Grand Openings and Plain: The Poetics of First Lines Author(s): Steven G. Kellman Source: SubStance, Vol.

6/7, No. 17, Maurice Roche (Autumn, 1977), pp. 139-147 Published by: University of Wisconsin Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3684574 . Accessed: 10/01/2014 05:09
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GRAND OPENINGS AND PLAIN: The Poeticsof FirstLines

Steven G. Kellman

Tout d6but, d'un pokme ou d'un roman,fait renaltre la vieille image d'Hercule au carrefour, qu'on a toujours consideree comme une fable pedagogique, une fable du destin de l'bomme, de sa conduite dans la vie. Pour moi, la phrase surgie (dictee?) d'oitje pars versquelque chose qui sera le roman,au sens illimitedu mot, a ce caractbre de carrefour, sinon entre le vice et la vertu, du moins entre se taire et dire, entre la vie et la mort, entre la creationet la sterilite. 1 I To begin with, you must grab them. With so much competingfor our attention,a than an arresting first line. long gray beard and a glittering eye are much less effective In France they open novels with knives.In less analytic cultures, writers must suffice with finelyhoned words. An unreadMilton is even more patheticthan a mute one; the latterleaves but one body behind. To engage the indifferent reader in your corpus,a burden of and must be special significance imposed on the opening line. If appeal could not charm with his there first would not be another. note, Orpheus very The firstwords in a work of literaturebear a uniquely demandingresponsibility both to the corporation they representand to the magistratethey petition. That functionis apparent in the institution of an opening lines performa representational "index of firstlines," the widespread cataloguingpractice of identifying lyricpoems in the case of by theirincipit as much as by theirtitlesand authors'names. Certainly, anonymous or untitledproductions,the firstline becomes an indispensabledevice in enabling us to generalize and referin common to a given collection of words. We of a poem everytime we want to conceptualize or simply cannot recite the entirety discuss it. In a textual democracy,everysection is as precious to its creatoras every other,but for practical purposes a part like "Sumer is icumen in" mustbe allowed to representthe whole, or all will suffer neglect.That the firstline naturallyaspires to this role is evidentin the case of phraseslike "Drink to me only with thineeyes" and "When I am dead, my dearest," which have succeeded in usurpingthe duties of their titles-"Song To Celia" and "Song." legitimate thus Furthermore, readingis an incremental experience,and the openingstatement resonates more extensivelythan any other part. Ubiquitous while othersmust await Sub-Stance N0 17, 1977 139

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theircue, the firstline accompanies each subsequent utterance.It is therefore usually the most memorable element-not merelyin the sense of standingout fromthe rest, but in fact preciselyin its ability to be integrated, to continue to reverberate against succeeding lines long afterit has been read. In a complex familychronicle,we often have the luxury of turningback to a detailed stemma preceding page one, but the opening line should be implicitin everypage that follows. The formalwisdom of the villanelle,by repeatingthe firstline in everysixth line, and of the sonnet corona, by making the fifteenth poem in the cycle simplya compendiumof firstlines fromthe fourteen, preceding recognizesthisprocess. In narrative formulaliterature, especially prose, we rarelyremember any particular tion ipsissima verba. The traditionalassumption of realistic fictionis that the word must be transparent,instrumentalin directingus toward a narrativecosmos, but in itself.The resultis thatveryfew sentenceslingerin our reading utterlyinsignificant of a novel. What does stand out in our involvement with fictionare those elements which words are intended to point us to-images (Caddy Compson's dirtydrawers), locations (foggy London), events (the Battle of Moscow), characters(the Baron de Charlus). The experience of reading and re-reading lyricpoetry,for example, where words are opaque and deliberately foregrounded,quite often involves committing substantial sections verbatim to memory. Learning a novel by heart, on the other less of a mnemonicparlor trickthan memorizingthe telephone hand, is only slightly in Words fiction functionas a kind of Platonic ladder designedto enable us directory. to climb in to anotherworld; once we have done so, we may kick the ladder away. In such a context, the initial sentence, at least as much as any other part of the to the extent that it draws attentionaway fromitself.The opening work, is effective line becomes a bishop mediatingbetween our world and the next. Yet the very selfof a lead statementonly succeeds in makingit more prominent. effacement If thereis one sentence we retain from a of it is any consciously reading fiction, usuallythe first. Dickens' "It was the best of times,it was the worstof times,it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.. ." is among the most memorablelines in all of English fiction. With the possible exception of the novel's final statement,Sydney Carton's valediction,it stands out fromeveryother sentence in the work,despite,and stirring because of, its length.Very few readerscan recitemore than "Aujourd'hui maman est morte" or "Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgensaus unruhigen Triumen erwachte,fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren verwandelt" fromL'Etranger Ungeziefer and "Die Verwandlung,"which they respectively head. And this is preciselybecause the opening lines have succeeded in serving as a fulcrum poised betweentwo universes, a bridgeto another realityin whichwe lose consciousnessof words as words.Whatwe call instrumental music has no need of libretto.At the starting point, however,we have not yet discarded our tools, and the opening line thus extrudes from all that follows. II To those unversed in Aristotelianconcepts of organic form,the assertion in the Poetics that tragedymust have a beginning,a middle, and an end would appear as and go on till gloriouslytrite as Lewis Carroll's injunction: "Begin at the beginning,

