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English Literary Forms (6)

PROSE

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PROSE

Latin prosaoratiostraightforward/ straight,

unadorned speech

Two types of textnarrative ( narrated as a

story) , expository ( non fictionanalysis,

description, classification, etc.)

Essays, novels, short stories, critical works

Literature, newspapers, magazines,

broadcasting, films, history, philosophy, etc.

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PROSE

Most typical form of literature

Includes all discoursespoken or written which is notpatterned into the lines of metric / free verse

Ordinary conversationirregular, occasionally formal

Distinguished written discourse is no less art thandistinguished verse

Developed later

Prose translations of Old Testament have qualities of

poetryPoetic Prosecompact, rhythmic, usuallysonorousWalter Paters prose essays on Mona Lisano broken lines, continuous sentences

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Walter Scott ( Monalisa)

She is older than the rocks among which she sits;like the vampire, she has been dead many times,and learned the secrets of the grave; and hasbeen a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen

day about her; and trafficked for strange webswith Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was themother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, themother of Mary; and all this has been to her but

as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only inthe delicacy with which it has moulded thechanging lineaments, and tinged the eyelids andthe hands.

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Confessions (De Quincy)

"Oh! just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to

the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the

wounds that will never heal, and for 'the

pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel,' bringest

an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that with

thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes

of wrath; and to the guilty man, for one nightgivest back the hopes of his youth, and hands

washed pure of blood...."

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16thCenturyartificial, affectedeuphuistic style

Baconexceptionsimple, lucid, pithy, aphoristic

John Bunyans Pilgrims Progressmodel of lucid andsimple prose

18thcenturybeginning of good proseAddison, Steele 19thHazlitt, Lamb, Stevenson, Ruskin, Carlyle, Newman

De QuincyPoetic Prose

20thAG Gardiner, EV Lucas, Robert Lynd, GK Chesterton,

J B Priestly, Stephen Leacock, EV Knox, Max Beerbhom

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Pilgrims Progress

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain placewhere was a den, and laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I

dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags,

standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book

in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. Isa 64:6; Luke 14:33; Psalm

38:4. I looked and saw him open the book, and read therein; and as he read,he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he brake out

with a lamentable cry, saying, What shall I do? Acts 2:37; 16:30;

Habak 1:2,3.

In this plight, therefore, he went home, and restrained himself as long as hecould, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress; but he could

not be silent long, because that his trouble increased.

Some things are of that nature as to make One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth

ache

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Essay

A prose composition of moderate length on

any particular subject originally imp-lying

want of finish but now said of a composition

more or less elaborate in style though limited

in range--Oxford

A prose composition somewhat tentative or

experimental and somewhat incomplete andunsystematic

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Kinds

Aphoristic essayFrancis Bacon

Personal essayCharles Lamb

Character essayearly 17thCShort, minute

character sketchesJoseph Hall, John Earle,Sir Thomas Overbury

Critical essaylater 17thCDryden

prefaces, dedications Social or Periodical essayAddison, Steele,

Oliver Goldsmith

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Ambition is like choler; which is an humor thatmaketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity,and stirring, if it be not stopped. But if it bestopped, and cannot have his way, itbecometh adust, and thereby malign andvenomous. So ambitious men, if they find the

way open for their rising, and still get forward,they are rather busy than dangerous; but ifthey be checked in their desires, they becomesecretly discontent, and look upon men and

matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased,when things go backward; which is the worstproperty in a servant of a prince, or state.

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Ladies Head DressThere is not so variable a thing in Nature as a Lady's Head-

dress: Within my own Memory I have known it rise and fallabove thirty Degrees. About ten Years ago it shot up to a very

great Height, insomuch that the Female Part of our Species

were much taller than the Men. The Women were of such

an enormous Stature, that we appeared as Grasshoppers

before them. they are at present like Trees new lopped and

pruned, that will certainly sprout up and flourish with greater

Heads than before. For my own part, as I do not love to be

insulted by Women who are taller than my self, I admire the

Sex much more in their present Humiliation, which hasreduced them to their natural Dimensions, than when they

had extended their Persons and lengthened themselves out

into formidable and gigantic Figures.

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On the Ignorance of the LearnedIt is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing

else.

An idler at school, on the other hand, is one who has high health and spirits,

who has the free use of his limbs, with all his wits about him, who feels the

circulation of his blood and the motion of his heart, who is ready to laugh

and cry in a breath, and who had rather chase a ball or a butterfly, feel the

open air in his face, look at the fields or the sky, follow a winding path, or

enter with eagerness into all the little conflicts and interests of his

acquaintances and friends, than doze over a musty spelling-book, repeat

Barbarous distiches after his master, sit so many hours pinioned to a writing-desk, and receive his reward for the loss of time and pleasure in paltry prize-

medals at Christmas and Midsummer.

