The key issue raised in this week’s discussion was the validity of an Essay of Place. This validity was discussed in terms of gaining a sense of place and also in terms of a legitimate piece of historical study. It became pretty clear that the general consensus was not in support of the Essay of Place as a viable way of discussing history, or even for someone to gain a sense of that place. It initially appears that the Essay of Place requires the reader to have a previous understanding, or experience, with the place of discussion. This provides obvious problems for the target audience of an Essay of Place. This fundamental understanding limits the usefulness of any Essay of Place, to a tourist brochure or encyclopaedia blurb. This in turn raises further questions about the Essay of Place, why would it even be written? Who is it written for and what purpose does it serve to them? And finally, one of the main questions raised in our seminar; Is it only effective if combined with other Essay’s of Place about the same place from different people?
I was recently involved in a class discussion about John Ashbery’s Girls on the Run, which is a poem the length of a small novel following the random thoughts, pictures, people, and feelings splurging from Ashbery’s mind in a random and very non-linear way. It has been suggested that this poem is in a way an exercise in memory. Ashbery is writing what he remembers, the way he remembers it. This is very similar to the way Ryden asks us to write our own Essay’s of Place. The whole idea of writing on impulse is represented through the metaphor of walking and reacting or the similar metaphor of the dog running through the forest, ‘following his nose’. Is Ryden suggesting then, that the Essay of Place is effective because it is written like a dog runs through a forest? Is the Essay of Place asking us to drop all our notions of what place writing should be and try to indulge ourselves in the exercise of memory that the Essay of Place evokes? Even though Ashbery was writing a poem, Girls on the Run still has the same effect. It asks us to let go of normal literature analysis and go wherever the images and feelings take us, which essentially is back to our childhood. I am suggesting therefore that the Essay of Place is not trying to be a more personal version of normal place writing, but a completely different kind all together. It is in fact suggesting that all places hold certain common factors that can be understood through memory. It was competently argued in Week 4 that memory was almost entirely place orientated. If then, we read an essay written like “a dog runs through a forest” and we are drawn to remember a similar place from our own memory, hasn’t the Essay of Place succeeded in giving us a Sense of Place?
The next point from the discussion I wanted to address was the brief comparison made between the Essay of Place and a diary as a historical text. The first major difference I can think to point out is the different motivation for the writing of each. A diary is traditionally written for the writers eyes only. This places a very personal and internal subtext to all diary writings. The Essay of Place however is written for someone, but about yourself. It seems the major pitfall of the Essay of Place is that it seems to have no clear objective in terms of a subject audience. Unlike the diary, the Essay of Place opens itself up to a bias, if the writer has the reader in mind when they reacting on impulse to everything around them. How impulsive, natural and raw can the Essay of Place really be if the only reason it is being written is for someone to analyse? The diary can always make claim to sincerity based solely on the author’s intentions. It doesn’t mean that what is written is always factual, but it is not tainted by any conception of who might read their piece. The Essay of Place struggles to make any such a claim.
I believe the Essay of Place does have some merit as a new form of assessing place, and gaining a unique understanding of that place. I believe the inevitable personal element involved in the Essay of Place works both for and against it. In terms of historical study, I have to agree with Karen Halttunen’s idea that we should use the ideas coming from the Essay of Place, and reach a middle ground “between self and subject in the historical process.”
References:
Kent, C. Ryden, Mapping the Invisible Landscape: Folklore, Writing & the Sense of Place (Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1993), pp. 209-20
Hattunen, Karen, ‘Self, Subject, and the “Barefoot Historian” in Roundtable Discussion on ‘Self and Subject’’, The Journal of American History 89, no.1 (June 2002).
White, Richard, ‘Here is the Problem: An Introduction’ in Roundtable Discussion on ‘Self and Subject’, The Journal of American History 89, no.1 (June 2002).
Peter Hay. ‘Writing place: unpacking an exhibition catalogue essay’, in John Cameron, ed, Changing Places: Re-imagining Australia, (Sydney: Longueville, 2003.)
Comments
Pat, I agree with you about the problems concerning the target audience of this Essay of Place. As it is told in a reflective, personal style that focuses on one place, and one's memory of it, it is extremely particular, and as you say, not accessible in the same way to a great variety of people. To be history, historical questions must be tackled, in my opinion, otherwise it is just an encyclopedia, it is just 'local' history. It fails to contribute to historical analyses. It seems to be something other than history, having its merits in its stylistic and reflective prose rather than its contribution to a historical debate. Ryder almost speaks of essay writing of this style as selfish, purely for one's own purposes, and superfluous. If one is to write in a reflective style that focuses on one particular place, larger historical issues have to be integrated into it if it is to be of historical worth.
Posted by: Audrey Churm | April 30, 2007 07:29 PM
Pat, you raised an interesting question here: does Ryden essentially want the essay of place to be a stream of consciousness, much like Ashbery’s poem or the proverbial dog in the forest? I didn’t agree with the answer you gave, however – i.e. I don’t agree that this is in fact what Ryden wants the essay of place to be. I think he’s advocating the essay of place as a serious contribution to the study of particular places, and to place-study in general. He’s not suggesting that the essay of place should just be used as a way to remind readers of their own childhood places. That may be a welcome side-effect so far as he’s concerned, but it’s not the main point of the exercise. While it’s entirely valid to question whether Ryder’s essay of place is likely to make a valuable contribution to place-study, then, I think you needed to give more acknowledgement of what he was advocating on his own terms.
