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CHARLES DICKENS, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of "Barnaby Rudge," says - "By the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his 'Caleb Williams' backwards? He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the cond volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of accounting for what had been done."
I cannot think this the preci mode of procedure on the part of Godwin - and indeed what he himlf acknowledges, is not altogether in accordance with Mr. Dickens' idea - but the author of "Caleb Williams" was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the denouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of conquence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention.
There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either history affords a thesis - or one is suggested by an incident of the day - or, at best, the author ts himlf to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative-designing, generally, to fill in wit
h description, dialogue, or autorial comment, whatever crevices of fact, or action, may, from page to page, render themlves apparent.
上课犯困怎么办I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view - for he is fal to himlf who ventures to dispen with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest - I say to mylf, in the first place, "Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the prent occasion, lect?" Having chon a novel, first, and condly a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone - whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the conver, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone - afterward looking about me (or rather within) for such
combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.
I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would - that is to say, who could - detail, step by step, the process by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say - but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than a电脑噪音
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ny one other cau. Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compo by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought - at the true purpos ized only at the last moment - at the innumerable glimps of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view - at the fully-matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable - at the cautious lections and rejections - at the painful erasures and interpolations - in a word, at the wheels and pinions - the tackle for scene-shifting - the step-ladders, and demon-traps - the cock's feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cas out of a hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio.
交通标志牌大全I am aware, on the other hand, that the ca is by no means common, in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arin pell-mell are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner.
For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to, nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions, and, since the interest of an analysis or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analyd, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on
my part to show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put together. I lect "The Raven" as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition - that the work proceeded step by step, to its completion, with the precision and rigid conquence of a mathematical problem.印加
Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, per , the circumstance - or say the necessity - which, in the first place, gave ri to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.
大学四年规划书We commence, then, with this intention.
The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispen with the immenly important effect derivable from unity of impression - for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything like totality is at once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispen with anything that may advance his design, it but remains to be en whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones - that is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to
demonstrate that a poem is such only inasmuch as it intenly excites, by elevating the soul; and all inten excitements are, through a psychal necessity, brief. For this reason, at least, one-half of the "Paradi Lost" is esntially pro - a succession of poetical excitements intersperd, inevitably, with corresponding depressions - the whole being deprived, through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity of effect.
绿萝有毒吗It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art - the limit of a single sitting - and that, although in certain class of pro composition, such as "Robinson Crusoe" (demanding no unity), this limit may be advantageously overpasd, it can never properly be overpasd in a poem. Within this limit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit - in other words, to the excitement or elevation-again, in other words, to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect - this, with one proviso - that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all.
Holding in view the considerations, as well as that degree of excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem - a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight.
My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be conveyed: and here I may as well obrve that throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly insisted, and which, with the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration - the point, I mean, that Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.
A few words, however, in elucidation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a disposition to misreprent. That pleasure which
is at once the most inten, the most elevating, and the most pure is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precily, not a quality, as is suppod, but an effect - they refer, in short, just to that inten and pure elevation of soul - not of intellect, or of heart - upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in conquence of contemplating the "beautiful." Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely becau it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring from direct caus - that objects should be attained through means best adapted for their attainment - no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to is most readily attained in th
文化建设包括哪些方面e poem. Now the object Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable to a certain extent in poetry, far more readily attainable in pro. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion, a homeliness (the truly passionate will comprehend me), which are absolutely antagonistic to that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement or pleasurable elevation of the soul. It by no means follows, from anything here said, that passion, or even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably introduced, into a poem for they may rve in elucidation, or aid the general effect, as do discords in music, by contrast - but the true artist will always contrive, first, to tone them into proper subrvience to the predominant aim, and, condly, to enveil them, as far as possible, in that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the esnce of the poem.
Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the tone of its highest manifestation - and all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness. Beauty of whatever kind in its supreme development invariably excites the nsitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.
The length, the province, and the tone, being thus determined, I betook mylf to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic piquancy which might rve me as a key-note in the construc
tion of the poem - some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects - or more properly points, in the theatrical n - I did not fail to perceive immediately that no one had been so universally employed as that of the refrain. The universality of its employment sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic value, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to analysis. I considered it, however, with regard to its susceptibility of improvement, and soon saw it to be in a primitive condition. As commonly ud, the refrain, or burden, not only is limited to lyric ver, but depends for its impression upon the force of monotone - both in sound and thought.
The pleasure is deduced solely from the n of identity - of repetition.
I resolved to diversify, and so heighten the effect, by adhering in general to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied that of thought: that is to say, I determined to produce continuously novel effects, by the variation of the application of the refrain - the refrain itlf remaining for the most part, unvaried.
The points being ttled, I next bethought me of the nature of my refrain. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied it was clear that the refrain itlf must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in any ntence of length. In proportion
to the brevity of the ntence would, of cour, be the facility of the variation. This led me at once to a single word as the best refrain.
The question now aro as to the character of the word. Having made up my mind to a refrain, the division of the poem into stanzas was of cour a corollary, the refrain forming the clo to each stanza. That such a clo, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt, and the considerations inevitably led me to the long o as the most sonorous vowel in connection with r as the most producible consonant.
The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to lect a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which I had pre-determined as the tone of the poem. In such a arch it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word "Nevermore." In fact it was the very first which prented itlf.
The next desideratum was a pretext for the continuous u of the one word "nevermore." In obrving the difficulty which I had at once found in inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition, I did not fail to perceive that this difficulty aro solely from the preassumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human being - I did not fail to
perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exerci of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately aro the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech, and very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itlf, but was superded forthwith by a Raven as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone.
I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven, the bird of ill-omen, monotonously repeating the one word "Nevermore" at the conclusion of each
