cohn -- early discussions free indirect style 05

7/27/2019 Cohn -- Early Discussions Free Indirect Style 05

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Early Discussions of Free Indirect Style

Translated by Dorrit CohnGermanic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature, Harvard

Translators Preface

Readers of modern views on free indirect style (as the form is known inEnglish) are rarely aware that this phenomenon was discovered, and inten-sively discussed in French and German, as early as the first decades of the

twentieth century. For this reason, I have translated a series of articles thatwere published in Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift (GRM)one of the

journals most interested in the questionin the years immediately pre-ceding World War I. Though I have abbreviated them (and as a resultaltered some of their details), I have tried to keep their main argumentsintact.

These arguments revolve around the nature of free indirect stylewhether it is a form of quotation or a factual report by the narratorandconsequently the name to be applied to it: Ballys style indirect libre (freeindirect style), or Kalepkys verschleierte Rede (veiled discourse), or LerchsImperfektum der Rede (imperfect of discourse).1 Bally, a student of de Saussure,writing in French, represents the school of Geneva in regarding free indirectstyle as an objective and purely literary phenomenon. Kalepky and Lerch,students of Vossler, writing in German, represent the school of Munich inregarding free indirect style as a subjective phenomenon in which the nar-rator adopts the viewpoint of a character, and they look for its origin inspoken language. Thus the first scholars regard the form as grammatically

1. Its standard German phrasing today is erlebte Rede.

Poetics Today 26:3 (Fall 2005). Copyright 2005 by the Porter Institute for Poetics andSemiotics.


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502 Poetics Today 26:3

static, the second as psychologically evolutive, a disagreement which is stillgreatly at issue in todays discussions of the subject.

The translation of quoted passages is my own.

Free Indirect Style in Modern Frenchby Charles Bally, University of GenevaGRM4 (1912): 54956, 597606

Indirect style includes, as we know, the whole range of the syntactical formsthat reproduce the words and thoughts of a third person (cf. Paul viendra andPierre disait, pensait que Paul viendrait), these forms being used by extension toreproduce the subjects own words and thoughts (cf. Paul viendra and Paul

disait, pensait quil viendrait). I assume that the modifications by which directenunciation is transformed into indirect style are well known; I limit myselfto remind my reader that this form is characterized by the presence of anintroductory verb (of saying or believing: dire, annoncer, penser, croire, etc.);by a number of grammatical words (que, si, ce qui, ce que [for quest-ce qui,quest-ce que], cf.: Quest-ce qui empche Paul de venir? and Pierre demande ce quiempche Paul, etc.); finally, by the transformations that affect the tenses, themodes, and the persons of the verb in passing from direct to indirect form.

In his interesting work Der Stil der franzsischen Sprache (pp. 297f.), Mr. F.Strohmeyer remarks that French avoids indirect style, and in his opinion,this avoidance is increased because our language cannot, like German,introduce one or more indirect sentences without the help of a subordi-nating conjunction. . . .

This assertion is not exact in its generality: French knows a free indirectstyle that is not conjectural, analogous to the one in German; but the factis that grammars ignore it almost completely, because they are ordinarilybased on classical language, where this free form is an exception, whereas itdeveloped widely in the literary language of the past hundred years.We willdescribe this free indirect style and its principal variations; this will allowus to explain certain facts of temporal syntax to which is generally givena different interpretation; finally, we will ask ourselves if the grammariansignorance of free indirect style is not related to a defect in method that wewill define at the end of this study. . . .

Mr. Strohmeyer is right in saying that indirect style using subordinationdisagrees with modern French; we make a face when a sentence contains

too many quiand que; all artistic manuals advise avoiding them. . . .Yet French has an indirect style that gives the illusion of direct speech,

even as it transposes the words and thoughts by the use of tenses proper toindirect style. . . . The following passage from Mrime shows theprocedurewith which we are concerned in its full extension:


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Cohn Early Discussions of Free Indirect Style 503

Cetait peut-tre la premire fois quun dsir manifest, par le colonel et obtenu lapprobationde sa fille. Enchant de cette rencontre inattendue, il eut pourtant le bon sens de faire quelquesobjections pour irriter lheureux caprice de miss Lydia. En vain il parla de la sauvagerie du

pays et de la difficult pour une femme dy voyager: ELLE NE CRAIGNAIT RIEN; ELLEAIMAIT AVANT TOUT VOYAGER CHEVAL; ELLE SE FAISAIT UNEFTE DE COUCHER AU BIVAC; elle menaait daller en Asie Mineure. Bref, elle avaitrponse tout, car JAMAIS ANGLAISE NAVAIT T EN CORSE; DONC ELLE

DEVAIT Y ALLER. ET QUEL BONHEUR, DE RETOUR SAINT-JAMESPLACE, DE MONTRER SON ALBUM! Pourquoi donc, ma chre, passez-vous ce char-mant dessein?Oh! ce nest rien. Cest un croquis que jai fait daprs un fameux banditcorse qui nous a servi de guide.Comment! vous avez t en Corse? . . . (Colomba)

[It was perhaps the first time that a desire of the colonel received the agree-

ment of his daughter. Delighted by this unexpected encounter, he nonethelesshad the good sense to make a few objections to irritate this happy caprice of

miss Lydias. He spoke in vain of the wildness of the country and of the diffi-

culty for a woman to travel in it: SHE WAS NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING;

SHE LIKED ABOVE ALL TO TRAVEL ON HORSEBACK; SHE ESPE-

CIALLY ENJOYED SLEEPING IN THE OPEN AIR; she threatened to go to

the Near East. In short, she had an answer to everything, because AN ENGLISH

WOMAN HAD NEVER BEEN TO CORSICA; THUS SHE HAD TO GO

THERE. AND WHAT A PLEASURE TO SHOW HER ALBUM WHEN SHE

RETURNED TO SAINT JAMES PLACE! Why, my dear, did you pass by thischarming drawing?Oh! its nothing. Its only a sketch I made of a famous Cor-

sican bandit who served as our guide.What! you have been to Corsica? . . .]

