crites, the narrative quality of experience

7/27/2019 Crites, The Narrative Quality of Experience

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The NarrativeQualityof ExperienceSTEPHENCRITESLa narrationest toute l'epopee;elle est toute lhistorie;elle enveloppele drameet le sous-entend.-Balzac

HTHE formsof culturalexpressionare not historicalaccidents.They are notproductsof culture,much less productsof individual choice and con-trivance,althoughactualculturalexpressionsare to some extent both. Theway people speak,dance, build, dream,embellish,is to be surealwaysculturallyparticular: t bearsthe imprintof a time and a place. A people speaksa particu-lar language,not the sameas that spokenin another and nor quite the same asthatspokenby theirfathers,andeachpersonadapts t with someoriginality o hisown use. But the fact thatpeople speaksome languageis no historicalaccident.It is a necessarymarkof being human, i.e., being capableof having a history.That is also true of other persistentforms of culturalexpression. They are theconditionsof historicalexistence;their expressionsare mouldedin the historicalprocessitself into definite productsof particularcultures.I do not know how to go about proving any such grandiosethesis. To me,I confess, it seems self-evident,in the sense that once the appropriatedistinc-tions aremadeit becomesobvious. Be that as it may,I proposehere to illustratethe point in relationto storytelling,whichI taketo be one of the most importantcultural expressions. I want to argue that the formal quality of experiencethrough ime is inherentlynarrative.'I introducethis thesis by briefly posing another,to which it is intimatelyrelated: The style of action throughtime is inherentlymusical. The relationof the two thesescan be statedin an equationof positivelyluminoussimplicity:Narrativequality is to experienceas musicalstyle is to action. And action andexperience nterpenetrate.Let us seeaboutthat.

That is to say that I conceivemy undertakingo be phenomenological. t will not,however,be lardedwith citationsfrom the great Germanand Frenchphenomenologists.The phenomenologywill be homemade.

STEPHENCRITES s Professorof Religion at WesleyanUniversity n Connecticut.Hewas recentlyappointededitor of the AAR Studies n Religion series. Among titles forth-comingin this serieswill be his own monograph, n the Twilight of Christendom:HegelversusKierkegaard n Faith and History.?( 1971, by AmericanAcademyof Religion


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STYLEWe speakof the things we do as having a particular tyle. There is a style

in the way a person writes and speaks. An artist paints in a certain style. Afarmerexhibits a style in the way he plows his field; a dealer,in the way hekeepshis store andarrangeshis wares. A man'sstyle is formedby the way he isbroughtup, by the people among whom he has lived, by his training: by hisexperience. Westernershave, collectively,a different style from Easterners ndCalifornians.Yet in its details a man'sstyle is idiomorphic-as the ringmastersays, nimitable.What is style?

SupposeI walk with unbroken stride acrossa room. It is a single complexmovement. If I were a dancerI could,perhaps,crossthe room at a single leap.But even for a dancerthe action involves not only a steady change of positionin the spaceof the room,but a divisibleduration.Thereare variationson a jokeabouta runner so fast that he can turnand see himself still at the startingline.The point of the joke is that however single and swift a movement is there isalwaysbefore and after.2 An action is altogethertemporal. Yet it has a unityof form through time, a form revealedonly in the action as a whole. Thattemporalform is what we mean by style. My gait has a particularstyle-anungainlyone, as it happens,of a sort developedin walking throughcornfields.But you could not detect it in a still photograph,because the style is in themovement. The same is true of gestures,mannerisms, he putting together ofwords, the modulationsof the voice in speaking the words. All of these areactions, conscious movements in time, and it is appropriate n each case tospeakof theirhavinga particular tyle.Why consciousmovements?Actionsarethe movementsof bodies,but unlikeother movements they are performedby bodies that are both the subjectsofexperienceand purposive agents. It does not occur to us, in common speech,to attributestyle to unconsciousbodies.3Movementsmust be consciousto havea style. Yet thatdoes not imply that one necessarilyattendsconsciously o thesemovements or to their style. One may do so, and may even attemptto changeor to perfecthis style. But he has a style, regardlessof whether he ever concernshimself with it. Typically,the style is formed quite unconsciouslyby an agentintent on the variousprojectsto which he directs his action. I cross the roomto look out the window or talk to a friend,not in orderto perfectmy style of

a Thoughnot as if, like Zeno'sarrow,one passedthrougha seriesof quasi-mathema-tical points in time. The temporalityof which we speakis constitutedby the movementitself,andnot by the (essentially patial) units of its measure.8However poeticallybe may express our appreciation or, say, the revolutions ofthe moon, we would not normallyattribute tyle to it, nor even to the "song"of a bird.And while we do speakof the styleof a painting,I takeit that that is an obliquewayofreferringto the style of the artist in his act of painting it: the "painting"and not theartifactas such has style. Again, when people are asleeptheirstyleslumbersalso; "Whatstyle!"would be a nice comic captionfor a cartoonpicturinga woman pointing at hersnoringhusband.

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walking. The formationof style is seldom the consciousintent or point of anaction,except when someoneis deliberately raininghimself, say,as an artistoran athlete. But it is in any case the inner concomitantof an action,whatever tsaim: whatever the productof the action,its style is a by-product,or, as we maysay in anticipatingour comments on its musicality, t is its accompaniment.It is no coincidencethat musicalperformance xhibits the formalpropertiesof style generally. The rhythmsand melodic lines of music are inherentlytem-poral. We do not hearthem all at once,but in a successionof pulsesandpitchedvibrations; yet we experience them as a unity, a unity through time. Therealityof a musicalphrase,being inherentlytemporal,implies the evanescenceof all its elements. So it is with style. Its elements, too, are evanescent,yet thestyle of an action exists in the rhythmsand the varying patternof intensitiesfound in it as a whole. To say that my gait in crossingthe room has a style isto say that it expressescertain antic rhythms,that it is a crudekind of dance.Similarly,there is something in the cadences and modulationsof a voice inspeechthat is strugglingto becomea song. Even this essay,turbidas it is, does,afterall, have a style,and if you would have to say that its style is flat comparedto yourfavoritebooksof poems,I think that in the end you would be indulgingin a kind of musicalcriticismof the two productions.

