwell,wemustpause,upon
or sixthword."WhileRobertson
an average,at everyfifth
does
to punctuate
claimsthatpunctuaadvisewriters
structurally-he
onrational
anddeterminate
tion"isfounded
principles"-his
feeling
forgrammar
andsemantics
is stillratherinexact,
hisrulesforcorofpunctuation
rectplacement
markers
dependent
onrelatively
inexact grammatical
criteria.A semicolon,
forexample,"is used for
a compounded
intotwoor moreparts,not
dividing
(sic) sentence
as those,whichare separatedby a comma;
so closelyconnected,
of each other,as those,whichare distinyetnotso independent
guishedby a colon."19
Givensucha degreeof imprecision,
it is
to findin Stackhouse's
1800A NewEssayon
somewhat
surprising
ofpunctuation's
Punctuation
a preciseandfullycodified
definition
andsemantic
roleinsignalling
information.
Robertson
grammatical
an "art";Stackhouse
fifteen
calls
yearsearlierhad calledpointing
it to "its higheststateof
it a "science"and speaksof carrying
Thereis consequently
littlelatitudein his
attainableperfection."
in describing
of thecolon,he
forinstance,
theplacement
system;
insense,
bothcomplete
saysthat"whentwoclausescometogether
butconnected,
theyrequireto be separatedby a colon;suchare
AndwhileStackhouse
ismoreprescriptive
thanRobsub-periods."20
withregardto grammatical
ertsonandotherearliercommentators
thantheothers
heisalsomoreprescriptive
andsemantic
placement,
he advisesthat"the
of pauseduration;
in termsof his treatment
or lengthof theleadingpause is bestdetermined
brevity
by the
ofthesubject."'21
tension
orweighty
andsolemn,
lightandsprightly,
andofstructural
As an extreme
advocatebothofrhetorical
puncStackhouse
at theturnofthecentury,
tuationstrategies,
embodies,
'9JosephRobertson,An Essay on Punctuation(rpt. Menston,England: The
Scholar Press, 1968), pp. 18, 75, and 77.
20p.18.
2"ThomasStackhouse,A New Essay on Punctuation(London:T. Bensley,1800),
pp. ii, v,and 64.
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
33
thetwotraditions.
a highpointoftensionbetween
is virHalfa century
latertheshiftto punctuating
bystructure
TheReverend
whosedescription
JamesStormonth,
tuallycomplete.
ofwriting
as "written
speech"inhis1861TheHandyEnglishWord
is nevertheless
comBookstillindicates
a rhetorical
training,
wholly
"The
mitted
toplacingpunctuation
according
tostructural
criteria:
ofthegramofdetermining
therightapplication
onlytruemethod
maticalpointsto written
speech,is itsanalysis;thatis,totakeand
examinethedifferent
partsthatmakeup written
speech,and aswherethevoicemightbe expectednaturally
certainthepositions
to pause a longeror shorter
time,and wheretheeye requiresa
that
breakto fitthesense."22
It is clearfromtherulesthatfollow,
wherethe
Stormonth
intendsthephrase,"ascertainthepositions
voicemight
be expectednaturally
topause"tomean"ascertain
the
constructions
whichdetermine
grammatical
andsemantic
punctuaThe voiceis in factrelatively
here:
tionplacement."
unimportant
it is "theeye"that"requiresa breakto fitthesense,"not,as in
"thevoice"re-creating
a breakto fitthesense
previous
centuries,
the
tones
and
of
the
writer's
voice.Writing
givenby
intonations
nownolongerrelatedtosound,buttosight;ithadbecomea spatial,
A considerable
ratherthanan oral,phenomenon.
gap had opened
between
word.
thespokenand printed
However,
just priorto thisvisualresolution
ofthelong-standing
between
tension
sightand sound,attitudes
towardpunctuation
becameremarkably
morethaninanyprevious
oral,probably
perioda resurgence
of oral culturewhichrecallsnothing
so muchas a
ill patientwhodramatically
and temporarily
terminally
goesinto
remission.
Duringthisperiodsomepunctuation
treatises
wentto
extraordinary
lengths
to explainhowan authorcould,withtheaid
of typographical
devices,encodethesoundsof hisvoicein print,
as JamesBurrow's1771 An Essay on theUse ofPointingillustrates:
TheGeneralIdea ofPointing
seemstoincludenothing
morethanmarking
downuponPaper,by different
Signsor notations,
therespective
Pauses
whichactuallywereoroughttobe madeinpronouncing
thewordswritten
or printed;
withlikeHintsfora different
together
Modulationof Voice,
wherea justpronunciation
wouldrequireit.
22James
Stormonth,
TheHandyEnglishWordBook(London:WilliamP. Nim-
mo), p. 479.
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34
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES
As letters
aretheMarksofarticulate
Sounds,andWordstheSignsof
Ideas, and Languagethe Representation
of Thoughts;
so Writing
and
Printing
maybe rendered
Pictures
ofPronunciation.
ThePauses,theAccents,theEmphasis,and eventheToneof Voicemay,perhapswithout
be noteduponPaper.
Difficulty,
... He [the writer]may describethem so well upon Paper, that his
Readermayforman Idea, howtheWriterdid or wouldpronounce
the
Words;and howtheReadermay,if he pleases,pronounce
themin the
verysame manner.