Let us now examine more closely the different forms taken by the freeindirect style; let us see how it distances itself gradually from the classicalform of indirect discourse and how it approaches more and more the puredirect style. . . .

We will order the following examples accordingly.

(a) The statement is introduced by three subordinating conjunctions; theremainder does without conjunctions:

La mouche, en ce commun besoin, Se plaint quelle agit seule et quelle a tout le soin, Quaucunnaide aux chevaux se tirer daffaire; LE MOINE DISAIT SON BRVIAIRE: ILPRENAIT BIEN SON TEMPS! UNE FEMME CHANTAIT; CTAIT BIEN DECHANSONS QUALORS IL SAGISSAIT! (La Fontaine, La mouche du coche)

[The fly, in this common need, Complains that it acts all alone and that it has

all the work, That no one helps the horses to cope; THE MONK RECITED

HIS BREVIARY; HE TOOK ALL HIS TIME! A WOMAN SANG; IT WASSURELY SONGS THAT WERE NEEDED THEN!]

(b) Only two conjunctions open the indirect discourse, the remainder hasthe free form:


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Lofficier sappliquait de grands coups de poing, en disant que lui, ntait pas un bourreau,que, sil y en avait qui tuaient les innocents, ce ntait pas lui; ELLE NAVAIT PAS TCONDAMNE, IL SE COUPERAIT LA MAIN PLUTT QUE DE TOUCHER

UN CHEVEU DE SA TTE. (Zola, Dbcle)[The officer gave himself big punches, saying that he was not an executioner,

that, if there were some people who killed the innocent, he wasnt one of them;

SHE HAD NOT BEEN CONDEMNED, HE WOULD CUT OFF HIS HAND

RATHER THAN TOUCH A HAIR ON HER HEAD.]

(c) Only the first proposition is subordinated:

Lenfant, subitement mis en confiance, raconta quil tait tranger la ville; SES PAR-ENTS HABITAIENT AUX ENVIRONS DE DAVERY; IL RETOURNERAIT EN

VACANCES CHEZ SON PRE; MAIS PARIS, ON LUI AVAIT VOL SONPORTE-MONNAIE, etc. (G. Lentre)

[The child, suddenly trusting, told that he was a stranger in the city; HIS PAR-

ENTS LIVED NEAR DAVERY; HE WOULD RETURN TO SPEND HIS

VACATIONS AT HIS FATHERS HOUSE; BUT IN PARIS, THEY STOLE

HIS PURSE, etc.]

(d) Finally, every external trace of subordination can disappear; for this tohappen, it is sufficient that the introductory verb of the indirect style be

intransitive and that it cannot therefore be followed by a sentence with que(e.g., parler, ajouter foi, tre embarass, semporter, etc.) or else that the verb hasalready a direct substantive regime excluding a subordinating conjunction(e.g., dire son mot, ne rien cacher, exhaler sa colre, etc.). In all these cases, regu-lar syntax would demand the injection of a verb of saying or believing, andit is precisely the absence of such a verb that constitutes the free indirectstyle. . . . Here is an example:

Elle [Sappho] se mit lui parler longuement de sa famille, ce quelle avait toujours vit;CTAIT SI LAID, SI BAS . . . ; MAIS ON SE CONNAISSAIT MIEUX MAIN-TENANT, ON NAVAIT PLUS RIEN SE CACHER. (A. Daudet, Sappho)

[She {Sappho} began speaking to him at length about her family, a thing she

had always avoided: IT WAS SO UGLY, SO LOW . . . ; BUT THEY KNEW

EACH OTHER BETTER NOW,THEY HAD NOTHING TO HIDE FROM

EACH OTHER.]

(e) In all the examples seen up to this point, the introductory verb, if it wasnot clearly a verb of thinking or saying, allowed one at least to reconstitute

in thought a verb of this category. We shall see that the introductory verbcan be absent altogether. This is the most interesting case, since the gram-mars, by ignoring free indirect style, interpret it quite differently. Here is aclear example:


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Tout coup ils virent entrer par la barrire M. Lheureux, le marchand dtoffes. IL VENAITOFFRIR SES SERVICES, EU GARD LA FATALE CIRCONSTANCE. Emmarpondit quelle croyait pouvoir sen passer. (Flaubert, Madame Bovary [pt.] III,

[chap.] 2)[All of a sudden they saw M. Lheureux, the fabric salesman, enter through the

barrier. HE CAME TO OFFER HIS SERVICES, GIVEN THE FATAL CIR-

CUMSTANCE. Emma answered that she believed she could do without them.]