Style is, of course,musicalonly in a rudimentary ense. It is not yet music,is so to speak below the thresholdof music. Yet there is a definite relationbetweenmusicand style,and not merelya strainedanalogy. If style is the formof consciousmovement,music is that form purified: To the extent that it be-comes consciousart it is purgedof any inherentrelationto a moving body, ex-cept as its mere"instrument."The music itself is pureaction,not the movementof any thing but simplymovement itself: invisible, light as air, freed from theweight of a body and the confinementsof space. It exists in time alone,and is,therefore,experienced n the only way we could experiencean altogethertem-poralreality: as somethingheard,as sound. It must,to be sure,be producedby abody, by someone singing or someone beating, strumming,blowing an instru-ment. So it, too, will have a style. Yet in itself, as it sounds forth, it is theaesthetic idealizationof style, it is, so to speak, the style of style. In music,style is no longer ancillaryto an action with some other aim, but is itself thesole aimof the action.But style generally,the form of all action, is the sourceof music, its basisin ordinary ife. Because it has its source in an ineluctablefeature of humanexistence,music is one of the universalcultural orms of which we spoke at theoutset. It is not an arbitrary ontrivance,but is a purified form of the incipi-ent musicalityof style itself. People take such satisfaction n music becauseitanswersto a powerful if seldomnoticed aspectof everythingthey do, of everygesture,everyfootstep, everyutterance;answersto it and gives it a purifiedex-pression. Courtship,worship, even violent conflict, call forth musical expres-sions in orderto give these activities a certainideality,a specific idealityrootedin the activities themselves. That is why the musicof a cultureor subculturehas

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such a vital connection,so revealingyet so hardto define, with its whole styleof life. The music of a people, or even a cohesive group, is peculiarly ts own.It is the particularmusical style that permits a group'slife style, its incipientmusicality, o expressitself in full dance and song. The connectionis of coursereciprocal: The musicalstyle in turnmouldsthe life style. But it cannotbe analtogetheralienmold. There is a beautifulparadox n the peculiar ntensitywithwhich a person responds o music which is "hisown": Even if he has not heardit before it is familiar,as though somethingis soundingin it that he has alwaysfelt in his bones; andyet it is reallynew. It is his own style,revealedto him atan otherwiseunimaginable evel of clarityand intensity.Now I want to suggest that stories have a similar resonance or us. But thecommentson the musicalstyle of actionare not merelyfor the sake of establish-ing an analogywith the narrativequalityof experience.Narrative,afterall, is theother culturalform capableof expressingcoherencethrough time, though itstemporality s not so pure as that of music. Particularly mportantfor our pur-poses, furthermore, re the kinds of stories that have strong musicalovertones,for which verse would be the most appropriate orm. So let our comments onstyle sound quietly and perhaps even musically in the backgroundof whatfollows.

MUNDANESTORIES ND SACRED TORIESTherearepowerful groundsfor thinkingthat narrative orm is artifice; thatit is simply one of the ways we organizea life of experiencethat is in itselfinchoate. We are being remindednowadaysthat stories are fictions after all.4Of course there have been many forms of narrative,epic, drama,history, thenovel, and so on, and our knowledgeof the origins and developmentof suchgenreshas given us a keen impressionof their culturaland historicalrelativity.Furthermore, mong some of the most importantmodern writers there has oc-curreda determinedreactionagainstall standardnarrative orms,partlyon thegroundsthat such forms representa subtle falsification of the immediacies ofexperience,of the modern experience in particular.Even writers who retainrecognizablynarrativeforms have experimentedwith them freely. The greatstorytellersof our time as well as those who refuse to tell stories have made usaware of how much art is involved in all storytelling. It no longer appearsna-turaland innocent n oureyes.

The study of traditionalfolk cultures has also made us aware that there is'The point is brilliantlyarguedand elaboratedn FrankKermode,The Sense of anEnding (Oxford University Press, 1966). ProfessorKermodewarns that "If we forgetthat fictionsare fictive we regressto myth.. ." (p. 41). My argumentmay well illus-tratewhathe is warning against. I do deny thatall narratives remerelyfictive,and I goon to denythatmyth,or whatI call sacred tory, s a mereregressionroma fiction.Put it is ungrateful o single out my disagreements ith a book from whichI havederiveduncommonprofit in ponderingmy theme.

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moreto narrative orm thanmeets the eye (or the ear), andat least it raisesthequestionwhetherthatmay also be true even for a cultureas fragmented, ophis-ticated,andanti-traditional s ours. Forwithin the traditional ultures herehavebeen some storiesthat were told, especiallyon festal occasions, hat had specialresonance.Not only told but rituallyre-enacted,hese storiesseem to be allusiveexpressionsof stories that cannot be fully and directlytold, becausethey live,so to speak,in the arms and legs and bellies of the celebrants.These storieslietoo deep in the consciousnessof a people to be directlytold: they form con-sciousnessrather hanbeing amongthe objectsof which it is directlyaware. Assuch they are intimatelyrelatedto what we have called"style," nd so it is notsurprisingthat these stories can hardlybe expressedat all without an integralfusion of music with narrative.Everyseriousattempt to express them createspoetry. The expressionsadmit of greatvariation n detail,but no variationfullygraspsthe storywithin thesediverse stories.We sometimes apply our ambiguousterm myth to this "storywithin thestory."But it is not identicalwith the "myths" r legendswe areable to readinancientbooks,althoughthesegive us valuableaccess to those storieswhich haveso powerfullyformed a civilization's ense of itself and its world. We might alsocall these stories "religious," xcept that this designation implies modern dis-tinctionsbetweenreligiousformsand secular,artistic,political forms,and thesedistinctions are misleading as applied to traditional cultures. Certainlythesemythopoeic stories function quite differently in traditionalcultures from theway consciousart does in what we are pleasedto call highercultures.They areanonymousand communal. None of our individualizedconceptionsof author-ship are appropriate o them, and while rich powersof imaginationmay be ex-pressed in them they are certainlynot perceived as conscious fictions. Suchstories,and the symbolicworldsthey project,are not like monuments hat menbehold,but like dwelling-places.People live in them. Yet even though they arenot directlytold, even though a culture seems ratherto be the telling than theteller of these stories,their form seems to be narrative.They aremoving forms,at once musicalandnarrative,which informpeople'ssenseof the storyof whichtheir own lives are a part,of the moving courseof their own action and exper-ience.I propose,with some misgivings, to call these fundamentalnarrative ormssacredstories,not so much becausegods are commonlycelebrated n them, butbecausemen'ssense of self and world is createdthroughthem. For that matter,only the musical stories that form men's living image of themselvesand theirworld have been found fit to celebratethe powers on which their existence de-pends. For these are stories that orient the life of people throughtime, theirlife-time, their individualand corporateexperienceand their sense of style, tothe great powersthat establishthe realityof their world. So I call them sacredstories,which in their secondary,written expressionsmay carrythe authorityofscripturefor the people who understand heir own stories in relation to them.The storiesthat are told, all storiesdirectlyseen or heard,I proposeto call