***
... it mightin some Measure answertheir[thewriters']Purpose,or at
leasthelpthema little,if theywouldonlyhabituate
themselves
topronouncealoud theWordstheyhave beenwriting
down;and thenpoint
them.23
Burrow'sexplanationconcerningthe potentialities
of typography
forcapturingin printthe author'svoice offersconsiderableinsight
intohis contemporary
Sterne'spunctuating
of TristramShandy,a
workwhichHazlitt would later describeas "the pure essence of
Englishconversational
style."24
Sterne,who wrotein his novelthe
familiarstatementthat"writing,
whenproperlymanaged... is but
a different
name forconversation,"25
on thecrereliedconsiderably
ativeuse oftypography
to achievehisconversational
effect.Sterne's
eighteenth-century
readers,trainedas theywereto decode rhetorically in readingaloud, were fullypreparedto interpret
his punctuation,what Borrowwould have called his "Picturesof Pronunciation,"as cues to an "accurate"verbalreadingof his work.
insofaras it extendedbeyond
Sterne'spunctuation,
idiosyncratic
previoususage-especially withitsmanydashesof varyinglengths,
and in the frequencywithwhichthedashes are coupledwithother
marks-demanded of readersa higherdegreeof creativeinvolvementthan ever before.Sterne'ssystemwould by no means have
been incomprehensible-"indecipherable"-tohisEnglishcontemporaries:it was still based in the readingresponsesillustratedin
on the predictableresponses
the age's punctuationcommentaries,
An Essay on the Use of Pointing,and the
23DeUse et Ratione Interpungendi:
Facilityof PracticingIt (London: J. Worrall& B. Tovey,1771), pp. 8 and 14.
24Quotedin Stedmond,p. 31.
edition(1965), II, xi. Hereaftervolumeand chap251anWatt'sHoughtonMifflin
ter referencesare givenin the text.I have also consultedthe firsteditionin the
ofIllinois([London] 1760-67,9 vols.)toconfirm
Rare BookRoomat theUniversity
the placementand lengthof dashes.
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
35
to suchmarksas thecomma,semicolon,
colon,periodand dash,
the devicesBurrowcalls the "signs... whichsignalthe respective
Pauseswhichactuallywereoroughtto be madeinpronuncing
the
Wordswritten
or printed."
Sterneactivelyexperimented
withtynot
pographical
devicesthroughout
Tristram
Shandy-including
onlyhisdashes,butalsotheasterisks,
theGothic,italicandcapital
thesquiggly
letters,
theexclamation
points,thepointing
fingers,
in thesuccessof theseand
lines,and more.He was so confident
otherpracticesas to inform
his readerthat"neverdo I hitupon
theinvention
or devicewhichtendeth
to thefurtherance
of good
writing,
butI instantly
makeitpublic"(IX, xii).His contemporaries
wouldnothavebeenundulystartled
byevenhismostexperimental
in printthesoundsof
to capturing
devices;theage's commitment
thespokenvoiceencouraged
activeexperimentation,
as Burrow's
punctuation
treatise
goeson to pointout:
... Everyartifice
thatcanbe invented,
[leads]theReader'sApprehension
intotheTrackof theWriter's
Meaning.And ifa writer
findshimself
a
littlehardbound
nowandThen,andnoteasilydelivered
ofhisownMeanit mustbe to hisreader
ing,he willthebetterconceivehowserviceable
tofurnish
himwithanyClewtoguidehimthrough
themazyLabyrinth.26
The "Clews"thatSternefurnishes
hisreadertomaketheMeaning
clearinvolvemorethanthecreativeuse oftypographical
devices.
His detaileddescriptions
ofcharacters'
accentsandtonesofvoiceWalterShandyspeaks"ina tonemoreexpressive
byhalfofsorrow
thanreproach"
(I, iii), or "in thesweetest
modulation"
(IV, xvi);
Tristram
speaks"inthemostpersuasive
toneimaginable"
(VII, viii),
and so on-frequently
providethe readerwithwhatamountto
dramaticreadingcues,complements
to typography
whichhelpin
reproducing
evercloserapproximations
oftheseveralvoicesinthe
text.ForSternethemeaning
ofa workoffiction-or
forthatmatter,
of languageitself-wasnotcommunicated
by theprintedwords
alone,butby thewaythatthewordswerespokenand delivered.
As he expressesit, a singlewordlike"fiddlestick"
maybe pronounced
with"suchan infinitude
ofnotes,tunes,cants,chants,
airs,
looksandaccents... [that]everyoneof'emimpresses
a senseand
as different
meaning
fromtheother,
as dirtfromcleanliness"
(IX,
26p.
8.
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36
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES
xxv).The waythewordswerespoken-firstby thewriterin putting
thewordsdownon paper,and thenby thereaderin speakingthem
aloud-would ultimatelydeterminetheirreal meaning.
