Talk:Stream of consciousness writing

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Suggest adding a quick paragraph on the term 'stream of consciousness' in its non-literary usage, along with examples, then following with a strict, literary definition, with uncontested examples - in order to stop this wrangling about what is SOC and what is not. A term which literary critics hate, for this very reason! Accaber

3 out of 18 lines devoted to 'Alanis Morissette'??;-) I suggest we remove all musical examples here. Can lyrics be said to be stream of consciousness as they are not subject to the same narrative obligations as prose. Also practically if we include one then where do we stop? Surely the cannonical example would be Bob Dylan? --harry 13:41, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Stream-of-consciousness writing may seem easy to write. You just write your characters' thoughts, correct? Well, yes. But that doesn't mean it's easy to write. In fact, stream-of-consciousness writing may be the most difficult of all literary styles. The writer who does it best today is no doubt Edna O'Brien although most authorities would cite James Joyce and Virginia Woolf as the ultimate masters. ULYSSES and MRS. DALLOWAY are wonderful examples of beautiful stream-of-consciousness writing. William Faulkner also employed this technique, especially in ABSALOM, ABSALOM, but that is not the best example to study as Faulkner's style was, at the time of the writing of that book, still evolving.

Stream-of-consciousness writing can be so difficult because the author has to really know his characters inside and out in order to present their thoughts with verisimilitude. And, since those thoughts can and do jump around from subject to subject and back again, anything that's not "in character" will be noticed immediately, but perhaps more by readers than by the author, himself. The author may think he's remained "in character" but an austute reader may notice that he has not.

Not only is stream-of-consciousness difficult to write, it can be difficult to follow when reading. It's a style that's certainly not for every reader, but for those who make the effort, the rewards are well worth it. Some stream-of-consciousness books are among the beautiful ever written, for example, Edna O'Brien's book WILD DECEMBERS.

Stream-of-consciousness writing may seem to consist of jumbled thoughts, but really, there is a unity of thought, an interconnectedness, in this type of writing that makes it beautiful, but, once again, makes it very difficult and necessitates the thorough knowing of one's characters before putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. While "knowing one's characters" is important and essential for any type of good writing, it is even more essential if one is going to give stream-of-consciousness a go.

Gabrielle Renoir gabriellerenoir.com

What about the famous In Search of Lost Time? Add as an example?


I think it would be worthwhile to add examples written in languages other than English written around the time when Joyce wrote Ulysses (too many and too long after that would of course make the list grow too long). The Adventures of Sindbad and Coscienza di Zeno are two. I have not read Proust, but if others think it qualifies then I think it also should be added. 129.27.161.101 18:04, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Proust's A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu does not use stream of consciousness. It does not use interior monologue of any kind, let alone stream of consciousness. Accaber

[edit] Urgh, Wikipedia

The lack of common sense is maybe fault of Wikipedia. People keep putting in their fingerprints without justification. Oh yah, maybe, but let's keep adding stuff in. Anyway people will correct us.

It's terribly ironic that the contributors seemed not to understand what is stream of consciousness.

Example: Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone is (at least in the majority of people's opinion) not stream-of-consciousness! Stream of consciousness refers to unspoken thoughts, whereas Like a Rolling Stone is more a dramatic monologue (ie. addressed to someone in particular). The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is also a dramatic monologue, not stream of consciousness.

Zeno's Conscience is also not stream of consciousness. It's addressed to a person (Zeno's psychologist), so it's dramatic monologue again, not stream of consciousness.

