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Hilbert went on to write, "the footnote today survives in universities only
in tiny pockets of retrograde activity, required solely by those department
curmudgeons now nearing retirement who still insist their students know the
English translation of ibid"2
(402).
That ibid (and the growing number of readers who
don't know what ibid means) may have contributed to the footnote's
decline. When Harry Belafonte read W.E. DuBois's Color and Democracy,
he noticed that "at the end of some sentences there was a number, and if you
looked at the foot of the page the reference was to what it was all
about-what source DuBois gleaned this information from. Belafonte "went to a
library with a long list of books he wanted to borrow," but the librarian
told him he was asking for too many. So he said, "I can make it very easy.
Just get me everything you got by I bid." When the librarians told him there
was no such author, Belafonte called her a racist, and accused her of
"trying to keep (him) in darkness." He left the library angry (Gates 135).
Writers have attacked both ibid and its
relatives. G.W. Bowersock wrote that "Lively entries avoid supra,
infra, ibid and id, all of which have given footnotes a
bad name" (55). Mary-Claire van Leunen wrote that "when you hear the comment
'the best part was the footnotes,' you can be sure that doesn't mean the
ibids and op cits" (89). Frank Sullivan, in an amusing
book review entitled "A Garland of Ibids," began "I have been rendered
cockeyed by the footnotes" (155). Bowersock in "The Art of the Footnote"
lists footnote abuses and excesses, including too many footnotes,3
and
footnotes that are too long.
But most scholars agree that the combination of
publishers' desires to cut costs by eliminating footnotes, and students'
dislike of typing them, are the most important influences behind the MLA's
decision to assassinate the footnote. The endnote, which replaced the
footnote, is disliked by many teachers and readers, who resent having to
search through pages at the back of the book, going back and forth between
the original text and the endnotes. As Himmelfarb writes, "it takes two
bookmarks to keep track of one's place in the text and in the back of the
book" (1).
Protests against the elimination of the footnote and defenses of footnotes
rose from many sources. Bowersock wrote that a footnote "in the hands of a
master can become a work of art and an instrument of power" (54), and listed
some of the uses to which a footnote can be put: advise the reader of the
relevant source or sources; explain or elaborate unfamiliar material; debunk
myths; expose the errors (or forgeries) of others; and award praise or blame
(56). But, as Himmelfarb points out, there are fewer and fewer footnotes,
even in huge books on major topics, such as Simon Schama's 948 page
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, 1989.
But if footnotes in scholarly nonfiction have almost disappeared, perhaps
contemporary novelists, poets, and dramatists will come to their rescue.
Eighteenth-century fiction writers employed footnotes. Henry Fielding used
them in Tom Jones, 17494
to comment on the story, to enter into it, to become a part of it. For
example, the text reads, "The Tortoise, as the Alderman of Bristol,
well-learned in eating, knows by much Experience, etc," while the
accompanying footnote reads: "Owing to the extravagant feasts consumed on
such civic occasions as the Lord Mayor's dinner, the gluttony of aldermen
was proverbial" (32). Laurence Sterne in Tristam Shandy, 1760-1767,
used footnotes to challenge statements made by his characters. For example,
in one footnote he points out mistakes made by the fictional Shandy.
In the twentieth century, authors began to use footnotes in new ways. Mary
Karr in the introductory essay to the Modern Library edition of T.S. Eliot's
The Waste Land, 1922, and Other Writings, discusses "The Waste Land's
impenetrability" (x), and adds that "The author's notes, written in a
somewhat dodgy and sometimes coy tone, tend to confuse rather than
illuminate the poem's references, its quotes and quirks" (XIV). But Hilbert
opines that Eliot's footnotes to The Waste Land were never intended
to elucidate, but "serve to add another layer to the poem" (403). Whatever
Eliot's intentions, those struggling to understand the poem are undoubtedly
frustrated by footnotes that deepen the darkness, rather than shedding
light.5
James Joyce used footnotes in Finnegan's Wake, 1939. According to
Benstock, his notes are the voices of various characters and "develop a new
line of narrative" (205). Perhaps, but since most of the voices in both the
text and the footnotes are incomprehensible, it is difficult to say. For
example, the text reads "we see the copyngink strayed-line AL (In Fig., the
forest) from being continued, stops ait Lambday," while the accompanying
footnote reads "Ex jup pep off Carpenger Strate. The kids' and dolls' home.
Makeacake-ache" (294).
J.D. Salinger includes a very long footnote (nearly a page) in Franny and
Zooey, 1961. It begins "The aesthetic evil of a footnote seems in order
just here, I'm afraid" (52). He then goes on to describe the history of the
seven Glass children, including the deaths of Seymour and Boo Boo, and the
whereabouts of the others.
