Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist's arm-chair and confuse his "Rinse the mouth—rinse the mouth" with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heavens to welcome—when we think of this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.
The preceding is a 181 word sentence. Most writers would never dare such a feat, but somehow Woolf makes it readable. Francine Prose discusses this sentence in her book Reading Like a Writer in the chapter called "Sentences." She says Woolf's use of grammar makes it "perfectly comprehensible, graceful, witty, intelligent, and pleasurable" to read.
Prose questions why "beginning writers seem to think that grammar is irrelevant" or that they think "they are somehow above or beyond this subject more fit for a schoolchild."
Assignment: Answer the following questions . . .
- Is the long sentence above readable?
- If so, how does grammar play its role?
- How does Woolf use punctuation in the long sentence?
- How important is grammar in creative writing?
- Would you ever attempt to write a sentence like this?
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