Asotirica

Mostly, Give the Audience What We Want

2010-05-13T21:38:00.001Z

The International stars Clive Owen as an Interpol agent and Naomi Watts as an assistant New York District Attorney. Normally in any thriller starring young and attractive stars such as Owen and Watts, romance would bloom between them. In The International, however, director Tom Tykwer and screenwriter Eric Singer only wanted to suggest an attraction between Owen and Watts’ characters, never to be fulfilled; it was their intention to stress the job, the case, over any romantic elements.

The only problem is, that’s not what we want. What is worse, it isn’t what we expect. There is no way to structure a marketing campaign for the movie that stresses what it doesn’t include; anyway the marketers don’t want to advertise lines like ‘You know that romantic element you like in thrillers? We don’t have that in our movie.’

But when they do set up the marketing to make it look like a sexy, fast-paced conspiracy thriller, they promise what the film does not deliver. The billing alone promises us romance; we expect romance; when the filmmakers don’t deliver, we are going to be disappointed.

The way around this for Tykwer and Singer would be to cast unsexy, character actors in the two leading roles. Owen is a leading man, and Watts is a leading lady. These are the kind of actors who get the money-men to green-light a big expensive production like this. The producers did not do their job in allowing Tykwer and Singer to sabotage the audience expectations for romance.

The rule is, therefore, ‘Mostly, give the audience what we want.’

There is a qualification to this, based on the fact that part of what we want is to be surprised. But we only want to be surprised in entertaining ways.

The only way to make a twist like this contravention to our expectations work, is to build it into the structure of the movie – make it work for the movie. The most-cited example of this is in Hitchcock’s Psycho when star Janet Leigh’s character is killed at the mid-point of the plot structure. This works because shock and terror are the forms of entertainment we seek in this movie genre. We don’t believe the star’s character is going to be killed; when she is, we are horrified; we can scarcely believe what we have just witnessed; and we know that nothing henceforth in this movie will conform to our comfortable conventional expectations.

I suppose that the creators of The International might have found some way to make the lack of romance work – but I don’t see how.

— asotir

Gratitude

2010-05-13T21:37:00.001Z

A man beats his 6-year old daughter until she loses her right eye. After recovering, the girl thanks her father for having spared her left eye. ‘He blessed me with my left eye vision,’ the girl exclaimed happily.

This spring the Red River flooded half a town. On Sunday the river crested and began to subside. The townsfolk gathered at church to thank God for having spared the other half of the town. ‘The Lord blessed us,’ the parishioners exclaimed happily.

Weeks ago, a pastor in Haiti lost his son in the chaos of the earthquake. He later found his son’s remains buried in the rubble of the boy’s school. The pastor thanked God for having returned the boy’s corpse. ‘God blessed me,’ the man exclaimed happily.

The dictator sent half his populace into forced-labor camps, and when they grew too weak from starvation to be much use, he had them all killed. The remaining populace gathered in the capital square and thanked the dictator for sparing them. ‘He blessed us with continued life,’ the crowds exclaimed happily.

Is there a difference? What is the difference?

— asotir

First Person Snare: Addendum

2010-05-13T21:36:00.003Z

A couple of days ago, in discussing Robert A Heinlein’s novel Glory Road mention was made of the First Person Snare – the trap a talesman braves when he writes an immersive tale in the first person. The danger is that the talesman put too much of himself into his narrator, who ought to be more of an empty vessel for the reader to fill, in order that the tale be as immersive as possible. The danger is worsened when the talesman himself is a very different personality than the outward circumstances of his narrator-protagonist would dictate.

Heinlein, the 50-year old curmudgeon, wrote the tale of a 23-year old innocent, and the innocent’s words sounded suspiciously like those of a 50-year old curmudgeon.

There is this much excuse to grant Heinlein: that the tale is written by the hero long after he has gone through the adventures he faces on Glory Road; in the intervening years he has suffered disillusion and grown older, wiser, and more cynical (and curmudgeonly, perhaps).

So, logically speaking, Heinlein has his reasons.

But logic is a poor defense in talesmanship. At the time we read of these early adventures, Gordon is still an innocent 23-year old. And in order to immerse ourselves in the tale, we must accept and adopt that 23-year old persona ourselves – without reference to a later, older Gordon.

Heinlein could have side-stepped all the discord we felt when we read Gordon’s remarks along the way, had Heinlein merely added such phrases now and then as ‘Looking back on the incident…’ (And to be fair, the tale opens with the older Gordon informing us that he knows of another world, and ‘I could go back there. I could—’)

But every such remark as ‘Looking back on it…’ serves to remind us that Gordon survived this particular danger, and lived on to tell of it. This is to lessen the suspense, our fear that Gordon might fail, and fall, vying with our hope that Gordon will win through. It also makes us aware that we are not hearing of one Gordon, but of two: the older man writing the memoir, and the younger one who lived it.