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you come to the end: then stop." Yet both statementsdo emphasize the fact that beginningsentail sequence and that they can only be found in works of art with consecutive form. Beginningis a temporal notion. It is therefore particularly appropriate to narrativeart and only minimallyso to a primarily spatial art like painting. all at once. Except for murals and cycloramas,we at least consciouslyenterpaintings Scholars can distinguish a systemof optical weightsoperatingat least subliminally in our movement from one elementto another on the canvas. But for most of us each experience of viewingLe Dejeuner sur l'herbe,forexample, is immediateand comprehensivein a way thathearing, or even reading, the Homericpoems could neverbe. The literaryartistspreads beforeus a symbolic continuumin both space and time. The formulaicnarrative an attemptto provide opening"Once upon a time" represents a vague chronological fix for the events to follow; in fact, the spatial preposition "upon" suggestsuse of a positional metaphor to establish temporalcoordinates.In both in the episodes they any case, the folk wisdom that stories have beginnings, recount and in the experiencesthey comprise,is responsiblefor "Once upon a time" in countless texts fromancient fables to A Portraitof the ArtistAs a Young Man, as well as for more specificstarting points. Considerthe multitudeof workswhose initial word is the conjunction "When"-". . that Aprill with his shoures soote," ". . .to the sessions of sweet silent thought," ". . .1 consider how my lightis spent," ". . .1 was one and twenty," etc. Many narrativesbegin with designationof a precise date-"It was the beginningof September, 1664. . ." (A Journal of the Plague Year), "Le 15 mai 1796.. ." (La Chartreusede Parme), "It was in 1590-winter" (The Mysterious Stranger),etc. Not uncommon is an initialfix in both space and time-"On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the provinceof Gascony, stood, in the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert" (The Mysteriesof Udolpho) or "During an interval in the Melvinskitrial in the large buildingof the law courts. . ." ("The Death of Ivain introduction Ilyich"). At the outset of L 'Innommable,Beckettparodies the traditional to the usual information. "Oi maintenant? by refusing supply Quand background maintenant?Qui maintenant?"Nevertheless, use of "maintenant"continuesto anchor the work in time. Narrative entails movement in time and space, a truth opening statements as starting emphasizeby standing points. It is impertinent to speak of the opening line in haikku. Such a formaims at creating an instantaneousexperience,so that the firstpentasyllableis ideally inseparable from the succeeding heptasyllable and pentasyllable. Aspiringto the inconsequentiality of pure image, much concrete poetry likewise subvertsour literarysense of duration.We just do not know whereto start. III is an analogy between the text and a social self.It is as Implicit in much literature if the work has a personalityof its own whichwe are asked to make the acquaintance of. This trope is often most dramaticallyapparent in the first-person narrative. The story in effectspeaks to us, and who touches this book touches a man. If so, the words of a stranger at a cocktail party,carriesthe burdenof opening line, like the first us to someone new. Assuminghe came more forthe conversation than the introducing of himself, if it is not to be beverages,his initialstatementmust be characteristic but,

