‘Writing’ Game, A. & Metcalfe, A., (1996) sheds light on writing and the array of mechanics and elements illuminated through it’s practice and administration. It focuses on the process and journey of writing in detail and the use of writing for not just English and literal purposes, but creative processes in general, art and daily routine inclusive.
On page 98 of ‘Writing’ et al (1996) I found the mention of Cavalcanti, who wrote a sonnet in which pens and other writing tools addressed the reader to be quite interesting. The rhetorical question on this same page ‘are pens speaking any less metaphoric than writers walking simply because we imagine the hand holding the pen? Brought me back to an idea my year 12 English teacher proposed. He told us about a quote he had once read, the quote being ‘If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.’ said by philosopher Ludwig Wittengenstein. He explained it to mean, even if we could understand what a lion was saying in plain English from another perspective we wouldn’t because the conversation a lion would have would refer to a lions way of living and seeing the world not a humans.
Alternatively to ‘pens speaking’ being less ‘metaphoric’ because pens are controlled by the hand, I found a correlation between the lions point of views appearing less valid simply because we couldn’t understand them and the pen speaking being a silly notion due to its inanimateness and human control.
I think these two examples point out and encourage writers to be more creative not just see and accept things for how and what they are in a literal sense but question why they are that way and how they can be changed or moulded into a more interesting and dynamic idea.
Reference:
Game, A. & Metcalfe, A., ‘Writing’ in Passionate Sociology, Sage, London, (1996) pp 87-105
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