Essays in the art of writing

Cet ouvrage de Robert Louis Stevenson trainait dans ma liseuse. Je ne suis pas une grande fan de Stevenson, qui m'a plutôt ennuyé mais j'ai trouvé ces essais plutôt intéressants.

Il est composé des textes suivants :

I. ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE 

II. THE MORALITY OF THE PROFESSION OF LETTERS 

III. BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME 

IV. A NOTE ON REALISM 

V. MY FIRST BOOK: 'TREASURE ISLAND' 

VI. THE GENESIS OF 'THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE' 

VII. PREFACE TO 'THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE' 

Ce sont les premiers textes qui m'ont le plus intéressée même si j'ai souvent trouvé l'auteur un peu pédant. Il y est question de style, de thèmes mais aussi de bons et mauvais livres, de bons et mauvais écrivains. Bref, Stevenson est un type exigeant. Mais c'est intéressant également de lire ses influences, ou celles qu'il avoue. Bref, moi qui ne me passionne pas pour le processus créatif et la vie des écrivains, j'ai plutôt apprécié l'exercice. 

"A web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregant texture : that is style, that is the foundation of the art of literature. Books indeed continue to be read, for the interest of the fact or fable, in which this quality is poorly represented, but still it will be there"

"Each phrase of each sentence, like an air or recitative in music, should be so artfully compounded out of long and short, out of accented and unaccented, as to gratify the sensual ear. And of this the ear is the sole judge"

"To treat all subjects in the highest, the most honourable, and the pluckiest spirit, consistant with the fact, is the first duty of a writer"

"But of works of art little can be said; their influence is profound and silent, like the influence of nature; they mould by contact; we drink them up like water, and are bettered, yet know not how. It is in books more specifically didactic that we can follow out the effect, and distinguish and weigh and compare. A book which has been very influential upon me fell early into my hands, and so may stand first, though I think its influence was only sensible later on, and perhaps still keeps growing, for it is a book not easily outlived: the Essais of Montaigne"

"Not all men can read all books; it is only in a chosen few that any man will find his appointed food; and the fittest lessons are the most palatable, and make themselves welcome to the mind. A writer learns this early, and it is his chief support; he goes on unafraid, laying down the law; and he is sure at heart that most of what he says is demonstrably false, and much of a mingled strain, and some hurtful, and very little good for service; but he is sure besides that when his words fall into the hands of any genuine reader, they will be weighed and winnowed, and only that which suits will be assimilated; and when they fall into the hands of one who cannot intelligently read, they come there quite silent and inarticulate, falling upon deaf ears, and his secret is kept as if he had not written"