Lecture
The smallest unit of a work’s objective world is traditionally called the artistic detail, which agrees well with the word’s etymology: «detail» (Fr. detail) — «a small constituent part of something (e.g., a machine)»; «particular», «specific». What matters in principle is that the detail belongs to the meta-verbal, objective world of the work: «The figurative form of a literary work comprises three sides: a system of details of objective depiction, a system of compositional devices, and a verbal (speech) structure...»; «...The artistic detail is usually taken to mean chiefly objective particulars in the broad sense: particulars of everyday life, landscape, portrait... <...> Poetic devices, tropes, and stylistic figures are usually not classed as artistic detail...»3. In analyzing a work, it is important to distinguish the verbal level from the meta-verbal, properly objective level (despite their natural connection).
Detailing the objective world in literature is not merely interesting, important, or desirable — it is inevitable; in other words, it is not ornament but the very essence of the image. After all, a writer cannot recreate an object in all its particulars (rather than merely mention it), and it is precisely the detail, or the totality of details, that «substitutes» for the whole in the text, evoking in the reader the associations the author intends. In doing so, the author relies on the reader’s imagination and experience to mentally fill in the missing elements. R. Ingarden calls such «elimination of spots of indeterminacy» the reader’s concretization of the work. What is left out of the text is evidently inessential to understanding the whole (in this case, the heroine’s image). In Chekhov’s story «The Kiss», the unknown woman who mistakenly kisses Ryabovich in a dark room remains unidentified by him. The features he recalls are far too indefinite: «Ryabovich stopped, lost in thought... At that moment, unexpectedly, he heard hurried footsteps and the rustle of a dress, a woman’s breathless voice whispered «at last!», and two soft, fragrant, unmistakably feminine arms embraced his neck; a warm cheek pressed against his, and at the same instant came the sound of a kiss. But the woman who had kissed him gave a slight cry and, as it seemed to Ryabovich, recoiled from him in disgust». Who exactly she was is unimportant in the context of the story. For this is a chance episode in a lonely life, one that merely underscores the futility of the hero’s dream of happiness and love, rather than an entertaining tale of mistaken identity.
It is often claimed, in one form or another, that the art of detailing developed gradually over the history of literature, and that contemporary writing shows particular virtuosity in this respect (referring, of course, to authors of the «first rank»). Thus Yuri Olesha, who highly valued the language of the new art — cinema, found a «close-up» already in Pushkin, considering it a breakthrough into the poetics of the future: «...there are certain lines whose presence in a poet of that era seems simply inconceivable:
From the standpoint of theoretical poetics, which clarifies the properties of the artistic image as such, a taste for detail, for fine (not crude) craftsmanship, unites artists regardless of the age in which they lived (what kind of detail this is, is another question). That is why one can adduce the most varied material in support of these theses. A.A. Potebnya, developing his theory of the image by analogy with the «inner form» of the word, drew on Ukrainian folklore and on nineteenth-century Russian classics («Notes on the Theory of Literature»). V.B. Shklovsky discovered the devices of «defamiliarization» (ostranenie) and «impeded form» (which he considered attributes of poetic language) in the novels and tales of Leo Tolstoy and in folk riddles and fairy tales («On the Theory of Prose»). Neither of these two works uses «detail» as a term, but the problem itself is at the center of attention.
In the works of folklorists, classicists, and medievalists on detailing, no less is said than in studies of, say, the work of Tolstoy, Gogol, Chekhov, Bunin, or Nabokov. Thus F.I. Buslaev notes the heroic epic’s fondness for minutiae: «The singer’s ever calm and clear gaze rests with equal attention on Olympus, where the gods sit enthroned, and on the bloody battle deciding the fate of the world, and on the barely noticeable minutiae in the description of household implements or weaponry». Epic poetry is unhurried and trains us «to patience through its constant repetitions, which it seems as impossible and unnatural to skip as it would be to cut a day of waiting for joy out of one’s life, or a monotonous stretch of road before a beautiful view out of one’s journey»2. For Homer, «every trifle... is precious. He often resorts to such descriptions without being troubled that they delay the action. As a result there occurs a deliberate delay —retardation... <...> The most... remarkable is the description of the scar on Odysseus’s leg in Book XIX of the «Odyssey». Striking is the wealth not only of similes introducing new images (in particular, descriptions of nature) but also of epithets, despite the epic’s general tendency toward fixed epithets. Homer’s Achilles is not only «swift-footed»: he is «assigned 46 epithets, Odysseus 45»3. The poetics of the heroic epic is entirely unlike the individual styles of the «slow» novels — Ortega y Gasset’s favorite reading (where a quite different, psychological kind of detailing prevails, and retardations serve other functions). But everywhere before us is the language of art — the language of detail.