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also his only one, it must also convinceus that thereis more worthhearing.It is, after all, a crowded party. It is no wonder that many novels begin with the most customaryof introductory social formulas-theflashing of a name. Long beforewe agreeto assistin the voyage of the Pequod, we make contact with Melville's fictionthroughits invitation:"Call me Ishmael." Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Cat's Cradle ("Call me Jonah") and Philip Roth's The Great American Novel ("Call me Smitty") startwith derivatives fromthe same introduction, while John Barth's "In a sense, I am Jacob Horner" (The End of the Road) and "George is my name" (Giles Goat-Boy) are near relatives.Great Expectations begins both with a name and, lest we not be especially interestedin pursuingthe acquaintance, some encouragingwords of explanation-"My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christianname Philip, my infanttongue could make of both names nothinglongeror more explicitthan Pip." The curious question shapingsocial introductions eitherimplicitly or explicitlyis: "Who are you?" We can of course attemptto answerit in any numberof ways other than by beginning with a name. JohnHawke's Second Skin respondswiththe declaration: "I will tell you in a few words who I am:. . . ." Then followsa seriesof parallel Lover" likewise beginsby proclaiming an amativepersonality-"I have been so greata lover. ." For openingsthat are quite as directbut somewhatless cheery, we can turn ...InvisibleMan ("I am an invisible to The the Scrivener man"), Bartleby ("I am a rather or Notes From a sick man. . .a mean man"), ("I'm elderly man"). Underground But authorswho presenttheirmaterialfroma third-person ratherthan a first-person Both Le Pare Goriot perspectiveare as much engaged in the art of social introduction. n6e de une est vieille femme ("Madame Vauquer, Conflans, qui, depuis quaranteans, ' tient Paris une pension bourgeoise 6tablie rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, entre le quartierlatin et le fabourgSaint-Marceau") and Middlemarch("Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be throwninto reliefby poor dress") are appropriately themselvesintroduced in the very act of introducinga person. Yet it is not even we have nevermet before necessaryfor the opening line to presentus with a character in order for the model of social encounterto apply to our literary experience.Many writers are especially conscientious about an opening statement,sometimes even composing it last, precisely because they regard it as an opportunityboth to begin the unique "personality" that will be the text and to adopt a mannerthat fashioning will get us interested in thisnew self. A certaintype of artistand criticsubscribesto the premisethat "the work takes on a life of its own"; if so, the firstline is its letterof reference. What is probably the most audacious opening in literary the strident "Merdre" of Ubu Roi, begins history, our acquaintance with a textual personalityquite distinctfromthe mellownesspromised by "The curfewtolls the knellof parting day" or "The sea is calm to-night." John Donne's penchant for castinghis firstverb in the imperative-"Battermy heart,three
personed God," "Death, be not proud," "Go and catch a falling star," "Mark but this flea, and mark in this," etc.-prepares us for an assertive self with a definite kinship to a host of modern works with brash come-ons: for example, "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new" (Murphy) or "I met Jack Kennedy in November, objects to complete the phrase "lover of. . . ." Rupert Brooke's poem "The Great

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1946" (An American Dream). Perhaps,because it itselfentails impatiencewith niceties, a nonchalantpertnessis easierto sketchthan most otherqualities and hence most evident in contemporary works and theiropenings.But it also the most seductive,and hence most successful in fulfilling the second responsibility of an opening line, to the with rest. encourageintimacy