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STEPHENCRITESmundanestories. I am uneasyaboutthat term also, althoughit is not meant tobe in the least depreciatory.It simply implies a theory about the objectifiedimagesthat fully articulated toriesmust employ,i.e., aboutwords,scenes,roles,sequencesof events within a plot, and other narrativedevices: that such imagesto be capableof being plausibleobjectsof consciousness,must be placedwithinthat world, that phenomenologicalmundus,which defines the objectivehorizonof a particular orm of consciousness.In orderto be told, a storymust be setwithin a world. It maynot be an everydayworld, i.e., it maybe an imaginativelyaugmentedworld. But even the most fanciful stories have theirproprieties.Wespeakof a universeof discourse,and this too has its limiting firmamentaboveand below, beyond which nothing can be conceived to happen. Historicallythere have been a varietyof such worlds,correlative o the historical forms ofconsciousness.The stories of an age or a culture take place within its world.Only in that sense are they necessarilymundane. Here, in some world of con-sciousness,we find storiescomposedas works of art as well as the much moremodest narrativecommunicationshat passbetweenpeople in explainingwherethey have been, why things are as they are, and so on. Set within a world ofconsciousness,he mundanestoriesare also amongthe most importantmeansbywhich people articulateand clarifytheir senseof thatworld. In orderto initiatetheir childrenin "thewaysof the world,"parentstell them stories-although inrecent times, particularly,he problemhas arisen that the children find them-selves having to make their way in quite a differentworld,for which they haveto devise quite different kinds of stories than those their parents taught them.Sacredstories, too, are subject to change, but not by consciousreflection.People do not sit down on a cool afternoonand think themselvesup a sacredstory. They awakento a sacredstory,and their most significantmundanestoriesare told in the effort,never fully successful, o articulate t. For the sacredstorydoes not transpirewithin a conscious world. It forms the very consciousnessthat projects a total world horizon, and therefore informs the intentions bywhich actionsare projected nto that world. The style of these actions dance toits music. One may attemptto name a sacredstory,as we shall try to do in ourconclusion. But such namingmisleadsas much as it illuminates,since its mean-ing is contained-and concealed-in the unutterable adencesand revelationsofthe storyitself. Yet everysacredstoryis creationstory:not merelythatone mayname creationof world and self as its "theme"but also that the story itselfcreatesa world of consciousnessand the self that is orientedto it.

Between sacredand mundanestories there is distinction without separation.From the sublime to the ridiculous,all a people'smundanestories are implicitin its sacredstory,and everymundanestorytakessoundings n the sacredstory.But some mundanestories soundout greaterdepthsthanothers. Eventhe mythsand epics, even the scriptures,are mundanestories. But in these, as well as insome works of literaryart, and perhaps even in some merry little tales thatseem quite content to play on the surface,the sacred stories resonate. People

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THE NARRATIVE QUALITY OF EXPERIENCEare able to feel this resonance,because the unutterablestories are those theyknowbestof all.

It is possible for such resonances o sound in poetic productions hat seemto defy all traditional ormsof storytelling. For the surfaceof conventionalnar-rative formsmay have become so smooth and hardthat it is necessary o breakit in orderto let a sacredstorysoundat all. Sucha necessitymay signalizethatthe sacredstory is altogetheralive, transforming tself in the depths. Breakthestoryto tell a truerstory! But there arealso darkerpossibilitiesin this situation,aswe shallsee.

THE INNER FORM OF EXPERIENCE: 1. THE CHRONICLE OF MEMORYBetween sacredstory and the mundanestories there is a mediating form:the form of the experiencingconsciousness tself. For consciousness s mouldedby the sacredstoryto which it awakens,and in turn it finds expressionin themundanestories that articulate ts sense of reality. But consciousness tself isnot a blank. Consciousness as a form of its own, withoutwhich no coherentex-perienceat all would be possible.5Aside from that formidable nconvenience, tis difficult to see how a consciousness,tself entirelyformless,could be the ful-crumthat I have suggested t is betweensacredandmundanestories. I want fur-ther to proposethat the form of activeconsciousness,.e., the form of its experi-encing, is in at least some rudimentary ense narrative. That is why conscious-ness is able to mediatebetweenthe sacredandmundanestoriesthroughwhich itorients itself in a world.6 A squarepeg would not fit into a roundhole. Thestoriesgive qualitativesubstance o the formof experiencebecause t is itself anincipient story.That is the centralthesis of this essay. Of all the unlikely things that havebeen said thus far, it perhapsseems the least plausible. In attemptingto ex-

As Kant argued n The Critiqueof Pure Reason,though of coursereachingquitedifferentconclusionsabout the constitutionof this necessary orm. To make at the levelof strenge Wissenschaftmy case that the primary ormsof possibleexperienceare narra-tive, I shouldalso have to follow Kant'slead by providinga transcendental eductionofthese incipient narrative orms. But I contentmyself with the gestures n that directioncontainedn this andthe followingsection.6There is an implicit circularityhere that may as well be made explicit, since I amsureto be found out anyway: I appealto the form of sacredand mundanestoryto sug-gest that the structure f experience nformedby such storiesmust itself be in some sensenarrative.But I have not reallyproventhat what I have calledsacredstoryis in any ac-ceptablesensenarrative tself, and amongthe reasonsthat makeme think it is, the mostimportants thatexperiencehas at roota narrativeorm: Experience an derivea specificsense of its own temporalcourse n a coherentworldonly by being informedby a qualify-ing structure hatgives definitecontours o its own form. Very well. The points are mu-tually supportive, .e., the argument s in the end circular,as any good philosophicalargument s. And in the end it has only the explanatory owerof this particular ircletocommend t.

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STEPHENCRITESplain and supportit I want to do the usualthing in such straits,and appealforthe help of a favoriteteacher.The teacher s Augustineof Hippo. Not that hewouldnecessarily ubscribe o my thesis. But being a good teacher,he hashelpedme find my way to my own notions, and even when I have pursuedmy ownfollies he hasonly given me help when I knewI needed it.The help in this case is offered in his broodingreflectionson memoryandtime in the tenthand eleventhbooksof the Confessions.Whetheror not he suc-ceeded in establishing he subjectivityof time in thatfamousdiscussion,whetherindeedthat is what he was tryingto do, I want to invert the problemandsuggestthathe did succeed n establishing he temporalityof the subject. Consciousnessgraspsits objectsin an inherently emporalway,and that temporality s retainedin theunityof its experienceas a whole.Augustine ponders the paradoxthat the future, which does not yet exist,shouldpass into the past which no longer exists, througha presentthat is dif-ficult to conceptualizeas more than a vanishingquasi-mathematical oint. Theparadoxis resolved when past, present, and future are considered to be notnecessarily ndependent metaphysicalmodalities,but unavoidablemodalitiesofexperiencein the mind or experiencingconsciousness(anima). For conscious-ness "anticipatesand attendsand remembers, o that what it anticipatespassesthroughwhat it attends into what it remembers" XI:xxviii).7 We will con-siderin the next section the highly developedtemporality mplicit in this three-fold function of consciousness.But already n memoryalone thereis the simplertemporality f sequence,of before and after.Without memory,in fact, experiencewould have no coherenceat all. Con-sciousnesswould be lockedin a bare,momentarypresent,i.e., in a disconnectedsuccessionof perceptionswhich it would have no powerto relateto one another.It might be argued that that would alreadyimply a temporalityof the mostelementalsort. It is alreadysignificant that experiencehas, in its present,thissheermomentaryquality. But it is memorythat bestows the sense of temporalsuccessionas well as the power to abstract oherentunities from this successionof momentarypercepts.In Book X Augustinesingles out this capacityof memoryfor analysis,andalso for a kind of awe-Augustine is a thinkerfor whom awe and close analysisareintensifiedtogether:

Great s thispowerof memory,xcessivelyreat,my God,a vastandinfiniteinteriorpace:who hasplumbedt to thedepths?Yet thisis a powerof mymindandpertainso my nature,o thatI myselfdo notgraspall that I am.(X:viii)

Yet, Augustinemuses,people take this prodigywithin themselvesfor granted.Ignoringthis interiorspace,they are amazedby the great dimensionsof moun-tains, oceans,rivers,the orbitsof the stars. But greaterthan the wonder of theseI7 takeresponsibilityor the translation f extracts rom The Confessions uotedhere.