I loved the title of this piece. Generally, too, I liked the rhetorical-cum-reflective style you used. By the second paragraph I did feel that there were one or two many rhetorical questions, though: they came a little too thick and fast in the opening sections of your piece. It’s great to use your discussion as a way of provoking your readers to think about the issues, but as a reader it gets frustrating if all a writer does is throw things back at you. Ultimately, you want some sense that the writer is giving you his or her own view. You certainly went on to do this in the rest of your discussion, however, so that didn’t remain an issue for long. The way you used Haltunnen to reach a conclusion at the end was especially neat. Many thanks.
Posted by: Melissa Bellanta | May 9, 2007 12:18 PM
Pat, I really liked this paper, particularly the way it takes an unashamedly critical, interrogative approach to the essay of place. The writing is confident, and has a rough-and-ready quality to it. I liked the discussion of Girls on the Run and the connections you made between John Ashbury’s techniques in his extended prose poem and the technique of place-based essayists (this was definitely the liveliest and most original part of your discussion). I also liked your comparison between the form of the essay and the form of a diary (Inga Clenndinen makes some similar points in her introduction to Armageddon’s Kiss.)
But I agree with Melissa: I don’t think you engage with Ryder on his own terms. I think you should have revisited the Ryder discussion on memory and place from Week 4 before writing this, because I think you misunderstand the role that Ryder attributes to memory in writing about place. Ryder talks about the ‘invisible landscape’ in his writings - the memories and meanings of a place that lie beneath its physical geography. In writing about place, Ryder argues, we need to excavate these memories and meanings; we need to reveal the ‘invisible landscape’ to the reader. So for Ryder places don’t simply spark memories: they are constituted by them. And the writer of the essay of place must sift through these ideas and memories in writing about place. Even though Ryder advocates that we write about places in the reflective first-person style, what the inhabitants say about the place (their memories and ideas) is always the main focus of the essay of place. In the end, then, it’s hard to pull off the argument that the act of “imaginatively wandering around a place” which Ryder advocates is really just an exercise in personal memory for the writer. The essay of place is personal, but not a personal reverie. It’s about memory, but not just the writer’s memories. In our discussions of memory and the essay of place, let’s not forget that.
Posted by: Luke Heffernan | May 13, 2007 10:27 PM
I really like that you've acknowledged that this kind of writing can't be assessed the same way as other various historical accounts. In that way i think separating this 'essay of place' from all other historical writing is great because it's still a valid style of writing but it means there are no preconceived limitations or expectations.
I think you've made it clear the motives of the writer and therefore the purpose of the essay must be understood before critising the writing. I think essay of place needs to accommodate the target audience considering this style of writing will probably limit the size of the audience because so many people won't be able to accept it as a valid historical account.
Posted by: Kate Doyle | May 20, 2007 10:30 PM
Pat, I really liked your argument. I like how you see the essay of place as more of a personally evocative form of writing. I find your argument that this form of essay is separate to a more personal view of place writing very interesting. I agree with your argument on how by reading this form of essay, it helps to tease out your own personal relationship with a place. Regarding the motivational reasons for writing the essay in reference to the subject audience, I admit I differ in opinion to you. Why does an impulsivity and naturalness of an Essay of Place have to be questioned when taking the audience into account? One aspect I find endearing about this form of the essay is that it doesn’t hide behind the false security some people see the so called more structured and objective essay as possessing. Although there is bias, the fact that it is openly flaunted on many occasions and not hidden is a great asset. By remembering there is an audience to write to, although it does create some bias, it also aids in its accessibility too. Personal relevance for the author is great, but I think it is an asset to be able to write personally about a place while also remembering that the piece has to remain relatable to the audience. Fashioning an essay in that frame of mind, like talking to someone in the street, seems to me to be the same. For both forms, the author has to remember that they have to find a form of communicating which allows their message to be understood by your audience. I think this more personal style would broaden the audience, and increase its universality. While I see your argument regarding sincerity and writing for an audience, I feel that at times it is a necessary evil and that while it does cloud conceptions, how does that differ to other forms of Essays of Place? This personal form perhaps just makes their biases more easily recognisable, which I see as a positive, rather than a burden.
Posted by: Ethan Hall | June 11, 2007 01:12 PM
I really like your response Pat. In drawing on John Ashbery’s poem ‘Girls on the Run’ and making a comparison between the essay and the diary, you have been broadminded and creative. At the same time your response remains very focused.
However my opinion on the validity of the essay of place, or the use of an anecdotal personal style, is very different to yours. I think the essay of place is a good way of exploring a sense of place and can also be a legitimate piece of historical study. The personal element can work particularly well in engaging the reader and powerfully communicating a historical argument.
‘A Room of One’s Own’ is written as though it is the stream of Virginia Woolf’s thoughts as she wanders around the university of Oxbridge. It is written very much in the style Ryder suggests, that the author writes as though they are describing their sequence of thoughts as they walk down a forest path.
In writing about Oxbridge, and how as she walks through it as a woman in the 1920s she is restricted from certain areas of the place, Woolf makes a very strong historical argument. Her stream of consciousness style and her personal accounts of being excluded at the university accentuate her historical contention; that the oppression of women throughout the centuries has prevented them from writing great works of literature.
Maybe we should consider accepting the dog running through the forest after all?
Posted by: Alex Pavli | June 12, 2007 10:29 PM