Let's keep a literary device a literary device and stop making yourself (and Wikipedia) look silly by adding things which aren't confirmed in an encyclopedia. Remember the first rule of thumb in an encyclopedia is that it has to be trustworthy. Mandel 09:35, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, but some of the examples given are questionable. "On the Road" is not necessarily stream of consciousness. Some of the work of Louis-Ferdinand Celine (Death on Credit), however does qualify. Sindbad is not a well-known example but there are examples of stream of consciousness in it. Balazs 09:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Are you 100% sure that they are? If yes, give quotes of examples here, then add them in. Mandel 09:56, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Aw. Quit scrambling to deny! "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" is not entirely SoC, sure, but there is less-than-zero question that it includes SoC. It does. Read it again.
Also, the "citation needed" tags need to be removed from the list of SoC books. The citation of these books is the books themselves. Do not claim they need citation; simply debate each book's containment of stream of consciousness, that is the only solution. Either the book has it, or does not. You don't need/can't have some journalist writing an article on each book professionally saying "This book is stream of consciousness." I'm removing those tags. Chicopac (talk) 22:27, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I've thought about it. It may be that your mind (Mandel) hasn't yet considdered the blurring of two different literary techniques within one literary piece. Is that why you claim Prufrock to be without stream of consciousness? If anyone understood the dominance of voice in poetry it was Eliot, and he would never let you get off as easily as to say "This poem is a dramatic monologue. This poem is a psychological stream of thought." He would never. Chicopac (talk) 22:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Which of these are stream of consciousness

For the sake of clarity let's state which of the examples are definitely stream of consciousness and place the rest in classes.

CLASS ONE (definitely)

  • Joyce's Ulysses
  • Édouard Dujardin's Les Lauriers sont coupés
  • Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage
  • Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, The Waves
  • Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying
  • Arthur Schnitzler's Leutnant Gust

CLASS TWO (probably, in IMHO)

  • Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (parts)
  • Aldiss's Barefoot in the Head (sounds like it)
  • Kelman's How Late it Was, How Late

These are disputed, at least in my opinion (either haven't read them or heard of them quoted as examples of stream of consciousness):

CLASS THREE (disputed)

  • Ovid's Metamorphoses
  • Thomas Browne's The Garden of Cyrus
  • Sterne's Tristram Shandy (modernist, but is it stream of consciousness?)
  • Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym
  • Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
  • Kerouac's On the Road
  • Louis-Ferdinand Celine's Death on Credit
  • Krudy's Sindbad

CLASS FOUR (not)

  • Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone (removed)
  • Eliot's Prufrock (removed)
  • Svevo's Zeno's Conscience (removed)
  • Salinger's Catcher in the Rye (as Holden is addressing a third person, the psychiatrist)

the articale list The Great Gatsby as a good example of stream of consiousness. I have read the book and discussed it with my English professer. It, at least to my recollection, does not have any example of the stream of consciousness.( this remark is added by a student)

If you think otherwise, quote an illustration of some two paragraphs and we'll discuss. Mandel 10:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, Mandel, with all respect, this article (as any WP article) shouldn't traffic in your or my opinion but rather in the consensus opinions of authorities in the field. Concerning Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone", for instance, you will find that majority critical opinion 1) now considers some of Dylan's lyrics to be "literature" worthy of all the respect that term implies, and 2) the lyrics to this song are an example of "stream-of-consciousness" writing, albeit in a more structured format than most writing sharing that apellation, due to the demands of the form (sung to melody). Would you characterize the following verse as not-stream-of-consciousness?:

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people/They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made/Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things/But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe/You used to be so amused/At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used/Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse/When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose/You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

