The Style of the Grotesques a Description of Linguistic Subversion

Abstract

The prose style of Van Ostaijen generally encounters either critical praise or condemnation, with hardly any nuances between these two extremes. He is either lauded as a master of language with the poet’s sensitivity for word and phrase, or he is dismissed as an unimpressive charlatan whose verbal inventiveness degenerates into tasteless puns. In both views the common denominator is that the style shows a highly cognizant employment of language. An examination of the stylistic and narrative characteristics will support the contention that this style is not a gratuitous acrostic diversion, but that the tales constitute, in fact, a subtle linguistic construction. They are examples of what Wolfgang Kayser called das sprachliche Kunstwerk. Kayser defines the verbal work of art as “[eine] in sich geschlossenes sprachliches Gefüge.” The discussion may, perhaps, demonstrate how tightly knit these tales are and how the technical expertise proceeds to negate its own carefully constructed artifice.