Friday, August 27, 2004

Grokking Kennings

In oral cultures, we are sometimes told, memory served those needs that written text fulfills in literate societies. Earlier cultural historians tended to argue that writing brought a quantum leap in the preservation and perpetuation of knowledge (which is almost certainly true). However, their reasoning was based on an inadequate understanding of memory; in particular, the extent to which memory can be trained by technique and shaped by art. One brief example can provide an indication of how flexible and creative the memory arts – “mnemotechnics” – of ancient societies were … as well as the pervasiveness of those techniques in modern societies.

The kenning, after which this blog is named, refers to a device used throughout Germanic (particularly Norse) poetry and mythology. Simply put, a kenning is a story in miniature: an evocative phrase, sometimes associated with imagery, that alludes to another story without actually mentioning or summarizing it. For a familiar example, consider:

Achilles ’ heel

In conversation or narrative, this simply means “vulnerable spot” or “weak point.” But why does it mean this? Nothing in “Achilles” or “heel” specifically evokes weakness or vulnerability. The phrase acquires its meaning from an absent story – moreover, a story that many who use the phrase might not even know in full. Achilles was the greatest of Greek heroes, in part because his mother immersed him into the River Styx shortly after he was born, making him invulnerable to harm. But she had to hold on to his heel to do so, which meant that this single spot on his body would remain unprotected. When Achilles finally fell in battle, it was due to this minor flaw in his otherwise unassailable person.

All of this, of course, is far too big a mouthful for anyone wishing to refer to it in detail; but if a poet, say, wishes to evoke the powerful image of a single weak spot in an otherwise perfect defense, the phrase itself can be used as an anchor for memory. Without having to re-tell Achilles’ story, the artist can refer to it through a kenning, a kind of literary metaphor made of memory. For example:

Kryptonite is Superman’s Achilles ’ heel, because exposure to this green ore can remove his powers and eventually kill him.

Without telling Achilles’ story, the speaker can make a connection between it and the related (modern) tale of Superman, a similarly invulnerable superhero. The basic principle of kennings, then, is to allow speakers to refer to entire narratives through powerfully economical metaphors, linking not just images and ideas, but entire stories to each other.

What distinguishes kennings – which can function just as effectively in literate societies – is that they involve the audience in a remembered absence. By evoking without describing the absent story, a host of possible connections and parallels are opened for the audience to consider; unlike an allusion, however, typically a kenning does not prescribe or specify what connections might exist. The audience becomes co-creator, through the medium of memory, opening the narrative to possible meanings and associations that the artist never specifically imagined.

In a sense, a kenning functions very similarly to a hyperlink; in a hypertext, one can pass over linked phrases or words, or re-trace the author’s steps to sources or related material by following the link. The key to understanding kennings – and by extension, the power of arts of memory even in literate societies – is that they provide the power of hyperlinks without having to be specifically anchored to another site. Imagine a hyperlink definition, for instance, that provided a randomly selected website from a short list of choices. Imagine if, in a hypertext describing Superman, clicking on “kryptonite” brought up an entire assortment of literary and artistic precedents and parallels (such as Achilles’ heel, Smaug’s missing scale, Siegfried’s back, and so on). Through memory – and particularly a memory trained by exposure to the narratives, myths, and imagery of an entire culture – the written word catalyzes an interpretive activity.

I’ve named this site after kennings, then, to evoke that kind of activity and associate it with this blog. My purpose here will be to address texts and experiences, narratives and images, through a language of connection, and place these brief essays in a context where other readers might expand their meaning and their potential further than I might imagine. I invite readers to browse these essays through the binocular focus not only of their creativity, but their memories, providing associations, connections, commentary, and arguments that the essays themselves could never contain.

I dedicate this work at the outset to a high school teacher named J. D. Soley, who taught me how to write critically (“analyze – avoid mere summary – and be concrete”), but also rapidly– through the countless impromptu essays he would assign in the classes I took from him. This site marks my effort to return to the basic principles of the writer’s craft that he revealed to me over fifteen years ago.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You might want to look into the Hebrew rune יָדַע (YDH) - often translated "know." When Adam "knew" Eve she conceived. Intimacy, not simply coitus, but in the rune sense of intercourse...really connecting...is core knowledge. Couples who have loved each other deeply, through struggles and joys, know each other so well they often wear the same expressions on their faces.
This is also the heart of Christian knowing, most especially in 1 Corinthians 13 the wedding-known love chapter. Some think it unfortunate that this text surfaces in romantic contexts, yet surely it rounds out the runeness as Paul leaves the hint that intimate love with all its riddles points us to the mysterious way of God's intersection with us.
In Ephesians 5 Paul is even earthier...and the mystery (sacramentum) of marriage is grokked in Christ and the church.

Kirk Andrew Everist said...

There is a fascinating etymological narrative to be read in the history of words like "conceive" and "know" - note that even today we speak of "getting it," and "grasping it," as if knowledge were something one could contain or hold. And yet, as we so often forget, it takes (at least) two to conceive.

The Faust myth inhabits this particular metonymic field. "Faust" means "fist" - but is also related to the concept of FASS, the German word for "grasp" or "know" or "understand." Faust himself wants to grasp experience and contain it fully - what saves him from an entirely vacuous and self-contained world is the unknowable experience of legitimately encountering someone else.

I think I'll try to return to this point later down the road.