Incessu patuit: revealing the gesture

In this post we introduce a new constraint that I’ll call “Incessu Patuit” (explanation to follow). Like most new constraints, it’s a variation on old ones. In “Incessu Patuit” you choose a printed text — a page from a book or a poem or essay, something short to start with. Then copy the last two words on each line. In the case of hyphenated words, the strict writher will use only the part of the word that precedes the hyphen, as well as that mark itself, in order to create interesting new compounds. Or you can use the whole of the word that begins at line’s end. When you have a list of all the pairs of words and word-parts in order, create a new text by recombining them in a different order, keeping the pairs together.

Of course there are many ways to vary this constraint. Another that I have tried involves using the first word in the line plus as many other words (from that line and in order) as I need, and continuing to do the same in the next line, and so on. You could do the same with the final words. “Mesostics,” a technique used by John Cage, takes words from the middle of the line. Cage generated the text for Roaratorio, his circus-opera based on Finnegans Wake, by going through Joyce’s book line by line, using the successive letters in James Joyce’s name as a tool for selecting words. Thus he read till he found a word containing a j not followed by a and used that word and up to a set number of words to either side of it, then in the next line found an a not followed by an m and did the same.

“Haikuization,” a technique invented by the Oulipo for improving poetry, reduces long lines to short ones by using only the first and last words of the line. I once found a constraint called “La page rongée des rats” (the page gnawed by rats) in a French book called Petite fabrique de littérature by Alain Duchesne and Thierry Leguay (Paris: Magnard, 1999). The idea is that rats have been at the book you left in the attic and eaten part of every line; your job is to compose the part of the line they ate by extrapolation from what is left, so as to restore a coherent reading, which will probably vary considerably from the original.

The Writhing Society has practiced most of these methods at one time or another. What is interesting about them is that they all discover/uncover a secondary or derived text within the first or base text, and in so doing often uncover rhythms and even discourses latent in the base text. Thus in Sexual Stealing, her current project, Wendy Walker, by choosing one word from each line of Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, has found within that classic Gothic text the discourse of “sexual stealing,” the violent appropriation of libidinal objects up to and including one’s own personal freedom, as practiced on the sugar plantations of the West Indies in the late eighteenth century — the same historical moment as the invention of the English Gothic novel.

What follows is an example of “Incessu patuit,” to illustrate how it works; but it’s a significant example for me. I have been working on a set of pieces of constrained writing based on Gilbert White’s The Natural History of Selborne, a title that will be familiar to anyone interested in natural history. The first edition was published in London in 1789, and the book consists of two sets of letters, to Thomas Pennant and to Daines Barrington, written over the course of a third of a century. In an era of widely read savants making sweeping claims about animals, their structure, their evolution, and their behavior, Gilbert White wrote anecdotally about his observations in the parish of Selborne, in Southamptonshire, where he had been born and served as the curate. The letter that I have used for this exercise is No. XLII to Daines Barrington. Dated from Selborne on August 7^th, 1778, the letter begins, “Dear Sir, A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape….” By “air” White means what modern bird-watchers call a bird’s “jizz” (which will strike readers of Henry Miller and William S. Burroughs as a really unfortunate word to choose). It means something like what a gardener calls a plant’s “habit,” (as in “a climbing habit,” “a spreading habit”), in other words a characteristic mode of movement and of carrying itself; the shape it makes in the world; what I would call its “gesture.”

Gesture was a key word in Bertolt Brecht’s description of what he found in Chinese theater and in Walter Benjamin’s description of the style of personantion practiced in Brecht’s own epic theater; it seems to me a element of all style, in writing or other composition. In looking at handwriting and calligraphy we are always conscious of the distinctive gestures made by the glyphs, letters or ideograms. My purpose in what follows was to see if some characteristic “air” or gesture of Gilbert White’s own writing style would emerge from my selection of words.

Here is a table that shows the pairs of words that end each successive line of Letter XLII to Daines Barrington, as printed in the first edition of 1789, which I found in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (a database published by Gale Publishing; many thanks to James Walsh for directing me to it). Words in blue have been used once, words in red twice, words in green three times.

cuique genere	and thus	goat-suckers
by their	tumble in	meteor; starlings
as well	their walks	and desultory
hand. For,	wings at	ground and
a manner	curves. All	quick evolu-
least, that	a support	moves with
judicious observer	hooked-clawed	birds fly
bird in	third foot	small birds
incessu patuit	the gallinae	legs alternately.
wings expand-	with dif-	woodlarks hang
that the	line. Mag-	curves, singing
the Saxon	no dispatch;	and gesticulations
peculiar mode	light bodies;	-kind waddle;
in aire	burdens, such	their tails;
while being	the sort	most wild-
of corn	one against	position. The
dog. Owls	variety called	are very
they seem	have move-	hooked appear-
ravens that	though strong	their legs
spend all	the wing	reason is
wing in	while breed-	center of
one place	wind-hover;	too backward.
croak, and	languishing and
gesture betides	dying bird;

And here is the piece I composed by recombining these word-groups, allowing myself to use some of them more than once but not to omit any. I have kept all original punctuation and capitalization; sometimes I have left additional spaces where I would want some punctuation. The Latin epigraph, incessu patuit, is from the Aeneid, Book 4, where it is said of Venus, who appears in disguise, that “by her air (or gait, or habit, or jizz) [the true goddess] is revealed.” It seems an apt name for all the constraints described in this post.

gesture betides light bodies

incessu patuit

birds fly their walks

they seem curves, singing curves. All meteor; starlings are very wing in wind-hover; quick evolu-wings expand-most wild-hooked appear-least, that while being in aire spend all burdens, such gesture betides light bodies; the Saxon hooked-clawed bird in one place have move-moves with with dif-wings at no dispatch; while breed-dying bird; reason is languishing and too backward.

the wing moves with a manner line. Mag-kind waddle; legs alternately. third foot a support one against ground and and desultory and gesticulations their legs though strong are very hand. For, while being their legs their legs are very too backward.

reason is position.

The ravens that croak, and tumble in cuique genere by their peculiar mode they seem their tails; goat-suckers the sort that the judicious observer variety called bird in dog. Owls while being woodlarks hang wings at center of light bodies; the gallinae small birds of corn spend all and thus dying bird; as well as well as well