This example suggests analogous interpretations for syntactical casesthat one explains quite differently. Thus the conditional, or more exactlythe imperfect of the future, is often nothing but a future transposed intoindirect style. We can see it in the following passage, which offers nothing

particular; but traditional grammar, based on grammatical forms ratherthan forms of thought, makes this into a special case:

La nuit lcrasait; ELLE NE FINIRAIT JAMAIS; CE SERAIT TOUJOURS AINSI;IL Y AVAIT DES MOIS QUIL TAIT L! (R. Rolland, Jean Christophe)

[The night crushed him; SHE WOULD NEVER FINISH; IT WOULD AL-

WAYS BE LIKE THAT; IT WAS MONTHS HE WAS THERE!]

The conditional has no special value in the syntax of the indirect style; it is

simply the tense that corresponds to the future of direct style. . . .Free indirect style being an intermediary form, there is reason to expecta passage to one or the other of the extreme forms. . . . Thus free indirectstyle can easily end in direct discourse:

Elle sattablait, lenfant sur ses genoux . . . et elle se mettait chercher, dtailler la res-semblance de la petite avec eux deux. Un trait tait lui, un autre elle. CEST TON

NEZ, CEST MES YEUX.VOIS-TU,VOIL TES MAINS . . . CEST TOUT TOI.(Goncourt, Germinie Lacerteux)

[She sat down at the table, the child on her knees . . . and she began to look for, todetail the likeness of the little one to the two of them. One trait was his, another

hers. SHE HAS YOUR NOSE, SHE HAS MY EYES. YOU SEE, SHE HAS

YOUR HANDS . . . ALTOGETHER LIKE YOU.]

But the inverse case is frequently found as well:

[Emma Bovary chats with Lon]: Vous vous tes donc dcide rester? ajouta-t-il.Oui, dit-elle et jai eu tort. Il ne faut pas saccoutumer des plaisirs impracticables, quandon a autour de soi mille exigences. . . .Oh! je mimagine. . . .Eh! non, car vous ntes pas

une femme. MAIS LES HOMMES AUSSI AVAIENT LEURS CHAGRINS, et la con-versation sengagea par quelques rflexions philosophiques. (Flaubert, Madame Bovary[pt.] III, [chap.] l)

[You decided to stay after all? he added.Yes, she said, and I was wrong. We

must not get used to impractical pleasures when we have a thousand require-


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ments around us. . . .Oh! I imagine. . . .Oh! no, because you are not a

woman. BUT MEN TOO HAD THEIR SORROWS, and the conversation con-

tinued with some philosophical reflections.]

Free indirect style extends its action, outside the enunciation of the wordsor the thoughts, to the introductory verb itself; by a sort of construction adsensum,thisverbisattractedbytheverbsoftheenunciationandisusedinthesame tense. The clearest case is the one where the verb is interpolated. . . .With reference to the passage of Mrime quoted earlier, in reestablish-ing the direct style, one would obtain: (La fille du colonel rpondit:) Je ne crainsrien; jaime par dessus tout voyager cheval; je me fais une fte de coucher au bivac[{The daughter of the colonel answered:} I am not afraid of anything; I

like above all to travel on horseback; I enjoy especially sleeping in the openair.] Up to this point, everything is in order; but it is impossible that the

young girl added: JE MENACE daller en Asie Mineure [I threaten to go tothe Near East]; this part of her answer had to be: (Si lon naccde pas mondsir), jirai en Asie Mineure [{If one does not listen to my wish}, Ill go to theNear East]; menaaitis a declarative verb surrounded by indirect imperfectsand attracted by them. . . .

The description of free indirect style made earlier shows that this form of

expression benefits from an almost absolute syntactical freedom; in extremecases, those where the independence of the indirect verb is complete, onecannot even speak of indirect style; there is more generally a subjectiveaspect of thought. It seems to me that it is this subjective nuance thatallows one to explain certain uses of the imperfect which grammariansinterpret too subtly to be correct. They are actually subjective imperfects.For example, this sentence by Alphonse Daudet: Comme il [Jack] mettait lepied sur lchelle . . . une longue secousse branla le navire; la vapeur qui grondait depuisle matin rgularisa son bruit; lhlice se mit en branle. ON PARTAIT. [As he (Jack)put his foot on the ladder, a long jolt shook the ship; the steam which roaredsince morning regularized its noise; the propeller was set in motion. ONEWAS LEAVING.] We could say (and this is the interpretation that Stroh-meyer would give, p. 44) that on partaitmarks an event thought of affectively,that it makes a picture, whereas on partitwould designate simply an eventthat follows upon the preceding ones. I believe that there is a more essentialdifference between these two tenses. On partait [one was leaving] meansroughly: videmment on partait, il fallait croire quon partait [Evidently one

was leaving; one had to think one was leaving], which is to say that thedescribed indices (the jerk, the regular noise of the steam, the movement ofthe propeller) make one conclude that departure is imminent, much more,that this conclusion is drawn by Jack himself; as though he had said: Tiens!il parait quon part. [it seems like we are leaving.]


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I insist on the particular character of this explication; between it and theone of the grammarians mentioned, there is more than a nuance; mine sup-poses a true transposition of the objective into the subjective; those imper-

fects do not indicate a particular manner in which the facts themselves areenvisioned; they show that these facts have passed through the brain of asubject on the scene of a narrative or of a subject that one can easily imag-ine. That is why the imperfects called here subjective are essentially of thesame nature as those of free indirect style. . . .