In order to immerse ourselves in the tale, we must be undivided in our allegiance and identification. We can only be, in this case, the 23-year old man on the Glory Road, for he is indispensable; the older man exists only to tell us of what the younger man experienced. The older man might be our principal focus; we might still immerse ourselves in his tale; but then we would need constant reminders of the physical surroundings and circumstances of the older man; what we would be diving into would be the tale of an older man reminded of his youth, regretting it or longing to return to it; we would need to follow the older man forward through some events in the ‘present time’ in between recollections ‘back in my past.’

It can be tricky, for naturally the older man writing down his exploits for us will look on things differently than he did when he lived them. One way for Heinlein to go would have been to forego the introductory remarks, the ‘I could go back to that world—’ page. But this page brings us a great deal of suspense – most of the suspense, in fact – for the second half of the tale, after he has won through the dangerous Quest on Glory Road, and settles down with his Princess to ‘happily ever after.’ Once the Kingdom is won, the hero and his beloved have everything they could have wanted. There is no danger, no opposition, no conflict for many pages. Only one suspense takes us through these paradisical descriptions: our knowledge, gleaned from that opening page, that the Hero is destined to lose this paradise. He will leave the Kingdom and be sundered from his Princess; and we wonder, Why? What happened to ruin it?

Heinlein seems more interested, indeed, in examining the unpleasant aspects of living ‘happily ever after,’ than in the Quest and adventure itself. He seems almost to rush through the dangers; but then he rushes through the ‘life afterwards’ and then he rushes through the ‘after I lost it all’ back on Earth – and the conclusion must be that Heinlein simply was telling his tale briskly, guided by his training in the pulps.

— asotir

(Composed 12 May 2010 on keyboard)

Before and After in Heinlein’s Later Tales

2010-05-13T21:36:00.002Z

Robert A Heinlein was a science-fiction writer, one of the 3 or 4 most acclaimed of the golden age. Some of his tales deal heavily in social philosophy – political, sexual, inter-personal. As he left the pulps and slicks magazine markets behind and wrote more novels for hardback publication (and as he gained in prestige and fame and grew more comfortable financially), Heinlein’s tales began to change. Large sections of the novels consisted of little more than a character lecturing other characters about love and sex, taxes, political freedoms and duties, and other social mores.

Since we’ve been reading some Heinlein lately, let’s look at the three tales and see how they work. The three are:

Stranger in a Strange Land (the original 220,000-word manuscript submission)
Double Star
Glory Road

Stranger in a Strange Land

This is maybe Heinlein’s most famous tale. It has been credited with helping launch the hippie movement and the sexual revolution in the USA. It gestated long in Heinlein’s mind, over a decade passing between the time when his wife Virginia first suggested the idea of ‘an Earthman raised by aliens’ until he submitted the manuscript to his publishers.

The basic story tells of Michael Valentine Smith, born on Mars but soon orphaned, the sole survivor of the first human expedition to the planet. He is raised by Martians. No one on Earth knows about this until some 20 years later when the second Martian expedition reaches the planet.

Mike is brought back to Earth, and some unique circumstances make him a very rich and powerful personage legally. As a side note, let’s look at those circumstances – they teach us something about talesmanship.

Mike is the only offspring of a human married couple. Both his mother and her husband were brilliant, she invented what would later turn out to be the essential power source for interplanetary travel.

This alone would grant Mike immense wealth. But Heinlein is not yet satisfied.

Mike’s natural father was not his mother’s husband but the captain of the ship, and the captain had no heirs, so Mike inherits both his legal parents’ estates, and his natural fathers. More: the entire crew entered into a legal relationship stipulating that all their estates would accrue to the last survivor, should some accident happen on Mars. These estates have been handled over the past 20 years by a foundation, which is now very wealthy indeed. (This gimmick echoes H G Wells’ When the Sleeper Wakes.) Mike owns a big chunk of the Moon as a result (actually he owns about a fifth of the corporation that owns the Moon). That should ensure that Mike is the richest and one of the most powerful humans on Earth. But Heinlein is still not satisfied.

A complicated chain of legal decisions (elaborated at length in the tale) sets the precedent that Mike also ‘owns’ Mars. This means, legally speaking, all natural resources on Mars, and all landing rights, visiting rights, tourist rights, etc., belong solely to one Michael Valentine Smith. This guarantees Mike not only the promise of immense future wealth, but also political power (depending on what minerals and other resources are found on Mars).

In terms of the tale, and what later develops, all that’s important is that Mike should be fabulously wealthy, enough so that he can found his church later in the story. But Heinlein has become interested in legal ramifications of discovery, explorers’ pacts, and the like. Page after page is devoted to the maneuverings this complex of inheritance brings to Mike, only to end, about half way through, with a neat and very sudden solution – the whole matter is dropped after that, like some toy Heinlein tired of (or maybe he realized that it was getting too cumbersome and he extricated his tale from it at the earliest moment he could).