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Tremendous Trifles

(Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering,

in getting to the top of everything and overlooking everything.

Satan was the most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took

Jesus to the top of an exceeding high mountain and showed him all thekingdoms of the earth. But the joy of Satan in standing on a peak is not

a joy in largeness, but a joy in beholding smallness, in the fact that all

men look like insects at his feet. It is from the valley that things look

large; it is from the level that things look high; I am a child of the level

and have no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyesto the hills, from whence cometh my help; but I will not lift up my

carcass to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an

attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude.

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On Beer and Porcelain( Alfred George Gardiner)

I was reading an American journal just now when I came across theremark that "one would as soon think of drinking beer out ofporcelain as of slapping Nietzsche on the back." Drinking beer outof porcelain! The phrase amused me, and set me idly wonderingwhy you don't drink beer out of porcelain. You drink it (assuming

that you drink it at all) with great enjoyment out of a thickearthenware mug or a pewter pot or a vessel of glass, but out ofchina, never. If you were offered a drink of beer out of a china basinor cup you would feel that the liquor had somehow lost itsattraction, just as, if you were offered tea out of a pewter pot, youwould feel that the drink was degraded and unpleasant. The

explanation that the one drink is coarse and the other fine does notmeet the case. People drink beer out of glass, and the finer theglass the better they like it. But there is something fundamentallydiscordant between beer and porcelain.

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Seeing People Off

(Max Beerbhom)I am not good at it. To do it well seems to me one of the most difficult

things in the world, and probably seems so to you, too.

In a room, or even on a door-step, we can make the farewell quite worthily.

We can express in our faces the genuine sorrow we feel. Nor do words fail us.

There is no awkwardness, no restraint, on either side. The thread of ourintimacy has not been snapped. The leave- taking is an ideal one. Why not,

then, leave the leave-taking at that? Always, departing friends implore us not

to bother to come to the railway station next morning. Always, we are deaf to

these entreaties, knowing them to be not quite sincere. The departing friends

would think it very odd of us if we took them at their word. Besides, theyreally do want to see us again. And that wish is heartily reciprocated. We duly

turn up. And then, oh then, what a gulf yawns!...

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Walter PaterOn Styleessentials of good prose

Choice of wordsreject many a neology, many alicence, many a gipsy phraseauthor should be

fastidious and punctilious Writer must be learned in various arts, sciences

and philosophiesvocabulary

Ornaments should be avoided as far as possibleAll art doth but consist in the removal ofsurplusage

A sound structure requires an architecturaldesign in which one sentence is joined to, or fits

in, the other, like bricks in a building English proseboth simple and ornatebut

more ornate than simple

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Chief Characteristics

Brief or of moderate length; pithy and

condensed language

Incompletenot exhaustive

Personal in naturemood dictated

Informal and unsystematiclacks finish

( undigested piece, loose sally of the mind)often chatty

Attractive and charmingtouch of humor

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Modern Essay and Prose Style

Personal element comes to the forefront

essayist lays his heart bare

Provides criticism of lifespirit of questioning

Used to propagate the authors views

Varied themes

Simplest manner possible Wit and humor

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Novel

An invented prose narrative of considerable length and acertain complexity that deals imaginatively with humanexperience, usually through a connected sequence ofevents involving a group of persons in a specific setting.Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel hasencompassed an extensive range of types and styles:picaresque, epistolary, Gothic, romantic, realist, historicalto name only some of the more important ones.

May be tragic, satiric, picaresque ( Spanish Picaro=Rogue &Knave ) , idyllic, epic

Fable, anecdote, short story

Allegory, Romance, Novel

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Novel

Middle AgesRomances / Long fairy Tales ( Malorys Morte D Arthur)

16thC Italian Prose talesnovellein English translationinfluenced John LylysEuphues and Philip Sidneys Arcadia

17thC- Heroic Romance by French

Elizabethan prose fiction, French heroic romance, Spanish picaresque tales ( DonQuixote)

Word was not used till the end of 18thC

PamelaRichardson--first fully-realized English novel

Defoefounder of modern novel

A fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that isunfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters

A long story in prose meant primarily for entertainment and presenting a realistic

picture of life Is not a literary kind but a vague term denoting at most a prose medium, some

pretence of action, a minimum of length, and a minimum of organization

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Unified and plausible plot structure

Sharply individual and believable characters

Pervasive illusion of reality

"The proper study of mankind is man" led toincreased interest in the human character.