Finally, I cannot help reflecting on the manner in which this entire ques-tion isor rather is nottreated in French grammars.Why is free indirectstyle nowhere mentioned in them? . . . The reason is simple: free indirect

style is a form of thought, and the grammarians take as their basis grammati-cal forms. The fact that one does not see how greatly this method paralyzessyntactical studies is astonishing. . . . If our study of free indirect style seemssatisfactory, it will perhaps show the necessity to change the orientation ofdescriptive grammars.

On Free Indirect Style (Veiled Discourse)by Th. Kalepky, University of BerlinGRM5 (1913): 60819

In a very thorough and astute article in this journal, Mr. Bally has con-sidered a stylistic representation that has attained an unusual popularityin modern narrative literature; he skillfully and appealingly calls it freeindirect stylein distinction from the real, the true indirect style. Aftercareful presentation of its genesis and development from the latter, he showsdifferent highly conspicuous traits which he cannot explain in any other waythan by supposing an attraction, i.e., an influence of the linguistic form ofsurrounding parts that runs counter to strict logic. He is undoubtedly rightthat it is in fact impossible to transform some passages represented by freeindirect style to direct speech by the customary change in tense and person.He shows this clearly and distinctly, for example, in the following passagefrom Mrimes Colomba: ellenecraignaitrien,elleaimaitpar-dessustoutvoyager,elle se faisait une fte de coucher au bivac, ELLE MENAAIT DALLER EN ASIEMINEURE[she was not afraid of anything, she liked above all to travel,she especially enjoyed sleeping in the open air, SHE THREATENED TOGO TO THE NEAR EAST], where the first part of this discourse of the

heroine (in free indirect style) is easily converted into true direct speech bya mere change of the third person into the first and of the preterite intothe present, whereas this is nonsensical for the last part (here in capitals).Mr. Bally rightly says: It is impossible that the young girl added [in directspeech] Je menace daller en Asie Mineure [I threaten to go to the Near


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East]; this part of her answer had to be: (Si lon naccde pas mon dsir),jirai en Asie Mineure! [(If one does not listen to my wish,) I ll go to theNear East]; and he adds as explanation: menaaitis a declarative verb, sur-

rounded by indirect imperfects and attracted by them. There is nothing inprinciple against such an attempt at explanation. It is well known and gen-erally accepted that attraction, i.e., an influence that goes counter to therules of linguistic logic, is one of the most meaningful factors in the shapingof expressions in alllanguages. . . .

However, in the case before us there seems to be a way of understandingit that does not need to have recourse to attraction; nor does it take intoaccount only the difficulties touched on by Mr. Bally; it also considers some

others, on which he did nottouch. . . .The fact is that the conspicuousness and difficulty which face us in amore exact examination of free indirect style are not limited to the tempo-ral side of the question, which Mr. Bally examined thoroughly, . . . but theyextend much further, particularly to the region of person. . . . There areplaces where quite unexpectedly imperatives (thus cases of second person)or exclamations like Mon Dieu [My God] (thus first person) appear. . . .For example: Elle [the little Sophie, miraculously cured in Lourdes] dutencore, sur une question de madame de Jonquire, raconter lhistoire des bottines que

madame la comtesse [after the healing of her lameness] lui avait donnes et aveclesquelles, ravie, elle avait couru, saut, dans. Songez donc! des bottines, elle qui, depuistrois ans, ne pouvait pas mettre une pantoufle! (Zola, Lourdes). [She had addition-ally, in answer to a question of Madame de Jonquire, to tell the story ofthe shoes that the countess had given her and with which, delighted, shehad run, jumped, danced. Just think! Shoes, when for three years, she couldnot put on slippers!] Or: Elle, mon Dieu! elle quil avait vue pendant des annes, lesjambes mortes, la face couleur de plomb [She, my God! She, whom he had seen for

years with dead legs, her face the color of lead], where the writer . . . couldhave avoided the use of the first person by other expressions of astonishment(like grand Dieu, for example). . . .

In view of such strange cases, Mr. Ballys explanation by supposing at-traction . . . seems to me insufficient. . . . The narrator does not reproducethe thoughts or words of his characters in either an indirect or a directway, . . . but he clothes them in the form which he would give to his ownthoughts and words and leaves it to the reader, in fact expects it of him,

that he will take them as the thoughts and words of the character and thathe will understand them correctly. There is then a veiling of the factsin acertain sense a deception of the reader . . . as harmless as it is effective. . . .

Such a phenomenon cannot any more be called free indirect style. . . . Itis rather the style that replaces the reproduction of words and thoughts of


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the character by the narrators own thoughts and speeches . . . thus veilingstyle or veiled discourse.

Figures of Thought and Linguistic Formsby Charles Bally, University of GenevaGRM6 (1914): 40522, 45670

In an article in this journal, I have tried to show that French has a freeindirect style which has traits of ordinary indirect style and direct style. Thefollowing examples will show the similarities and the differences existingbetween these three grammatical modes:

Direct style: (a) Pierre dclara catgoriquement: Paul est coupable, il expiera sa

faute; (b) Pierre sarrta, se demandant: Entrerai-je ou retournerai-je sur mes pas? . . .Proper indirect style: (a) Pierre dclara catgoriquement que Paul tait coupable,

quil expierait sa faute; (b) Pierre sarrta, se demandant sil entrerait ou sil retour-nerait sur ses pas. . . .

Free indirect style: (a) La dclaration de Pierre fut catgorique: Paul tait coup-able, il expierait sa faute; (b) Pierre sarrta: entrerait-il ou retournerait-il sur sespas? . . .