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external,naturalwonders is the simple fact that he himself can speakof thesethings even though he does not at the moment see them. That is possible be-cause he sees "inwardlyn my memory" hese things he had once seen outwardlywith his eyes-yet it is not the very things themselvesthat appearin this innervision: For

still I did not absorbthese things [into myself] in seeing them . . . nor arethey themselvesattached o me, but theirimagesonly, and I know by whatsenseof the bodyeach wasimpressed ponme. (X:viii)Detached from things and lodged in memory,along with inner impressionsoffeeling and mood, these images are susceptibleto the uses of thought and theplay of imagination. Calledup by the activities of the mind, they can be dis-mantledandreassembled r combinedin originalways. When we do not attendto them they are "submerged nd they slide down, as it were, into the remoteinterior spaces"of memory. But from this "dispersion" hey can always be"collected"again by our thought, i.e., literally,by our cogitations. Augustinelikes to play on the etymological connection between cogo-collect-andcogito. (X:xi)So there is an importantdistinctionbetween memoryand recollectionthatgoes back at least to Augustine. All the sophisticatedactivities of consciousnessliterallyre-collect he imageslodgedin memory nto new configurations, eorder-ing pastexperience.But thatwouldbe impossiblewere it not for the muchmorenaive functioningof memory itself, preservingthe images drawn from experi-ence. But I venture to suggestthatmemorydoes not containits imagesquite so"scatteredly nd confusedly"as Augustine suggests in the passagecited above.The memoryalso has its order,not the recollectedorderformedby thoughtandimagination,but a simple order of succession. This succession is the order inwhich the imagesof actualexperiencethroughtime have been impresseduponthe memory. It constitutes a kind of lasting chronicle,fixed in my memory,ofthe temporalcourseof my experience.This chronicledoes not need to be recol-lectedstrictly,but merelyto be recalled: I needonly call up againthe successionof imageswhich standwaiting in memoryin the order in which I experiencedthem. Of coursethe recall is not total, the chronicle s not without lacunae. Infact, it is for great stretchesquite fragmentary.But what we do succeed incalling up we find differentiated nto fairly clear sequence. We are aware ofwhat comes before and what comes after. When we are uncertain,or feel thata crucialscene is missing,we have the sense of "consulting" ur memory. Therecall is not infallible,but we have the sense that this "consultation"s possible,that the chronicle is "there,"n memory,to be consulted,that if we concentrateintensely on our rememberingwe will be able to recall a sequenceof eventsaccurately.I consult my memory in this way, for example, when I mentallyretracemy steps in the effort to recall where I may have lost something.Yet that odd consultationis not strictly an act of recollection. We must

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consult our memoryin orderto recollectits images,to reorganize hem for themore sophisticatedpurposesof the mind. But remembering s not yet knowing.Its chronicle s too elemental, oo fixed, to be illuminating. Experience s illumi-nated only by the more subtle processesof recollection. At least in this sense,all knowledgeis recollection! So is all art, includingthe art of storytelling. Itis an act. It has style. But mere rememberingas such has no style, if we couldisolate it from the processof recollectionthat in practicegenerallyaccompaniesit.

Yet storytelling is not an arbitrary mposition upon rememberedexperi-ence, altogetheralien to its own much simpler form. Images do not exist inmemoryas atomicunits, like photographs n an album,but as transientepisodesin an image-stream, inematic,which I must suspendandfrom which I must ab-stractin order to isolate a particular mage. The most direct and obvious wayof recollecting t is by telling a story,thoughthe storyis neversimplythe tediousand unilluminatingrecital of the chronicle of memoryitself. And, of course,Ican manipulatethe image-streamn other ways. I can abstractgeneral featuresand formalelements of it for purposesof theory,or suspend t in orderto drawa picture,or splice episodesfrom it in a way that gives them new significance.I can contemplatea whole segment of the image-stream n a single glance ofinnervision, then fragment t so that its elements are left twinkling in isolationlike stars-yet even then memoryis not shattered.Indeed,I can do such thingsbecausethe originalchronicle, he image stream, s alwaysat hand,needingonlyto be recalled. I can even measure out its segmentsinto long times and shorttimes, recallingsome episodesas having occurreda long time ago, others morerecently (a phenomenon that Augustine ponders with great care in XI:xv-xxviii) .8I recall, for example, a sequencefrom my own memory. In telling it, ofcourse,recollectionalreadyintervenes,but I recollect in a way as faithful aspossible to the memory itself. I measure out "a long time" and recall anepisodefrommy childhood.I have not thoughtaboutit for manyyears,and yetI find its chroniclein good condition,extremelydetailedand in clearsequence.In an impetuousfit of bravadoI threw a rock through a garage window. Irecall the exact spot on the ground from which I picked up the rock, I recallthe wind-up,the pitch, the rock in mid-air,the explosive sound of the impact,the shining spray of glass, the tinkling hail of shardsfalling on the cementbelow, the rough, stony texture of the cement. I recall also my inner glee atthat moment,and my triumphwhen a playmate,uncertainat first how to react,lookedto me for his cue and then brokeinto a grin. Now I couldcut and splicea bit, passingover hours not so clearlyrecalledanyway,except that my moodunderwentdrasticchange. Then I recall that moment in the evening when I

8 In recognizing he importance f this strangemeasurement f what no longerexists,Augustinedoes implicitlyacknowledge he primitiveorder of successionwithin memory.Memory s not simplya vast interiorspacein which imagestumbleat random.

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heardmy father'sreturningfootstepson the porchand my guilty terrorreacheda visceralmaximumthe very memoryof which wrenchesa fat adult belly-forremembering s not simplya processin the head! The details of the scene thatensuedarelikewiseveryvivid in my memory.Now it would be quite possible for me to tell this story very differently.My perspectiveon it has been changed,partlyby the death of my father andthe fact that I am now myself the fatherof children,partly,too, by my readingin the Confessionsa storyabouta wantontheft of pearsand by some readinginFreud on the rivalryof fathersand sons, and so forth. So I have many insightsinto this chronicle that I could not have had at the time its events occurred.Yet the sophisticatednew storyI might tell about it would be superimposedonthe image-streamof the original chronicle. It could not replace the originalwithout obliterating the very materials to be recollected in the new story.Embeddedin every sophisticatedretelling of such a story is this primitivechroniclepreserved n memory. Even conscious fictions presupposeits succes-sive form,evenwhen theyartfullyreorder t.