And one of these would have sufficed; Heinlein gives us all three. This not only complicates things needlessly in the opening third of the tale, it leads into a too-neat, too-easy solution when Heinlein decides to drop it. These speculations do however interest sf fans in and of themselves, for we enjoy speculating on ‘what ifs’ of a grand historical as well as scientific and cultural scale. In no other genre, perhaps, would Heinlein have gotten away with it. Indeed, he might not have gotten away with it in sf, had he been only a novice and not one of the big poobahs of the industry, whose name was enough to guarantee a certain number of sales. (No novice, maybe, could have sold a tale in 1961 that was about group sex and marriage, either!)

Heinlein’s interest in plausible speculations interferes with the talesmanship from page one, which opens with a fairly long discourse on the criteria best suited to choosing a crew to operate a space ship for several months on end. This leads to a crew of 4 married couples, which then sets up Mike’s parentage; the affair between Mike’s mother and natural father prefigures the group sex-marriages Mike will create in his church (but too little is made of this).

But once Mike is back on Earth, in the huge naval hospital outside Washington DC, and in danger, threatened by forces interested in controlling his wealth and potential political power, the tale gets going. This is the only part of the tale that works all-out as a tale. The events follow logically in sequence, cause gives rise to effect, interesting characters come on scene, with witty dialogue that is nicely balanced to the descriptive and action paragraphs. Suspense holds and mounts, and along with suspense, sf fans can delight in the appreciation of Mike’s very-Martian, unhuman way of looking at life and society, and the gradual revelation of his superhuman powers, something like a yogi’s mastery of himself raised to the last degree.

Mike’s powers fall into two classes. First there is his control over his own body. He can enter sleep so profound it looks more like death; slow down or speed up his sense of time; heal his wounds, cure illness in himself, grow muscles, change the shape of his bones and facial features, age or grow younger. Second he has control over external objects as well: he can make things move with his mind, he can read other people’s minds and communicate mentally with some, and he can push people and objects into nonexistence by willing it.

The initial intrigues over who will control Mike (or will they murder him?) end when Mike finds a guardian and teacher, Jubal. What follows is a series of discussions of Martian versus human philosophies, and the tale falters.

Mike then takes about a third of the book off in wandering around, trying different occupations, trying to figure out what makes humans really tick. When he finds out, he feels it is his duty to teach us Martian ways, and the tool he chooses is his church (but ‘It’s not a religion,’ he insists.) This dovetails into what is most controversial about the tale: not only is Heinlein advocating free love, nudism, and group marriage, but he does so as part of religious services. He also concocts a new fundamentalist Christian church, the Church of the New Revelation, inspired by Mormonism and the evangelical movements that swept the Southwestern United States in the 1920s and 1930s.

Stranger in a Strange Land ends up looking and feeling a lot like Candide and there is a strong feeling of social satire and Enlightenment-iconoclastic moral philosophy to the tale. If we could extract the first third (minus the 20 pages or so leading up to Mike in Walter Reed Hospital) we would have a terrific tale with all the elements for a good pulp page-turner. The rest, mixing carnival tents, tattooed ladies, church crusades and sex, fails as tale and holds our interest mainly because of the erotic appeal, the humor, the wittiness of the dialogue (even down to a section of art criticism several pages long), and curiosity in the lifestyle Mike advocates (‘Would it work? Could it work?’)

Double Star

Double Star tells the tale of out of work actor Larry Smith (billed as ‘the great Lorenzo’) who impersonates a kidnapped politician who heads a major political party in the solar system. In essence the tale reworks Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda. As with Stranger the beginning scenes are filled with suspense and action, each scene is handled in concrete terms and flows logically and immediately into the following scene.

There is a small diversion when Smith learns just who it is he is to impersonate – a discussion of interplanetary politics intrudes, and we explore hypnosis and what later thinkers would call ‘anchoring’ – and there is no action at all, other than discussions, on the long flight to Mars. Heinlein doesn’t take Smith around on the ship, and nothing much happens, and the passages drag.

The Martian sequences pick up the action, but at the crucial scenes of climax – when Smith is adopted by a Martian clan, and then must handle press conferences and meetings as the politician – Heinlein seems hardly interested; the scenes are not detailed, and no snags offer us any hint of suspense or danger. The mores of the Martians are raised to make a crucial plot point – then they are dropped entirely. The tale seems to be heading into a story of Smith on Mars; he then leaves Mars and the tale shifts entirely.

What closes out the book is a summary, rather abstract and handled mostly in narrative summary, of the political campaign that will seat the next Imperial Parliament. The only scenes worthy of the name consider Smith’s personal and private meeting with the Emperor Willem IV, the only one who sees through the disguise. The Emperor thus seems to rise as a major character, but he’s dropped as soon as he approves of the impersonation.

The second half of Double Star seems confused, as though Heinlein had lost his train of the tale, and wasn’t sure any longer just what kind of tale he was undertaking. Maybe he changed his mind. When compared to The Prisoner of Zenda, the second half of Double Star is woefully weak, and hardly worth reading. (And since so much of what’s good about the opening of Double Star never pays off in the end, we can say the whole story is not worth reading as a tale proper.)