In Seymour, an Introduction, 1963, Salinger's footnotes intervene,
making the author part of the story. Example: "This modest aspersion is
thoroughly reprehensible, but the fact that the great Kierkegaard was never
a Kierkegaardian, let alone an existentialist, cheers one bush-league
intellectual's heart to no end, never fails to reaffirm his faith in a
cosmic poetic justice, if not a cosmic Santa Claus" (117).
Garrison Keiller not only used footnotes in Lake Wobegon Days, 1985,
but also defended the practice. As he explained, "I was pleased with the
footnotes in the book…There is supporting material which can be read in
sequence or earlier or just glanced at or eliminated entirely, and that can
go into footnotes. It really allows a person freedom of digression that you
want in a book. And I like the idea of a book being packed and rich and
having layers" (Robeck 139).
Lake Wobegon is crammed with discursive footnotes, some brief, as in
a reference to a man fishing: "It is Dr. Nute, retired after forty odd years
of dentistry, now free to ply the waters in the Molar II, and drop a line
where the fighting sunfish lie in wait. 'Open wide,' he says 'This may sting
a little bit. Okay. Now bite down'" (2). Or a footnote can run on for half a
page or more, as in the author's discussion of front porch society and
rules. Indeed, Keillor included "What I believe to be the longest footnote
in American fiction" (252-274).
With the advent of the Postmodern Age, fiction writers began to use
footnotes in even more original ways. John Fowles, in The French
Lieutenant's Woman, 1969, does not number his footnotes, as if to make
the point that the footnote is not a reference to a specific point in the
novel. He corrects his characters-e.g., when a character uses the word
"agnostic," Fowles points out in a footnote that the word doesn't yet exist.
He imparts interesting information such as a description of the first condom
(or sheath) and becomes a part of the story, as in his statement "I had
better here, as a reminder," etc., in a modern commentary on actions and
dialogue set in the past. Fowles also uses headnotes, mostly quotations from
everyone from Arnold and Austen to Tennyson, and he sometimes refers to a
headnote in a footnote.
In Sabbatical, 1982, John Barth confounds the reader on the first
page with a footnote that reads "This we, those verses, Susan's tears, these
notes at the feet of certain pages. All shall be made clear, in time" (1).
Why tell us this? Do we believe it? Many of Barth's footnotes sound false.
But are they? His text is crammed with fictional news reports, and many of
his cultural references are unverifiable. Barth constantly reminds the
reader that the world he is writing about is unreal. Instead of using
footnotes to create verisimilitude, he uses them to make the reader doubt
the truth of what is being read.
Finally, Tim O'Brien, in his much admired In the Lake of the Woods,
1994, uses fictional footnotes composed of nonexistent newspaper reports,
and reports pertaining to historical events altered to fit into his imagined
world, a new and interesting technique. The use of these footnotes lends
verisimilitude to his book, but at the same time, the voice of the narrator
sometimes appears in a footnote. This intervention by the author reminds the
reader that this is, after all, fiction.
As Hilburt advises, "Never turn your back on a wounded literary genre. The
creature is resurrecting itself, sniggering softly at its own cenotaph. The
footnote is being reborn in another medium, learning to survive in
contemporary fiction" (402). Welcome back, old friends.
______________________________________
Barth, John. Sabbatical.
New York: Putnam, 1982.
Benchley, Nathanial.
“Shakespeare Explained.” The Benchley Roundup. New York: Harper,
1954.
33-35.
Benstock, Shari. “At the
Margin of Discourse: Footnotes in the Fictional Text.” PMLA 98
(1983):
204-225
Bowersock, G.W. “The Art of
the Footnote.” The American Scholar. 53.2 (1983-1984): 54-62.
Fielding, Henry. Tom
Jones. 1749. New York: Modern Library, 1985.
Fowles, John. The French
Lieutenant’s Woman. 1969. New York: Little, 1998.
Gates, H.L. “Belafonte’s
Balancing Act.” The New Yorker. 6 August 1996, 132-143.
Grafton, Anthony. The
Footnote, A Curious History. 1997. Boston: Harvard, 1999.
Hilbert, Betsy. “Elegy for
Excursus: The Descent of the Footnote.” College English. 51.4 (1989):
400-404.
Himmelfarb, Gertude. “Where
Have All the Footnotes Gone?” New York Times Book Review. June 16,
1991, p.1, 24.
Joyce, James. Finnegan’s
Wake. 1939. New York: Penguin, 1999.
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