Sterne'ssensitivity
as a writerto thetonesof thevoicein reading
is furtherapparentin his topical introduction
of anothertypeof
conversationaldevice-cadence marks-into a discussionof Yorick's sermons.Cadence markswere still used in Sterne's day by
clergymen-perhapsbySternehimself-inapproximately
thesame
wayas standardrhetoricalpunctuation
markers,
as reminders,
when
readinga sermon,of themannerofdeliveryintendedin thewriting
of it. Sterne'swrydescriptionof the notationsthatYorickuses as
cadence marksin thetextofhissermonsindicatesthathe saw them
as servingthe same functionas musicaldirections:
WhatYorickcouldmeanbythewordslentamente,-tenute,-grave,-and
sometimes
andwithwhich
adagio,-as appliedtotheological
compositions,
I darenotventure
toguess.
he has characterized
someofthesesermons,
I am morepuzzledstilluponfinding
a l'octavealta! uponone;
- ConStrepito
Scicillianaupona third;
uponthebackofanother;
Alla capellaupona fourth; Conl'arcouponthis;
Senza
All I knowis,thattheyare musicalterms;and
l'arcouponthat.
havea meaning; andas hewasa musicalman,I willmakenodoubt,
ofsuchmetaphors
butthatbysomequaintapplication
tothecompositions
inhand,theyimpressed
ideasoftheirseveralcharacters
verydistinct
upon
hisfancy.(VI, xi)
Yorick,of course,is Sternehimself,and as a "musicalman" Sterne
wantedto visuallyconveyto his readers-throughany meansposand dramaticdesible, includingtypographicalexperimentation
the
scriptions-hissenseof themusiche heardrunningthroughout
so
spokenlanguage.As writingis anothername forconversation,
writinga book "is forall theworldlike humminga song"(IV, xxv);
and those "who knownothingof musical expression,and merely
lend theirears to the plain importof the world"(IV, xxvii)-or to
to thepotentialities
of
put it anotherway,thosewhoare insensitive
printforcapturingthe musical propertiesof the voices-simply
miss thisentiredimensionof meaningin the work.
While Sterne'sattemptsto capturethroughwrittensymbolsthe
subtlemusical tonesof the spokenvoice seem extremeto us, it is
to bear in mindthe factthathis attemptswerenot isoimportant
lated, that othersduringthe periodwere strivingin variousways
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
37
to attainthe same end. It was notonlyBurrowwhovigorously
thatcanbe invented"
advocated
thatwriters
employ"everyartifice
inprint
thespoken
word:othercontemporaries
tocapture
ofSterne's,
Joshua
hands
amongthemthelinguist
Steele,alsolenttheircreative
In his 1779treatise,
to theattempt.
"ProsodiaRationalis,"Or,An
Essay TowardsEstablishing
theMelodyand MeasureofSpeech,
To Be Expressedand Perpetuated
By PeculiarSymbols,a work
publishedat the behestof the RoyalSociety,Steele outlineda
notation
system
whichhehopedwouldovercome
whatheperceived
tobe theunfortunate
limitations
ofconventional
Steele
typography.
notedthatonlyaccent,quantity
and pausescouldbe codedwith
conventional
(rhetorical)
typographical
devices,withtheresultthat
whathe calls "emphasis"and "force"(or loudness)werelargely
To correct
he designed
a system
ignored.
thislamentable
oversight,
thatresembles-andin complexity,
notafarsurpasses-musical
anditsabilitytocaptureextremely
tion;withitsdozensofsymbols,
subtlevocaldistinctions,
thislate eighteenth-century
creationresemblesnothing
so muchas a manualtape-recording
Its
system.27
as wellas therapidlyaccelerating
shiftfromthe
verycomplexity,
oralto thevisualworld,fromrhetorical
to structural
punctuation
itsquickdemise.
strategies,
guaranteed
in typographical
Steel'sdesireforprecision
matters
is common
tomostlateeighteenth-century
Englishpunctuation
commentaries.
Evenat theendoftheperiod,readerswerestillexpectedcarefully
toobserve
therelative
valuesofthevariouspunctuation
markswhen
inhis1880A NewEssayonPunctuation
pausing:thusStackhouse
notesthat"thepauses,or spacesoftimeassignedto eachofthese
[thefourmostcommon
punctuation
forrespiration,
are
markers],
in the proportion
to each otherof 1,2,3,4;or 2,4,6,8."28With the
readerfollowing
theseformulas,
he could,as Burrow
putsit,"form
an Idea howtheWriterdid or wouldpronounce
theWords,"prewithas muchprecision
sumably
as waspossibleinthedecoding
of
halfand wholenotesfrommusicalnotation.
eighth,
quarter,
The
precision
ofthissystem
neverextended
tothedash,thefifth
device
usedat thetimetomarkpauses,andtheonethatSterneusedmost
Sterneplaces dashesof varyinglengthsin Tristram
frequently.
27"Prosodia Rationalis" (London:J.Nichols,1779).
28p. i.
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38
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYSTUDIES
dashlengths
intheoriginal
Shandy-thestandard
editionare 3, 5
and 7 mm-a practicewhichindicatesthathe wantedhisreader
to pauseforprogressively
greaterdurations
of timeas thedash's
lengthincreased:
as Burrow
putsit,withthedashthewriter
could
"leave proportionately
longeror smallerspacesbetweenhis senas thepronunciation
tences,
mayrequire
longerorshorter
pauses."29
Thismuchpotential
forimprecise
variability
ledmanygrammarians
to discourage
theuse of thedash,Robertson,
forinstance,
in his
1785AnEssayonPunctuation,
stating
thatitwas"frequently
used
ina verycapricious
byhastyandincoherent
writers,
andarbitrary
manner,
insteadof theregularpoint."30
Sterne'suse of thedash
therefore
labelledhimas capriciousand arbitrary
withhis more
prescriptive
contemporaries-at
leastwiththosewhoweren'talreadyoffended
withhismanyotherdepartures
fromwhathe ironofdecorumand goodbreeding"
icallycalled"thejust boundaries
(II, xi).