Glory Road

Glory Road tells of E C Gordon, a young man who fights in Vietnam in 1962, is wounded, discharged, and ends up on a nude beach in France, where he meets a lovely blonde who takes him on an interdimensional quest of great danger and different cultures. He survives the quest and wins the object of it, whereupon he learns the blonde is in fact the Empress (or ‘Wisdom’) of Twenty Universes.

The second half is where the tale drops into summary narrative and cultural speculation mode. Unhappy as the Empress’ Consort, Gordon returns to Earth, where he is equally unhappy with ‘normal life’ as a draftsman in Los Angeles or student at Caltech. In the end he seeks another adventurous quest. Today, we could read this as a treatise on the appeal, and potential danger, of immersive videogames; in 1963 Heinlein had in mind the newly-revived books of Edgar Rice Burroughs as well as those of Robert E Howard, Anthony Hope, and all the pulp tales of adventure.

As with Stranger, the second half of Glory Road interests not as a tale, but rather as sociological and sexual speculation. But the sex is not so potent; Gordon passes up almost every proposition the beauties of several universes offer him. An entire novel could have been told around Gordon’s dissatisfaction (or ‘acculturation’ as he calls it) with life back on Earth, and it might have been moving to a Romantic talesman. Heinlein however is a satirist and humorist more than romantic, bringing to mind Walpole’s dictum that ‘the world is a tragedy to those who feel, a comedy to those who think.’

Conclusions

The sum is: an extended discussion of philosophy, sociology, and the like, ought to conform to the rules of talesmanship just like any other element: it ought to advance the story itself. But we readers don’t insist on that for discussions or any other elements, so long as they entertain us sufficiently. In that case, they are a weakness we are more than willing to suffer.

The question then arises, whether a grand opening to a tale that lets us down in the second half, is worthy of our attention. It doesn’t conclude properly speaking. It doesn’t pay off what it plants. Plot threads are woven in, then the stitches dropped, the threads abandoned. But for those moments when we are engaged in the opening scenes, we are entertained.

— asotir

(Composed 12 May 2010 on keyboard)

The Genius of DuMaurier

2010-05-11T16:33:00.002Z

The empty vessel first person that is equally a character. Brilliant.

Yesterday we mentioned Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca and The Scapegoat in light of a tale told in the first person in which the narrator has no real character, but functions instead as a stand-in for us readers, who can imagine thereby ourselves truly acting and being acted upon within the tale, experiencing its adventure, danger, and romance. But these two tales go beyond the simple tale as experience.

In both these tales, DuMaurier created empty vessel narrators whose defining character was precisely that – they were what might be called ‘deficient in personality’ (there surely is a medical term for this type of personality). This means that, while both narrators are perfect empty vessels, they also function as full literary characters, i.e., they have personalities. Those personalities just happen to be empty.

They are both also never named in their tales – even better.

In both cases it is the lack of personal development in the narrator-protagonist that causes him to be drawn into the shadow of the stronger personality that looms over the locus of the tale. And thus in both cases part of the struggle of the protagonists involves resisting this influence; part of the suspense lies in the question, ‘Will that shadowy Other completely submerge our hero?’

We can enjoy these tales as either analyses of these deficient personality protagonists, or as immersive tales.

There are differences between the two tales. In Rebecca, the nameless heroine is never confused with the first Mrs deWinter; no one, she fears could ever admire her who knew the mistress of Manderley before her. And Rebecca is dead; it is her specter that haunts the stage; the challenge of the heroine is to take control over the household on her own terms, in her own name, without feeling daunted by that personality in the grand portrait. But in The Scapegoat the nameless hero is forced to assume the name of his double in the provincial French household. This is far more in keeping with the model of Double Star and The Prisoner of Zenda we discussed yesterday. In the course of discovering the glass blowing business and the relations within the château, the hero finds that Jacques is not a very nice fellow at all, and sets out to do his best to undermine and undo the plans and former actions of the man who has thrust his identity upon our English schoolmaster nonentity. And Jacques is alive, and may return at any time – indeed he does return, and the suspense then turns on whether the narrator’s plans for the business and ménage will hold up, or whether Jacques will sell the business and betray his family, as he had intended before meeting the narrator and, struck with their uncommon likeness, forced upon him the switch in identities.

The Scapegoat is thus a more interesting tale from this point of view. But it lacks much suspense, since life in the château is something of a welcome vacation to the hero, and he is not committed to anything he does there; commitment and engagement only gradually overtake him. His is a tale of a man of mild tastes and middle age – the storm and stress of youth are long behind him. Rebecca on the other hand holds a high level of storm and stress, for it is a young woman’s tale, and involves her very real hopes and fears for a fulfilling life – a life she has not yet lived. It also engages us on a much deeper, more primal level: the level of the fairy tale and Bildungsroman.

