تيار الوعي في الرواية الحديثة

by Robert Humphrey, روبرت همفري, محمود الربيعي (Translator)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1954.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Philosophy

168 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1962

Reviews

[Mohit Parikh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes I made long back. Contains Spoilers (Contains almost everything the book says, if I remember correctly):

"Stream of consciousness" is a loose term for literary technique and can be used so long as it means Inner awareness.

He collectively leaves nothing out: sensations and memories, feelings and conceptions, fancies and imaginations, and intuitions, visions, insights.

SOC literature is concerned with both mental and spiritual experience- both the whatness and the howness of it.

Fine distinctions are not concern of novelists, eg, is memory a mental process or a mental content?

The great advantage and the best justification of this type of novel rests n its potentialities of presenting character more accurately and realistically.

In short, the SOC novelists were like the naturalists, trying to depict life accurately; but unlike the naturalists, the life they were concerned with was the individual's psychic life.

SOC fiction is essentially a technical feat. Its successful working-out depended on technical resources exceeding those of any other type of fiction.

SOC is not a technique for its own sake. It is based on a realization of the force of drama that takes place in minds of human beings.

Contribution to fiction: they have opened up for it a new way of life.

Techniques:
1. Indirect Interior monologue: that type of interior monologue in which an omniscient author presents unspoken material as if it were directly from the consciousness of a character and, with commentary and description, guides the reader through it. Author intervenes between the characters psyche and the reader. The author is on-the-scene guide for the reader.
2. Direct interior monologue: Negligible author interference; the unspoken pre-speech presented as is.
3. Soliloquy: Representing the psychic content and process directly from character to reader, without the author's interference but an audience tactically assumed. Hence, it is less candid and more limited in depth of consciousness than interior monologue. It is more coherent.
4. Drama and Poetry: Tell the setting beforehand, like in Ulysses Chapter 15.

Basic problem with SOC: Soc is incoherent, vague, digressing.... Fiction is coherent. There can not be an exactness in representation. So, the aim is to select devices that help represent it convincingly,

At the pre-speech level in consciousness, checks and interruptions to the flow from the outer world become an important consideration.

Representing consciousness through Free Association. Three ways to associate:
a. Memory, which is its basis
b. Senses, which guide it
c. Imagination, which determines its elasticity

Devices:
1. Privacy of consciousness
2. Suspended coherence: The free association may not make sense to the reader, may not be direct, may be incoherent; but has an mental association within the context of the novel which later gets revealed. This helps in more accurate depiction of Stream, rather than dwelling around associations that always make sense to the readers, or those that are simply, really incoherent.
3. Discontinuity: device used for giving tone and texture to soc writing. Faulkner uses rhetorical devices like: epanodos, ellipsis, anaphora, anacoluthon, dislocated parenthesis, and brachylogy. Joyce: epigram, hyperbaton, anastrophe, dialect, euphony, synesthesia, onomotopaeia, chiasmus, protasis, metonomy, archaism, brachylogy, personification, elilipses
4. Transformation by Metaphor: Conveying through comparison, since words become inadequate: basic problem in describing psychic activities, like the problems poets face. Two ways to convey through images - impressionistic-ally, and symbolism. Images, fictional scenes, memories, that represent emotional states, story/plot.

Forms:
A writer commits himself to dealing faithfully with what he conceives to be the chaos and accident of a consciousness-unpatterned, undisciplined, and unclear.
The writer, for the sake of demands of a reader, must somehow impose pattern, or form, on his material.
To show pattern which otherwise is shown through plot:
1. The unities (time, place, character and action): Ulysses spans three countries, lot of years- college, past relationships etc. and yet it all takes place in one city in 18 hours in the minds of three characters.
2. Leitmofs: Recurrence of a particular image. Images as a thematic base for emotionally charged monologues.
3. Previously established literary patterns (burlesques): Oddyses by Homer. This helps in reader fetching parallels.
4. Symbolic structures: Small events can be given greater value by having symbolic references. Lily Briscoe finishes her painting right at the moment James reaches the Lighthouse. Description of imagery can be symbolic too: for childhood, Woolf describes, The sun had not yet risen, the sea was indistinguishable from the sky, gradually the sky whitened... Same is achieved by Robert Pirsig in ZMM.
5. Formal scenic arrangements
6. Natural cyclical arrangements
7. Theoretical cyclic schemes (musical structures, cycles of history, etc.)

P.S. The book is available for free on Google Books.