Sternenaturally
tomeasureanything
rejectedattempts
prescriptively;he thusreactedto themathematically
precisepunctuation
conventions
of his dayby exaggerating
hisownusage.ThisparoofSterne's
tohisage'snorms
is an important
element
dyingreaction
novelistic
as numerous
criticshavepointed
out.Stedmond,
method,
of
forinstance,
observes
that"clearlySternewasno blindfollower
traditionalrules ... He emphasizedthe ludicrousaspects of stan-
themtoextremes
orotherwise
dardrhetorical
patterns
bycarrying
the
them."931
Sternewas indeedawareofhowludicrous
parodying
conventions
of hisowndayhad become;
prescriptive
punctuation
he exaggerated
theprecisenormsgoverning
pauseduration,
especiallyin his use of the dash,and in a passagewhichdepictsa
the
anda critic,he openlyridicules
between
Tristram
conversation
age's punctilious
pause-watching:
29P.20.
30P. 129.
3p. 38. See also Watt,p. xxi,wherehe sees Sterne'sreactionto realistfictional
normsas "one of skepticaland subversiveparody";and Victor Shklovsky,"A
ParodyingNovel: Sterne's TristramShandy," in JohnTraugott,ed., Laurence
Sterne:A Collectionof CriticalEssays (EnglewoodCliffs:Prentice-Hall,1968),
and ellipses
digressions
pp. 66-69, discussinghowSterne'sexaggeratedtimeshifts,
all fiction,
calls TristramShandy
call attentionto the basic principlesunderlying
"a parodyingnovel."
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"PICTURESOF PRONUNCIATION"
39
AndhowdidGarrickspeakthesoliloquy
lastnight?
Oh, against
mostungrammatically!
thesubstantive
all rule,myLord,
betwixt
and the adjective,...
he made a breach thus,
stopping,as if the
thenominative
pointwantedsettling; andbetwixt
case,whichyour
lordshipknowsshouldgovernthe verb,he suspendedhis voicein the
epiloguea dozentimes,threesecondsand threefifths
by a stop-watch,
myLord,eachtime.
Admirable
grammarian!
Butin
Did noexpreswasthesensesuspended
suspending
hisvoice
likewise?
orcontenance
fillup thechasm?
sionofattitude
Wastheeyesilent?
Did younarrowly
I look'donlyat thestopwatch,
look?
myLord.
Excellent
observer!
(III, xii)
Sterne mocksthe criticforthe attentionhe gives to the precise
durationof Garrick'spauses-"three secondsand threefifths
by a
stop-watch,
my Lord, each time."However,he derideseven more
the critic'sreactionto Garrick's"ungrammaticality,"
the critic's
horrorat Garrick'stendencyto "suspendhis voice" duringthe deliveryof his linesin places wherethestructure
calls forno pausethestubstantive
and theadjective."Sterneas, forinstance,"betwixt
and Garrick-like Burrow,Steele and manyothercontemporary
writers
and readers,wereawarethatpauses are carriersofmeaning,
and thatthecreativeplacementofa pause couldsignificantly
change
the "sense" of a wordor sentence.The critic,concernedonlywith
thegrammaticalplacementand precisedurationofthepauses,misses the real significance
of the performance.
Sterne'ssatirizationof the critic'sconcernforgrammar,and especiallyhis own exaggeratedmanipulationof typography
forrhetoricaleffect-anextravagant
displaywhichsuggestshisfrustration
with,and evenhostility
toward,thelimitations
oftheprintedwordindicatethathe was acutelyawareof the extentto whichhis age's
preoccupationwithstructure
had undermined
theolderoral habits
of mind and disruptedthe close rhetoricalrelationshipbetween
readerand writer.By the earlypartof the nextcenturythe norms
governingthis relationshiphad become predominantly
structural;
as punctuationlost its oral basis,32readingbecame an increasingly
silentand visual affair.The gap betweenthe spokenand written
wordhavingwidenedintoa rupture,
attempts
likeSterne'sto achieve
32See,forinstance,
theauthoritative
A TreatiseonEnglishPuncJohnWilson,
tuation
(1826:31sted.NewYork:American
BookCo., 1871),p. 17,"Punctuation
is founded
rather
on grammar
thanon rhetoric."
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40
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYSTUDIES
the effectof conversation
by whollyassimilating
the oral intoa
spatialcontext
wererendered
obsolete.
Thisshiftfromrhetorical
tostructural
typography,
whichcanbe
figuratively
described
fromthereader'sstandpoint
as a shiftfrom
hearing
punctuation
reproduce
thewriter's
voicetoseeingitreflect
thelogicalordering
oflanguagewithin
thewriter's
mind,represents
and lanone manifestation
of theprofound
revolution
in thought
thetheories
guagewhichwas first
expressed
through
ofDescartes
and thePortRoyalgrammarians
in theseventeenth
As
century.
theCartesianrevolution
Ongpointsout,bytheeighteenth
century
of
hadprofoundly
disrupted
theoldrhetorical/dialectical
economy
thought:
silentcerBytheeighteenth
century
Descartes'logicofpersonal
inquiry,
had ousteddialectic,an art involving
vocalexchange,as the
ebration,
overhumanintellectual
The newlogic
acknowledged
sovereign
activity.