— asotir

(Composed 10 May 2010 on keyboard)

First Person Snare

2010-05-10T15:54:00.001Z

In Robert A. Heinlein’s Glory Road the narrator, a 23-year-old college dropout, ex-Army, Vietnam vet, sounds suspiciously like the narrator in a lot of other first-person narratives authored by Heinlein. A lot like Heinlein himself.

This similarity sneaks into the story as it goes along. At the beginning, where the narrator, E. C. Gordon, talks about his history as a young man, family relationships, and education, the focus is so strongly on what makes Gordon different from Heinlein that it keeps Heinlein honest, if you will. We readers are never far from considering Gordon as a man born about 1940 who played high school football in the 1950s and served in Vietnam when Kennedy was President.

But then the story shifts, as Gordon is taken to another universe by a witch he calls Star, a beautiful nude blonde he meets on an islet in the Mediterranean. On alternate worlds Gordon acts as the Hero of Romance out of a hundred tales, and the focus now concerns Gordon’s reactions to these alien worlds and lifestyles as an American and Earthman. And here Gordon seems to be much better-read than the kid we learned about, and to express a more mature man’s views. In short, he starts to sound a lot more like Robert A. Heinlein.

One of the strengths of the first person narrative is its immersive quality, the ease by which we readers can identify with the narrator-protagonist, and live out his experiences vicariously. The narrator becomes an empty vessel or shell into which we project ourselves. We become the universal Hero walking Glory Road, aided by the sexy witch and an ugly, comedic sidekick. Or we become the private eye investigating murder in a corrupt Los Angeles, or the assassin of an unnamed government agency, or the second Mrs DeWinter.

For this hollow vessel to perform its function well, it has to be empty. It needs a surface only (preferably an attractive one of good physical fitness, handsome face and form, and a ready wit and intelligence) and its interior characteristics must be of aptitude and talent only, and nothing that would normally fall into the category of ‘character.’ This protagonist must be as much like ourselves as possible, except maybe slightly better – a little smarter, more educated, tougher, more intuitive, cleverer. Any aspects of his character that would shatter our identification must be avoided.

But even as the author hopes we readers will identify with his narrator-protagonist, he himself also wants to do so, and this is the snare for the author. When the author identifies too much himself with the narrator, he is apt to make the narrator likewise too much like himself. Then the narrator begins to have a specific character: the character of the author.

It is of course no fault that the narrator have a character, so long as this character is a proper literary character – in other words, so long as the character is true to himself. In this case, the character no longer serves as the hollow vessel through which we readers can vicariously live another more glamorous life, but acts instead as a traditional character out of a tale.

But when the author identifies with a narrator wholly unlike himself, and begins to assert over the narrator his own traits, we readers find the result discordant, jarring. Something isn’t right here. A 23-year old man doesn’t have the attitudes of a 50-year old man, and doesn’t remember the early 1940s, when he was a toddler, as though he were a grown and working man at the time.

This is something for anyone writing in the first person to remember. The narrating character can fall into two categories: either the empty vessel, without any meaningful inner life beyond that which the circumstances of the story provide; or the usual character who has come from a specific time and place, with a character of his own.

The only way around these choices is when the origins of the character closely mirror those of the author himself. So had Heinlein been writing aobut a 50-year old balding professional pulp writer who had dropped out of the military due to ill health, and the rest of whose background circumstances mirrored Heinlein’s own life, then he could have given us Heinlein the Unconquerable Hero as fully as he pleased.

(Composed 10 May 2010 on keyboard)

The Pleasures of Misery

2010-05-10T15:53:00.002Z

I recently read a novel by Robert A. Heinlein called Double Star. It is a reworking of Anthony Hope’s classic The Prisoner of Zenda with an alternate ending. Zenda ends unhappily (in some senses) while Double Star ends happily. It is this change that prompts these reflections.

In The Prisoner of Zenda an Englishman visits the Central European kingdom of Ruritania, where his exact likeness to its King (a distant relative) enmeshes him in pretending to be the king, who has been kidnapped. In the course of the tale the Englishman woos the Princess Flavia and wins her heart; engages in sword battles with the evil Prince and would-be usurper of the throne; storms a castle and rescues the king. At tale’s end the Englishman, his deeds known only to a few co-conspirators, Flavia, and the King himself, leaves Ruritania to return to his ‘ordinary’ life in England. Behind him he leaves a throne he could well have commanded, and a beautiful Princess whose heart will be forever his, though duty has commanded her to remain and wed the King, and serve as Ruritania’s Queen.

In Double Star an American actor is hired to portray a prominent politician who has been kidnapped; in the course of this tale the actor is adopted into a clan of noble Martians; delivers speeches and runs a campaign for Prime Minister of the Solar System’s Empire; and finally must adopt the guise forever, when the politician suffers a heart attack and dies even as his party wins a majority in the Imperial Parliament. Oh yes, the actor also wins the heart of the politician’s Girl Friday, who had been wholly in love with the politician; he marries her and they have children, and the actor enjoys a long career of 25+ years as the politician.

