Writing With Style- Vonnegut Talks about he writing styles of Shakespeare, Picasso, and James Joyce

September 1, 2003

WAC 101

Thomas Bonfiglio

Writing With Style

Vonnegut believes simple writing is best for several reasons, but mainly because it's simplicity when trying to understand. He refers to several people when trying to explain the benefits of writing with style and its simplicity. For example, he refers to the well known artist Pablo Picasso, William Shakespeare, and James Joyce who are also known for their style and simplicity.

Vonnegut refers to Picasso he uses it to explain what not to do when writing and as something to be avoided. For example, when Vonnegut refers to Picasso's painting he compares it to a style of writing. Because if you wrote like Picasso painted then it would be difficult for any one to understand your writing. All the rules of punctuation are broken, having words mean whatever they wanted to mean, and strung them together in an incorrect order.

This was long thought to be the only portrait of W...

Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of Wil...

Pablo Picasso 1962

Then it would simply be impossible to understand, which is what Picasso does with his art. All and all, if you want your writing to be understood and simple then you need to avoid the a Picasso-style of writing.

When Vonnegut refers to William Shakespeare's work he refers to the simplicity of his writing, but which has become extremely popular and is known as one of the great master of our language. Vonnegut explains how his sentences that he wrote, "were almost childlike when there subjects were most profound." His sentence structure was very simple and he used words that were not complex or hard to understand. Shakespeare's work was so amazing that some even question weather or not he was even capable of writing such impressive play writes. Some researchers find that with the little education that Shakespeare had that is hard to believe and almost impossible...