isa-normaladvance-1909-00102

Description:	102THE NORMAL ADVANCEgreat events in the course of his narration, untilthere is present a very good resemblance ofplot, or more accurately, as the reader progresses, he feels the existence of a series ofbriefly developed plots incidentally connectedby the order of their occurrence. This logicalarrangement of already existing material increases the interest and appreciation of thereader.Now Scott has whole paragraphs of description in his narration. They serve to createvivid images of mountain roads, tournaments,courts, and men and women as individuals.Their value rests on the interest they add. Thiscomes from the feeling of reality that localcolor always lends. In, describing men andwomen he often takes the reader away fromtheir external appearance into their hearts andminds. Here description becomes characteristically exposition. To brighten his story andclarify the readers idea of his charactersScott uses both description and narration. Inthe historical novel the plot is well developed,and is a source of at least a part of its fascinating power. The reason for this is that the reader feels the keenest delight in the reward ofhis expectations.Incidentally, as one passes through Scottsnovels there is a feeling that he has enlargedthe view of historical material. On the otherhand, Green has directly acquainted his readers with the events themselves, and the actualconditions which gave rise to them. Thusthe novelist has accomplished more than theformal sentences themselves tell. He has usedhis story as a means toward a remote end (asthe third player banked the fifth ball as ameans of reaching the eighth), that is, he notonly gives knowledge of facts, but the spirit toaccept useful truths. Since this is true, Greenis placed at the second table while Scott holds acue in the third game.There is left to be considered a phase ofsubjectivity, rather personality, which all ofthese writers possess. It is the personal feeling which each injects into his work. This isthe quality which gives rise to the rhythmcommon to all good prose narration. This isnot a rhythm of sound but a rhythm of movement in no way aided by the recognized metersof poetic expression. To speak plainly, poeticrhythm has movement prose rhythm is movement. Pope believed that the applications ofthe principles of rhythm were exhausted in theheroic couplet. Coleridge and Poe each, witha clear philosophy of poetic composition discarded the end-stopped line as more of a hindrance than a help to true rhythm. While Poehas composed the most rhythmical verse yetwritten in English, the public does not agreewhen he exclaims after removing the capitalsfrom the. beginning of some lines from Evangeline: There!—That is respectable prose and it will incur no danger of ever getting itscharacter ruined by anybodys mistaking it forverse. Likewise he would doubtless say, ifhe could, O bosh! There is no rhythm in prosenarration. But there is.How this rhythm is expressed, conveyedfrom the mind of the writer to the mind of thereader, is beyond the limits of this paper, buta brief inquiry into the nature of the movement may not be amiss.To study this movement in its simplest formand free from the thought which naturallyobscures it in prose masterpieces, it is onlynecessary to observe a group of sixteen-year-old girls in a street car discussing any topicwhatever. O, we had an awfully lovely time,and He was just too stupendeously awkwardfor anything respectively informed the otheroccupants of the car that one girl has had agood time, and that some boy has stepped onanother girls toes, and was too bashful to apologize. But more than this, the very swing ofthe noise they make, that not even a juniorhigh school boy would call sensible or poetic,is full of exhuberant life, and the pleasure ofmerely existing in the midst of it. There is noreserve, no halting, no going backward, only aracing ahead. So people come faster out of achurch door when it is nearly empty than whenthere is a crowd at the door. This rapid regular image presenting is the movement that be-
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/34132
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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