Small Picture

You have heard people say it, and probably have said it yourself: "Just give me the big picture." Or, "Just give me the picture at 35,000 feet." People who say this don't want all the gory details; they just want broad brushstrokes about something. For years I heard this phrase, and even used it, without thinking about it. But now, as I see my life as one dedicated to thinking, knowledge acquisition, and writing, I realize that almost the only thing I want is the "small picture." By "small picture" I mean the details that show that the person speaking knows what s/he is talking about and can describe a phenomenon with precision and accuracy. I want the small picture because I realize that unless I have many small pictures I have no big picture. The reason people aren't enouraged to give the "small picture" is that it is very hard to give; you really have to cultivate the discipline of study and learning for the small picture even to emerge. Life is built, however, on dozens of small pictures. The rest of the essay will show you how I have changed my study life to make it a series of "small pictures."

Way Leads To Way

I was writing on the Buddhist word karuna (overflowing compassion) the other day for my latest book. I realized that actress Uma Thurman's middle name is Karuna. She was so named because both parents are Buddhists, and her father is a renowned scholar of Buddhism. When reading about her, I discovered that she played Charlotte Stant in a fairly recent movie version of Henry James' 1904 novel The Golden Bowl. I decided to track some things down. So, I read a summary of that novel and learned where it appeared in Henry James' oeuvre. I hadn't previously realized that the title is taken from Ecclesiastes 12:6, where the author urges his readers to remember God in the days of youth before various evils come--one of which is that the "golden bowl" (a metaphor for the life force) is crushed. So, I memorized four character names (Charlotte Stant, Prince Amerigo, Maggie Verver and her father Adam Verver), learned the plot and a little of the difficulty of James' language in describing some complex psychological drama in the book. Then, I decided to gather some facts about Henry James' life--born in the Astor House in NYC in 1843, died in 1916, moved to England permanently in 1876, youth with tutors in major European cities, various other novels, etc. I then learned about Henry James Sr. (1811-1882), focusing on his spiritual search that landed him in Swedenborganism through a May 1844 "vastation" session. So grateful was he for the help of practitioners of that faith that he named his son, born in 1845, after a physician who assisted him. We see the interest in philosophy and theology which worked its way into the James clan, even though it was tempered by an unorthodox approach. This lack of orthodoxy "stuck" with one of the other children, the famous Harvard professor William James (1842-1910). So, I was gradually brought into the James family with lots of "small picture" facts which, eventually, could result in a "big picture" of firmly held and studied pieces of information. Lest you think that all this information just has to be facts, one area of interest might be how they fit into the general intellectual culture of the day. Facts help in answering "big picture" questions.

That was yesterday. Today I had a bee in my bonnet to study John Milton. I think the reason is that many of the words I am writing on for my current book (200 Words to Success for Students and Young Professionals) are found in Paradise Lost. Thus, I figure I have to know that text cold just as I learned the Bible as a young man. Thus, I read Book II of PL today and then read several summaries of the book, just to make sure that its structure, contents and beautiful language had "sunk in." But then I found myself wanting to make more sense of Milton's biography. Here is what I did.

Understanding John Milton

I wanted to get a "flow" of his life and some of his other writing so that I might understand how he developed his deep store of knowledge and vigorous language and imagery. I realized that PL first came out (in 10 Books, rather than 12) in 1667, when he was 58-59 years old (he was born in Dec. 1608). I learned further that his second edition of PL, with the current 12 books and the "argument" at the beginning of each, was issued in 1674. Then, I learned that the four books of Paradise Regained, along with Samson Agonistes, came out in 1671. I discovered that the latter was about 1750 lines, and so I decided to read it, making some notes but really trying to follow its flow. I had a good beginning.

But then I wanted to "date" and read a few other major pieces of his work. After studying his biography, I decided that I would like to anchor my knowledge of him in his 1637 poem Lycidas, written after the death of a friend, his 1644 Areopagitica, his impassioned defense of freedom to write what one desired [it arose in the context of some condemnation of his work on divorce, which had been written the previous year] and his little-known treatise On Education, first published in 1644, but augmented by the time it came out again in 1673. There were many other writings of his that would merit examination, but these three would be sufficent for me now to anchor my knowledge of Milton deeply and still allow me to develop the focus on PL.

Conclusion

All of these take lots of work--to understand the flow of these works, to memorize some crucial lines or thoughts, to be able confidently to represent his thought here or other places, but there really is no other way to develop understanding of an author but to do this kind of study. Along the way I will discover that one idea will often lead me out of Milton of James temporarily to a different subject, such as the development of a word which he uses. For example, when studying Henry James' work, I learned about one of the prolific authors of our day, Edward Wagenknecht (1900-2004), who wrote about Henry James, as well as tons of other authors. His approach to an author was to get a full view of the author from reading all his/her works before writing a biographical study of him/her. He called this a "psychography" or "character portrait" of the writer. You can tell that he is not motivated by the wave of new ways to read classic texts which really began with Northrop Frye's The Anatomy of Criticism in 1957. But learning about Wagenknecht also forced me to ask the question of how I would look at an author. I certainly like the "psychography" method; that is the way, indeed, that I would hope to be "read" some day.

All of these things are "small picture" methods of learning. Small picture learning is difficult, because you have to anchor every fact and observation about someone in a location, text or historical fact about the person. Then you have to remember it all. Then you do the same for the next person or text or idea. It takes a long time. But sooner or later you have become a different person, a person who really is dedicated to knowledge and can spot a phony quite easily. It is to developing this type of knowledge that I am dedicated--and I invite you to join me.

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