was notthe art of discourse(ars disserendi)
as earlierages,following
takendialecticto be. Rather,it was theart of
Cicero,had commonly
isolatedintellectual
activity,
presumthinking-that
is,ofindividualized,
withcommunication.33
ablyuninvolved
And as Descartes'conceptsshiftedthelocus of "thought"fromthe
externalworldintothe individualmind,so the Port Royal grammarians'notionthatall languagessharecertainuniversalstructural,
or grammatical,
categories,also promoteda shiftformtheexternal
to the internal,frombasing language in speakingand communicationto basing it in the humanmind.This strugglebetweenthe
structural
and
rhetorical
world,oraland social,and theemerging
spatialworld,silentand private,lies behindthe attemptsof Sterne
to achievetheeffect
of
and manyof his Englishcontemporaries
conversation-to
bridgethegap betweenthespokenand written
theoralintoa spatialcontext.
word-bywhollyassimilating
Diderotstandsin the
AmongSterne'sFrenchcontemporaries,
firstrankof thosewho wrotein the conversational
style.He conefsciouslystroveto achieve his easy and familiar,conversational
...
is
a
that
but
who
told
his
readers
fect: like Sterne,
"writing
"I chatwithyou
Diderotpenned,
different
nameforconversation,"
between
in writingas if I weresittingbeside you."34 The similarity
330ng,Presence,p. 63.
34DenisDiderot,quoted in Stedmond,p. 160.
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
41
SterneandDiderotdoesnotend,ofcourse,withtheirsharednotion
pointedout,the
As is frequently
thatwriting
is likeconversation.
in creating
the
twoauthorsemploymanyof thesametechniques
in fact,Diderotis oftenaccusedof having
effect
of conversation;
techniques
that
fromSternemanyofthenarrative
freely
borrowed
appear in his works,especiallythosethathe employsin Jacques le
fataliste.35 Whateverthe extentof Sterne's directinfluenceover
Jacques, the fact remainsthat theredo exist strikingsimilarities
with,
thetwonovels.BothDiderotandSterneexperiment
between
oftheirday,and both
and parody,
thefictional
proseconventions
acceptssuchconaddressandsatirizethereaderwhocomplacently
withprinted
book
whiletheybothexperiment
ventions.
However,
thegap betweenthespokenand
format
as onemeansofbridging
differ.
oftheirexperiments
written
word,boththenatureandextent
device
typographical
Sterne,of course,uses-or mis-uses-every
marks,
standardpunctuation
he can to bridgethegap,including
Didashesofvarying
italicsand capitalletters.
asterisks,
lengths,
muchmorelimited,
consists
derot'stypographical
experimentation,
format:the names
mainlyin his adoptionof dramaticwritten
of manyof these
"Jacques"and "Le maitre"appearat thefront
thework:
"lines"throughout
characters'
Le maitre
Tu as doncete amoureux?
Jacques
Si je I'ai ete!
Le maitre
Et cela parun coupde feu?36
35The
criticalargument
overtheextent
ofthenovel'sindebtedness
to Tristram
Shandyhas a longhistory.
FrancisBrownBarton,Etude sur l'influence
de Laurence
Sterneen France au dix-huitieme
siecle (Paris: LibrarieHachette,1911), p. 118,
speaking
forthosewhobelieveDiderotto be a "plagiarist,"
notesbothDiderot's
admission
in thenovelthathe borrowed
fromSterne,as wellas manystrikingly
similar
passagesbetween
thetwonovels,
andconcludes
that"onpeutregarder
un
bon tiersde Jacques le fataliste commel'imitationde TristramShandy." Alice
GreenFredman,
DiderotandSterne(NewYork:ColumbiaUniv.Press,1955),p.
131,arguesthattheextent
oftheborrowing
is notsogreatas is generally
believed,
thatthesimilarities
"shouldbe attributed
moreto mutualinterest
thanto influence."
36DenisDiderot,Jacques lefataliste,in Vol. 12 of Oeuvrescompletes(Paris: Le
Clubfran9ais
du livre,1969),p. 17.Allsubsequent
citations
ofthenovelarefrom
thisedition.
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42
STUDIES
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
tothework'sdialoguestructure,
Thistechnique,
incallingattention
of dramaticimmediacy,
as do Diderot'sdecreatesan impression
and hiscreation
the
ofmockreaderswithin
scriptions
ofgestures
helpsbreakdownthebarnovel;however,
noneofthesetechniques
wordin thesamewaythat
riersbetweenthespokenand written
do.
Sterne'stypographical
experiments
thetypographical
of his day,
conventions
Sterne,by parodying
playin"capturing"
callsattention
totherolethattheseconventions
thereader'sawareness
ofhis
thewriter's
voice,andthusheightens
andreproducing
ownroleincorrectly
thatvoice.Sterne's
interpreting
readerwouldreadilyhaveresponded
to punceighteenth-century
inpassageslikethefollowing,
inwhichTristram
tuation
graphically
describes
hissea-sickchannelcrossing:
Sick!sick!sick!sick!
Whenshallwe getto land?captain
theyhaveheartslike
0 I am deadlysick!
reachme thatthing,
stones
boy
I wishI was at
'tis themostdiscomfiting
sickness
undone!
un
thebottom Madam!howis itwithyou?Undone!
sir
0! undone!
Whatthefirst
time?
