The “On Language” packet discusses Zanyatin’s knowledge and keen interest about literature. His focus revolves around poetry, prose, folk language and much more. I like how he begins his discussion with a question. It makes readers interested and eager to read more. Throughout this passage, Zanyatin expresses his beliefs very clearly and gives definitions of many new terms like “lyrical works”, “epic writers”, “folk language” and “neologisms”.
An idea that fascinated me in the first few pages was how he mentioned that the author must be entirely invisible. Now that I begin to think about this, in many of the books I have read the authors opinion is completely wiped out. Various novels that I have read are either in third person or written in perspective of the main character and therefore “all the authors comments, all the descriptions of the surroundings, the characters, the landscapes must be couched in the language of the milieu portrayed.” (178)
One of the main areas he focused on was folk language. He defined it as the “language of dialogue” and its prime source comes from the people. He used the examples and works of many old writers as well as sources like Church Slavonic sources and the published texts of the Old believers and provincialisms. I noticed that many of his observations or beliefs about literature were backed with many primary sources.
Towards the end of the discussion, he said something so simply and it struck me so powerfully. “The fewer words you use, the more you say with them, the greater the effect.” (185) I believe that this is completely true. There is a saying that the eyes are the windows to your soul, which also emphasizes the fact that you can understand and learn everything about someone without many words at all. Overall, the packet was very appealing in his conversational yet formal tone. I learnt many new terms and also thought more about things I had not thought before.
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