#4: Forming Relationships

For Raymond Williams, in his chapter on "Form" from Marxism and Literature, form is essentially understood through relationships. He looks at how form initially emerges, interacts with other recognizable forms, and then normalizes. In form, according to Williams, “every element […] has an active material basis” (Williams 190). These include the visible (words, sounds, etc.) and the invisible (properties of relation). Basically, form is what is seen or understood and what causes it. Literary theory has a whole range of forms and unique relationships, which involve stability, institutions, and social systems. Williams discusses how different theories evolved, like the neo-classical, in which the form takes into consideration all the processes leading to its development, whereas the romantic does not acknowledge the new forms that emerge from old methods.

            The process of making form he terms “intermediate,” which are variations that arise from recognized forms, such as language. Individual variations can be problematic because they can initially be unrecognizable. Furthermore, the difficulty in form is not in how it arises through visible shaping methods but that it relies on the “activation of specific relations, between men and men and between men and things” (Williams 190). In other words, the relationship only occurs when it bonds with other material forms, and arriving at that point is where the uncertainty comes from. It seems Williams argues that it is challenging to pinpoint all the different forms at work as they come together – what processes led them there and what triggered the initial contact.

Theodor Adorno, in “The Essay As Form,” takes form and applies it to the essay. While he complicates the form in practice, both Adorno and Williams explore the use of relationships. For Adorno, relationships within essays are the binding component for refining them and for Williams, form’s existence relies on relationships. This contrast indicates the difference between form and its end result. Additionally, essays relate to other similar works in a “mosaiclike” way (Adorno 17).

To summarize the chapter using Adorno’s language, he “turns the [essay] around, questions it, feels it, tests it, reflects on it…attacks it from different sides and assembles what he sees in his mind’s eye and puts into words what the [essay] allows one to see under the conditions in the course of writing” (Adorno 17). He discusses the essay as a unique form that also allows for scientific reasoning in which to examine it through. He explores this by examining consciousness and individuality, using Proust’s work as an example. He maintains that the essay is best understood “through a critique of the system” and uses scientific procedure and its philosophical grounding as method (Adorno 9). I think this point is particularly useful for our purposes as literary critics because we rarely think of our discipline as scientific – we proudly hold our places in the humanities. However, using Adorno’s logic, the essay becomes an area of scientific practice. Like scientists, when writing an essay we are automatically implementing methods and questions, which then get reflected back and are then themselves questioned.

            Yet unlike some other scientific disciplines, the essay does not need to stay relevant as it relies on earlier methods, and “luck and play are essential to it” (Adorno 3). Adorno makes the distinction that while the essay follows certain scientific patterns, it resists the rigidity and confinement. Further, essays present their ideas immediately and can even be fragmented. In a sense, the essay presents itself artfully through questions, reflections, and ancient procedures. The essay is all-encompassing. He points out that the primary reason for the essay resembling art is due to the “[c]onciousness of the non-identity of presentation and subject matter [which] forces presentation to unremitting efforts” (Adorno 18). This is like the close reading concept of the text as performing. For Adorno the writer is not the artist but the essay is due to its inherent performing nature. I have trouble with this point (or perhaps I am not understanding it correctly) as it seems that there is a certain unprecedented magic that can occur within the actual writer as they compose the essay. They can follow the rules of the essay precisely but sometimes words and thoughts come together to form a new, brilliant thought. Every good writer has surprised themselves this way. The art, then, does not lie solely in the form but involves a relationship with the individual.