IV

One of many contemporaryhandbooks for aspiringauthors offersthe following advice on how to break silence: Not only must you know your reader and love him, but you must lure him into reading your writing.This means that as he leafs througha magazine or book, his mind upon a thousandor so things, you must reach out and capture his attention. Since he is merely turningpages, not reading,you must do it quickly or you've lost your chance.2 Immediatelyfollowingis the injunction: "You must do it with bait." This somewhat reductiveview of literary creation,as philosophically profoundas Horace's counsel to in for view of all readers eightyears,posits a predatory keep your manuscript storage as casual until made a casualty. If the openingline is to functionas "bait" to draw the reader away fromthe myriaddistractions competingwith a text,it is appropriatethat it is often referred to in the trade as "the hook." The handbook urges a tinctureof love and lure; openingstatements become a hook and theircreatorshookers. For several centuries, illuminated manuscriptsand printed editions often ornamented the letterscommencinga particularwork or chapter. The effect,as in the decision to devote the entirefirstpage of Ulyssesto an enormous "S" typographical followed by "TATELY PLUMP," is to catch the eye. Qui percipit consentit.In the to as the jargon of classical rhetoric,the opening section of a discourse is referred exordium, and ensconced within the etymology of that term-to lay a web-is a a trapforthe suitablyarachnid image. Once again the writeris conceivedof as setting reader,and if it were not done as earlyin the work as possible it were best not done at all. The spry opening to Francis Bacon's essay "Of Truth," for example ("What is truth?said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer") is multiplycharming. It is the striking formulation of an anecdotal paradox, at the same time as hintingthat if we yield to its spell and read on, we mightfinallydiscoverthe solution to its puzassertion: zling question. Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier beginswiththejarring "This is the saddest storyI have ever heard." Only by readingthe storyitselfdo we perceive how characteristicthis hyperbole is of a narratoroutrageouslyobtuse to eventshe should have been closer to than his aural figure And we are induced suggests. to read the novel by the comparatist sentence.The classicaldevice challengeof its first of insinuatio,of ingratiating oneselfwith the audience, offersanother sort of enticement. Among countless works employingthe "Dear Reader" convention,The Anatto omy of Melancholy begins: "Gentle Reader, I presumethou wilt be veryinquisitive

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know.. ." and Erewbon thus: "If the readerwill excuse me.. ." An illusionis created that the author cares enough about us to take us into his confidence, and only a callous reader could discardthe book aftersuch a gesture.It is the literary analogue of the clever merchant's "For you I have something special today." Even the most seasoned consumerwill usually stay around to findout what the "something"is; with the unwaryfishis always in season. such strategies, V After the conductor raises his baton, audible silence reigns for a precious few before Mallarm6, seconds, until broken by the opening chords of a symphony. sitting "le vide papier que la blancheurdefend," shareswith many recent authorsan awareness of being engaged in a dialecticwith silence,with the negationof his own art.The a relationship not only poet's firstwords thus become his most decisivein establishing with an audience, but also with a fundamentsurrounding and word. reader, writer, The conclusion of Keats' "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer" is thatthe most authentic response to his transcendentexperience, hence the firstratherthan the line of the sonnet, is silence. But if there are to be any lines at all, Rimfourteenth baud's example must be rejected. The ice must be broken with somethingsharp,or meltedwith something warm. Also implicit at the outset is a counterpointbetween introductionand the rest of the work. The first line can be seen as in some sense preparing the way forthe body of the text. Not especially importantin themselves,formulaicopeningslike "A funny thinghappened to me on the way to. . ." or "You're not goingto believe thisbut..." establish expectations, sketch the outlines of a perceptibleformaccordingto which we comprehendthe whole. Signs of thingsto come, all literary are portenbeginnings tous. At the same time,however,they are merelynecessaryevils. If the play is indeed the thing,the thingto do is to get into it as directly as possible. Like first in thoughts the morning,the firstword becomes an arbitrary a matter of the nuisance, clearing throat,of declaiming"Testing 1 2 3 " beforewe can get on withseriousbusiness.The firstspecimen off an assembly line is frequently defective,but it must be produced if there is be to an ever second. anyway adequate Seen as mere tools for priming the pump, openingsinspireimpatience,but seen as of the entire the work, expressive response is awe. With Yankee spunk Ausonius (Idyllia XII) urges us to go ahead with what we have to do, because the beginning stands for the whole: "Incipe quidquid agas: pro toto est primaoperispars." Consider, for example, those sentenceswhichrelate,ironicallyor not, to the novelstheyinitiate as if precept to exemplum-"It is a truthuniversally acknowledged,that a singleman in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" (Pride and Prejudice), "All happy familiesresembleone another,but each unhappy familyis unhappy in its own way" (Anna Karenina), "One never knows when the blow may fall" (The ThirdMan). The appropriatenessof the opening line of Hamlet to the body of the play is often overlooked. Bernardo,who comes to relieveFrancisco as sentry, asks: "Who's there?" Aside from the significanceof beginningthis tragedy with a question mark, it is who is on duty,ratherthan Bernardowho should be asking.The first words Francisco, thus suggesta role reversal, thatsomething is indeed rottenin the state of Denmark,as