One thing needs to be pointed out from the start: the trait common to

the three styles. They are, though to different degrees, forms of syntax,grammatical types. In all three cases, one has the enunciation of words orthoughts attributed to a subject by a person who reports these words or thesethoughts; this reporter would be Zola, for example, if the quoted sentenceswere drawn from one of his novels. The utterance is preceded, often alsofollowed, and even, as we will see, mixed, penetrated, by the words writtenby the author. . . . The fundamental trait common to the three styles is thatthe narrator objectively reproduces words or thoughts without adding any-thing of his own; the reader has the very clear impression that the narrator(e.g., Zola) is absolutely distinct from the subject (e.g., Pierre), serves himsimply as voice-carrier, without mixing his personality with that of thesubject, without trying to substitute himself for him. . . .

This trait of objectivity, which I thought had been established, willhave to be established again. In GRM [5], Mr. Kalepky . . . gives anentirely different explanation of free indirect style, which he calls veileddiscourse. . . . According to him, the narrator, by a kind of fiction, presentsthe words or the thoughts of the subject as though they came from himself,

that is to say that the narration in direct or indirect style is confused withthe narration external to direct or indirect style but in such a manner thatthe reader attributes the utterance to its true author, namely, to the char-acter. . . . We see the two essential points on which Mr. Kalepky differs


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from me: (1) the utterance is no longer objective, the narrator is no longer asimple voice-carrier; (2) it is not a matter of a grammatical form but of afigure, a figure of thought (understanding by figure a manner of conceiving

and expressing a representation that does not conform to objective realityor to linguistic logic) . . .

I will try to show that the indices on which Mr. Kalepky leans to provethat the author substitutes himself for his character (where I see indirectstyle) are formal signs without true value for the speaking subject (I); thenI will oppose to them a series of other signs to which I believe that the sub-

jects attach a value that leads to other conclusions (II); after characterizingthe difference that separates indirect style from the figure by substitution of

the subject (III) and having illuminated this distinction by a parallel case(IV), I will lead from these particular facts back to general views (V and VI).I.

Mr. Kalepky believes he can find in the use of grammatical persons theindication that the narrator intervenes directly in the utterance of wordsor of thoughts of his character. . . . But, in all the passages quoted byMr. Kalepky, it is a matter of exclamative and thus depersonalized expres-sions, like Mon Dieu! Songez donc! . . . In Zola: Elle [Sophie] dut encore . . . racon-ter lhistoire des bottines, des belles bottines toutes neuves, que Madame la comtesse lui

avaient donns, et avec lesquelles, ravie, elle avait couru, saut, dans! Songez donc! desbottines, elle qui, depuis trois ans, ne pouvait pas mettre une pantoufle! [She {Sophy}had additionally to tell the story of the shoes, the beautiful brand-new shoesthat the countess had given to her and with which, delighted, she had run,

jumped, danced! Just think! Shoes, when, for three years, she could not puton slippers!] Mr. Kalepky thinks that Songez donc! [Just think!], by its directform, proves the intervention of the narrator, whereas one feels, by differ-ent indications that I will examine further on, that it is Sophie who speaks

and that this exclamative Songez donc!, without great value of person, is anescape into pure direct style, so near to free indirect style. . . .

II.Such is the value of the indices through which Mr. Kalepky thinks he canrecognize the figure of substitution of the subject (veiled discourse) wherefree indirect style seems to me undeniable. . . . This is identical to sayingthat these indices are common to direct style, indirect style, and free indirectstyle and that the effect of them all is to show that there is an objective repro-

duction of utterances.(A) Indices external to the utterance: They all amount to the presence of someexpression that involves a verb of thinking or saying . . . [either] preceding,inserted, or following the utterance. . . .


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(B) Indices contained within the utterance: Passage to another of the threestyles. The diverse styles, by following each other, mutually control eachother and every wrong interpretation is excluded. . . .

(C) Syntactical indicesthe tenses of the utterance: Among the traits com-mon to the indirect style and to the free indirect style, the most strikingis the transposition of the tenses of the verbs according to the rules thatthe usual grammar teaches. An example to illustrate this. Direct style: Ildclara catgoriquement: je veux partir, je partirai. Indirect style: Il dclara cat-goriquement quil voulait partir, quil partirait. Free indirect style: Sa dclarationtait catgorique: il voulait partir, il partirait. The forms voulaitand partiraitarepresents and indirect futures, they are transposed. But if the free indirect

style is what Mr. Kalepky wants it to bea figure of thought which givesthe illusion that the narrator speaks in his own namethese tenses wouldno longer be transposed: voulait would be a true imperfect, and partiraita present conditional; the meaning is then altogether different, or simplyabsurd. . . .

(D) Syntactical indicesthe persons of the utterance: We know the transposi-tions that the persons of the verb undergo in the indirect style. If the nar-rator is designated in the utterance in the third person, can one still thinkthat he makes believe that he is speaking in his own name, as Mr. Kalepky

wishes? . . .(E) Indicesidentifyingthesubject:Onecanunifyunderthistitletheextremely

varied facts which, though indirectly, hinder the confusion between the sub-ject and the narrator; natural if one attributes them to the former, they areambiguous or absurd if one attributes them to the latter, with whom theyare incompatible. . . .

