'On Language' by Zamyatin

Zamyatin's 'On Language' discusses the use of language today and in ancient times. In his story he asks himself the questions: What is the difference between poetry and prose? And is there such a difference?

He claims that this difference only exists in the old theories of literature, and that poetry and prose are really one and the same. According to Zamyatin, in the newest literary theory there are only two categories of all literary work: lyrical and epic. He says that if there was a difference between poetry and prose, it would be that poetry occupies itself with the lyric, and prose with the epic writings. Then he starts to make a difference between the epic writer and the lyric writer by saying that a lyricist is a narrator about himself and that the epic writer is mostly an actor. He describes how the epic writer and the lyricist have different duties to fulfill. One has to experience only himself, and the other must experience the emotions of ‘tens, often thousands, of other alien personalities’. Zamyatin describes it as if epical work was a journey through interplanetary space and lyrical work was a journey on our own planet where we live. The novel We would fall in the category ‘epic’ since it happens in the future and is completely invented based on the author’s predictions of the future. Zamyatin makes it clear that a writer should always be able to adapt to the language the characters in his novel would talk in. In We he does that very well, one doesn’t even notice that he is just making predictions because he makes it sound so natural.

In his novel We, the language he uses is very mathematical, making everything scientific. He criticizes our ways of living and makes our fears look normal. For example freedom and happiness, which we discussed in class, aren’t existent anymore and the One State has full control over the people. We always fear that we’re alone, unhappy, not free to do what we want and that we don’t have privacy. Exactly these three points are what the core of their lives.

Personally I find that what he preaches in ‘On Language’, he perfectly applies to his novel We.