Apparently, Mallarmé insisted that no sentence, no sentence of power, should begin with a monosyllable. And apparently the Réalistes (Flaubert, Zola, the Goncourts,) felt this was an overly fussy, even mannerist way to think about syntax. I think it's reasonable to have some sympathy for writers like the Goncourts, for whom Modernism was connected with the immediate presence of people like Courbet, manning the barricades of the Paris Commune and attempting to sever not only the aesthetics but the politics, economics, social hierarchies, and heads of the old order. Again. In other words: there was a great deal of excitement in the Paris of the 1870s.
Last week not 20,000 but about 150 people were killed in Paris, this time by ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
Last week not 20,000 but about 150 people were killed in Paris, this time by ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