References for this abound, but I'd rather not go hunting for them in such a clearcut case. You could start with Professor Christopher Ricks's Dylan's Visions of Sin... Restoring LARS as an example of S-O-C. JDG 03:06, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
JDG, what do you understand by stream of consciousness, and which parts of your quote is exactly stream of consciousness? How are they exactly stream of consciousness? Please don't get away by being vague. Mandel 01:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Other suggestions: John Dos Passos: USA trilogy. I think that is a very clear-cut case, and it may fit well in the article, since it is also an early work from the time period when the technique was developed. Regarding Celine: from a thorough web-search it appears that many modern English-speaking authors who use stream of consciousness were strongly influenced by him. I think examples of internal monologue, often difficult to follow due to "leaps in syntax and punctuation" (and the use of slang in Celine's case) abound in Death on Credit. In Krudy's case internal monologue is also present (there is for example a duel description in which the reader is hardly aware of the duel happening, since Sindbad's mind is distracted by his thoughts about a certain female acquaintance). And yet another suggestion for discussion: Milan Fust, The Story of My Wife. Balazs 18:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see how the Monty Python swallow scene is a representation of stream of consciousness. Maybe the beginning of the witch-burning scene, where Bedevere actually IS tying coconuts to swallows.... A better example would be the "penguin standing on the television" sketch, or Terry Gillam's animation. That said, I feel that this page could do a much better job of discussing the use of SOC, rather than delving into so much digression. Here's a question: is SOC restricted to 1st person narration? Or are third-person narrators who delve into their protagonists' thoughts aptly described as using SOC as well? I'm looking at a short story called "Free" by Theodore Dreiser and trying to describe it appropriately. Any lit buffs out there have an answer? Feeeshboy 20:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how Catcher in the Rye is *not* an example of stream-of-conciousness. Holden may be speaking to a third person, but he is doing so via relating his jumbled, almost random thought process, which is very much a stream of disjointed wanderings. He wanders throughout the story physically just as his thoughts do mentally. 66.57.225.77 15:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is not stream-of-consciousness writing precisely because Holden Caulfield narrates and speaks directly to a second person (the "you" throughout the novel, whether we interpret it as a therapist or more generally as just the reader). Regardless of how random and scattered his speech is, Holden is still speaking aloud and not merely thinking or feeling. At any rate, it is clear that Holden is in a mental-health facility and speaking directly to a listener ("If you really want to hear about it...", "I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything... I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy", "A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here", etc.). Hearing the narrator speak aloud is, by definition I believe, not stream of consciousness. A few definitions may help (all emphases are mine):
Compact OED (askoxford.com): a literary style which records as a continuous flow the thoughts and reactions in the mind of a character.
Columbia Encyclopedia 6th Ed. (bartleby.com): in literature, technique that records the multifarious thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical argument or narrative sequence. The writer attempts by the stream of consciousness to reflect all the forces, external and internal, influencing the psychology of a character at a single moment.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language 4th Ed. (bartleby.com): A literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur.
New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy 3d Ed. (bartleby.com): A kind of writing that presents the thoughts of a person or character as they occur. Stream-of-consciousness writing uses devices such as characters speaking to themselves, free association, and lists of words.
I would strongly suggest removing Catcher (and others?) from the list.

149.217.72.1 17:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

This is an article on a literary term, not a word in common usage. I would not go to the dictionary to understand what a Western blot is, what RNA is, what a cell is. It's absolutely ridiculous that scientific terms can have rigorous, academic standards on Wikipedia, but that a literary term has been completely hijacked. The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms states the following about stream of consciousness. Of course it can't be reproduced on this page:
the continuous flow of sense-perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind; or a literary method of representing such a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjointed form of interior monologue. The term is often used as a synonym for interior monologue, but they can also be distinguished, in two ways. In the first (psychological) sense, the stream of consciousness is the subject-matter while interior monologue is the technique for presenting it; thus Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu (1913–27) is about the stream of consciousness, especially the connection between sense-impressions and memory, but it does not actually use interior monologue. In the second (literary) sense, stream of consciousness is a special style of interior monologue: while an interior monologue always presents a character's thoughts ‘directly’, without the apparent intervention of a summarizing and selecting narrator, it does not necessarily mingle them with impressions and perceptions, nor does it necessarily violate the norms of grammar, syntax, and logic; but the stream-of-consciousness technique also does one or both of these things. An important device of modernist fiction and its later imitators, the technique was pioneered by Dorothy Richardson in Pilgrimage (1915–35) and by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922), and further developed by Virginia Woolf in Mrs Dalloway (1925) and William Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury (1928). For a fuller account, consult Robert Humphrey, Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel (1968).Accaber


[edit] Gormenghast

Would the reveries in Titus Groan be classed as stream of conciousness? --^pirate 20:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move this page?

