A writer writes for writers, a non-writer writes for his next-door neighbor or for the manager of the local bank branch, and he fears (often mistakenly) that they would not understand or, in any case, would not forgive his boldness. He uses the dots as a visa: he wants to make a revolution, but with police permission.
The following little list of variations may serve to indicate the ghastliness of these dots, suggesting what might have happened to literature if our writers had lacked self-confidence:
"A ... rose by any other name"
"Never send to know ... for whom the bell ... tolls."
"A man's a ... man for a' that."
"Call me ... Ishmael."
"The widow Douglas she took me for her ... son, and allowed she would sivilize me."
"Who's afraid of ... Virginia Woolf?"
"April is the cruellest ... month"
"I am a camera with its ... shutter open"
And so, down to: "riverrun, past Eve and ... Adam's"
Not that it matters if the Great would have looked foolish. But, as you see, these dots, suggesting the writer's fear of using bold, figured speech, can also be used to suggest his suspicion that the rhetorical figure, by itself, will seem literal and flat. An example. The Communist Manifesto of 1848 begins, as everyone knows, with the words "A specter is haunting Europe," and you must admit this is a great incipit. It would still be pretty good if Marx and Engels had written "A ... specter is haunting Europe"; they would merely have suggested, perhaps, that communism might not be such a terrible and elusive thing, and the Russian revolution might have taken place fifty years earlier, maybe with the Czar's consent, and Mazzini would have taken part in it, too.
But what if they had written "A specter is ... haunting Europe"? Is there some doubt about its haunting? Is it stable? Or do specters, per se, appear and disappear in a flash, suddenly, with no real time for haunting? But that isn't all. What if they had written "A specter is haunting ... Europe"? Would they have implied that they were really exaggerating, that the specter at most might be haunting Trier, and people everywhere else needn't worry? Or would they be suggesting that the specter of communism was already haunting also the Americas and—who could say?—maybe even Australia?
"To be or ... not to be, that is the question." "To be or not to be, that is the ... question." "To be or not ... to be, that is the question." You can see how much work Shakespearean scholarship would have to do, plumbing the Bard's meanings.
All men are created equal.
All ... men are created equal.
All men are ... created equal.
All men are created ... equal.
All men are created equally entitled to use suspension points.
1991
How to Write an Introduction
The purpose of this article is to explain how you put together the introduction to a book of essays, a philosophical treatise, or a collection of scientific articles, to be published, ideally, by a university press or its equivalent, all in accordance with the rules long established in the academic world.
In the paragraphs that follow I will clarify, as succinctly as possible, why an introduction must be written, what it must comprise, and how to list the acknowledgments: for skill in making acknowledgments is the hallmark of the thoroughbred scholar. It can sometimes happen that a scholar, his task completed, discovers that he has no one to thank. Never mind. He will invent some debts. Research without indebtedness is suspect, and somebody must always, somehow, be thanked.
In preparing this article I have drawn on a long and invaluable familiarity with scholarly publications; these have been brought to my attention by the Ministry of Public Education of the Italian Republic, the Universities of Turin and Florence, the Polytechnic Institute of Milan, and the University of Bologna, as well as New York University, Yale University, and Columbia University.
I could not have completed this work without the patient and impeccable collaboration of Signora Sa-bina, thanks to whom my study, which by 2 A.M. is reduced to an undefined mass of cigarette stubs and waste paper, every morning is found in acceptable condition once more. My special thanks also to Barbara, Simona, and Gabriella, whose efforts have saved my hours of reflection from the importune interruption of transatlantic calls inviting me to conferences on the most disparate subjects, alike only in being remote from my personal interests.
This article would not have been possible without the unfailing assistance of my wife, who, always ready with the reassurance that all is vanity, was—and is—able to tolerate the moods and demands of a scholar constantly obsessed by the major problems of existence. Her devotion in offering me apple juice, successfully passing it off as the most refined Scotch malt, has been an immeasurable and incredible contribution, documented by the fact that these pages have retained a minimum of lucidity.
My children have been a source of great comfort to me and have provided me with the affection, the energy, and the confidence to complete my self-imposed task. Thanks to their complete, Olympian detachment from my work, I have found the strength to conclude this article after a daily struggle with the definition of the intellectual's role in a postmodern society. I am indebted to them for inspiring an unshakable determination to withdraw into my study and write these pages, rather than encounter in the hall their best friends, whose hairdresser follows esthetic criteria that revolt my sensibilities.
The publication of this text has been made possible by the generosity and the economic support of Carlo Caracciolo, Lio Rubini, Eugenio Scalfari, Livio Za-netti, Marco Benedetto, and the other members of the board of directors of the publishing firm of L'Espresso. My special thanks to the business manager, Milvia Fiorani, whose continuing monthly assistance has allowed my research to go forward. That countless readers will hold this modest contribution in their hands is due to the director of the distributing services, Guido Ferrantelli.
Creation and revision of this text have been encouraged by Olivetti, which provided me with an M 21 computer. I would like to express my gratitude for the MicroPro and its Wordstar 2000 program as well. The text has been printed on an Okidata Micro-line 182.
I could not have made the lines above and below available to the English-language audience without the affectionate, constant insistence and encouragement of Grace Budd, Otello Venturovic, Michael Kandel, Martha Browne, and Dr. Ferdinando Adornato, who have sustained me with heart-warming and pressing daily telephone calls, informing me that the presses were rolling and, that at all costs, I had to provide the final footnotes.
Obviously, they are in no way accountable for the scholarly content of what appears on these pages; any defects in the present article, as in those of the past and the future, are my responsibility alone.
1987
How to Write an Introduction to an Art Catalogue
The following notes are meant to assist writers of introductions to art catalogues (hereafter referred to as WIAC). But first a word of warning: these instructions are not valid for the writing of a critical-historical essay to be published in a scholarly review. There are numerous, complex reasons for this distinction, the first of which is that critical essays are read and judged by other critics and only rarely by the analyzed artist, who either does not subscribe to the publication or has been dead for two centuries. A catalogue for a show of contemporary art exists in quite a different context.
How does one become a WIAC? Unfortunately, the process is all too easy. You have only to be involved in some intellectual profession (nuclear physicists and molecular biologists are in great demand), have a listed telephone number, and enjoy a certain fame. Fame is calculated in this fashion: it must have a geographical extension superior to the impact area of the show (fame should be at state level for a city of less than seventy thousand inhabitants, at national level for a state capital, at worldwide level for the capital city of an independent nation, San Marino and Andorra excepted) and must be of a depth inferior to that of the cultural knowledge of possible purchasers of pictures (if the show features wooded landscapes in the style of Daubigny, it is not necessary—indeed, it is counterproductive—for the writer to be a contributor to The New York Review of Books; it would be more advisable for him to be the principal of the local teachers' college). Naturally, you must be invited by the exhibiting artist, but this is not a problem: exhibiting artists far outnumber potential WIACs. Given these conditions, your engagement as WIAC is inevitable, quite independent of your will. If the artist has made up his mind, the potential WIAC cannot escape the task, unless he decides to emigrate to another continent.