THE INNER FORMOF EXPERIENCE:2. A DRAMATICTENSIONIn the chronicle of memorythere is the simple temporalityof succession,ofduration,of before and after,but not yet the decisive distinctionbetween past,present,and future, that provides the tension of experienceand therefore de-mands the tensesof language. Memory,containingthe past, is only one modal-ity of experience,that never exists in isolation from those that are oriented tothe presentandthe future. To understand he relationof the three we may againreferto Augustine.He points out that past,present,and future cannotbe three distinctrealitiesor spheresof being thatsomehowcoexist. Onlythe presentexists.But perhaps t might properlybe said: therearethreetimes,a presentof thingspast,a presentof thingspresent,a presentof thingsfuture. (XI:xx)

Only the presentexists, but it exists only in these tensed modalities. They areinseparably oined in the present itself. Only from the standpointof presentexperiencecould one speakof past and future. The threemodalitiesare correla-tive to one another, n everymoment of experience.For these are in the mind as a certaintriadicform, and elsewhereI do not seethem: the presentof things past is memory,the presentof things present isdirectattention, hepresentof thingsfuture s anticipation. (XI:xx)

I want to suggest that the inner form of any possible experienceis determinedby the union of these three distinct modalitiesin everymoment of experience.I want furtherto suggest that the tensedunity of these modalitiesrequiresnar-rative formsboth for its expression(mundanestories) and for its own sense of

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STEPHENCRITESthe meaning of its internalcoherence (sacred stories). For this tensed unityhasalreadyan incipientnarrative orm.The chronicle of memory, with its simple successiveness, ts before andafter,is in actualexperiencealwaysalready akenup into the more sophisticatedtemporalityof tense. If we wouldattemptto isolateanticipationas we did mem-ory we would again discovera very elementalnarrative orm. We might call itthe scenarioof anticipation.9I have in mind our guessesand predictionsaboutwhatmayhappen,hunchesgenerally ormulatedn the attemptto lay someplansabout our own projectedcourses of action. Projectedaction often dominatesthis modalityof experience,though one may simply worryabout the futureorindulge in euphoricdreamsabout it. But whetheranticipationtakes the passiveformof dreams,worries,andwishes,or is instrumental n layingplansor makingresolutionsfor projectedactions,it seems intuitivelyclear that we anticipatebyframinglittle storiesabout how things may fall out. As the term scenarioim-plies, these anticipatorystories are very thin and vague as comparedwith thedense, sharpdetail of the chronicleof memory. It is also clear that the courseof events generallyturns out quite differentlyfrom what we had anticipated.But the experienceof thwartedexpectations,or the comic situationwhen partiesto an encountercome to it with very differentscenarios n mind-e.g., she pre-pared for political discussion, he for romantic rendezvous-simply serve toshow that we do orient ourselves to the future by means of such scenarios.Though they are generallyvague they are not altogether formless. Howeverfreelyour actionmay improviseupon the scenario, t is neversimplyrandom.Now it is not as though the scenarioof anticipationwere set alongsidethechronicle of memory, as two quite separate stories. Our sense of personalidentity depends upon the continuityof experiencethroughtime, a continuitybridging even the cleft between rememberedpast and projectedfuture. Evenwhen it is largely implicit, not vividly self-conscious,our sense of ourselvesisat everymoment to some extent integrated nto a single story. That on the onehand.On the other hand, the distinction between memory and anticipation isabsolute. The presentis not merelyan indifferentpoint moving along a singleunbrokenand undifferentiatedine, nor is the temporalityof experiencesuch aline. Nor do past and futuresimply"meet" n the present. Memoryand antici-pation, the presentof things past and the presentof things future,are tensedmodalitiesof the presentitself. They arethe tensionof everymomentof experi-ence, both united in that present and qualitativelydifferentiatedby it. Forpreciselyin this momentarypresentwhich embracesmy whole experience,thepast remembered s fixed, a chronicle that I can radicallyreinterpretbut cannotreverse or displace: what is done cannot be undone! And within this same

I have discussed uch anticipatorycenarios n some detail in an essayto which thepresentone is in many waysa sequel: "Myth,Story,History,"published n a symposiumentitledParable,Mythand Language(Cambridge,Mass.: The ChurchSocietyfor CollegeWork, 1968), p. 68.

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presentthe futureis, on the contrary, till fluid, awaitingdetermination, ubjectto alternativescenarios.10Preciselyas modalitiesof the present of experience,the pastremembereds determinate, he futureanticipated s indeterminate, ndthe distinctionbetween them is intuitivelyclearandabsolute.But how can the presentcontainsuchtension,on the one handunifying,onthe other hand absolutelydistinguishing its tensed modalities? It can do sobecausethe whole experience,as it is concentratedn a consciouspresent,has anarrative orm. Narrativealone can contain the full temporalityof experiencein a unity of form. But this incipient story, implicit in the very possibilityofexperience,must be such that it can absorbboth the chronicleof memoryandthe scenarioof anticipation,absorbthem within a richernarrative orm withouteffacing the difference between the determinacyof the one and the indeter-minacyof the other.We can define such a narrative orm a little more fully by remindingour-selves that the consciouspresent has a third modality: the present of thingspresent. This praesens de praesentibusAugustine designates as contuitus-direct attention. True enough, but there is something more. If discussionofthe aetherial-seeming bjectsof memoryand anticipationmay have temptedusto speakof consciousnesstself as if it were an invisibilitysuspended n a void,mention of its direct present must sharplyremind us that consciousness s afunction of an altogetherbodily life. The consciouspresent is that of a bodyimpactedin a world and moving, in process, n that world. In this presentac-tion and experiencemeet. Memoryis its depth, the depth of its experienceinparticular;anticipation s its trajectory,he trajectory f its action in particular.The praesensde praesentibuss its full bodilyreality.It is, moreover,the moment of decision within the story as a whole. It isalwaysthe decisive episode in the story,its moment of crisis between the pastrememberedand the future anticipatedbut still undetermined. The criticalposition of this modalitygives the story a dramaticcharacteras a whole. Andsince action and experiencejoin preciselyat this decisive and critical juncturein the drama, he whole dramavibrateswith the musicalityof personalstyle.Still, it is a dramaof a rudimentary ort. Life is not, afterall, a work of art.An artisticdramahas a coherenceand a fullness of articulation hat are neverreachedby our rudimentarydrama. But the dramaof experienceis the crudeoriginal of all high drama. High dramacan only contrive the appearanceofthat crisis which the consciouspresent actually is. The difference between afixed past and a future still to be resolved,which in experienceis an absolutedifference,must be artfullycontrivedon a stage by actorswho know the out-come as well as they know the beginning. The art of dramaimitates the lifeof experience,whichis the truedrama.

10The fluidity of the future from the standpoint of consciousness has nothing to dowith the truth or falsity of deterministic theories. The point is phenomenological, notmetaphysical.