[Taghreed Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

لم أضع في حسباني حتى وقتٍ قريب قراءة دراسات أدبية أو نقد أدبي، وكل ترتيباتي بالنسبة للأدب بوجه عام اقتصرت على قراءة ألوان أدبية معينة كالرواية والشعر، دون التعمق أكثر. كانت بداية قرائتي لأعمال الكاتبة فيرجينيا وولف هي ما دفعني للاهتمام بقراءة وفهم تيار الوعي، لأن أشهر كتاباتها اعتمدت على هذا النوع من القَصص لا على السرد القصصي التقليدي السابق لظهور تيار الوعي. ولما جعلتني قراءة القليل لفيرجينيا متعطشةً بشدة لقراءة المزيد والمزيد لها، حد الرغبة في عدم الانتهاء، كان عليَّ -قبل تكملة أعمالها- الولوج في فهم تيار الوعي كأسلوب قصص بقدر كافٍ. اهتديتُ إلى كتاب روبرت همفري هذا للقراءة في هذا الاتجاه، والحق أنه كان نعم الاهتداء.
في البداية عرَّف روبرت تيار الوعي والذي هو باختصار محتوى الذهن في مراحله الأولى -مراحل ما قبل الكلام- وتحدث بإيجاز عن مفهوم الوعي نفسه وما الذي يتضمنه الوعي، أو ما الذي يجري فيه، وذكره لهذا بمثابة تمهيد لموضوع الكتاب حتى يمكنه تناول مفهوم التداعي الحر -على سبيل المثال- وكيف اُستخدم في كتابات تيار الوعي دون قلق، ولم يعن أبداً بتقديم مقاربة للوعي كدراسة لعلم النفس، فقط ما يخدم موضوعه. ثم ناقش إجابة سؤالين محوريين وهما: ما الذي يمكن تحقيقه من تقديم الشخصيات من زاوية وجودها النفسي؟ وكيف يُثرَى الفن القصصي عن طريق تصوير الحياة الداخلية؟ وأجاب عن هذين السؤالين عن طريق إلقاء الضوء على أهداف كُتَّاب تيار الوعي الكبار في القرن العشرين وهم دوروثي ريتشاردسون، جيمس جويس، فيرجينيا وولف، ووليام فوكنر، الذين اختلفوا في أهدافهم وكيفية تحقيقها رغم اتفاقهم على جوهر أسلوب تيار الوعي، والقوالب الفنية للرواية نسيباً.
ثم انتقل روبرت إلى تناول أكثر من تكنيك مختلف لتيار الوعي، كالمونولوج الداخلي المباشر وغير المباشر ومناجاة النفس، تناولهم بشكل مفصل، مستشهداً أثناء مهتمه هذه بأجزاء من أهم روايات تيار الوعي، مبيناً كيف اُستخدم كل تكنيك ليحقق هدفه فيما أورده، غير مقتصر في ذلك على شرح القطع ذاتها والتكينك نفسه، وإنما شارحاً السياق ككل حتى يتسنى للقراء الاستفادة مما بين أيديهم دون الاضطرار للرجوع للروايات نفسها، غير أن ذلك يزيد نسبة الاستيعاب بشكل عام.
ومن أنواع التكنيك انتقل روبرت إلى توضيح مشكلات تيار الوعي وكيف اُستخدمت المستحدثات لحلها. ثم القوالب الفنية كبديل للحبكة الفنية التقليدية التي يُعتمد عليها في القصص السردي التقليدي، على اختلاف أنواعها من فوكنر لفيرجينيا لجيمس ودوروثي ريتشاردسون، معتمداً في تقديم كل هذا على الاستشهاد بقدر كافٍ بأمثلة من روايات تيار الوعي.
وأخيراً أورد روبرت همفري نتائج دراسته والتي توضح كيف تطور وضع أدب تيار الوعي بعد مراحل تبلوره الأولى في القرن العشرين، حتى ذاب في الرواية التقليدية وأصبح استخدامه جزءًا منها، لا أعمال قائمة بذاتها تعتمد عليه بشكل مستقل، وذكر أمثلة تعرض هذا التغير.
الكتاب جيد جداً ومهم سواء لقراء أدب تيار الوعي، أو حتى لمن يود بداية ترشده لكيفية انتهاج هذا النوع للكتابة.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I generally find literary criticism tedious — though now that I am teaching literature I have to read some of it. That said, this little monograph is concise and illuminating, avoids adjectives and vagaries, and applies a formalist approach to the problem of Stream-of -consciousness writing in Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner that is both useful and accessible.

[أحمد عبدالعاطي · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب لا يحوي من المتعة بقدر ما يضم من أهمية. جاءني بعد محاولات ابتعاد عنه لأقرأه أخيرًا ضمن خطة العام. الأهم في هذه الدراسة الموسعة حول تيار الوعي هو تطعيم العمل بمقتطفات سردية وتتبعها في روايات هي الأشهر في العصر الحديث لكل من فرچينيا وولف وچيمس چويس وفوكنر. أرشحه بشدة خاصة لمن قرأوا إنتاج الثلاثة كُتاب. بل يفضّل أن تُقرأ أعمالهم قبل الخوض في هذا الكتاب المهم.

[Makena Winch]

Is this the landmark study on prose stream-of-consciousness? Thankfully it’s good, but, like the genre, it seems this text exists in as much a void of its own as Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and (to a questionable degree) Pilgrimmage exist in the fictional canon. However, because Steam-of-Consciousness seems to have died following WWII, maybe it’s fair to say this is nearly as comprehensive a piece as one written today might be. So, again, thank goodness it’s good, or then we’d really be in trouble.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

A bit technical for my limited knowledge of the subject, but really interesting and informative.

