LIETUVIŲ KALBOS SANDAROS TYRINĖJIMAI

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXVI (1987)

JUOZAS PIKČILINGIS

J. BALČIKONIS ON STYLE

Professor Juozas Balčikonis, together with his teacher and colleague Jonas Jablonskis, might, it seems, have said: I do not interfere in matters of style; what concerns me is linguistic correctness. In reality, however, this is not quite so. It is true that among the professor’s papers we find only an occasional direct thought about style, but a considerable part of his corrections is nothing other than stylistics. And what can one say about the path he took in seeking the best possible stylistic version when translating and editing? After all, the final wording of a sentence that we read in translations of “The Thousand and One Nights,” the Grimms’, Hauff’s, Andersen’s and Perrault’s fairy tales, or J. Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” and Jules Verne’s literary works was selected from many possible alternatives: perhaps three, perhaps five, or even seven. Yet even when writing on practical questions of language, he often says something directly about style. For example, when discussing thought and its relation to such linguistic qualities as clarity and comprehensibility. In the article “Why One Must Know One’s Language Well,” we read: “No other subject teaches one to think so logically as language, for without language there is no thought. Only through clarity of language do we attain clarity of thought”¹.

Here, and in a few other places, further qualities of style are touched upon, though not named explicitly: liveliness and suggestiveness. In his memoirs about J. Jablonskis, it is emphasized that when speaking in a context where a word serves an aesthetic purpose, one should keep in view the qualities of its connotations—its shades of meaning—and sense the word’s color. J. Jablonskis’s reproach to those who disregard this is quoted: “What would the user of language think of a painter’s work if it showed that the painter neither understood nor cared to understand the significance of colors in painting, or the material and form of the painting?”²

However, it is in polemics with writers that the professor, like J. Jablonskis, speaks most openly about style.

We read his reply to B. Sruoga: “Writers are mistaken in thinking that only they know what style is. By trying to explain the greatest errors of language as stylistic features, they show only that they understand nothing at all about style. The first requirement of good style is linguistic correctness. Where language is incorrect, it is lifeless; where it is lifeless, it is awkward—so how can the style be good? Style cannot be separated from language. Style may vary, but it cannot go beyond the bounds set for it by language”³.

¹ Balčikonis J. Selected Writings. — V., 1978, vol. 1, p. 106.

² Balčikonis J. Atsiminimai apie J. Jablonskį. — Kalbotyra, 1962, t. 5, p. 61.

³ Balčikonis J. Atsakymas ponui Baliui Sruogai. — Kn.: Rinktiniai raštai. V., 1978, t. 1, p. 57.

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For there are authors who create style by deviating from generally accepted and practiced lexical and grammatical norms, brazenly and without any justification breaking them, an act excused, if at all, by that universal “poetic license.” Hints of this sort also occur in B. Sruoga’s polemic—in the article “On Linguists and Writers” (“Lietuva,” 1927). To put it in Professor J. Balčikonis’s words, we tend to support “our (that is, the writers’) greatest errors” by appealing to “stylistic features.”

Some time later, B. Sruoga wrote the article “The Writer and Grammar,” in which, among other assertions, we find: “If a grammarian—well, let him be called a linguist—is a specialist in the morgue, then it is precisely his duty to establish the necessary laws for sustaining life, the laws for rescuing a living organism from danger!⁴” A linguist is an anatomist, dissecting corpses and doing rather unpleasant work, yet doing people a great deal of good by teaching them how life must be sustained. Here B. Sruoga has the life of language in mind. I would say that this article is an indirect, yet sincere, response to the point J. Jablonskis and J. Balčikonis repeatedly made to writers: heed the laws of language’s development and its correctness. And first and foremost, I would say, it is probably an apology to J. Balčikonis, who had been taken to task in the aforementioned article.