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the restof the play will document.Sententiousstatements in history("What hath God wrought!" or "I have not yet begun to fight") are likewise often uttered on the fromthat instanton. The implication assumptionthat theywill be eternallysignificant of Neil Armstrong's "One small step for man, one giant step formankind" is thathis his inauguraldeclaration,will resonatethroughout a gloriousfuture act, and therefore of interplanetary this moment. Armstrong's embarrasstravel,therebyforegrounding mentwas thathe was compelled to repeathis dictumbecause inaudible. VI How best to enter a chill mountain lake is an epic question. You may eitherplunge rightin or else firstdab drops on criticalparts of the body. The epic genrein theory and practice encompasses both zeal and reluctance toward literarybeginnings. The conventionof the epic argument, in whichwe are conveniently for what is to prepared follow-whether a story of the wrath of Achilles, of arms and the man, or of Man's First Disobedience,-is a delaying tactic, an acclimation chamber throughwhich we must pass before encounteringthe fullforce of the poem. In thejargon of the rhetoricians, often both propositio (a declaration of the subject of the discourse to follow) and praeparatio (an explanation of why somethingwill be said), the epic argument offersus an inoculation beforewe come into contact with the work itself.It in effect anticipatesthe apparatus of prefaces,prologues, dedications,and epigraphs enablinga to with the shock of a fictive world. typographical age cope But Renaissance doctrineinsistedthat,despite arguments, epics beginin medias res. and value bluntness treat as a disease. There is somethingpreWe, too, Gongorism frank about an author to down to business. Standardprocedure ciously impatient get in introductory courses to is excise the student's first which is often writing paragraph, both awkward and superfluous.It suggestsa democratic instinctwhich rejects concepts of hierarchyand decorum and an elitiststyle; but, more to the point, it insists on textual egalitarianism. In principle,everyelement of the work is interchangeable, and a given sentence is as suitable to the middle of page 100 as the top of page 1. The opening chord of that classic of the Industrial Revolution, Hard Times, dissolves distinctionsbetween introduction and narrative;without any preparation,we turn to dialogue, and aptly enough to the statement of a man who will have no immediately truckwith anything peripheral-"Now, what I want is, Facts." Faulkner's approach is but the windy firstsentence of Absalom, Absalom!, by ostensibly quite different, drawing us breathlesslyinto the story, likewise denies the exordium a privileged status. To satisfythe requirement of beginning in medias res, we must of course agree on what "things" is. For many works as far back at least as the Bible, creation of a literarytext is an integralpart of the narrativeitself.When Genesis begins "In the beginning...," it not only provides temporal coordinates to set its vast storygoing. The opening line also remindsus that we are beginning the firstbook of The Book, the fount of Westernculture. The reflexiveness of this opening line, referring both to what we are readingand to the cosmos, becomes even more apparentin the Johannine was the Word." Thoreau's Waldenis not only an account of parody-"In the beginning its narrator'slife at the pond but also an attemptto describe the inspiration for the

