Random Thoughts While Reading Theory: Technique of Art
Think about writing for a moment. Not the let me tell you a story kind of writing I usually talk about here, but handwriting; the physical act of picking up a pencil and writing a sentence. Think about how automatic it’s become, how long it’s been since you’ve had to pay attention to the way your hand moves or the little tics in the muscle that allow you to scribe an L instead of a T. How many little things are happening without your knowledge, or the way the physical sensation of holding a pen stops registering because the act of writing is all just an automatic reflex now. Hold onto that thought, ‘cause we’re going to come back to it. Over the weekend I started one of my long-term projects in the name of the 80-point-plan – reading an anthology of literary theory essays with an aim towards filling in my patchy awareness of the field. My goal is to read an essay a week, trying to figure out what I can learn from the history of literary criticism that’ll help me write better. The anthology’s a big book with a lot of essays, making this the only project on my plan that I’m actually expecting to take longer than the year (success is achieved if I maintain the one-a-week pace). This week’s essay was Art as Technique by Victor Shklovsky, written in 1916, about the way perception becomes automated and the role art and literature plays in breaking
