Connotations 18.1-3 (2008/2009)

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MATTHIAS BAUER
theme of our symposium seemed ubiquitous, upon reflection we came
to realize that it may be quite rare, or at least that it may require careful
analysis and close reading to make it visible.
Still, I think our symposium has led to tangible results and new
readings because we actually found that “Roads Not Taken” combines
two essential features of imaginative literature. There is, on the one
hand, the representation of character determining action, or action
determining character (Aristotle’s basic criteria). It seems—and this is
one of the questions the Connotations editors have been discussing—
that especially in modern and postmodern literature the relation
becomes increasingly complex in so far as characters are not only
defined by what they do but also by what they did not do but might
have done, and that, accordingly, their question “who am I?” (or our
question: “who are you?”) is not to be answered in a straightforward
manner. And there is, on the other hand, the fact that any imaginative
or fictional literary representation is a “road not taken” in that it
shows us not what is but what might have been, or, in the words of
Aristotle: “it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened,
but what may happen—what is possible according to the law
of probability or necessity” (Poetics section 9). In this respect, the road
not taken may be the road we should take, in the author’s view. At the
same time, any decision by a writer about a character, an event, a
description, and so on, is a road taken, and all the other options a
writer has, the characters that do not appear, the events that do not
take place, are roads not taken. Of course all this is only relevant to
our theme—and to critical discussion in general—when the very
alternative becomes part of the author’s project, i.e. when he or she
shows us that the text we read is meant to be a road we have not taken
(but might do so), or when the author shows us that there might have
been an alternative to what we read, i.e. that the writing process is a
road on which the author had to take decisions and reflect on alternatives.
A classic example that comes to mind is Aunt Betsey’s disappointment
in David Copperfield about the news that David is a boy and not a