III.Direct style, indirect style, and free indirect style belong to grammar, are

syntactical types, characterized by grammatical signs (tenses, modes, per-sons, constructions, etc.). . . . [But we need to distinguish] between lin-guistic type and figure of thought. . . . What Mr. Kalepky means by the(badly chosen) term veiled discourse is like a figure of thought; but hehas, I believe, not understood the nature and the limits of the phenomenon,since he includes in it the whole of free indirect style and he supports it withexamples that are contrary to the idea which he holds of it. . . .2

2. Ballys article now (in the rest of vol. III and in IV, V, and VI) takes up problems of generallinguistics and is no longer immediately concerned with free indirect style.


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The Stylistic Meaning of the Imperfect of Discourse (Free Indirect Style)by Eugen Lerch, University of MunichGRM6 (1914): 47089

Ch. Bally deserves our thanks for having drawn attention in this journal toa stylistic peculiarity of French which he calls free indirect style, and Th.Kalepky has added complements that are materially and ideologically valu-able.3 Thereby the purely factual understanding of the construction in ques-tion is assured. But now it is also important to point up its aesthetic signifi-cance, which I will try to do in what follows. I will use German examples . . .all from one text: the novel Buddenbrooksby Thomas Mann (45th edition,Berlin, 1909). . . .

The writer of novels has three choices for expressing the speeches (orthe thoughts) of his characters: (1) direct discourse, (2) indirect discourse,(3) imperfect of discourse; or, to give examples: (1) (er sagte:) Ich bin nichtzufrieden; (2) (er sagte,) er sei nicht zufrieden (or: wre nicht zufrieden); (3) er warnicht zufrieden (wie er sagte). . . . If, in case 3 (which is our concern here), thewie er sagte is omitted, what is said is formally not to be distinguished froma fact reported by the author (er war nicht zufrieden); solely the context orinterspersed elements of direct speech (interjections and such like) allow us

to recognize that we have read something spoken and not something thathappened (e.g., Sie HATTE, strafe sie Gott, niemals eine schnere Braut gesehen,Buddenbrooks[vol.] I, [p.] 229 [She HAD, may God punish her, never seena more beautiful bride]). . . . I must reject Ballys name of free indirectstyle, because it is not at all, either in French or in German, a matter ofa kind of indirect style, not at all a matter of an omitted que, but rather aspeech or thought presented as a fact, as the following examples will show.Now it could be supposed that what is reported as a fact is more real thanwhat is merely said, more real than what is said in direct speech. Sinceindirect speech represents the least reality . . . the following scale (orderedaccording to mounting reality) could be expected: (1) indirect speech: ersei nicht zufrieden; (2) direct speech: Ich bin nicht zufrieden; (3) Speech asfact: er war nicht zufrieden. Only, it becomes apparent that, stylistically, directspeech (Ich bin nicht zufrieden) has a greater effect than the imper-fect of discourse as fact (er war nicht zufrieden); apparently because directspeech is in the present and in the first person, while speech as fact ismerely in the past and the third person. As a result, we get a different

scale: (1) indirect speech: erSEInichtzufrieden; (2) speech as fact: erWARnicht

3. Ballys article Figures of Thought and Linguistic Forms was not known to Lerch, sinceit appeared in the same issue ofGRM.


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zufrieden; (3) direct speech: Ich BIN nicht zufrieden.So the opinion that ourconstruction represents something between direct and indirect discourse iswell-founded: on the one hand, speech in the imperfect stands above direct

speech . . . on the other hand, it stands below direct speech. . . .This paradoxical circumstance results in two different uses of our imper-

fect. It serves on occasion to express more than direct speech: namely, thatwhat is reported is not merely stated but that it is really so. To give anexample:

Buddenbrooks[vol.] I, [p.] 47: AberderKonsulgingnichtersthinber,sondernversammeltesofort die billiardlustigen Herren um sich.Sie wollen keine Partie riskieren, Vater?

Nein, Lebrecht Krger BLIEB bei den Damen, aber Justus KNNE ja nach hinten gehen.[But the consul did not go over there, he immediately assembled the gentlemen

desiring billiards around himself.

You dont want to risk a game, father?

No, Lebrecht Krger STAYED with the ladies, but Justus COULD go back.]

The knne shows that the blieb also belongs to the speech of Lebrecht Kr-ger; but knne is in the conditional, proving that it is indirect speech, whileblieb is in the indicative: apparently it is not merely speech, but at the same

time reports about the fact that he really stayed with the ladies.On the other side, our imperfect can express a less, a weakening, a muf-

fling of the direct form, an approach to the indirect form, and this is thecase Bally no doubt had in mind when he spoke of free indirect style. Togive an example of this case:

Buddenbrooks[vol.] II, [p.] 49: . . . und ber gerumigen Kellern erwuchs . . . ThomasBuddenbrooks neues Haus. Kein Gesprchsstoff in der Stadt, der anziehender gewesen wre!Es WURDE tip-top, esWURDE das schnste Haus weit und breit! GAB es etwa in Ham-

burg schnere? . . . MUSSTE aber auch verzweifelt teuer sein, und der alte Konsul HTTEsolche Sprnge sicherlich nicht gemacht. . . . Die Nachbarn, die Brgersleute in den Giebel-husern, lagen in den Fenstern.

[. . . and over roomy cellars . . . Thomas Buddenbrooks new house grew. There

was no subject of conversation more attractive in the city! It BECAME tip-top,

it BECAME the most beautiful house anywhere! WERE there more beautiful

ones for instance in Hamburg? . . . It HAD to be terribly expensive, and the old

consul would certainly not HAVE gone so far. . . . The neighbors, the inhabitants

of the gabled houses, were at their windows.]