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STEPHENCRITES"ONCEUPON A TIME... HAPPILYEVERAFTER"

Life also imitatesart. The storiespeople hear and tell, the dramas hey seeperformed,not to speak of the sacredstories that are absorbedwithout beingdirectlyheardor seen,shapein the most profoundway the innerstoryof experi-ence. We imbibea senseof the meaningof our own bafflingdramas rom thesestories,and this sense of its meaningin turnaffects the form of a man'sexperi-ence and the style of his action. Such cultural orms,both sacredand mundane,are of coursesociallyshared n varying degrees,and so help to link men's innerlives as well as orientingthem to a commonpublicworld. Both the contentandthe form of experienceare mediatedby symbolicsystemswhich we are able toemploysimplyby virtue of awakeningwithin a particular ulture n whichthosesymbolic systems are the common currency. Prevailing narrative forms areamong the most importantof suchsymbolic systems. It is not as though a manbegins as a purelyindividualconsciousnesswith the incipient storyand musical-ity of his privateexperience,and then castsabout for a satisfyingtale to lend itsome higher significance. People awaken to consciousness n a society,with theinner story of experienceand its enveloping musicalityalready infused withculturalforms. The vitalities of experienceitself may in turn make a man feelthat some of the old stories have a hollow ring and maybe the sourceof origi-nalityin the formationof new stories,or even new kinds of stories. But the waywe remember,anticipate,and even directlyperceive,is largelysocial. A sacredstoryin particularnfusesexperienceat its root, linking a man'sindividualcon-sciousness with ultimate powers and also with the inner lives of those withwhom he sharesa commonsoil.There is an entrancinghalf-truth hat has gained wide currency,particularlyamong Americanundergraduates. t is that time itself is a culturalproduct,e.g., the creationof certaingrammatical orms.l Presumablywe couldbe rid of

' This view is usually linked with a loveableprimitivismnow in vogue. Studentswho make this link often seize upon the theoriesof BenjaminLee Whorf, who had ob-served,for example,that characteristicallyesternnotionsof time could not be expressedat all in the languageof the Hopi Indians. See "An AmericanIndianModel of the Uni-verse,"in the collection of Whorf's writings entitled Language,Thought, and Reality(Cambridge,Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1956). Cf. RichardM. Gale, The Languageof Time(London: Routlage& KeganPaul, 1968), pp. 45-48, for a critiqueof some of the gen-eral claimsWhorf'sobservations ed him to make. Those who cite Whorf are often lesscautious han he is claimingthat time is the productof a particular ulture,and thereforeholding out the possibilitythat there are or might be peoples blessedlyfree of the con-flicts and traumasof temporalexistence. Among some of my favoritestudents t comesout like this:

O happyhippyHopisof pyotebudsandherbs:No tensions n theirteepees,no tenses n theirverbs.Far removedfrom this idyllic vision is the fine work of GeorgesPoulet,Studiesin

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it if we played our cardsright, say, with a non-westerndeck. The kernal oftruth in this idyllic vision is that particularconceptions of time are indeedimbibed from culturalforms, not only from the structuresof a language butfrom the kinds of storiesbeing told. For the temporality hat I have arguedisnecessaryfor the very possibility of experience does not of itself imply anyparticular onceptionof time. The connectionsamong its episodesor momentsis not necessarily, or example, either magical, causal, logical, or teleological.Least of all does it imply any theory regardingthe metaphysical tatus of time.The temporalityof lived experience as such, with its inherent tensions andcrises,can only, so to speak,raise questionsabout the reality and meaning oftime. For the answersto these questionsit must, as it were, turn to the sacredand mundane cultural forms lying at hand. In fact, the answersprecede andsometimes preclude the questions! Stories, in particular, nfuse the incipientdramaof experiencewith a definite sense of the way its scenes are connected.Theyreveal to people the kind of drama n which theyareengaged,and perhapsits larger meaning. So the fact that there are very different notions of timeimplicit in the culturalforms of different historical traditionsdoes not con-tradict the inherent temporalityof all possible experience. There is only oneabsolute limit to that diversity: It is impossiblethat a culturecould offer nointerpretation f this temporality t all.

In principle,we can distinguishbetween the innerdramaof experienceandthe storiesthroughwhich it achievescoherence.But in any actual case the twoso interpenetratehat they form a virtualidentity,which, if we maypun a little,is in fact a man'svery sense of his own personal identity. The sacredstory inparticular,with its musicalvitality, enableshim to give the incipient dramaofhis experiencefull dramaticdimensions and allows the incipient musicalityofhis style to break forth into real dance and song. Hence the powerful innerneed for expressiveforms, the music played and sung and danced,the storiestold andacted,projectedwithin the worldof which men areconscious.So the narrativequalityof experiencehas threedimensions, he sacredstory,the mundanestories,and the temporal orm of experience tself: threenarrativetracks,eachconstantlyreflectingand affecting the course of the others.And sometimes he trackscross,causinga burstof light like a cometenteringour atmosphere.Sucha luminousmoment,in which sacred,mundane,and per-sonal are inseparably onjoined,we call symbolicin a specialsense. Of course,there is a more generalsense in which everyelement in a story is a symbol,animaginative representationconveying a meaning; but even in that sense thesymbol is partlyconstitutedby its position in the story. A story is not a mereassemblyof independentlydefined symbols. Still less is a symbol in the morepregnantsense,e.g., a religious symbol,an atomiccapsuleof meaningthatdropsHumanTime (trans.by ElliottColeman, Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsPress,1956).Pouletpoints up the radicaldevelopments nd the subtlemodulationsn the senseof timewithin westernculture tself, particularlyn the works of a successionof importantFrenchand Americanwriters.

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from the heavensor springs from the unconsciousin isolated splendor.12Thecross,or a holy mountain,receive their meaningfrom the storiesin which theyappear. Such a symbol imports into any icon or life situation or new story inwhich it appears,the significance given it in a cycle of mundanestories,andalso the resonancesof a sacredstory. The shock of its appearance s like therecurrence n daylight of an episode recalled from dreams. For a religioussymbolbecomesfully alive to consciousnesswhen sacredstorydramaticallyn-tersectsboth an explicit narrativeand the course of a man'spersonalexperience.The symbolis preciselythatdoubleintersection.Narrativeform,and not the symbolas such,is primitive in experience.Butnarrative orm is by no means innocent. It acknowledgesand informsonly whatis contained in its own orderingof events. Even the most naive tale begins"onceupon a time"-a time prior to which there is only darkness,no time sofar as the temporalityconstitutedby the story is concerned.That time beginswith this "once. .." and when the tale has run its coursethere is nothing left.Its charactersdisappear nto a timeless "happilyever after." It is meaninglessto ask whetherthey reallydo. For they live only within the tensions and criseswhich constitute the significant time of the story, the narrative"tick-tock,"13between the tick of "onceupon a time" and the tock of happyresolution. Ofcourse, the resolutionmay not be happy. We may leave our characters n astate of horroralso outsideall time and, therefore,pure and unambiguous.Thishappiness,this horror,are both beyondthe possibilitiesof recognizablehumanexperience. Only narrative orm can containthe tensions,the surprises, he dis-appointmentsand reversals and achievements of actual, temporal experience.The vague yet unambiguous,uncanny happinessand horror are "beyond."Thestoryitself may,to be sure,containsymbolicaccentsthat refer to such a beyond,e.g., the resurrection,or images of eternal blessednessor torment,or descentsinto a nether region that is strangelyfamiliar. Such symbolic accents are notnecessarilyntimationsof immortality.Imagination s projectedby thembeyondany possible experience,and yet the projection itself takes place within thecontingenciesof experience. It belongs to the story. However deep into thebowelsof hell Dante leadsus, howeverhigh into heaven, t is remarkable ow heand his sinnersand saints keep our attentionfixed on the little disk of earth,that stage on which the dramaof men's moralstrugglesin time is enacted. Far