Style is also touched upon in more than one other article and review by J. Balčikonis. For instance, in “A Few Remarks on the Language of V. Mykolaitis-Putinas’s Novel In the Shadow of the Altars” (1935). Compare: “As for us (= as for us), you could have taken a vacation for the whole winter”; “He sensed that the acquaintance had taken place because the baroness wanted it (= at the baroness’s wish)”; after all, one version is closer to colloquial speech, the other more bookish. The author of the novel uses subordinate clauses without main clauses: “For I will nevertheless remember you.” But this is an appended construction, used here for stylistic effect. So it is doubtful that the reviewer would be right to demand a more standard form of this construction. A few more examples from other articles and reviews: “Please (= please, polite form) come in,” Rimukas said; “They seek (= want, strive) to increase the harvest”; “having spoken favorably about the books (= spoken well of them, praised the books).” It is true that Prof. J. Balčikonis may have corrected these things primarily as errors, but from our perspective they belong to style: the correction is usually closer to colloquial speech, or at least less bookish, and stylistically better in some other respect. This is especially true of cases where several alternatives are offered. For example, in the review “Translations of Gogol’s Works into Lithuanian,” the expression “a splendid little girl” is to be changed to “a beautiful girl,” or, failing that, to “a pretty young maiden,” or even “a beautiful little frog.” Or the phrase “was preparing… for the haymaking” in V. Mykolaitis-Putinas’s “The Rebels” is to be changed to “was thinking about the haymaking,” “was getting ready to mow hay,” or “was preparing to go to the meadows.” Conversely, however, there are cases where no correction or alternative is offered, but the wording is merely criticized. This happens when more specialized aspects of style are involved. Thus, at the end of “Questionable Linguistic Features in V. Mykolaitis-Putinas’s The Rebels,” there is an additional comment: “In places, the author expresses his thoughts somehow lifelessly.” What is meant? “Having listened attentively to the entire reading.” Surely this is, in fact, a rather unsuccessful, somewhat artificial phrase! The image conveyed by the metaphor “lie dormant” is not very convincing either: “The whole homestead lay dormant in painful stillness”; “the Bagynai manor”

⁴ Sruoga B. Writings. — V., 1957, vol. 6, p. 333.

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“still lies amid the rubbish like some abandoned bear’s den.” Can a manor house lie amid rubbish?.. Besides, we are accustomed to seeing this metaphor used to describe something positively, speaking warmly of someone or something, cf.: “When the son has bread, his mother too can settle down with him” (Surviliškis). “That song still lingered with me” (Daugėliškis). “The revolutionary forces lie in the union of the people and the soldiers.” And in general, what bothers the reviewer most is the verb

ruošti(s), used in a truly less than stylish manner and displacing more than a few alternatives – repair, cook, prepare, make, arrange, organize, write, etc., cf.: “ordered him to ruošti (=prepare) a bed for the guest”; “Mother and Gene paruošė (=prepared, cooked, made) breakfast”; “ruoškitė the wedding (=make, arrange, organize it)”; “the actual manifesto is already being ruošiamas (=written)?”; and the already-mentioned “ruošėsi… for haymaking.” In the notes on the language of J. Baltušis’s “Sold Summers” (I): “everything is paruošta (=repaired, put in order)”; “did you paruošėt your lessons (=learn them)?”; “the exhibition in Kaunas is being ruošiama (=repaired, made)”; “What sort of mess are you ruoši behind that door (=repairing, mixing)?”; “Mendelis is coming! Ruoškit (=grab, take, fix…) the whips!”

In terms of forms, the greatest stylistic offense in both of the aforementioned works, according to the professor, is the use of “the present-tense first-person form prašau, unknown to any of our dialects; the adverb prašom should be used in its place. ‘Prašau sėsti’; ‘Prašau atleisti, kad pasivėlinau’; ‘… o dabar prašau į vidų…’.” “And so it goes throughout the book,” the reviewer laments. The same criticism appears in the review of the language of J. Baltušis’s “Sold Summers,” where we find the following corrected: “Prašau, pone inspektoriau”; “Tai prašau tamstas trobon.” The professor considers this form incorrect as well. We stylists would think it more appropriate to reproach the authors for failing to make use of the possible stylistic nuances offered by the synonymous forms prašom, prašyčiau, prašytume, and for addressing their interlocutor in an overly formal, cold manner.

An entire paragraph in the review of “The Rebels” is devoted to syntactic adverbial-participle constructions—to correcting them. For example: “The land can be redeemed only by reaching an agreement with the lord and with his consent (= with his consent); Skrodskis, when the peasants refused (= because of the peasants’ refusal), called up the troops; the manor’s cudgel, Rubikis, will carry out the punishment with the dragoons’ help (= helped by the dragoons; with the help of the dragoons); When the rebels refused to hand over their leader to the authorities (= against the rebels, who had refused to hand over their leader to the authorities)… the army opened fire.” No explanations accompany these corrections, so it is difficult to say whether the constructions were considered incorrect, lifeless, or perhaps both. Today we would regard them as needing correction—except perhaps the penultimate case, which is incorrect—because they are too bookish and have a journalistic ring to them.