No, 'tisthe
whata tramtenth
sir,
hey-day
second,
third,
sixth,
time,
(VII,ii)
plingoverhead!hollo!cabinboy!what'sthematter
-
on theotherhand,barelycalls attention
to
Diderot'spunctuation,
itself;thispassage,whichseemsto have been suggestedto Diderot
similarpassage in TristramShandy,3"is typicalfor
by a strikingly
its unobtrusive
punctuation:
Jacques
la douleur
demongenou
etaitexcessive;
Quoiqu'ilvousplaised'enpenser,
des
elle s'accroissait
encorepar la duretede la voiture,
par l'inegalite
et a chaquecahotje poussaisun criaigu.(20)
chemins,
whatisprobably
themostextreme
Evenina passagewhichcontains
ofDiderot's
toachievea heightpractice
novel,a passagethatstrives
remainsrelaenedsenseof dramaticimmediacy,
thepunctuation
whentheoriginal
37Theparallelsbetweenthetwopassagesare especiallystriking
appears
Englishpassage,Sterne,VIII, xx,is translatedintoFrench.The translation
in Barton,p. 105: "Ma douleurau genou,continuale caporal,etait excessiveen
elle-meme;et les chaotsde la charettesur des cheminsraboteuxet dans un etat
terrible-la rendantpire encore."
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
43
tivelyunobtrusive.
Jacques describeshow the surgeonand hostess
carriedhimwhilehe was wounded:
L'hotesseapprocha,les yeuxbaisses."Prenezcettejambe,la bonne,je
me chargede l'autre.Doucement,
doucement
... A moi,encoreun peu
vousdis-je,et
a moi... L'ami,un petittoursde corpsa droite;a droite,
nousy voila."Jetenaisle matelasdes deuxmains,je grin9ais
les dents,
la sueurme coulaitle longdu visage."L'ami,cela n'estpas doux.
lachezla jambe,prenezd'oreiller,
Jele sens.
Vousyvoila.Commere,
la chaiseet mettezl'oreiller
dessus... Troppres... Un peu
approachez
la main,serrez-moi
ferme."
plusloin.. . L'ami,donnez-moi
(49)
It is indeed a conversational
style;however,the verbalrhythmof
the prose-includingthe pauses betweenphrasesand clauses-dependsmoreon the disruptive,
fragmented
syntaxthanon thepunctuation.Otherthan the ellipsisperiods-which Diderotuses only
in the novel-the punctuationdoes not much attract
infrequently
createsa senseof drathereader'sattention.
The stylesuccessfully
different
matic immediacy,but in a strikingly
way than Sterne's
does. Sterne'sstyle,by inviting
thereaderto reproducethewriter's
manyvoices in the text,encourageshim to engage himselfboth
verballyand spatiallywithinthe created dramaticenvironment.
Diderot'sstyleasks onlythatthe readerengage himselfspatially.
Diderot'sreader is a relativelysilentobserverwithinthe created
Sterne'sis an activeoral participant.
environment;
The questionthat immediatelyarises is whyDiderot,who was
familiarwithSterne'swork,and whowas trying
thoroughly
tobridge
the gap betweenthe spokenand writtenword (he bewailed the
existenceof such a gap in at least two of his writings38)
did not
himselfexperiment
withrhetoricalpunctuation.
The answerto this
questionlies,at least partly,in an articlewithinDiderot'sand d'Alembert'sEncyclopedieentitled,appropriatelyenough,"Ponctuation."The articlebeginsby describingpunctuationrhetorically
as
"l'art d'iniquerdans l'ecriturepar les signesregus,la proportion
des pauses que l'on doit faire en parlant."39However,in a later
38SeeFredman,
p. 190;theworkswhichare citedare Lettresurles sourdset
muetsandhisarticle"Encyclopedie."
in Vol.26 ofEncyclopedie,ou dictionnaireraisonnedes arts
39"Ponctuation,"
etdesmetiers,
byM. DiderotandM. d'Alembert
(Berne& Lausanne:Les Societes
typographiques,
1778-1781),p. 662. The translation
is myown:"Theartof inin writing
dicating
through
conventional
signs,theproportion
ofpausesthatone
shouldmakein speaking."
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44
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES
passage whichquotes Diderothimself,the articleleaves no doubt
based not
that writingand punctuationare ultimatelystructural,
in speakingbut in thinking:
on n'ecritque pour
De memeque l'on ne parleque pouretreentendu,
transmettre
sespenseesaux absensd'unemaniere
intelligible.
Or il enest
de la paroleecrite,commede la parolepronouncee:
"le repos
a-peu-pres
de la voixdansle discours,
ditM. Diderot... & lessignesdela ponctuation
indiquent
egalement
la liaison
dansl'ecriture,
se correspondent
toujours,
a
ou la disjonction
des idees."Ainsiil y auroitautantd'inconvenient
ou a malplacerdansl'ecriture
les signesde ponctuation,
qu'a
supprimer
ou a mal placerdansla paroleles reposde la voix.Les uns
supprimer
commelesautresservent
a determiner
le sens;& il y a tellesuitede mots
sansle secoursdespausesou descaracteres
quilesindiquent,
quin'auroit,
qu'unesignification
incertaine
& equivoque,& qui pourrait
memepresenterdes senscontradictoires,
selonla manieredonton y grouperoit
les
mots.40
In this approach,one writesin orderto portray(or "transmit")
thought,notto portrayspeech.Writingand speakingboth"servent
a determiner
le sens" since bothactivitiesare held to be based in
the mind;punctuationreflectsthe pauses of speech insofaras the
speech pauses themselvesreflectthe orderedstructureof ideas in
by-passesspeech
the mind.In otherwords,punctuationeffectively
it
"short-circuits
directlyto
as, in Bolinger'smemorablephrase,
theconnection
meaning.'"41The concernis no longerwithperfecting
the connection
betweenwritingand speaking,but withperfecting
betweenwritingand thinking.As the articlegoes on to say,puncthe orderedstructureof ideas in the mindtuation,in reflecting
theuniversalgrammaticalcategoriessharedbyall languages-must
40Ibid.,
p. 664.The translation
is myown:"In thesamewaythatonedoesnot
histhoughts
onedoesnotwriteexcepttotransmit
speakexcepttobe understood,
as it is
Nowit is almostthesamewithwriting,
whenan auditoris notpresent.