So the two tales follow parallel paths, though in Ruritania swords are used more, and on New Batavia, the lunar seat of the Empire, it is rather speeches and words the hero employs. The paths however diverge drastically only at the end.

In Zenda the imposter succeeds in rescuing the King, and thereby ensures he must himself leave behind crown, kingdom, and Princess. This makes the ending bitter-sweet, although it confirms Rudolph Rassendyll as ‘the noblest Rasendyll of them all’ in his selfless act of giving up all that he has won. He must return to the humdrum life he left behind in London – a life that will, we are sure, be rendered all the more colorless by the fact that before he had not been in love, and now he is, forever – to Flavia who will be the wife of another, forever lost to Rudolph.

In Double Star the imposter succeeds in impersonating the politician and rewriting and delivering speeches so as to bring victory to his party. Smith is ready indeed to return to the acting life and leave the imposture behind him, only author Heinlein acts as the deus ex machina and bumps off the real politician by a heart attack or stroke, the result of drugs given him during his abduction. Thus Smith must take the brass ring, and enjoy power, fame, and the love of a good woman. (This can be seen as ironical on Heinlein’s part, for Smith never was interested in politics before, and in fact if he had any political leanings they were completely opposed to those of the Expansionist Party he will now head and whose reforms he will see enacted.)

Both of the stories deal almost explicitly with the notion that the tale is a sort of daydream or wish fulfillment on the part of the reader. The act of pretending to be the hero is doubled within the tale itself, whose hero must pretend to be a greater and more prestigious man – a man whose life comes with a very attractive love-interest built-in. We must, as readers, surrender the daydream when we finish the tale and close the book, but nothing stops the hero-imposter from continuing his dream job.

So it would seem that we’d enjoy the tale best if the protagonist wins everything he wishes. The Heinlein solution looks better than the Hope solution.

But, is it so?

There is some sort of pleasure in the misery of the Hope solution. Maybe it lies in Aristotle’s notion of the purging of emotions we experience when following a well-designed tragedy. Or maybe it lies in the feelings of greater nobility we get when we identify with the self-sacrificing Rudolph. Or maybe it has something to do with the glow of feeling that we have ourselves been bettered, even ennobled, by the reading of a light tale of adventurous derring-do.

Whatever the cause, for yours truly at least, the ending of Zenda seems much to be preferred to that of Double Star.

(Composed 10 May 2010 by keyboard)

You are your technology

2009-12-06T16:19:00.000Z

You are your technology
Your body is your machinery

When we say ‘You are your technology,’ what do we mean?

Usually we consider ‘technology’ to mean some knowledge of tools and techniques applying to tools – things external to ourselves. But ‘technology’ means any technical knowledge: any knowledge of how to do something, in other words, applied or practical knowledge as opposed to abstract or theoretical knowledge.

The danger in thinking that ‘technology’ only applies to things outside ourselves is that it creates a blind spot, and we forget that we too are included. So we think of typewriters and word processors, ink and pens and books, but we forget, if you will, memory itself, and ways to remember that are strictly human, organic, and partake of ourselves. Yet these are the technologies that we can always carry with us, that are indivisible from us, and that will atrophy and fail when replaced by external tools and technologies.

To give you an example of what we’re talking about: consider the Hawaiians. When British and American seamen first encountered and traded with the Hawaiians, the seamen were amazed at the prodigious feats of memory the Hawaiians could pull off. Long lists of ancestors, of feats and deeds of their histories, tales and sagas from long ago, the Hawaiians could rattle off at a moment’s notice, seemingly without effort or fault.

The seamen, impressed with the intelligence and nobility of the Hawaiians, soon taught them to read and write.

In two generations, the Hawaiians, now quite literate, had memories no better than their British and American counterparts.

In two generations, the technology of writing had destroyed the technology of memory.

And from that point on the Hawaiians, like the rest of us, could only remember what they could carry around with them in the form of books and papers; could only commit to memory what they could write down in the fleeting moments during which they could remember it; could rely upon the integrity of their unwritten memories no better than you or I.

The same history has repeated itself wherever a people has gained widespread literacy and access to the tools and media of writing. Much the same could be said of ‘numerancy’ or the ability to reckon in figures: where written numbers and methods of figuring gain widespread use, the technology of reckoning in one’s own head declines; where electronic calculators and computers are programmed to solve more complex equations, the knowledge of even the steps needed to solve equations grows dim – is lost.

The history of the machine age has been the steady, inexorable replacement of human skills – the technology of the self – with machinery. It is also the story of our ever-diminishing capacity to remember, to think, to reckon, and to know using our own minds.

The Once and Future Law

2009-11-30T19:49:00.004Z

This is the law of human survival. We share this law with all other living things on Earth. Once it was our only law; it has since been supplanted by a host of other laws, manmade, temporary, fragile, and flawed.

The law is:

You are your technology, and your body is your machine.

