Episode 92 The grammatical shape of emotions

Structured Visions

English - October 25, 2023 14:47 - 39 minutes - 30.4 MB
Philosophy Society & Culture Science Social Sciences creativity language linguistics socialjustice society Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: Episode 91 The limits of language and selfhood

Next Episode: Episode 93 Where do you stop and the rest of the world begin?

When was the last time you lost language? And… how do you feel? The one time it feels like I’m losing language is when I let myself feel what I really feel. (We’re talking about weeping, wailing, keening—the dripping-nose ugly cry.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about emotions and language because I’ve just made a new course available, The Grammar of Show Don’t Tell: Exploring the Emotional Depths. It’s a love letter to my young writing self, who had no idea how to put ‘show don’t tell’ into my writing practice.

In designing the course, I discovered the ways that writers grammatically shape their characters’ emotions. I look specifically at fear, envy, grief, love at first sight, sensuality and rage.

In this episode we explore sorrow as a felt experience with a grammatical shape. (Ugly crying entirely optional.)

The story I read in Episode 92 is ‘Death of a grammarian’.

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