alwayscorre'thepausesofthevoicein speech,saysM. Diderot,
withspeaking:
ofideas.'Thustherewould
orthedisjunction
spond,indicateequallythejunction
orincorrectly
signs
placingpunctuation
ineliminating
be as muchinconvenience
placingthepausesof
or incorrectly
in writing,
as therewouldbe in eliminating
serveto determine
thesense;and
thevoicein speech.The ones,liketheothers,
helpofpausesor
thereexistsuchsequencesofwordswhichwouldhave,without
andequivocalmeaning,
and
onlyan uncertain
whichindicate
them,
thecharacters
to thewaythatthe
meanings,
according
whichcouldevenprovidecontradictory
wordsweregrouped."
BraceJovanovich,
Bolinger,
AspectsofLanguage(NewYork:Harcourt
4'Dwight
1975),p. 475.
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
45
generale,"42
whatChomsky
be considered
a partof"la Grammaire
wouldtodaycall "Rationalgrammar."
andthetransformationalists
withpunctuation,
ThusfromDiderot'spointofview,to experiment
to base punctuation
practiceon theneedsof thevoice,as Sterne
ofthemind,
categories
had done,ratherthanon thegrammatical
conceptof
Diderot's
ofthought.
theverystructure
was to disrupt
withpuncexperimenting
actively
himfrom
language,
inpreventing
tobridgethegap
withhisattempts
thusdirectly
interfered
tuation,
thespokenand written
word.
between
inprintthesounds
incapturing
lackofinterest
Diderot'srelative
ofFrench
ofthevoicerepresents
to a greatextentthemainstream
andevenearlier.43
century,
theeighteenth
during
linguistic
attitudes
thatlanguagewasbasedin human"reaconviction
The rationalist
of
theimportance
ofde-emphasizing
son"had thepracticaleffect
in linguistic
studies-and,as Didethevoice,oforalinterchange,
and
as well.ForFrenchlinguists
rot'sexampleshows,in literature
heldto be the
authorsthemind,notthe voice,was increasingly
properobjectof studyand of art. "Language,"conceivedof as
42Encyclopedie,
p. 666.
43AsGunvorSahlin notesin Cesar Chesneaudu marsais et son role dans l'evolutionde la grammairegenerale(Paris: Les Presses Universitaires
de France,
les etudes
1928),p. 2, "la doctrine
appeleegrammaire
generale... dominera
grammaticales
en Francependanttoutle XVIIIe siecleet une bonnepartiedu
XIXesiecle."In fact,eventheearliestFrenchgrammars
and punctuation
commentaries
showa marked
preference
fortreating
language
spatially,
or"rationally,"
ratherthanrhetorically,
as theirEnglishcontemporaries
had done.Even in a
inFrance,
grammar
written
nearly
a century
before
Descartes'works
wereknown
EstienneDolet's 1540 La Maniere de Bien Traduired'une langue en autre.D'avantageDe la Punctuationde la Langue Francoyse,Plus Des Accentsd'ycelle
(Paris:I. Tastu),punctuation
is treatedexclusively
as a meansof marking
the
logicalstructure
ofsentences.
AndwhileLouisMeigret,
inLe Traitede le Gram(1550;rpt.Tiibingen,
Germany:
Narr,1980),pp. 139-41,touches
mairefrancaise
on therolethatpunctuation
his rulesfor
playsin signalling
pausesin reading,
placingthemarksare completely
motivated
by a concernforlogicalsentence
parsing.
Thoughthereis oftensomeprovision
madefortherhetorical
of
effects
inlatercommentaries,
punctuation
discussions
regarding
theplacement
ofmarks
intheworks
arestrongly
dominated
criteria
ofvirtually
all important
bystructural
French
eighteenth-century
grammarians:
seeespecially
ClaudeBuffier,
Grammaire
sur unplan nouveau(Paris:PierreWitte,1714),pp. 423-432;Pierre
francoise
Restaut,PrincipesGenerauxet Raisonnesde la GrammaireFrancoise(Paris:n.p.,
1730),pp. 538-546; DictionnaireUniverselFrancoisetLatin,Vulgairement
Appele
Dictionnaire
de Trevaux,
Vol.6 (Paris:Compagnie
deslibrairies
associees,1771),
in Diderot'sand d'Ap. 889. See also theearliercitedarticleon "Ponctuation"
lembert's
Encyclopedie.
Whiletheseauthorsdo at timesdiscusspunctuation
in
rhetorical
terms,
in generaltheircommitment
to "rational"
principles
leavesno
doubtthatinFrance,bythebeginning
oftheeighteenth
century,
rhetorical
culture
hadbeenlargely
overwhelmed.