The early English novel departs from the allegoryand the romance with its vigorous attempt at

verisimilitude and it was initially stronglyassociated with the middle class, theirpragmatism, and their morality.

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Deals with events and actions that constitute

its plot

Has characters that carry on its action

Conversation of charactersdialogue

Has a scene and time of actionmay be

limited region or its action may range over

large number of places, cities, countries

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Realistic treatment of life and its problems.

Realismdistinguishes it from earlier prose

romancesdoes not provide escape from life

and its problems but a better understanding--reflects the very Age

Exhibits authors view of life and some

problems of life ( authors criticism andphilosophy of life)

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Plot

Must have a gripping story

Must have authenticitythorough knowledge of thesubject

Systematic organization and arrangement of incidents May be loose and incoherent ( Vanity Fair) ; may be

compact and closely knit ( Tom Jones)

May be simple or compound ( one story or more than

one running together) Three ways of telling a tale: Direct ; Autobiographical;

documentary

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Characters

Must be life-like

Novelist should have the power of graphic

description

Psychological sidedirect/ analytical;

indirect/ dramatic

Characters change and growimmense

freedom and scope of the novel form

rounded / flat

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Picaresque Novel

Tale of the adventures or misadventures of a

picaro who wanders from place to place

Daniel Defoeadventures of social outcast or

rogue ( Moll Flanders)

SmollettRoderick Random

FieldingTom Jones

Dickens--Great Expectations

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Panoramic / Epical Novel

Novelist ranges over a wide ground and

provides a comprehensive picture of the life of

the times ( range, sweep, variety-epical)

Henry FieldingTom Jones

Thackeray--Vanity Fair

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Regional Novel

Depicts the physical feature, life, customs,manners, history, etc., of some particular regionor localityunique features are emphasized

Charlotte Bronte , Emile Bronte, Anne Bronte( Yorkshire Moorlands) ; Thomas Hardy

( Wessex)

Arnold Bennett : Five towns of England

E C Booth, Mary Webbe, Thomas Moult, SheilaKaye Smith, Frances Brett Young--recent

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Psychological Novels

Analyses the motives, impulses and mental

processes which move the characters to act in

a particular way

Depicts the inner struggle

Much soul-dissection (= dramatic monologue)

Novel acquires a high intellectual tone

Richardson, George Eliot, George Meredith

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Stream of Consciousness Novels Further probing into the soulmotives and mental processes-

interior monologue

Depicts the flux of emotions and sensations passing through

the consciousness of characters without any organization or

ordering on the part of the novelistchaos, incoherence,

welter of sensations and emotions that constitute human

consciousness before organization takes place

Concerned with the pre-speech level of thought and emotion

Readers are placed within the minds of characters

subconscious / unconscious levels

Action moves back and forth in harmony with the thought-

process

Henry James, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson

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To The Lighthouse

But what have I done with my life? thought Mrs. Ramsay, taking her place at thehead of the table, and looking at all the plates making white circles on it. "William,sit by me," she said. "Lily," she said, wearily, "over there." They had that -- PaulRayley and Minta Doyle -- she, only this -- an infinitely long table and plates andknives. At the far end, was her husband, sitting down, all in a heap, frowning.What at? She did not know. She did not mind. She could not understand how shehad ever felt any emotion or affection for him. She had a sense of being past

everything, as she helped the soup, as if there was an eddy -- there -- and onecould be in it, or one could be out of it, and she was out of it. It's all come to anend, she thought, while they came in one after another, Charles Tansley -- "Sitthere, please," she said -- Augustus Carmicheal -- and sat down. And meanwhileshe waited, passively, for some one to answer her, for somethingto happen. But this is not a thing, she thought, ladling out soup, that one says.Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy -- that was what she was thinking, this

was what she was doing -- ladling out soup -- she felt,more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and, robbedof colour, she saw things truly."

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Mrs. Dalloway

"Such fools we all are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street.For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees itso, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creatingit every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the mostdejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their

downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive,by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. Inpeople's eyes, in the swing, tramp, trudge; in the bellowand the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans,sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel

organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange highsinging of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved;life; London; this moment of June."

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It seemed to her as she drank the sweet stuff

that she was opening long windows, stepping

out into some garden. But where? The clock

was striking--one, two, three: how sensiblethe sound was; compared with all this

thumping; like Septimus himself. She was

falling asleep.