Encounter with the Wise-Ones

How do I 'shape' an essay? 

*It’s not a great question and it’s definitely been asked before, but it’s a start.

The "palimpsest" is a scroll that is scraped clean and used again, and again, and again. Can you imagine rough draft after rough draft being written on the same piece of paper (actually it was vellum, the skin of a calf). The remains of past writings are faded and difficult to decipher, but still there buried amidst the present band of words.  The Wise-ones, M. Norton Wise and Elaine M. Wise, use this object to develop their understanding for the shape of their essay, "Staging an Empire," Things that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science. They begin with:

"History unrolls the palimpsest of mental evolution," says the Oxford English Dictionary. Although the metaphor derives from the canonical palimpsest of a parchment subjected to writing and writing over, it is appropriate for other objects whose form and meaning result from a history of shaping and reshaping..."

History is shaped and reshaped just as writing is; but what shape does it take? Remember Carolyn Steel and her spoken essay, "How Food Shapes Our Cities." She used the landscape of her topic to shape the essay, literally mapping the literature with subject of her essay. The Wise-ones utilized the historical application of the palimpsest, an object, to linguistically construct meaningful history through shape and form. Phrased that way, it sounds mystical - a process that only a chosen few hold the secret to. However, I believe their formula can be decoded. 

Their writings are not solely the assemblage of academic facts: the object was made in 'x' year, by 'y' person, of 'z' materials equaling 'the thing'. That's a formula more often seen in an art gallery or museum exhibit. Also, their writings are not solely interpretations of the facts like you hear from museum docents or stories in historical novels. There's something more. Their writing is a combination of the facts and the stories... and another elusive element constructed in the literature. Rather than write within established formulas, the Wise-ones included an additional variable, the variable of shape and form. Specifically, the shape of an island. 

The island is Pfaueninsel or Peacock Island which has an architectural landscape shaped by forty years of human history. Just as the island is shaped, so do the Wise-ones shape their writing to provide connections, intersections and transitions between, within, and amongst their facts and narratives.  Thus, objects or materials are not characters or subjects in the writings, they provide the pattern in which the writing takes form and can be deciphered by a good reader.

"It becomes an eloquent thing when it is seen to carry multiple layers of meaning, meanings that have been built into it and that can still speak to those who reflect on its history." - Wise-ones

Word Count: 478

Total Edits: 2