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46
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES
thought,
andnotas speech,hadbecomea silent,
spatialphenomenon
in France.Therewerethose
bytheendoftheseventeenth
century
of theeighteenth
at thebeginning
whowereconsciouscentury
as Sterne,Burrowand Steelewouldmuchlaterin thecentury
be
rhetorical
conscious-that
culture
wasbeingoverwhelmed,
andwho
thewidening
lamented
ofthegap between
thewritten
andspoken
word.ButunliketheirlaterEnglishcounterparts,
theseFrench
writersrecognized
thatitwasalreadytoolatetotrytoeffect
inwriting
a real correspondence
betweensightand sound.Thus theelocutionist
in his 1707Traitedu RecitatifDansla Lecture,
Grimarest,
whilecomplaining
thatthereare no punctuation
markscapableof
varioustonesof voice-command,
encoding
irony,
scorn,rapture,
andso forth-resignedly
admitsthathewouldonlyattract
derision
toexpandoncurrent
bytrying
punctuation
usage."AndwhileVoltaire,like Diderot,arguedthatwordsin printwouldreflectthe
de la voix:pluselle est
spokenvoice-"L'ecritureest la peinture
meillure
elleest"-he alsolefttohisprinter
thepuncressemblante,
tuatingof his prose:"Vousvousmoquezde me consulter
sur la
et l'ortographe;
vousetesle maitreabsolude ces petits
ponctuation
de monroyaume."45
peuples-lacommedes plusgrandsseigneurs
We needonlyrecalltheextraordinary
of
typographical
ingenuity
Sterne,Burrowand Steelelate in theEnglisheighteenth
century
to gaugehowfarapartthe Frenchand Englishwereduringthe
"age of conversation"
regarding
perfect"fits"betweensightand
sound.46
44JeanLeonorLe Galloisde Grimarest,
Traite du RecitatifDans la Lecture,
Dans l'ActionPublique, Dans la Declamation,et Dans le Chant.Avec un Traite
des Accens,de la Quantite,& de la Ponctuation(Paris: Jacquesle Fevre& Pierre
Ribou, 1707), pp. 47-48.
in Ferdinand
45Quoted
Bruno,Vol.6 ofHistoirede la Languefrancaise(Paris:
ArmandColin,1966),pp. 926 and 952.
Librairie
46French
rationalist
theory
didhavea considerable
effect
onlinguistic
attitudes
and practicein England,as thenumerous
"rational
whichappeared
grammars"
thereduringtheeighteenth
century
suggest;in fact,as thecentury
progressed,
viewsoflanguagebecamedominant.
rationalist
However,
a strong
counter-influenceresisted
theseviews,an influence
mostexplicitly
inthetheories
of
expressed
Lockeand his followers.
Whiletherationalists
viewedlanguageas an inherent
property
of themind,theempiricists
treatedlanguageas communication,
as a
formof external
behavior
The
governed
largelyby habitand socialconvention.
attitudes
in Englandsustained
strength
of empirical
significant
vestigesof oral
culture,and helpedcreatethe artistic/intellectual
climatewhichspawnedthe
For
thelasthalfoftheeighteenth
typographical
experimentation
during
century.
intheEnglish
ofthesetwocontrasting
anoverview
tendencies
linguistic
eighteenth
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"PICTURES OF PRONUNCIATION"
47
like Diderot,whosoughtto conveythe
ThoseFrenchwriters,
in theirworks,couldand did relyon
impression
of conversation
inpursuing
However,
thiseffect.
anddramatic
ingenuity
syntactical
werethatwriting
andspeaking
convinced
as Diderotandhisreaders
his attempt
to bridgethe
activities,
different
werefundamentally
thanwas
morerestrained
gap betweenthetwowas considerably
whenthetension
moment
at thehistorical
Sterne's.
Sterne-writing
betweentheoral and visualworldshad reachedits mostcritical
likemanyofhisEnglishcontemstageinEngland-wasconvinced,
he couldeffecmanipulation
thatthrough
typographical
poraries,
word.
betweenthe spokenand written
tivelyblurthe boundary
of the effectof Sterne'stypography
VirginiaWoolf'sdescription
vanbearswitnessthatevenfromourtwentieth-century
linguistic
to reconcile
the
thatSterne'seffort
tagepoint,withourrecognition
inwriting
wasdoomedtofailure
at theonset,
oralandvisualworlds
closeto succeeding:
"Sterne'svery
hisattempt
comesremarkably
and bringsthesounds
is thatof speech,notwriting,
punctuation
voicewithit... Undertheinfluence
andassociations
ofthespeaking
The
ofthisextraordinary
stylethebookbecomessemi-transparent.
at
usualceremonies
andconventions
whichkeepreaderandwriter
arm'slengthdisappear.We are closeto lifeas we couldbe."47
InternationalInstitutein Spain
Madrid
and of theinfluence
century,
of Locke'stheories
in reinforcing
"behavioral,"
or
oral,viewsof language,see SterlingLeonard,The Doctrineof Correctness
in
EnglishUsage1700-1800(Madison:Univ.ofWisconsin
Seriesin Languageand
Literature,
No. 25, 1929),esp.pp. 12-19,21-31,and 47-48.
47Virginia
Woolf,
TheCommon
Reader,SecondSeries(London:Hogarth
Press,
1932),p. 79. Foradditional
artistic
andcriticalreactions
toSterne'stypography,
and a fullertreatment
of the extentto whichSterne'sstyleapproximates
the
conversational
qualityofactualspeech,seeMax Byrd,Tristram
Shandy(London:
GeorgeAllen& Unwin,1985),esp.pp. 69-81.
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