On the Irrelevance of Grammar.

On the Irrelevance of Grammar.

 

Grammar is used to establish a formal set of rules by which language is understood aesthetically. This allows for AUTOMATIC understanding, needless of Analysis. Yet, as with all systems of rules, it becomes confining. The excessively dogmatic use of grammar may create the illusion of clarity, but it limits us to a tribal way of automatic thinking. New experimentations in linguistic aesthetics become restricted by excessive grammatical orthodoxy. Because every language has its own fluid and oftentimes vague set of culturally recognized grammatical rules, the ability to communicate vague ideas becomes limited by the disparity of language. Yet, seemingly most important is the fact that, in the absence of an AUTOMATIC understanding of a given thought phenomenon, Analysis may be totally useless and irrelevant, as a process of directed thinking as opposed to non-directed thinking. Grammar creates the illusion of a coherent picture, yet should I want to paint a picture that is more vague or unusual, I must manipulate grammar in such a way that its conventional rules are suspended. In other words, there are certain “turns” that one can take in the construction of a sentence that are “allowed” in English, and there are others that are not. Yet this may be entirely arbitrary and dependent upon tradition. If I succeed in DESCRIBING a phenomenon, even if only in a fleeting and inimitable moment of Recognition, I have succeeded in my use of language. This is the liberty and oftentimes the responsibility of the work of the Poet, yet it is lacking in the other branches of thought.

The Natural World does not make grammatical sense. To claim that it does is to substitute for our experience of the Natural World a set of symbols projected onto it by virtue of participation mystique. To claim that it is merely non-grammatical in the sense of “lacking grammar” is to similarly anthropomorphosise it. The nature of the Universe as observed outside of the confines of grammar rests therefore outside of even the dichotomy of grammatical correctness and grammatical incorrectness, yet, because of that, when represented in language, a grammatically “incorrect” set of symbols may be just as valid, if not moreso, (simply because of the greater degree of available permutations lying outside of the confinements of Grammar) as is “correctness” in describing the phenomenon.

If any resolution is to be found between the logic employed by the visual artist, the philosopher, and the poet, then we must dispossess ourselves of excessive pride in upholding the dogma of grammatical correctness. If all artists followed these rules in Artistic methodology, our Artistry (and probably a good deal of our Artists) would suffer absurdly. Conventional conversation may be free of grammatical mistakes, and people pay little notice. Grammar, however, as an instrument of Culture, can be used to impose control on the thinking of individuals and what appears to be Sanity. This is why Artists are oftentimes mistaken for madmen, simply for seeking to be consistent in what steps they take in all walks of Life.

Dm.A.A.