Unbridled Emotion

"Playfulnessness: A Note" by Brian Doyle

Thesis: The essay is the widest, fattest, most generous, open, glorious, honest, endlessly expandable form of committing prose, not only because it cheerfully steals and hones all the other tools and talents of all other forms of art, and not only because it is admirably and brilliantly closest to not only the speaking voice but the maundering, shambling, shuffling, nutty, wandering, salty, singing voices in our heads, but because it is the most playful of forms, liable to hilarity and free association and startlement, without the filters and mannered disguises and stiff dignity of fiction and poetry and journalism, respectively.

“Playfulnessness: A Note” by Brian Doyle

Photo by Laura Gilchrist on Unsplash

Doyle loves the essay. I have no doubt about it. It is everything to him, and I know this, in part, because this long sentence generates this meaning. Any other syntax would have been far too confining, like tying a rope around a guy who wants to be free and shout his love for the essay to the world. Though Doyle is writing an essay about the essay, he offers the architecture of a sentence for a character who is highly emotional about something--the essay, her mother, or the tulip that finally bloomed in the garden.

The playfulness, which is the title of this essay, begins right away. “Thesis:” It seems the essay will show restraint and tight-lippedness. It will cut to the chase and remain academically formal.

But after the colon, there is a magnificent unfurling of all that big emotion. The subject complement (which follows a linking verb and describes the subject) includes seven adjectives. As Winston Weathers writes in his essay, “The Rhetoric of the Series,” the four-or-more series suggests human, emotional, diffuse, and inexplicable. We are firmly in the emotional.

Doyle uses the correlative conjunction, “not only because/but because,” yet there is a stutter to the first prong of this conjunction, with it repeating twice: we get two “not only because” refrains.

After the first “not only because,” Doyle uses balanc, the pairing of two things:

“Not only because it cheerfully”

--steals and hones all the other

--tools and talents of all other forms of art,

And within that, he repeats “all the other” with the variation, “all other.”

Then comes the second “not only because,” which includes more balance and an embedded correlative conjunction “not only/but,” followed by another seven adjectives:

--it is admirably and brilliantly closest to

--not only the speaking voice

--but the maundering, shambling, shuffling, nutty, wandering, salty, singing

Finally, we come to the second prong of the initial correlative clause, “but because.” Doyle uses series (threes) and polysyndeton, the overuse of conjunctions. This dramatically changes the rhythm from the previous string of adjectives, and the reader’s ear loves it.

“but because it is the most playful of forms, (1) liable to hilarity and (2) free association and (3) startlement”

Now the prepositional phrase, “without..” which contains another series and polysyndeton,

“without (1) the filters and (2) mannered disguises and (3) stiff dignity”

And one more prepositional phrase, again using series and polysyndeton:

“of (1) fiction and (2) poetry (2) and journalism (3).

The final word is fantastic, creating a spiral back to the beginning, with “respectively,” echoing the more formal, restrained opening word, “Thesis.”

Brian Doyle

Your Turn:

Begin with one word and add a colon. Everything that follows will expand on this one word.

Write a simple sentence, a subject and a linking verb. Now follow with seven adjectives.

Here comes the first prong of your correlative conjunction, “not only because.” Use two sets of balance, including two verbs, like Doyle did with “steal and hones” and then two direct objects, “tools and talents.”

Add a second “not only because” and use balance. Now add an embedded correlative conjunction, “not only/but” and follow with seven adjectives.

Add the final prong to the opening correlative conjunction, “but because.” Use a series and polysyndeton.

Add a prepositional phrase and include another series and polysyndeton.

One more prepositional phrase with another series and polysyndeton.

Add a comma and end with one word.

Whew!

How did it go?

What else do you see?

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