No.8 October 1999

Monologue Interieur and/or Autobiography

"The arts, literature, poesy, are a science, just as chemistry is a science"(1) , wrote Ezra Pound in his 1913 essay, "The Serious Artist." "Their subject is man, mankind and the individual." Then he added, "The arts give us a great percentage of the lasting and unassailable data regarding the nature of man, of immaterial man, of man considered as a thinking and sentient man." "The arts begin", he wrote, "where science of medicine leaves off, or they overlap that science. The border of two arts overcross."

By thus defining the arts, it seems that he showed his recognition for the tradition of the arts, beginning from the ancient times to the late nineteenth century when the arts were characterized by naturalism and impressionism.

In the same essay, he further on discussed the ontological meaning of the arts and wrote, "The serious artist is scientific in that he presents the image of his desire, of his hate, of his indifference as precisely that, as precisely the image of his own desire, hate or indifference. The more precise the record the more lasting and unassailable his work of art"(2). When he thus wrote, he might have foreseen the probable development of the twentieth century arts. For defining arts in such a description was nothing other than seeking for the styles that is called monologue interieur or autobiographical.

As he might have prospected, monologue interieur and autobiography became the two major styles of modernist literature. James Joyce's Ulysseys , T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land , and his The Cantos , all took the style that is characterized by monologue interieur or autobiography. Further on, it might be possible to say that monologue interieur or confession, and autobiography have been styles that characterize the twentieth century arts. In the United States, also in the field of art, from the late eighties to the nineties, autobiography "became the important vehicle for the artists dealing with issues of identity."(3)

Monologue interieur and/or autobiography were the styles necessitated by the development of study of man in the arts. If the naturalism of the late nineteenth century were characterized by the precise observation of the world and others, the monologue interieur of the modernist literature might have been motivated by the precise observation of self, as Pound defined it as the ontological reason of arts in "The Serious Artist." If it were objective realism that the naturalism had made it firm, it might have been subjective realism that the modernist literature challenged. And if the naturalism were greatly influenced by the development of sciences such as microbiology, the modernist literature might have been deeply influenced by the radical development of neuropathology of Freud.

Taking styles characterized by monologue interieur or autobiography meant radically changing the standpoint of the observer. In the naturalism, the observer placed himself as those of scientists who observe natural phenomena, physicians who diagnose patients, or social scientists and journalists who observe social phenomena. However, in monologue interieur and autobiography, the observer places himself where he observes as well as where he is observed. Thus he becomes scientist as well as natural phenomenon, physician as well as patient who tells his symptoms and anamneses, or social scientist or journalist as well as social phenomenon.

In his 1912 essay, "I gather the Limbs of Osiris", Pound wrote, "(Artist's) work remains the permanent basis of psychology and metaphysics(4)." Even though it is by himself that he is observed, to place himself where he is observed means to present himself for the study of man and it can be regarded as self-sacrificial act. By this act he marks himself in history and he might even become noble figure.

According to Georg Lukacs, the style of modernist literature characterized by monologue interieur is determined by the nagation of history, the dissolution of personality, and the obsession with psychopathology(5). The ontological view governing the image of man in the works of leading modernist writers such as Joyce, Kafka and Musir is that "Man is by nature solitary, asocial, unable to enter into relationships with other human beings (6)." Lukacs says that such a view has commonalities with Heidegger's description of human existence as a "thrownness-into-being"(Gewolfenheit ins Dascin), which implies, "not merely man is constitutionally unable to establish relationships with things or persons outside himself, but also that it is impossible to determine theoretically the origin and goal of human existence(7)." In this view, he says, man is conceived as ahistorical being, and accordingly the hero in modernist literature "does not develop through contact with the world ; he neither forms nor formed by it (8) ."

Lukacs of course is looking at the modernist literature negatively. He is insisting that man is not asocial as the hero of modernist literature is and cannot be distinguished from their social and historical environment. He regards the obsession with the psychopathology in the modernist literature as a desire to escape from the social reality and indicates infertility of it. He also indicates lack of perspective in the modernist literature.

The characterization of the modernist literature by Lukacs seems very much appropriate. However, when we ask what social perspectives literature can afford in the modern age, the indication by Lukacs also seems lacking of perspective. Although we are in need of social perspectives as a matter of course, otherly we can ask whether providing perspectives is decisively a role of literature or it is a role of social sciences, literature merely presenting data for thinking on the perspectives.

When pound wrote, "The serious artist is scientific in that he presents the image of his desire, of his hate, of his indifference as precisely that, as precisely the image of his own desire, hate or indifference. The more precise the record the more lasting and unassailable his work of art", he might have been reducing the role of the arts to the essence, and thinking of the minimum raison d'etre of arts in the age when various sciences were developing in providing the perspectives of human existence.

Literature cited

1) Pound, Ezra : The serious artist, in Literary Essays of Ezra Pound , New Directions, 1968.p.42.
2) ibid., p.46.
3) Reed, Christopher : "Postmodernism and the art of identity", in Nikonos Stangos ed. : Concepts of Modren art , Thames and Hudson, 1994. p.288.
4) Pound, Ezra :"I gather the limbs of Osiris", in Selected Prose 1909-1965 , ed. by William Cookson, Faber and Faber, London, 1973. p.23.
5) Lukacs, Georg : "The ideology of modernism "(1955), in Lodge, David(Ed.): 20th Century Literary Criticism, A Reader , Longman, 1972. p.473-487.
6) ibid., p.476.
7) ibid., p.477.
8) ibid.

(Photo : The Cover of Pound, Ezra : Literary Essays of Ezra Pound , New Directions, 1968, The drawing is a portrait of Pound by Henri Gaudier-Brzeskaj

Copyright (C)1999 Hideo Nogami

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