Hello. I've dug through all the pages I could think of and there doesn't appear to be any article on the concept of Stream of consciousness. I would like to propose that this article be moved to, e.g. to Stream of consciousness writing, to make room for an article on the concept. Any thoughts? *ba-dum-ching* Ewlyahoocom 08:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Like a Rolling Stone" described as SOC by scores of reputable sources

Do this search: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Like+a+Rolling+Stone%22+%22Stream+of+consciousness%22&btnG=Google+Search

I don't have time to beak down the results here. They very clearly show that consensus critical opinion classes LARS as SOC. The first link returned is from the UK periodical "The Obsever", stating "1965 Bob Dylan releases 'Like a Rolling Stone' As momentous in its way as Presley's first single, Dylan's great stream-of- consciousness song clocked in at six minutes and singlehandedly ended the era of the formulaic sub-three-minute pop single. Dense, elliptical and caustic, it marked the high point of Dylan's most intensely creative period"... The fourth returned link includes a published review of a Dylan documentary which states: "Spawning both politically charged folk ballads that came to embody the very spirit of the turbulent 1960s ('The Times They are a-Changin') and sprawling, stream-of-consciousness litanies that irrevocably changed the face of rock music ('Like a Rolling Stone'), the years between 1961-1966 were inarguably the most artistically fertile for legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan." I could go on and on. Mdude, please stop reverting. You are in the wrong. More reversions will be added to the mountains of evidence against you in the administrative actions currently underway... By the way, I would use references from books, but I'm afraid my Dylan-related books are in another location and it is not practical for me to hit the library for things like this. Online sources, while not as solid, are solid enough. JDG 17:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

If there's a Dylan song that is stream of conciousness it's gotta be Highway 61 Revisited. For example:
"Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61."
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/highway61.html 66.57.225.77 15:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

1. What you just posted from "Highway 61" is absolutely not an example of stream of consciousness technique. 2. Despite what the newspaper article might say, "Like a Rolling Stone" is also absolutely not an example of stream of consciousness technique.

What about "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie?" Dylan wrote it in one sitting. 66.57.225.77 18:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

This person (Mandel, I think) who insists Dylan isn't SOC is just a Dylan hater, probably an academic snob who is taken in by Dylan's (purposefully) ungrammatical writing. Literally hundreds of printed sources, in academia as well as the newspapers, identify certain Dylan songs not only as SOC, but as among the best examples of SOC. JDG 13:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but lots of academic snobs I know love Dylan. I'm afraid that this example just isn't SOC. Googling a subject does not qualify as adequate proof of something I'm afraid. You could probably come to any number of false conclusions that way. Just as we wouldn't necessarily expect a newspaper to report a scientific issue absolutely correctly, why would we expect that a journalist should know exactly what SOC is. Perhaps some Dylan is SOC, but I'd like to see an example of the writing that is alleged to be SOC, and a reliable source (not a 19 year old writing a college paper) suggesting that it is. Accaber

[edit] Source on Krudy

Krudy is mentioned associated with SOC in the following link. http://www.frankfurt.matav.hu/angol/irok/krudy/elet.htm Non lo so. 18:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please quote

Otherwise, unproven sources will be removed. 121.6.97.208 11:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Gravity's Rainbow

Wouldn't pretty much the entirety of Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon be considered SOC? I was a bit suprised to see that there was no mention at all of this book on the page. 22 October, 2006.

[edit] Speaking of which...

The article seems itself to be written as stream of consciousness. (/me posits that Wikipedia's true stream of consciousness is #wikipedia.) I'll add section headers. Thanks, GChriss <always listening><c> 16:08, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prufrock

It says on the The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock that it is stream of consciousness. This is referenced as: "Perrine, Laurence. Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 1st edition. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956. pg 798." I know that on this talk page it says that prufrock is definitely not stream of consciousness, so could someone take a side and fix one of the two articles? - Im.a.lumberjack 23:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-Traditional Stream-of-Consciousness

There aren't any citations for these, but they are interesting when you think about blogs and forums. If the essence of the literary style/movement is to reveal thought processes and emotions without inhibition, then the internet seems to be a bastion for such writing.