Already the word Gesprchsstoff suggests that what follows will pro-vide the content of these conversations, and the word tip-top makes us cer-tain that it is not a matter of the reflections of the author, who would not


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under any circumstances use such a showy word in his epic representa-tion; tip-top is rather, as we learned earlier, the newest fashionable wordimported from Hamburg into the Lbeck world at that time; therefore it

is the neighbors who make these remarks. It is clear why the author doesnot report these conversations in direct speech: direct speech serves in thenovel to characterize the speaking person by his speech, by the constructionof his sentences, by interjected favorite words or phrases, by exaggerationor avoidance; here, however, it is a matter of insignificant persons, and tocharacterize them would be simply useless. That is why the conversation isnot given in direct speech. But why not in indirect speech? Indirect speechis no longer attractive to newer authors . . . not only in Buddenbrooks, but in

the modern novel generally: it signifies the appearance of a summarizingauthor, and the modern novel has become too dramatic for that.In its place we find therefore the imperfect of discourse and direct speech

for the expression of greater liveliness, and if our imperfect has the thirdperson in common with indirect speech, its affiliation with direct speech ismore important where the stylistic value is concerned; it is more opposedthan related to indirect speech. That is why I did not want to name it freeindirect style, and that is why I will compare it in what follows not withindirect but with direct style. In doing so, I will try to distinguish carefully

between the categories developed above of More than direct speech andLess than direct speech.. . .

Let us start with Less than direct speech. To this belong, as alreadymentioned, the conversations of typical, colorless persons. . . . Or else, thepersons are known, but their conversation is so typical and colorless thatthe author does not think it deserves being given in direct speech. . . . Thuswhen Thomas Buddenbrook addresses the question how the steamships arecalled that go to Copenhagen to his son, little Hanno, the direct form is not

necessary, because it would have nothing that would characterize the con-sul in any way, and moreover, the imperfect is used to make the questioninto something repeated rather than something unique and special:

[vol.] II, [p.] 343: Fr Thomas Buddenbrook selbst war dieses Stck Welt am Hafen,zwischen Schiffen, Schuppen und Speichern, wo es nach Butter, Fischen, Wasser, Teer and

geltem Eisen roch, von Klein auf der liebste und interessanteste Aufenthalt gewesen; und daFreude und Teilnahme daran sich bei seinem Sohne von selbst nicht usserten, so musste erdarauf bedacht sein, sie zu wecken. . . . Wie HIESSEN nun die Dampfer, die mit Kopen-

hagen VERKEHRTEN? Najaden . . . Halmstadt . . . Friederike Overdieck. . . . Nun, dassdu wenigstens diese weisst, mein Junge, das ist schon etwas.

[For Thomas Buddenbrook himself, this piece of the world at the port, among

ships, sheds, and warehouses, where it smelled of butter, fish, water, tar, and oily


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iron, had been the favorite and most interesting place to stop since he was little;

and since joy and participation in it did not show themselves in his son on their

own, he had to think of awakening them. . . . Now how were the steamships

CALLED that WENT to Copenhagen? Najaden . . . Halmstadt . . . FrederikeOver-dieck. . . . Well, that you at least know these, my boy, thats something

after all.]

We come to the category More than direct speech, where our imperfectsimultaneously serves to represent what is said and what is really happening.The already mentioned answer of Lebrecht Krger exemplifies this:

[vol.] I, [p.] 47: Sie wollen keine Partie riskieren, Vater?Nein, Lebrecht Krger blieb bei den Damen, aber Justus knne ja nach hinten gehen.

[You dont want to risk a game, father?

No, Lebrecht Krger stayed with the ladies, but Justus could go back.]

So does this passage:

[vol.] I, [p.] 425: Gerda aud Thomas wurden sich einig ber eine Route durch Oberitaliennach Florenz. Sie wrden etwa zwei Monate abwesend sein; unterdessen sollte Antonie . . .das hbsche kleine Haus in der Breitenstrasse bereit machen. Oh, Tony WRDE das schonzur Zufriedenheit ausfhren! Ihr sollt es vornehm haben sagte sie; und davon waren Alle

berzeugt.[Gerda and Thomas agreed on a route through Northern Italy to Florence.Theywould be absent about two months; meanwhile Antonie was to prepare . . . the

pretty little house in the Breitenstrasse. Oh, Tony WOULD accomplish this to

everyones satisfaction! You will have elegant quarters she said, and everyone

was convinced of this.]

Tony says that she would take care of it well, and with her love for furnish-ing one can be sure that she will really do it.

Up until now my examples dealt with short utterances, where it seem-ingly did not matter very much for the characterization of the person con-cerned whether they were given in direct speech or in the imperfect. Whenthe author renounces the means of characterization through direct speechin a longerpassage, the imperfect becomes more conspicuous. The wonder-ful adventure that the young Kai Graf Mlln, the friend of little HannoBuddenbrook, tells is, to be sure, introduced by a durfte man ihm glauben, butthen the rest is given as fact throughout:

[vol.] II, [p.] 340: Und Kai fuhr fort zu erzhlen.Durfte man ihm glauben, so war er vor einiger Zeit bei schwler Nacht und in unkenntlicherGegend einen schlpfrigen und unermesslich tiefen Abhang hinabgeglitten, an dessen Fusse erim fahlen und flackernden Schein von Irrlichtern ein schwarzes Sumpfwasser gefunden hatte,aus dem mit hohl glucksendem Gerusch unaufhrlich silberblanke Blasen aufstiegen. Eine


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aber davon, die, nahe dem Ufer, bestndig wiedergekehrt war, so oft sie zersprungen, hatte dieForm eines Ringes gehabt, und diese hatte er nach langen, gefahrvollen Bemhungen mit derHand zu erhaschen verstanden, worauf sie nicht mehr zerplatzt war, sondern sich als glatter

und fester Reif hatte an den Finger stecken lassen. Er aber, der mit Recht diesem Ringe unge-whnliche Eigenschaften zugetraut hatte, war mit seiner Hilfe den steilen und schlpfrigenAbhang wieder emporgelangt.