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book. Its firstsentence, "When I wrote the followingpages, or ratherthe bulk of standsapart fromthe rest,pointing them, I lived alone in the woods .. .," accordingly both to words and woods. The popular yarn,too, often begins with a self-conscious and dilatoryreminder thata storyfollows,as in Benet's adaptation of its stylein "The Devil and Daniel Webster"-"It's a story theytell in the bordercountry, whereMassachusetts and New Vermont joins Hampshire." The opening line can thus serveeitherto thrustus immediatelyinto the text or to retard our encounter until we are prepared for it. An extraordinary blend of both functions is apparent in Rousseau's Les Confessions-"Je forme une entreprisequi n'eut d'exemple, et dont I'ex6cution n'aura point d'imitateur." This seductively audacious proclamationis both literature and metaliterature: a thoroughly characteristic demonstrationof the 'personality we see forming, at the same time as it is a preface to an account of that formation.The enormous popular success of Erich Segal's Love Story was certainlynot impeded by its sassy come-on-"What can you say about a into the storythatwe twenty-five-year-old girlwho died?" It propels us so forcefully are in fact carriedbeyond it, to Jenny'sdeath and Oliver's understatedgrief.At the same time, it outlines the novel's plot for us and even poses a sort of epic question. Implicitis the traditionalformulaof dubitatio-the narrator'splea of incompetenceand thisriddle: how could anyone even beginto tell the story? VII Art, like its creators,betraysprofoundambivalence toward beginnings. Vestigesof national of veneration collective for a primogeniture, pioneers, nostalgia primalGolden forthe earliestin a series.Exterminating Age-all point to a preference angelsand imps born,while the pious worshipa PrimeMover,a FirstCause. On always opt forthe first the other hand, though,synchronism is a popular creed. The eternal quarrelbetween Ancients and Moderns is necessarilyunbalanced, since it is the latterwho supply the arbiter.In any case, the veryconception of such a quarrelis an assertionof simultaneare out of ity, a denial of pride of place. We level with by leveling,and introductions place in the open society. "Die Marquise von 0." beginsthus: In M. . ., einer bedeutenden Stadt in oberen Italien, liess die verwitwete Marquise von O. ..., eine Dame von vortrefflichem Ruf und Mutter von mehrerenwohlerzogenenKindern,durch die Zeitungen bekanntmachen: dass sie, ohne ihr Wissen, in andre Umstiinde gekommensei, dass dei Vater zu dem Kinde, das sie gebiiren wilrde, sich melden solle und dass sie, aus Familienricksichten, entschlossen wiire,ihn zu heiraten. This celebrated opening tellsus all the essentialsof Kleist's bizarreplot. It has usurped such a privilegedposition withinthe short storythat there is in some sense no room for anything else. Every succeedingsentence is an anti-climax, a mereworkingout of whatwe alreadyknow.

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A contrastto thisextremeexample of arrogation sentencecan be found by the first in Finnegans Wake,a work aspiring to cyclical ratherthanlinearform.Its opening,the lower case "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's,...," is as much an openingas a completion of the last sentencein the book ("A way a lone a last a loved a long the"). Like Pound, who begins his Cantos with the conjunction "And," Joyce refusesto adopt the convention of discrete openings. Literary form, like life, is seen as process, and it is wherewe decide to join the flow.This conceit becomes the organizing arbitrary princiof Marc ple Saporta's 1962 Composition no. 1, a novel whose pages are printedonly on recto and where "Le lecteurest prie de battreces pages comme un jeu de cartes.De L'ordre couper, s'il le desire, de la main gauche, comme chez une cartomancienne. dans lequel les feuilletssortiront du jeu orienterale destin de X." By instructing the reader to arrangethe pages of the book himself, is in effect Saporta denyingspecialization of functionsand asserting that everypart of the text is potentiallyinterchangeable. Much of Robbe-Grillet's work can be describedas a structure of falsestarts, or at least arbitraryones. As in Reage's Histoire d'O which, three pages into the novel, suddenlystops short and explicitlyrelatesan alternative opening,the literaryexperience has become unamenableto the tidycategoriesof beginning, middle,and end. The "virginpage" is a jaded metaphor for what every writermust confrontthe moment before he begins to begin. It is quite compatible with two attitudestoward the business of starting.Like virginity, literaryintroductionsare often seen as an awkward embarrassment, an obstacle to be overcome as quickly as possible in order to facilitate vital experiences. On the other hand, "the firsttime" is a supremely privilegedmoment, to be lingered over, contemplated,and cherished.Which is the more tellingconception we can only beginto imagine.

The University of Texas San Antonio

NOTES 1. Louis Aragon,Je n'ai jamais apprisa dcrire,ou Les incipits(Geneva: Skira, 1970). Quoted in: Phrases-Seuils," RaymondJean,"Ouvertures, Critique,288 (May, 1971), p. 423. 2. Helen Reagan Smith, Basic Story Techniques (Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1964), p. 154.

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