OF THE IF we accept any of the well-known definitions of narration' we still have to examine that definition in its various bearings and in its relation to other methods of composition. Such definitions, however, agree in two important respects that the typical mood of narration is action, that the material with which it deals is things; and they further agree that these two characteristics are fundamental to all narratives. Despite these prerequisites it is no easy task accurately to determine in any given case what narration is its aim appears by no means constant; its province, like all human distinctions, is vaguely defined; its mood too frequently lies occult; its material may embrace : "Narration gives 1 As, for example, Fletcher and Carpenter: an account of an event or a series of events."-Introduction to Theme-Writing (Boston, 1893), p. 2. Genung: 'Narration is the recounting, in succession, of the particulars that make up a transaction."-Practical Elements of Rhetoric (Boston, 1894), p. 355. Scott and Denney : "A narrative is the presentation in language of successive related events occurring in time."-Paragraph-Writing (Boston, 1893), p. 70. the facts of the world; its uses range from amusement to morality; and its test is a variable principle. fined. Narration gives an account in words of how things act; it is an account of action. Now this mood, Narration de- action, and this material, things, and the means, words, written or spoken, will at once fix general confines to the province of narration. For its means, language, separates it for good and all from those forms of expression which do not use language as a vehicle-from music and painting, from sculpture and architecture. Narration is, then, that method of expression in language dealing with things as they move; and as such the method is obviously applicable to all forms of literature, good and bad, permanent and ephemeral, to poetry and to prose. Distinction between narra- tion, tion, and argu mentation. The mood and the material of narration still further separate it from the other methods of composition which work through the same means, language. These methods, exposition, argumentation, and description, with narration, are convenient terms which include all the methods of expression by language. Exposition and argumentation deal with ideas in their relation to one another; their point of difference in theory lies in this: that exposition tries merely to explain the nature and interconnection of ideas, while argumentation attempts not only to explain why certain ideas are as they are, but also to convince the understanding that they are as they are, or that they ought to be as they are not. Now description and narration are rightly said to deal with things and not 2 Fletcher and Carpenter: Theme- Writing, p. 3. with thoughts; and they differ from each other chiefly in their mood, so to speak, in the point of view from which they look at objects. In description the mood is the appearance of things, in narration the action of things; description attempts to tell in words how things look, to portray; narration tries to give a statement of what they do, to recount. The first is a tableau, the second a drama. Such, in theory, appears to be the distinction between the various methods of composition. In practice the distinction is difficult to recognize, as will become plain by the examination of the terms action and things. Certain it is that the typical mood of narration implies progression, an act followed by another act, as when a man takes one step after another. Whether the events occupy two seconds or two centuries, they equally represent this mood. Besides this progression in time, the various stages of action may have the relation one to another of cause and effect. The second act may take place because the first has already taken place; and, indeed, such relation appears in almost any good historical narrative. Action in narration, then, moves in two ways, in time sequence and in the sequence of cause and effect. But cause and effect relations are part exposition. of the province of exposition. Where, then, lies the distinction between the two methods? In practice this dependence is often borne out: certain narratives have manifestly so expository a nature that they may be said to use action merely as a vehicle for the expression of some moral truth, some Narration and For example, Pilgrim's Progress. system, some didactic purpose, the sugar coating for the bitter pill. Indeed, narratives are not unknown which aim to establish in the reader's mind a line of conduct. And, again, it is said' that narration, like description, deals with things as opposed to thoughts-the material of exposition and argumentation. This is in the main true, but it is not the whole state of the case. Narration may look for its material in an intangible object, or in such an idea-which may find expression in outward acts-as Othello's jealousy. So in many modern novels, such as George Eliot's, the interest. lies rather in the workings of the mind than in acts. Yet these subjects, in so far as they are ideas, are the material for expository treatment. Here again is liable to be found some confusion between the methods of composition. Interconnection of the four methods. In point of fact, the interconnection of these four methods and their mutual dependence are great. To take narration only, analysis of special cases would show where its province overlaps the other provinces. Narration joins with exposition and argument at the moment when, from the bare account of fact, there arises a suggestion of generalization, or when there is an address to the intellect in man, or an appeal to his sense for conduct. So, too, narration meets description at almost every turn, as is seen in every novel. 4 For example, Looking Backward. The typical form of the Sunday-school book. For such fictitious analogy, see allegory in general. 'Fletcher and Carpenter, p. 3. Indeed, in no one part of speech, except the infinitive and the participles of the verb, can narrative be said to exist in a pure form. Nouns and adjectives are, ipso facto, descriptive. The moment a noun, or even an I, is prefixed to the verb, that moment there enters a suggestion of the descriptive element. Since, then, we cannot hope in any actual case to find narration, or any one of the other methods, in a pure state, how are we to distinguish The distinguishing test. one from another? The real test seems to be the determining of the aim, the emphasis, the proportion, of the four moods and the two general classes of material in any given bit of composition. Clearly the method dealing with generalized ideas and with processes, such as the making of military maps, is exposition, and it is equally clear that to tell. in words the story of Waterloo is narration. But in the description of the Rhines voting machine" is not the aim as certainly to give a notion of the idea, "excellent voting machine," as to convey an impression of how a particular box, the type of many boxes, appears to the eye? Or to take another example, what is that descriptive inventory which aims to identify, as the naturalist's account of a robin, but generalization by specific cases? And is not a lawyer's plea which recounts the life of his client, so aimed, so emphasized, so proportioned, as to be termed, not narration, but argument? These ques 8 Fletcher and Carpenter, p. 41. 10 9 Cf. Baldwin: Specimens of Description (New York, 1895); INTRODUCTION. 10 Cf. Hill: Principles of Rhetoric (New York, 1893), p. 182. |