[Natanny ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐

A saga das leituras para a minha iniciação científica continua, mas por um milagre, acaba por aqui também! No final, Robert Humphrey foi o escolhido da vez pela minha orientadora (e não por mim, novamente, como podem perceber, rssss), mas o plot twist acontece quando a leitura obrigatória da faculdade\IC acaba não só me encantando, como também me fazendo aprender muito!

Em 138 páginas — ou seja, bem rapidinho —, Robert vai descrever com maestria sobre a técnica do fluxo de consciência. Aqui no Brasil, tivemos nossa fenomenal Clarice Lispector, que usou e fortaleceu muito essa técnica, sendo a mesma utilizada em quase todos os seus romances já lançados. No livro, o autor vai explorar e explicar essa técnica através dos maiores escritores do gênero: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson e outros por aí. Cada um deles tem seu papel no desenvolvimento da técnica de escrita, e com isso, cada um ganha um capítulo também! (com exemplos, viu?)

O que me fez gostar desse livro é bem simples: enquanto lia, me peguei admirando a escrita do próprio autor, enquanto o mesmo falava da escrita de OUTROS autores (confuso? Espero que não). Então, as 138 páginas passaram voando enquanto Robert explicava de onde surgiu a técnica de escrita, os primeiros autores a utilizá-la, a forma correta de interpretá-la e até mesmo misturando um pouquinho de psicologia para explicar a forma como nossos pensamentos são, na verdade, um fluxo de consciência completo — um segundo pensando em determinado assunto, outro segundo pensando em algo completamente diferente; e eu, que sou completamente alucinada por essa técnica de escrita, simplesmente não poderia deixar de amar! O que quero dizer é que Robert Humphrey transformou esse livro em algo completamente agradável de se ler, porque geralmente, quando estamos lendo algo que é considerado obrigatório para escola, curso, faculdade ou qualquer outra coisa, já previamente colocamos em mente que a leitura será chata, cansativa, pesada... e sinceramente, isso estraga completamente o processo. Porque às vezes, o livro é até bom, mas a nossa mente sabota a gente, quando, na verdade, aprender é ótimo! Ainda é mais ótimo aprender algo que você realmente gosta, como eu lendo este aqui, hehe.

Então o que mais me impressionou foi como Humphrey consegue tornar palpável uma técnica literária que, à primeira vista, parece tão abstrata, complexa, confusa e cheia de erros gramaticais (risos, mas é verdade). Ele não apenas explica o conceito, mas mostra como ele se manifesta de formas diferentes em cada autor — desde a fragmentação radical de Joyce até a fluidez poética de Woolf. Então, depois de entender os mecanismos do fluxo de consciência através da análise\explicação de Humphrey, pegar um "Ulisses" ou "As Ondas" deixou de ser uma perspectiva assustadora para se tornar um desafio (não pra mim, eu já li, mas é bom se você é novato hehehe). O autor funciona como uma espécie de “guia”, porque ele dá as ferramentas necessárias para navegar por águas literárias que, de outra forma, poderiam parecer sinistras.

Na verdade elas meio que são sinistras sim. O fluxo de consciência é complicado, mas nada absurdo, vamos com calma (risos)

Dito isso, se você é estudante de Letras como eu, ou escritor, ou está somente curioso sobre a técnica por trás deste tipo de escrita, recomendo MUITO esse aqui! A linguagem leve, rápida e fluida vai com certeza te levar para caminhos bem simples de serem traçados. Aqui não vai existir um tipo de linguagem complicada e robusta dos calhamaços acadêmicos, calma! O Robert soube escrever esse livro para iniciantes no assunto, e digo que até mesmo leigos, pois se alguém que nunca leu Virginia Woolf ou James Joyce pegar este livro para ler, talvez seja até melhor, pois vai entender a escrita desses autores antes mesmo de ter contato com os mesmos, e isso é excelente para uma leitura mais confortável em cânones da literatura como esses!

[Damián Lima · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent book to learn about the techniques and methods used by "stream-of-consciousness" writers to create an accurate representation of what is going on in the mind of the characters. The author use as examples fragments of the best novels in the stream-of-consciousness movement: "To The Lighthouse" and "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf; "As I Lay Dying" and "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner; and "Ulysses" by James Joyce.

[Sabrina]

"Perhaps the most significant thing the stream od consciousness writers have demonstrated about the mind has been done obliquely: they have, through their contributions, proved that the human mind, especially the artist's, is too complex and wayward ever to be channeled into conventional patterns."

[Steven Hernacki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good little book. A ramp-up for Faulkner or Joyce. Focuses on the technical application of SOC over its history.

[أحمد شاكر · Rating 4 out of 5]

وما يزيد من قيمة هذا الكتاب، هو تحليله، لثلاث روايات من أهم روايات عصرنا: عوليس/ الصخب والعنف/ السيدةدالاوي.

[Ahmed Wahid · Rating 4 out of 5]

هل يمكن تمثيل تيار الوعي روائيا بالطريقة التي لطالما استخدم بها؟! إن هذا حتما ينطوي علي كذبة .. لأن من المستحيل علي الأنسان مراقبة وعيه .. يمكن للراوي كلي المعرفة تحقيق ذلك .. لكن أين ذلك؟