1 It hasbeenwidelyassumedhatsymbolsre n somesenseprimitiven experience,and thatmythsand othernarrativeormsaresecondaryonstructionshatassembleheprimal ymbolicmaterialntostories.Thatview,for example,n a highlysophisticatedform, eems o be an importantremise f PaulRicoeur'sinestudies n thisfield,e.g.,TheSymbolismf Evil, rans. yEmersonuchanan,NewYork:Harper&Row,1967).Butsucha viewseems o presupposen atomismf experiencehatI think s quite m-possible.FrankKermodengeniosulyreats"tick-tock"s a modelof plot,contrastingheorganizeduration etweenhe "humbleenesis" f tickandthe "feeble pocalypse"ftockwiththe "emptiness,"he unorganizedlank hatexistsbetween urperceptionf"tock"nd henext"tick."TheSense fanEnding,p.44-46.

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from reducingthe significanceof this time-boundstory in which we are em-broiled,such visions of happinessand horror make it all the more portentous.Even in secularizedprojectionsbeyond the ambiguity of history into socialutopia or doomsday,a particular ense of the historical drama tself is implicit.For the meaningof both happinessand horror s derived,even in the uttermostleap of the imagination beyond our story, from our conception of the storyitself.If experiencehas the narrativequality attributedto it here, not only our

self-identitybut the empiricaland moral cosmos in which we are consciousofliving is implicit in our multidimensionalstory. It thereforebecomes evidentthat a conversion or a social revolution that actuallytransformsconsciousnessrequiresa traumaticchange in a man'sstory. The storieswithin which he hasawakened o consciousnessmust be undermined,and in the identificationof hispersonal story through a new story both the dramaof his experienceand hisstyle of actionmust be reoriented. Conversion s reawakening, secondawaken-ing of consciousness.His style must change steps, he must dance to a newrhythm. Not only his past and future,but the very cosmos in which he lives isstrung n a new way.The point is beautifullymadein a passagefrom the Protreptikosof Clementof Alexandria,selections from which, in verse translation,are among the lastthings we have from the pen of Thomas Merton. Clement,himself a convertto Christianity, s writing at the time Christianityfirst emerged in a seriousway into a classicalculturealreadybecomedecadent.In a passageentitled"TheNew Song,"he retells an old Greeklegend but glossesit in a way thatgives it aradicalnew turn. A bard namedEunomoswas singing, to his own accompani-ment on the lyre, a hymn to the death of the Pythiandragon. Meanwhile,un-noticedby the paganassembly,anotherperformances underway.

Cricketswere singing among the leaves all up the mountainside,burning n thesun.Theyweresinging,not indeedfor the deathof the dragon,the deadPythian,butThey hymnedthe all-wiseGod, in their own mode, far superiorto that of Eunomos.A harpstringbreakson the Locrian.A cricket lies down on top of the lyre. She sings on the instrumentas thoughon a branch.The singer,harmonizingwith the cricket's une, goes on with-out the lost string.Not by the song of Eunomos s the cricketmoved,as the myth supposes,or asis shownbythe bronzestatue he Delphianserected, howingEunomoswith his harpandhiscompanionn thecontest!The cricket lies on herown andsingson herown.The subversivecricketsings the new song, to Clementold as creationyet newlycome to humanlips, of the Christian ogos.

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STEPHENCRITESSee whatpowerthe newsonghas!Fromstones,men,Frombeasts t hasmademen.Thoseotherwisedead, hosewithouta share n life thatis really ifeAt the mere sound of this songHave comeback o life....MoreoverHe has structuredhe whole universemusicallyAnd the discordof elementsHe has broughttogetherin an orderedsymphonySo that the wholeCosmos s for Him in harmony.1"

MODERNITY NDREVOLUTION:AN INTEMPERATEONCLUSIONThe form of consciousness to which we apply the name modernity seems to

represent a transformation as radical, though of a different sort, as that celebratedby Clement. Some have even suggested the emergence of a yet newer sensibility,so new and inchoate that it can only be designated "post-modern." All this istoo close to us to speak of it with much assurance, but I yield to the tempta-tion to offer some suggestions that bear on our theme.I have argued that experience is moulded, root and branch, by narrativeforms, that its narrative quality is altogether primitive. At the same time, expres-sion is obviously not limited to story telling. Mind and imagination are cap-able of recollecting the narrative materials of experience into essentially non-narrative forms. Indeed there seems to be a powerful inner drive of thoughtand imagination to overcome the relentless temporality of experience. Oneneeds more clarity than stories can give us, and also a little rest. The kind ofpure spatial articulation we find in painting and sculpture, with all movementsuspended, gratifies this deep need. Also in meditation and in theoretical en-deavors we are a little less completely at the mercy of our own temporality.Traditional myths, stories dominated by timeless archetypes, have functioned inthis way: by taking personal and historical time up into the archetypal story,they give it a meaning which in the end is timeless, cosmic, absolute.

But an important feature of the modern situation is the employment ofquite different strategies for breaking the sense of narrative time. At a verygeneral level, these strategies fall into two opposite and indeed mutually antag-onistic types: One is the strategy of abstraction, in which images and qualitiesare detached from experience to become data for the formation of generalizedprinciples and techniques. Such abstraction enables us to give experience a new,non-narrative and atemporal coherence. It is an indispensable strategy forconducting many of the practical affairs of life in our society; we are all tech-nicians, like it or not. In its more elaborated forms, the strategy of abstractionis the basis for all science. Its importance in the formation of modern institu-tions can hardly be exaggerated.But strategies of the other type seem almost equally important in the forma-1' Clement of Alexandria,Selections rom The Protreptikos, n essayand translationby ThomasMerton, (New York: New Directions,1962), pp. 15-16, 17. It is significantthat the early Christianpreachingwas largely a story-tellingmission, offering people anew story,the Christiankerygma, o reorient heirsense of the meaningboth of historicaltimeandof theirownpersonal ife-time.

