Let us imagine him: he sits down before a keyboard, stretches his hands over the keys, and, after a slight hesitation, begins to strike them very quickly. Other than the noise of keys being struck, there is silence and no one else is nearby. There is nothing happening in the room with the exception of this movement of fingers above the little plastic cubes each bearing some kind of mark.

What is he doing? Manifestly, he has begun to write. To confirm this, one has merely to look at the screen (or, some time ago, the sheet of paper): appearing there are the first strings of letters, words, phrases. It is indeed he, is it not, and those are indeed his gestures causing the impression or inscription on a support, which will carry the words toward the common readability of what is ordinarily called writing, a piece of writing. So why make a mystery of it? The question “what is he doing?” is uncalled-for because it is so obvious. Perhaps, however, one should look more closely at what has thus begun to appear as the clear evidence of writing. Is it certain that one can recognize the beginning beginning with the first written words?

So let us start again at the beginning, the beginnings. Let us proceed a little in the manner of a catalog of indexed poems or songs, of which only the first lines, the incipits, will be cited. (Let this also be, on the present occasion, our manner of tribute to Marian Hobson. Opening Lines is the title of her remarkable and singularly thoughtful book on the writings of our honoree.) The order followed in what follows will not be a conventional one (for example, chronological or alphabetical), but will be uncovered, precisely, as we advance. We will be looking for a few motifs that return in the first sentences of written works that are very dissimilar as regards their principal subjects, their occasions, and their formal or rhetorical strategies.