A few more examples that I would consider stylistically in need of correction, since in one way or another they are artistically unconvincing, somewhat artificial, and not entirely precise: “And even now it (the clock) believed tirelessly (=without stopping, constantly); it cost Warsaw (=came to) a lot of money; already the following day (=the next day) twenty men… must report to the manor. (In J. Baltušis: (the bee) climbed down to the following (=next) blossom.) That news would, undoubtedly, affect (=harm) his health; The day was to be springlike and joyful (=pleasant, merry); What an enormous (=great, dreadful…) impression it made; To lay bare the whole impropriety of the conduct (=impropriety); They eat bread for nothing and wear down (=impoverish, exhaust) themselves.”

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We could extend this list with comments on the language of J. Baltrušis’s “Sold Summers” (I); in his words, these too include cases that are matters more of style than of correctness.

Was the reviewer right in every instance? Perhaps not in one or two cases! Let us begin with a very elementary example. For instance, he rebukes V. Mykolaitis-Putinas for “kavolių,” used instead of “kalvio”: “— Kavoliau (=kalvi), look, one ring of the grindstone has worn through and broken.” For in the Surviliškis area people generally said “kalvis.” The word is also corrected in “Sold Summers”: “Kavoliu (=kalviu) I will not be.” But surely the writers are stylizing here. The language of “The Rebels” is the language spoken in Surviliškis a hundred years ago, and perhaps at that time kalvio was replaced there by kavolis. No, I am not defending this barbarism. It is enough to recall that one cannot transfer everything that has ever existed in people’s speech indiscriminately into a work of fiction. But the measure of correctness alone is not enough here—we must also consider whether the word is appropriate to its use. Thus such corrections should not be placed on the same footing as, say, incorrect instrumental or locative cases. After all, this is a manifestation of the writer’s ideological and artistic conception. And there is absolutely no justification for replacing words that form part of an old, traditional vocabulary and are in universal use: stork with gužas, rebels with insurgents, monkey with malpa, and so on.

A far more problematic issue is the disapproved-of metaphorical use of words by writers. In the article “A Few Remarks on the Language of ‘Sold Summers,’” the “sun-drunk mosquito” singing in the raspberry patch is changed to a mosquito that buzzes, hums, while the pigeon…, sitting motionless, is changed to one that perches. As we recall, the author of these images is in no way inclined to give them up⁵. And here the decisive word is his. After all, the intention was to speak figuratively! The mosquito sings, the pigeon sits like a human being. It is difficult to argue with a writer who uses such a trope. Yet it is hardly right to defend his calling clouds leaden rather than black or dark, and snowflakes perching rather than settling or falling.

We find many matters close to style, as well as advice on how to express things better, in the article “The Language of the Press Must Be Improved.” Here are some examples: “This year, before the barn period begins (=before the animals are shut in the barns), the collective-farm leaders promised not to repeat similar mistakes”; “None of the combines is used for threshing (=is not used for threshing)”; “Cold autumnal (=autumn) rain is pouring down.” Surely, in every case, the thought plainly calls for a different phrasing, rather than a surrender to fashion—with no barn periods thrust in wherever they are needed and wherever they are not, no expression of purpose by a verbal noun in the dative, and no agreeing modifier expressed by a derived adjective where living speech recommends using the genitive of a non-agreeing modifier.

A few more examples: “The leaders are obliged (=must) to send (=dispatch) their reapers to the collective farm”; “Pig farming is being rapidly developed (=raised, expanded)”; “Barkūnas is very eagerly visited by bees (=The bees carried a great deal of pollen from the clover)”; “The collective farmers’ competition will expand further, bringing (=and bring) new victories to agriculture”; “The council organizes the masses of collective farmers (=collective farmers) to implement the decisions of the council session (=to implement the decisions); ‘Better—

⁵ Baltrušis J. Apie kūrybinį darbą. — Kn.: Raštai. V., 1959, t. 3, p. 71–72.

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reflects (= depicts, highlights, mirrors...) the current state of our literary criticism”; “The freedom-loving (= freedom-cherishing, liberty-loving) Egyptian people rise united in struggle”; “There can be no question of Egypt being ready to throw itself (= rush) into America’s arms”; “The women are getting ready (= tidying their homes)”; “He handed the land over to the working peasantry (= peasants)”; “A profound (= great, complete) silence reigns”; “He talks with masters of high (= large, abundant) yields”.

