Talk:Stream of consciousness writing
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3 out of 18 lines devoted to 'Alanis Morissette'??;-) I suggest we remove all musical examples here. Can lyrics be said to be stream of consciousness as they are not subject to the same narrative obligations as prose. Also practically if we include one then where do we stop? Surely the cannonical example would be Bob Dylan? --harry 13:41, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Stream-of-consciousness writing may seem easy to write. You just write your characters' thoughts, correct? Well, yes. But that doesn't mean it's easy to write. In fact, stream-of-consciousness writing may be the most difficult of all literary styles. The writer who does it best today is no doubt Edna O'Brien although most authorities would cite James Joyce and Virginia Woolf as the ultimate masters. ULYSSES and MRS. DALLOWAY are wonderful examples of beautiful stream-of-consciousness writing. William Faulkner also employed this technique, especially in ABSALOM, ABSALOM, but that is not the best example to study as Faulkner's style was, at the time of the writing of that book, still evolving.
Stream-of-consciousness writing can be so difficult because the author has to really know his characters inside and out in order to present their thoughts with verisimilitude. And, since those thoughts can and do jump around from subject to subject and back again, anything that's not "in character" will be noticed immediately, but perhaps more by readers than by the author, himself. The author may think he's remained "in character" but an austute reader may notice that he has not.
Not only is stream-of-consciousness difficult to write, it can be difficult to follow when reading. It's a style that's certainly not for every reader, but for those who make the effort, the rewards are well worth it. Some stream-of-consciousness books are among the beautiful ever written, for example, Edna O'Brien's book WILD DECEMBERS.
Stream-of-consciousness writing may seem to consist of jumbled thoughts, but really, there is a unity of thought, an interconnectedness, in this type of writing that makes it beautiful, but, once again, makes it very difficult and necessitates the thorough knowing of one's characters before putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. While "knowing one's characters" is important and essential for any type of good writing, it is even more essential if one is going to give stream-of-consciousness a go.
Gabrielle Renoir gabriellerenoir.com
What about the famous In Search of Lost Time? Add as an example?
I think it would be worthwhile to add examples written in languages other than English written around the time when Joyce wrote Ulysses (too many and too long after that would of course make the list grow too long). The Adventures of Sindbad and Coscienza di Zeno are two. I have not read Proust, but if others think it qualifies then I think it also should be added. 129.27.161.101 18:04, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Urgh, Wikipedia
The lack of common sense is maybe fault of Wikipedia. People keep putting in their fingerprints without justification. Oh yah, maybe, but let's keep adding stuff in. Anyway people will correct us.
It's terribly ironic that the contributors seemed not to understand what is stream of consciousness.
Example: Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone is (at least in the majority of people's opinion) not stream-of-consciousness! Stream of consciousness refers to unspoken thoughts, whereas Like a Rolling Stone is more a dramatic monologue (ie. addressed to someone in particular). The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is also a dramatic monologue, not stream of consciousness.
Zeno's Conscience is also not stream of consciousness. It's addressed to a person (Zeno's psychologist), so it's dramatic monologue again, not stream of consciousness.
Let's keep a literary device a literary device and stop making yourself (and Wikipedia) look silly by adding things which aren't confirmed in an encyclopedia. Remember the first rule of thumb in an encyclopedia is that it has to be trustworthy. Mandel 09:35, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, but some of the examples given are questionable. "On the Road" is not necessarily stream of consciousness. Some of the work of Louis-Ferdinand Celine (Death on Credit), however does qualify. Sindbad is not a well-known example but there are examples of stream of consciousness in it. Balazs 09:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- Are you 100% sure that they are? If yes, give quotes of examples here, then add them in. Mandel 09:56, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Which of these are stream of consciousness
For the sake of clarity let's state which of the examples are definitely stream of consciousness and place the rest in classes.
CLASS ONE (definitely)
- Joyce's Ulysses
- Édouard Dujardin's Les Lauriers sont coupés
- Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage
- Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, The Waves
- Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying
- Arthur Schnitzler's Leutnant Gust
CLASS TWO (probably, in IMHO)
- Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (parts)
- Aldiss's Barefoot in the Head (sounds like it)
- Kelman's How Late it Was, How Late
These are disputed, at least in my opinion (either haven't read them or heard of them quoted as examples of stream of consciousness):
CLASS THREE (disputed)
- Ovid's Metamorphoses
- Thomas Browne's The Garden of Cyrus
- Sterne's Tristram Shandy (modernist, but is it stream of consciousness?)
- Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym
- Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
- Kerouac's On the Road
- Louis-Ferdinand Celine's Death on Credit
- Krudy's Sindbad
CLASS FOUR (not)
- Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone (removed)
- Eliot's Prufrock (removed)
- Svevo's Zeno's Conscience (removed)
- Salinger's Catcher in the Rye (as Holden is addressing a third person, the psychiatrist)
the articale list The Great Gatsby as a good example of stream of consiousness. I have read the book and discussed it with my English professer. It, at least to my recollection, does not have any example of the stream of consciousness.( this remark is added by a student)
If you think otherwise, quote an illustration of some two paragraphs and we'll discuss. Mandel 10:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
- Well, Mandel, with all respect, this article (as any WP article) shouldn't traffic in your or my opinion but rather in the consensus opinions of authorities in the field. Concerning Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone", for instance, you will find that majority critical opinion 1) now considers some of Dylan's lyrics to be "literature" worthy of all the respect that term implies, and 2) the lyrics to this song are an example of "stream-of-consciousness" writing, albeit in a more structured format than most writing sharing that apellation, due to the demands of the form (sung to melody). Would you characterize the following verse as not-stream-of-consciousness?:
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Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people/They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made/Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things/But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe/You used to be so amused/At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used/Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse/When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose/You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
- References for this abound, but I'd rather not go hunting for them in such a clearcut case. You could start with Professor Christopher Ricks's Dylan's Visions of Sin... Restoring LARS as an example of S-O-C. JDG 03:06, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
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- JDG, what do you understand by stream of consciousness, and which parts of your quote is exactly stream of consciousness? How are they exactly stream of consciousness? Please don't get away by being vague. Mandel 01:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Other suggestions: John Dos Passos: USA trilogy. I think that is a very clear-cut case, and it may fit well in the article, since it is also an early work from the time period when the technique was developed. Regarding Celine: from a thorough web-search it appears that many modern English-speaking authors who use stream of consciousness were strongly influenced by him. I think examples of internal monologue, often difficult to follow due to "leaps in syntax and punctuation" (and the use of slang in Celine's case) abound in Death on Credit. In Krudy's case internal monologue is also present (there is for example a duel description in which the reader is hardly aware of the duel happening, since Sindbad's mind is distracted by his thoughts about a certain female acquaintance). And yet another suggestion for discussion: Milan Fust, The Story of My Wife. Balazs 18:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
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- I don't see how the Monty Python swallow scene is a representation of stream of consciousness. Maybe the beginning of the witch-burning scene, where Bedevere actually IS tying coconuts to swallows.... A better example would be the "penguin standing on the television" sketch, or Terry Gillam's animation. That said, I feel that this page could do a much better job of discussing the use of SOC, rather than delving into so much digression. Here's a question: is SOC restricted to 1st person narration? Or are third-person narrators who delve into their protagonists' thoughts aptly described as using SOC as well? I'm looking at a short story called "Free" by Theodore Dreiser and trying to describe it appropriately. Any lit buffs out there have an answer? Feeeshboy 20:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
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I don't see how Catcher in the Rye is *not* an example of stream-of-conciousness. Holden may be speaking to a third person, but he is doing so via relating his jumbled, almost random thought process, which is very much a stream of disjointed wanderings. He wanders throughout the story physically just as his thoughts do mentally. 66.57.225.77 15:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Gormenghast
Would the reveries in Titus Groan be classed as stream of conciousness? --^pirate 20:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Move this page?
Hello. I've dug through all the pages I could think of and there doesn't appear to be any article on the concept of Stream of consciousness. I would like to propose that this article be moved to, e.g. to Stream of consciousness writing, to make room for an article on the concept. Any thoughts? *ba-dum-ching* Ewlyahoocom 08:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Like a Rolling Stone" described as SOC by scores of reputable sources
Do this search: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Like+a+Rolling+Stone%22+%22Stream+of+consciousness%22&btnG=Google+Search
I don't have time to beak down the results here. They very clearly show that consensus critical opinion classes LARS as SOC. The first link returned is from the UK periodical "The Obsever", stating "1965 Bob Dylan releases 'Like a Rolling Stone' As momentous in its way as Presley's first single, Dylan's great stream-of- consciousness song clocked in at six minutes and singlehandedly ended the era of the formulaic sub-three-minute pop single. Dense, elliptical and caustic, it marked the high point of Dylan's most intensely creative period"... The fourth returned link includes a published review of a Dylan documentary which states: "Spawning both politically charged folk ballads that came to embody the very spirit of the turbulent 1960s ('The Times They are a-Changin') and sprawling, stream-of-consciousness litanies that irrevocably changed the face of rock music ('Like a Rolling Stone'), the years between 1961-1966 were inarguably the most artistically fertile for legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan." I could go on and on. Mdude, please stop reverting. You are in the wrong. More reversions will be added to the mountains of evidence against you in the administrative actions currently underway... By the way, I would use references from books, but I'm afraid my Dylan-related books are in another location and it is not practical for me to hit the library for things like this. Online sources, while not as solid, are solid enough. JDG 17:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- If there's a Dylan song that is stream of conciousness it's gotta be Highway 61 Revisited. For example:
- "Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
- I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
- And a thousand telephones that don't ring
- Do you know where I can get rid of these things
- And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
- And he said yes I think it can be easily done
- Just take everything down to Highway 61."
- http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/highway61.html 66.57.225.77 15:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
1. What you just posted from "Highway 61" is absolutely not an example of stream of consciousness technique. 2. Despite what the newspaper article might say, "Like a Rolling Stone" is also absolutely not an example of stream of consciousness technique.
- What about "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie?" Dylan wrote it in one sitting. 66.57.225.77 18:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Source on Krudy
Krudy is mentioned associated with SOC in the following link. http://www.frankfurt.matav.hu/angol/irok/krudy/elet.htm Non lo so. 18:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Please quote
Otherwise, unproven sources will be removed. 121.6.97.208 11:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Gravity's Rainbow
Wouldn't pretty much the entirety of Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon be considered SOC? I was a bit suprised to see that there was no mention at all of this book on the page. 22 October, 2006.
[edit] Speaking of which...
The article seems itself to be written as stream of consciousness. (/me posits that Wikipedia's true stream of consciousness is #wikipedia.) I'll add section headers. Thanks, GChriss <always listening><c> 16:08, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Prufrock
It says on the The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock that it is stream of consciousness. This is referenced as: "Perrine, Laurence. Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 1st edition. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956. pg 798." I know that on this talk page it says that prufrock is definitely not stream of consciousness, so could someone take a side and fix one of the two articles? - Im.a.lumberjack 23:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