The classification of details reproduces the structure of the objective world, made up of «components of different kinds» — events, characters’ actions, their portraits, psychological and speech characteristics, landscape, interior, and so on. At the same time, in a given work, one or another kind of detail may be absent, which underscores the conventionality of its world.
In the literary-critical description of style, related details are often grouped together. A successful attempt at such a typology was proposed by A.B. Esin, who distinguished three large groups: plot details, descriptive details, psychological details. The predominance of one type or another gives rise to a corresponding property, or stylistic dominant: «plot-centeredness» (Gogol’s «Taras Bulba»), «descriptiveness» («Dead Souls»), «psychologism» (Dostoevsky’s «Crime and Punishment»); these properties «need not exclude one another within the bounds of a single work».
Thus, details can be given in opposition, in a «dispute» with one another. But they can also, conversely, form an ensemble, jointly creating a single, unified impression — for example, the luxury items adorning the «study of a Philosopher at eighteen» (in the first chapter of «Eugene Onegin»). E.S. Dobin proposed a typology of details based on the criterion of singularity/multiplicity, using different terms to designate the types he identified: «The particular acts through multiplicity. The detail tends toward singularity. It replaces a whole series of particulars. Recall Karenin’s ears, the curls on the back of Anna’s neck, the short upper lip with the faint moustache of little Princess Bolkonskaya, Andrei Bolkonsky’s wife, the radiant eyes of Princess Marya, Captain Tushin’s unchanging pipe, the meaningful furrows on diplomat Bilibin’s brow, and so on. The detail is intensive. Particulars are extensive». The researcher then qualifies this, noting that the difference between detail and particular is «only a matter of degree of concision and density», that it is «not absolute», and that there exist «transitional forms»1.
Transitional forms exist, of course, in any classification, but they are not its essence. In our view, the very tendency toward «singularity» or «multiplicity» requires explanation and follows from the different functions of detail and particular (in Dobin’s terms). If one considers closely the examples of «details» he gives, a pattern emerges: what is singled out is not simply a characteristic feature representing the whole through its part (the principle of synecdoche). What is named is something that hints at a certain contradiction in the object, something that would seem quite unnecessary — which is precisely why the detail stands out and is not lost among the multitude of «particulars». And it is expressive, i.e., when read correctly, the reader is drawn into the author’s system of values.
A detail that introduces dissonance into the image, or, to use Shklovsky’s well-known term, an «estranging» detail, has enormous cognitive significance. It, as it were, invites the reader to look more closely at the object rather than skim across the surface of phenomena. By falling out of line, out of the ensemble, it draws attention to itself — like the two armchairs in the Manilovs’ drawing room, upholstered in «plain matting» and revealing him as not truly master of the house, a man merely playing the role of host: for several years Manilov «invariably warned his guest, saying: «Don’t sit in those armchairs, they’re not ready yet»». In introducing an «estranging» detail, writers often resort to hyperbole. The salience of a detail that contrasts to some degree with the general background is aided by compositional devices: repetitions, the «close-up», «montage», retardations, and so on. Through repetition and the accrual of additional meanings, a detail becomes a motif (leitmotif), and often grows into a symbol. If at first it surprises, then, appearing in new «linkages», it already explains character. In Dostoevsky’s «The Idiot», the reader (like General Yepanchin) may at first find Myshkin’s ability to imitate handwriting strange. Yet by the end of the novel it becomes clear that Myshkin’s chief gift is his understanding of different characters, different styles of behavior, and that his reproduction of styles of handwriting (in the old sense of the word) is a hint at this.
A symbolic detail may be placed in the title of a work (usually of shorter forms): Chekhov’s «Gooseberries», Bunin’s «Light Breathing», Paustovsky’s «Snow». The particular, on the other hand (in Dobin’s understanding), is closer to a sign than to a symbol; its appearance in the text evokes above all the joy of recognition, setting off a stable chain of associations. Sign-particulars are calculated for a certain horizon of expectation in the reader, for his ability to decode this or that cultural code. Thus the reader of «Eugene Onegin», entering along with Tatiana the «fashionable cell» of her idol, can confidently judge Onegin’s enthusiasms and cast of mind from the furnishings of his study. A few sign-strokes replace a long description: «...and a portrait of Lord Byron,/And a little cast-iron doll/Beneath a hat, with clouded brow,/With arms crossed over its chest».
When the literary historian reconstructs the life, everyday manners, and tastes of a society already distant from us, such signs are systematized — they are the commentator’s «bread and butter». And, perhaps even more than the classics, sign-particulars are supplied by popular fiction, which keeps pace with its own time (rather than getting ahead of it), responding quickly to topical concerns, to fashions in every sphere, to «cultural news».
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