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 5

2009-05-16T13:19:00.000Z

CHAPTER V – PLOT IN COMEDY

In many respects the laws of structure determined for the serious drama are equally valid for comedy, but there are also important differences between the two kinds of dramatic creation. First, it may be generally stated that in comedies the action of the plot is much more independent of the characters than it is in the serious drama: it is, as we have already implied, even possible to create a comic plot which shall be really comic, while its persons are nothing more than puppets, the development of the plot being wholly extraneous to the characters. This is the case in The Comedy of Errors, in much so-called farce, in much of the Spanish comedy. Again, the comic action is far less bound to emphasize law in its treatment of events; it can make free use of what we call accident and chance.

Passing now to a more detailed consideration of its structure, we find that comedies fall into two main groups, according as their comic interest does or does not determine the main plot. Compare, for example, King Henry IV with Every Man in His Humour. In the former there is a serious main plot, based on events in English history wherein the fiercest passions were aroused and the largest interests involved, and wherein the actors were of heroic type. The comic interest is found in a number of interspersed scenes whose action is loosely connected with the serious main plot; cut out these scenes, and with few changes the play becomes a serious historical drama. In Jonson’s play, on the other hand, the exact converse is the case. The serious interest – and there is very little – is subordinate. The comic interest is not merely developed in the main plot, it actually constitutes it; cut out this and you destroy the play.

These two plays may be accepted as typical of two great classes of comedies. To those of the first type the name “romantic comedy” has been given, for reasons not wholly connected with its structure; those of the second type have been variously styled, according to considerations foreign to this discussion. To it belong all of Aristophanes, most of Plautus and Terence, most of Jonson and Molière, the comedies of Massinger and Middleton and Congreve. With Henry IV are to be classed all of Shakespeare’s comedies except Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Taming of the Shrew.

Since the romantic comedy has as its basis a serious main plot, and its comic interests are episodic, it may be temporarily disregarded. It is in the second class of comedies that we shall find the typical comic structure.

Reverting to our illustration of the primitive form of comic plot, – our case of the man who sits down on the floor, – let us start again from this. In actual life we know that this may occur for various reasons: (1) he may have miscalculated the position of the chair, and the fault is therefore his own; or (2) the chair may break, and the fault is no one’s; or (3) some one with malice prepense may have pulled the chair from under him, or may have placed a weak chair where he was likely to sit.

So in comedies. The action may be one where the mistakes, the comic disappointments, arise out of the weakness of the victim, and he alone is to blame, or they may spring from circumstance, and no one is responsible, or they may be deliberately planned by one of the play’s persons, an arch-intriguer, assisted, perhaps, by lucky accident, which he knows how to turn to account.

An example of the first sort is seen, though not with perfect clearness, in Love’s Labours Lost, through the fourth act. The four gentlemen have simply miscalculated their own powers and attempted something beyond them. Hence, all fail signally, and the great scene for which the play is planned, IV, 3, merely presents this failure. Each does in turn expose his fellow, in true “house-that-Jack-built fashion,” but no one of them has planned the downfall of another.

The second kind is exemplified with typical clearness in The Comedy of Errors. Here the whole complication is the result of chance, no one guides its progress, and its conclusion is as much accident as any part of its course.

The third sort is seen, as has just been said, in the last act of Love’s Labour’s Lost, but it is better to select an instance where the entire play is constructed on this principle. Among the multitude of such, we may mention, as being, for one reason or another, unusually good instances, Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour (Brainworm and Ed. Knowell are the intriguers); The Silent Woman (arch-intriguers, Dauphine, Clerimont, and Lovewit); Chapman’s All Fools (intriguers, Rinaldo, for the main plot, Cornelio, for a subordinate counter-plot); Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts (intriguers, Wellborn, for the main plot, Allworth and Lovell for the underplot); Molière’s L’École des Maris (intriguers, Isabelle and Valère). Among them, the simplest in structure is Molière’s, and next comes Massinger’s, which we will take as a type because it is English. The argument is, briefly, as follows:

Act I. Wellborn, a prodigal, has ruined himself by his excesses, and his estate has passed into the hands of his uncle, Overreach, an unscrupulous old man who has amassed large wealth by sharp practice. In despair, Wellborn turns for help to Lady Allworth, a rich widow whose late husband he had once befriended in time of need. Out of gratitude for this, Lady Allworth consents to feign a betrothal to Wellborn.

Acts II, III, and IV. On the strength of his expectations, Wellborn is instantly restored to credit. His uncle is anxious to facilitate the match, hoping ultimately to get hold of Lady Allworth’s wealth as he already has got Wellborn’s. He therefore pays his nephew’s debts and entertains him royally.

Overreach has a daughter, Margaret, whom he longs to see married to a title, and he offers her in marriage to Lord Lovell. In the lord’s service is young Allworth, stepson to Lady Allworth, who loves Margaret and is loved by her. Lord Lovell befriends his cause, and while feigning consent to the marriage for himself, helps young Allworth convey Margaret away and marry her.

Meanwhile Marrall, an attorney and an unscrupulous attaché of Overreach, decides that it will be more profitable to serve Wellborn.