[And Kai continued to narrate.

If one was to believe him, he had some time ago slid down a slippery and immea-

surably deep slope in a stifling night and in an unknown region, at the foot of

which he had found a black bog-water in the pale and flickering gleam of will-o-

the wisps, out of which silvery bubbles rose incessantly with a hollow, gurgling

sound. One of them, however, which returned incessantly close to the shore, as

often as it had exploded, had the form of a circle, and this he had managed tocatch with his hand after long, dangerous efforts, whereupon it ceased exploding

and instead let itself be put on his finger as a smooth and firm ring. But he, who

had rightly attributed unusual characteristics to this ring, had with its help gone

up the steep and slippery slope again.]

Of course, all this is not true, and a pedant would therefore have chosen theindirect form. . . . Thomas Mann chose the imperfect in order to representthe liveliness of the childish fantasy . . . without ironizing it.

However, the author does use irony when he presents the speeches ofagent Gosch in the form of facts . . . :

Herrn Gosch GING es schlecht. Mit einer schnen und grossen Armbewegung wies er dieAnnahme zurck, er knne zu den Glcklichen gehren. Das beschwerliche GreisenalterNAHTE heran, es WAR da, wie gesagt, seine Grube WAR geschaufelt. Er KONNTEabends kaum noch sein Glas Grog zum Munde fhren, ohne die Hlfte zu verschtten, so

MACHTE der Teufel seinen Arm zittern. Da ntzte kein Fluchen.

[Herr Gosch WAS badly off. With a lovely and great movement of his arm he

rejected the supposition that he could belong to the happy ones. The arduous-ness of old age APPROACHED, it WAS present, as has been said, his pit WAS

shoveled. He WAS hardly ABLE to guide his glassful of rum to his mouth with-

out spilling half of it, to such an extent DID the devil MAKE his arm tremble.

Swearing was no good.]

In this manner the author ironizes the complaints of the businessman. . . .But our imperfect is not merely used for spoken words but also for unspo-

ken thoughts, and these examples apparently belong to the category Less

than direct speech. . . .[vol.] I, [p.] 219: Tony betrachtete die grauen Giebelhuser, die ber die Strasse gespanntenllampen, das Heilige Geist-Hospital mit den fast schon entbltterten Linden davor. . . .

MEIN GOTT, alles das WAR geblieben wie es gewesen war! Es HATTE hier gestanden,


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unabnderlich und ehrwrdig, whrend sie sich daran als einen alten, vergessenswertenTraum erinnert hatte! Diese grauen Giebel WAREN das Alte, Gewohnte, berlieferte, dassie wiederaufgenommen und in dem sie nun wieder leben sollte. Sie weinte nicht mehr; sie

sah sich neugierig um.[Tony watched the gray gabled houses, the oil lamps reaching over the street,

the Holy Ghost Hospital with its already almost leafless linden trees in front of

it. . . . MY GOD, all this HAD remained as it had been! It HAD stood here,

unchangeable and honorable, while she remembered it as a dream worthy of

being forgotten! These gray gables WERE the old, the accustomed, the tradi-

tional, which had included her again and in which she was now to live again.

She did not cry any more; she looked about curiously.]

[vol.] II, [p.] 129: Es war nicht wahr, dass er Kopfschmerzen hatte. Er war nur mde

und fhlte wieder, kaum dass der erste Morgenfriede der Nerven vorbei, diesen unbestimmtenGram auf sich lasten. . . . WARUM hatte er gelogen? WAR es nicht bestndig als htte erseinem belbefinden gegenber ein schlechtes Gewissen? Warum? Warum? . . . Aber es war

jetzt keine Zeit, darber nachzudenken.

[It was not true that he had a headache. He was only tired and felt again, when

the first morning peace of the nerves had hardly gone away, this uncertain sor-

row weigh on him. . . . WHY had he lied? WAS it not constantly as though he

had a bad conscience toward his feeling bad? Why? Why? . . . But this was not

the time to think about it.]4

The author disappears almost completely. He does not reign like a godover his creatures, he does not surpass them in intelligence, he is in no senseomniscient. . . . Even where he is apparently not in agreement with his char-acters, he does not indicate this with a single syllable. . . . Our imperfectof speech and thought is thus a part of the retreat of the author, his surren-der, his absorption in his characters, which critics have called (I dont knowwhy) cold and heartless: the direct form will not do in all places, and the

indirect form would mean a stepping back of the characters and a steppingforward of the author that is avoided for good reasons in the modern novel.More and more it is replaced by the imperfect of discourse that thus can beseen in a larger frame: it is related to progress of narrative technique.

4. I have chosen two out of an unusual profusion of examples given by Lerch for the use ofthe imperfect for expressing unspoken thoughts.

cohn -- early discussions free indirect style 05

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