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tion of "modern" onsciousness. This other type we may call the strategyofcontraction.Here narrative emporality s again fragmented,not by abstractionto systemsof generality,but by the constrictionof attention to dissociated m-mediacies: to the particular mage isolated from the image stream,to isolatedsensation, eeling, the flash of the overpoweringmoment in which the temporalcontext of that moment is eclipsedand past and futureare deliberatelyblockedout of consciousness.It is commonlyassumed hat this dissociated mmediacy swhat is concreteandirreduciblen experience.But the sweat and grit of the moment, which some so highly prize, is infact a contractionof the narrativemovement that is really concretein experi-ence,as generality s the abstractionrom it. The point canperhapsbestbe madeindirectly,by noticing that these two time-defyingstrategieshave projectedadistinctivelymodernversion of a dualismin the idea of the self: the dualismofmind and body. We state the matterbackwardsf we say that somethingcalledmind abstracts rom experienceto produce generality,or if we say that "thebody"has feelings and sensations. It is the activityof abstracting rom the nar-rative concretenessof experiencethat leads us to posit the idea of mind as adistinct faculty. And it is the concentrationof consciousness nto feeling andsensation that gives rise to the idea of body. Both mind and body are reifica-tions of particular unctionsthathavebeen wrenched rom the concretetempor-ality of the consciousself. The self is not a compositeof mind and body. Theself in its concreteness s indivisible,temporal,and whole, as it is revealedtobe in the narrativequality of its experience. Neither disembodiedminds normindless bodies can appear in stories. There the self is given whole, as anactivity n time.Yet criticismalone cannot dissolve this mind-bodydualism. The very factof its stubbornpersistence n our ordinarysense of ourselves,even though weknow better (in theory!), testifies to the very great importance n the modernworld of the two strategieson which it is based. The power to abstractmakesexplanation,manipulation,control possible. On the other hand we seek reliefand releasein the capacityto contractthe flow of time, to dwell in feeling andsensation,in taste, in touch, in the delicious sexual viscosities. So "the mind"dwells in the light, clear, dry, transparent,unmessy. "The body"dwells in thedampprivacyof a friendlydarknesscreatedby feeling and sensation. In prin-ciple, the powersof consciousness o abstractand to contractneed no morebe inconflict than day and night. But day and night form a rhythmwithin the con-tinuumof time. If the abstractionand contractionof consciousnesswere merelytemporary uspensionsof the narrativequalityof experiencetherewould be nocrisis.But the modern world has seen these two strategiesplayed off ever moreviolentlyagainstone another. One could show how the reificationof mind andbodyhas killed modernmetaphysicsby leading it into aridcontroversiesamongdualistic,materialistic,and idealistic theories. But this comparativelyharmlesswrangleamongpost-Cartesianmetaphysicianss only a symptomof the modern

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bifurcationof experience. Its more sinisterexpressionis practical: the entrap-ment of educatedsubculturesn their own abstract onstructions, nd the violentreactionagainst this entrapment,a reaction that takes the form of an equallyencapsulating onstrictionof experienceinto those warm, dark,humid immedi-acies. One thinks of Faustin his studywhere everythingis so dry that a sparkwould producean explosion, and then Faust slaveringand mucking about onthe brocken. Against the inhumanlydry and abstracthabitationsof the spiritthathave been erectedby technologicalreason,the cry goes up, bornof despera-tion, to drop out and sink into the warm stream of immediacy. Within theuniversitythe reactionand counterreactionhave been especiallyviolent in thehumanities.And that is ironical. For the material with which the humanities havetraditionallydealt is predominantlynarrative.There have been deep conflicts

amongdifferent kinds of storiesand divergent interpretations.Still, the human-ities have kept the story alive in the university; and it is precisely the story,with its underlying musicality,that provides generality and immediacytheirhumanlyfruitful functions. So long as the storyretains its primaryhold on theimagination,the play of immediacyand the illuminating power of abstractionremain in productivetension. But when immediacyand abstractgeneralityarewrenched out of the story altogether,drained of all musicality,the result issomethingI can only call,with stricttheologicalprecision,demonic. Experiencebecomesdemonicallypossessedby its own abstractingand contractingpossibil-ities, turnedalien andhostile to experience tself. When the humanitiesgive upthe story, they become alternatelyseized by desiccatedabstractionsand scato-logical immediacies, he light of the mind becoming a blinding and witheringglare,the friendlydarknessdeepeninginto the chaoticnight of nililism. Ethicalauthority,which is alwaysa function of a common narrativecoherenceof life,is overthrownby a nakedshow of force exercisedeither in the name of reasonor in the nameof glandularvitality. Contrary o the cynicaltheorythatviolentforce is the secretbasis of authority, t is in fact alwaysthe sign that authorityhasdissolved.So muchfor modernity.Now one speaks,perhapswistfully,of the emergenceof a "post-modern"ensibility.This new sensibilityis sometimescalled"revolu-tionary,"a term that sounds less empty than "post-modern,"ut is still obscureenough. Certainly it is often discussed in terms of the same dualisms andwearisome strategies of abstractionand contraction that have plagued the"modern"period. Some envisiona "revolution"hat would consist in extendingthe controlof abstract, echnologicalreasonto the whole life of society; maxi-mum manipulationjustified on the high moral ground that it would improvebehavior-down to the least flicker of an eyelash. Othersappearto hope for asociety perpetually turned on and flowing with animal juices. The utopiaschemedin the crystalpalace,or that plotted in the cellar of the undergroundman: the lureof eitherof theseutopiasor any all-purpose ombinationof them

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THE NARRATIVE QUALITY OF EXPERIENCEcan lead one to nothing more than a variationon an all too familiar refrain.Neither appears o catchthe cadencesof the new song that I think is strugglingto be heardwhen people speak seriouslyof revolution.I think that "revolution"s the name that a post-modern onsciousnessgivesto a new sacredstory. I realizethat if this essayhas ever strayed nto the sphereof sobertheory,it has with this suggestionabandoned t altogetherin favor oftestimony.But if we reallyare talkingabouta sacredstory,what can we do buttestify? Certainly he sacredstoryto which we give this namecannotbe directlytold. But its resonancescan be felt in many of the stories that are being told,in songs being sung, in a renewed resolution to act. The storiesbeing told donot necessarily peakof gods in any traditional ense,yet thereseem to be livingcontinuitiesin this unutterable torywith some of the sacredstoriesof the past.Certainly,too, revolution is more than the name for an idea or a program,though it is giving rise to many ideasand programs, ome no doubt half-bakedandquixotic-anything radically eriousseemsto gathera penumbraof lunacy-but also some that actively expressthe most intense needs of our times.15Thisrevolutionary tory has united the angry childrenof poverty and the alienatedchildren of abundance n a commonmoralpassionand a common sense of themeaningof their experience. Among those for whom the storyis alive there isa revival of ethical authorityotherwise almost effaced in our society. For itestablisheson a new basis the coherencyof social and personaltime. It makesit possibleto recovera living past,to believe againin the future,to performactsthathave significancefor the personwho acts. By so doing it restoresa humanform of experience.

' Therearealso,of course, heoriesof revolution tself. For a dialecticalheory s thatmost importanttheories of revolution are dialectical. For a dialecticaltheory is thatformof generality hatpreservesn itself the vital pulse of temporalmovement.A dialec-tical theoryof revolution s not an alternative o a storyof revolution,but is its exegesis.

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crites, the narrative quality of experience

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