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 3 For example, Pilgrim's Progress. Narration and 3 4 5 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. 7 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. 5 The typical form of the Sunday-school book. 6 For such fictitious analogy, see allegory in general. 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? 10 These ques 9 8 Fletcher and Carpenter, p. 41. 9 Cf. Baldwin: Specimens of Description (New York, 1895); INTRODUCTION. 10 Cf. Hill; Principles of Rhetoric (New York, 1893), p. 182. tions are perhaps quibbles, yet they show that we have to test narration and description, exposition. and argumentation, not altogether on the exact kind of material they deal with, but also on the aim which they represent and the emphasis which they carry. 11 It is with the recognition of the interdependence of these methods of composition that this series of specimens has been instituted. Since, as has been shown, no rigid dividing lines can be laid down, the policy of wisdom is for a teacher of method to abandon fine theoretical distinctions, and to use examples to illustrate the scope of a kind of composition whose theory is at best a rather rough generalization. Nor is the value of examples less apparent in a treatment of narration than in argumentation, exposition, or description. For, excepting the handing down of knowledge, nothing seems to be more useful or more common than the telling of what has happened. And, just as there exist good arguments and very bad arguments; just as there have been printed descriptions which burn objects into one's brain, and descriptions which suggest only the stupidity of the writer; so there are narratives obviously good and obviously bad, neither amusing nor instructive, neither interesting nor well told. Indeed, though we can hardly generalize on such a subject, the place of narration in literature is second to none: narration has been persistent in human interest from the earliest 11 Baker: Specimens of Argumentation (Holt, 1893); Lamont : Specimens of Exposition (Holt, 1894); Baldwin; Specimens of Description (Holt, 1895). campfire song after the mammoth hunt to the latest account of a shipwreck in the World; from the medieval beast tale to the modern analytic novel; from the epic poem to the dramatic lyric; from Homer to Browning. That narrative is so important and so varied; that it is so ill defined; and, finally, that there has been so much bad narrative in the world is the justification for offering a few specimens of good narrative. of narrative. II. SINCE narration rarely exists in a pure state, almost every bit of narrative, be it long or short, simple or The elements complex, will be found to contain expository, descriptive, and even argumentative elements. Looking at these from the point of view of our subject, we call them the Elements of Narrative. The first of these grows out of the typical mood, and in a story or a drama is called plot. Since this action implies actors, there follows the second element, character. From these two follows the third, setting or situation, inasmuch as character must have some place in which to act. The fourth element is purpose, which concerns the motive of the narrator, whether his aim is to amuse or instruct, to sketch life as it is or as it ought to be. These four elements, as has been well said," answer the four questions: What? Who? Where? and Why? 12 Fletcher and Carpenter, p. 81. |