We might describe the motives and basis for Prof. J. Balčikonis’s corrections, and his understanding of where one should seek support for good style, as the counsel of living speech. Whether something is spoken naturally or not—this, he would say, is the question to be raised here. There are quite a number of aphorisms about good style. According to some, its defining feature is clarity; according to others, precision; for others, concision; and for still others, vividness, euphony, and so on. For Professor J. Balčikonis, the very beginning and measure of everything is liveliness: “Whatever goes against the spirit of living speech cannot be good”},{⁶, he says. Of course, other stylistic qualities are not ruled out. For example, the aforementioned clarity: “Only thoughts expressed in clear and lively language reach the hearts of listeners and put down deep roots there, whereas what is presented in language that is hard to grasp passes over the surface without touching the human soul and vanishes like a soap bubble in the air”⁷. And it will be lively and engaging in this way if we stay as close as possible to colloquial speech. That is why it is better to say not even wife, but woman herself; not horseshoe, but horseshoes; not cloud, but clouds, and so on. Here, in the living language of the people, lie inexhaustible springs of expressive means brimming with vitality, which generously nourish the sentence, lexicon, and syntax of the professor—the translator of fairy tales and travel writing: “Before the princess’s eyes stretched the broadest sea in all its beauty”—this is one example of the dozens we find on the pages of the translations, showing where the translator seeks advice when choosing a word, phrase, form, or syntactic construction. Here, in the springs of colloquial speech, he also finds a rarer, yet very necessary word that we could no longer use, because perhaps we did not even suspect it existed. Take, for instance, the verb trukinti: “The host was merry by nature and knew how to entertain his guest with stories until midnight”; the verb atsveikinti: “The young man bade him farewell with a nod of the head, and said...” Many similar examples could be listed, but the search for and discovery of the best word in Professor J. Balčikonis’s fairy-tale translations is not the subject of this article.

Here I would merely like to add a handful of stylistic corrections that were not included in the published count, since they were written by hand (in pencil) between the lines of one or another already printed book, before it was presented to the person who had helped read the proofs. They are either corrections the translator himself noticed—things that had slipped his mind while translating or reviewing the translation—or restorations of what the editor had changed.

Thus, in the tales of “One Thousand and One Nights”:

“Mardžana did not forget what Ali-Baba had told her. First she found some laundry for him and sent it to be taken by a slave girl who had not yet gone to bed (=... a slave girl who had not yet gone to bed”).

⁶ Balčikonis J. Rinktiniai raštai. – V., 1978, t. 1, p. 106.

⁷ Ten pat, p. 106.

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Not which … construction—a participial construction, not a relative subordinate clause… without having lain down yet, because the former would convey not quite the same information; moreover, it is used somewhat bookishly here. Second, the negative particle is needed not with the verb to be, but with the verb to lie down.

And perhaps it would not be amiss to mention in passing J. Balčikonis’s hypotactic relative-clause construction, which, we might say, has now become so aggressively prevalent, apparently owing to the suspicion that it does not always accord with the “spirit of living speech.” On this occasion, one or two examples. Both the Brothers Grimm and Andersen tend to begin a tale with a sentence using the “which” construction. “Es war einmal eine Frau, die sich ein ganz kleines Kind wünschte…”; “Vor Zeiten war ein Schneider, der drei Söhne hatte und nur eine einzige Ziege”; “Mit den feinen Händen griff sie in die häßlichen Nesseln, die waren wie Feuer”. The translator begins such a tale: “Once upon a time there lived a woman who very much wanted to have a little child…”; “Once upon a time there lived a tailor who had three sons and only one goat”; “She began pulling up the nettles with her delicate hands; they burned her like fire.” Here the subordinate clause is often replaced by a participial construction, a simple sentence element, but the “that one, that one” … construction is especially apt to address the reader. Let us also compare the ending of the Brothers Grimm’s tale “The Bremen Town Musicians”:

“Oh, in that house there sits a terrible witch; with her long fingers she scratched my face; and before the door stands a man with a knife, who stabbed me in the leg; and in the yard lies a black monster, which struck at me with a wooden club; and up on the roof sits the judge, who called: ‘Bring me the rascal.’”

There’s a dreadful witch in the house; she grabbed me with her claws and scratched my face to pieces. And by the door stands a man with a knife; he cut my calf. In the yard lies a black monster; it struck me with a club—I couldn’t get away from it. And on the roof sits the judge; he ordered them to catch me and bring me to him.

But let us return to the thread of thought we left behind—to the Arabic tales:

“Ali-Baba followed Mardžana (= together with Mardžana).” Apparently, the aspect of companionship needs to be brought out: after all, following someone and following along with someone are not the same thing.