--Gautam3 19:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stephen King's The Shining

Stephen King's The Shining definitely contains elements of stream-of-consciousness. The thought processes, which are italicized and in their own separate paragraphs, are very much s-o-c. Should this be included in the article? Im.a.lumberjack 16:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automatism vs. Stream of Consciousness

I’ve copied below a quote from Andre Breton’s essay “On Surrealism and Its Living Works” because automatism and stream of consciousness are not the same thing, yet it seems to be a common mistake made here on Wikipedia (see for example Surrealist humor). I believe it should be addressed somewhere in this article. This might help to clear up some of the discussion here on the talk page. For example, I’d say Dylan writing a song in one day suggests that he was using automatism, not stream of consciousness(and from what little I know of Dylan, I believe composition process of "Like a Rolling Stone" was more like automatism than stream of consciousness). As I see it, the term “stream of consciousness” is used in both the broad and the narrow sense. People commonly use “stream of consciousness” in the broad sense to refer to things that aren’t “stream of consciousness” in the narrower, more accurate sense. This is a similar sort of problem I faced when editing the beat generation page (see specifically the “meaning and usage” section). People use it to refer to a time period and to a specific group. I think it would be useful on this page to make it very clear that the term “stream of consciousness” is commonly used in a very broad, uninformative/uninformed way, but then make clear what it more precisely means. Also, I think it’s imperative to make the difference between stream of consciousness and automatism clear. The main distinction is that stream of consciousness is a thoroughly crafted imitation of the flow of the conscious mind. Automatism is automatic writing, free association, purposefully outside of conscious control, purposefully guided by associations of the subconscious. It’s easy to get the two confused, and determining who is using automatism and who is using stream of consciousness is tricky. For example, Jack Kerouac practiced automatic writing in an attempt to simulate the flow of the conscious mind, not necessarily the subconscious. He’s occasionally accused of using stream of consciousness, but the purposeful focus on spontaneity and dismissal of editing makes his status as a stream of consciousness writer questionable. Still, I wouldn’t say he’s exactly practicing automatism either. Anyway, here’s the quote by Breton (specifically responding to suggestions that James Joyce is practicing Surrealism):

“Although [these works] are evidence of common desire to take up arms against the tyranny of a thoroughly debased language, procedures such as the ‘automatic writing’ that began Surrealism and the ‘inner monologue’ in Joyce’s system are radically different at base. That is to say, underlying them are two modes of apprehension of the world that are different in every particular. In opposition to the illusory stream of consciousness association, Joyce will present a flux and try to make it gush forth from all directions, a flux that in the last analysis tends to be the closest possible imitation of life (by means of which he keeps himself within the framework of art, falls once again into novelistic illusion, and fails to avoid being placed in the long line of naturalists and expressionists). Much more modestly when one first looks at it, over rand against this some conscious current “pure psychic automatism,” which is the guiding principle of Surrealism, will set the flow from a spring that once need only go search for fairly deep down within oneself, a flow whose course one cannot try to direct, for if one does it is sure to dry up immediately.” <Breton, Andre. “On Surrealism and Its Living Works.” Manifestoes of Surrealism. Trans. Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane. Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1972.</ref>

F. Simon Grant 16:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Catcher in the Rye

Holden Caufield uses this a lot. However, its not been mentioned, and as such I'm jubious to add it in. I'm also rubbish with references, so any suggestions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragon909 (talk • contribs) 09:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] House of Leaves

I decided to add Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves" to the literature section in the article. I believe that the book properly fits and is a good source to this page. Please correct me if I am wrong, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.177.212.167 (talk) 04:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)