“At night the terrible snake came slithering up and began to crawl all around my campfire, but through (= among) the branches and sharp thorns it could not reach me.” Through? Why? Because the point is to say not what it could not crawl through, but what it could not reach me through.

“We were terribly exhausted (= worn out), could no longer drag our feet, lay down, and fell fast asleep”: worn out, not merely tired; “tired” was too weak.

“The fisherman saw many fish swimming (= swimming) through the water…”; “swimming,” because the action needs to be described as repeated.

“The fisherman led the way. Soon they came to that (= such) mountain…”; “That” because earlier it said: “The Sultan summoned the fisherman and, after questioning him about where he had caught the fish, mounted

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his horse with all the men of his household and ordered them to ride to that place.” “That mountain” is imprecise information; surely what is needed here is to say: … came to? some unfamiliar mountain, a mountain.

“‘I shudder to think what a calamity might befall Your Highness (= might) if the fairy, out of revenge, were to kindle in the prince a wicked desire to overthrow you from the throne…’”; Not “Your Highness,” but “might”… The word for “highness,” it seems, has no tradition of use in people’s speech.

“I will give my daughter to your son if he sends me forty golden trays filled with the same precious stones as those you have now brought. Those stones must be brought by forty black (= black) slaves, each of whom shall lead a white (= white) slave…”; Why use, alongside “precious stones,” definite adjectival forms to describe the slaves as well? Here all that is needed is a simple description of their qualities: there is no need either to distinguish or to emphasize.

“At that time Aladdin recovered from his fear and said:

– What am I to do? Please tell me (= tell)?’”; The shortened form is used because it is more characteristic of colloquial speech; besides, if the full form “to tell” were retained, the -to ending would be repeated: “to do – to tell,” producing something like a monotone orchestration.

Next, another handful of corrections without any explanations:

“– What, my queen, – said the prince, – are you saying that Skaibar is your brother? However terrifying he may be, I will respect and love him as my closest (= my) relative!”

“– Now go, child, and do as I said, – said the priest! – We will both be rich all our (= our) lives.”

“He dressed him in royal robes, seated him on the throne, and swore his loyalty (= allegiance) to him.”

“The place where the bird brought me was surrounded on every side by mountains that propped up the clouds (= clouds)…”

(Cf. K. Donelaitis:

“The heron, climbing wondrously toward the black clouds…”)

“As I walked, I trod diamonds beneath my feet and did not even think of picking up at least one of them (= from them).”

I shall conclude this brief survey of Professor J. Balčikonis’s thoughts on style and of the furrow he plowed in that field of activity with a piece of advice from J. Jablonskis: “We must teach not so much grammatical terms as the living things of language” (my emphasis – J. P.). In fact, J. Balčikonis wrote neither a grammar textbook, nor a work on stylistics, nor a translation textbook, yet from the lecturer’s podium, and through reviews, translations, and his other work, he taught “the living things of language” throughout his life. Among these, style holds a fairly prominent place.

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J. BALČIKONIS ON STYLE

Abstract

Professor Juozas Balčikonis left us no special studies on Lithuanian stylistics; nevertheless, he addressed style and related questions in many of his works. He presented his views on style most clearly and fully in his polemic with the Lithuanian writer B. Sruoga (1927). As the principal prerequisite for good style, he first and foremost put forward grammatical and word-formation correctness of speech, and adherence to the regularities of language development. Style is inseparable from language. Therefore, good style is inconceivable without correct speech; despite its diverse forms and manifestations, it cannot go beyond the bounds established by the language system. Alongside this, judgments and observations about the importance of linguistic sensitivity in perceiving the stylistic coloring and shades of a word, and nuances of its semantics, are not uncommon in the linguistic legacy of J. Balčikonis. In the professor’s view, essential qualities of style include logical presentation and clarity of expression. This is discussed in the article “Why One Must Know One’s Language Well.” Of all the requirements J. Balčikonis placed on good style, the foremost in his teaching is the ability to express oneself vividly, for “what is lifeless cannot be good.” We learn most fully what kind of speech is considered lively and what lifeless from his reviews of literary works by Lithuanian writers and Lithuanian translations of works of world literature, as well as from Lithuanian texts in other styles that he edited (especially periodicals). To speak in a good style means, according to J. Balčikonis, to stay as close as possible to living folk speech, learn from it, and follow its best examples. The professor himself meticulously adhered to this principle in both his original works and his translations of fairy tales (“One Thousand and One Nights,” the Brothers Grimm, H. Andersen, Ch. Perrault) and artistic works in other genres. His numerous translations are an excellent school not only for correct and lively speech, but also for good style.