Act V. Through Marrall’s agency it is discovered that the deed transferring Wellborn’s estates to his uncle is worthless, and the ownership, therefore, reverts to Wellborn. Next, Overreach learns of the marriage of his daughter with young Allworth. At the double catastrophe he goes mad.

Now, it will be seen that the entire structure of the plot depends on the deliberately planned schemes of Wellborn and Allworth to outwit Overreach. Does this differ from the plan of the serious drama?

In a sense, we might adopt the phraseology of the tragedy, and call the action “a losing struggle, by an imperfect character, against the overpowering forces of life.” We might say that there is found here, the three things essential to tragedy: suffering, struggle, causality.

In a sense, yes; but in a sense so different from the tragic that, though the words may be unchanged, the ideas can no longer be treated as the same.

First: the character is indeed imperfect, but the imperfections are here regarded as material for comic contrast, and subjects for judicial reprehension, not for pity and sympathy. This has already been discussed.

Next, as to the struggle. The result of it in both cases is the overthrow of some one, but the process is different in principle and significance – as different as is our case where the malicious person pulls away the chair from the case where two men grapple in a fair fight. In the serious drama, the hero is contending, it may be against one man, it may be against a host, it may be against himself, it may be against the remorseless “course of things.” We may even know from the beginning that the struggle must end in failure, as we do know in the Oedipus, or in The Cenci; but our hero really fights, he has his chance, all his energies go into the struggle and are staked on the issue. In this kind of comedy, on the other hand, he does not really fight; he is a victim, his overthrow is not really inevitable, it is artfully prearranged.

Finally, the causality in the two kinds of drama is totally different. Tragedy must be based on law, and, as we saw, it is better for the tragedian not to use such events as have about them an air of chance. For comedy this requirement is not imperative. The main thing is the presentation of striking incongruities, and we do not care whether these are evidently grounded in the law of the universe or not; in fact, the range of comic view being limited, it is often better that it should not call too vividly to mind the iron rule of law. Accordingly, we find in comedy the widest license allowed. When Shakespeare, borrowing for his use the old story of the twin brothers, complicates its situations by postulating a second pair of twins as servants to these brothers, we do not cavil at the improbability. If he chose to postulate two pairs of twin sisters, too, we should not object, provided he was master of his material. These considerations have, as will appear, an important bearing on the nature of the comic catastrophe.

So much for general questions. Contrast now more particularly the plans of the two types of drama:

The serious drama usually begins in an apparent equilibrium, from which the conflict develops. In the first part of the play, one of the two contending forces is paramount; in the second, the other, and the outcome is a final equilibrium wholly different from the apparent equilibrium at the beginning.

In the comedy just summarized the case is quite different. Instead of an aggressor meeting an aggressor, there is an aggressor and a victim. It is the natural result of the difference in principle between comedy and tragedy. Instead of a conflict of forces, the comic plots of this type present a process rather like the picking of the lock of a safe; it may be interesting, it may involve great ingenuity and address, but it is on a wholly different basis.

To pursue, for a moment, the figure of the lock: the beginning of the play presents the problem; we see the strong safe, with its lock, apparently secure; we see the would-be lock-breaker, his eyes fixed on the safe, his fingers twitching to get at its secrets. Next, it is hinted that despite this seeming security there are weak points – possibly the lock can be forced. Then comes the process of forcing it, until finally the successful lock-breaker carries out his scheme and enjoys the fruits of his ingenuity.

What the corollaries are, which may be deduced from the fundamental difference between the two problems, will be evident if we consider, one by one, the logical divisions of this type of drama.

[1] Exposition. This has no peculiar features. In the Massinger play, the first act is mainly expositional, the rising action being only suggested at the end of the third scene.

[2] Exciting Force and Rising Action. The exciting force is always found in the resolution of the arch-intriguer to outwit his victim. In the play before us, it is Wellborn’s desperate resolve to have one more try at fortune. Sometimes, as often in the plays of Plautus and Terence, a preliminary action is presented, which is the immediate occasion of this resolution, e.g. a young man falls in love, and plans how to circumvent his father, who opposes him. It is evident that, if in such a case the love-plot is given serious enough emphasis, and our attention is drawn to the issues therein involved, and away from the circumventing of the authorities considered in itself, the play may become serious instead of comic. The emphasis is laid, not on the intellectual problem, but on the emotional crisis. This comes near being the case in As You Like It; it is the case in Romeo and Juliet, and perhaps the impression of weakness left upon us by the last act of this play is partly due to this resemblance between its plan and that of the ordinary comedy; for its tragic catastrophe is brought about, not by the essential constitution of things and the nature of the spiritual problem in itself, but by the accidental failure of an ingeniously arranged scheme which might just as well have been successful.

[3] Climax, and [4] Falling Action. There is, strictly speaking, no climax and no falling action. For, from the very nature of the case, the victim cannot retaliate; it would spoil the play if he did. The movement of the rising action goes steadily forward through the play, though not necessarily at uniform rate. From the standpoint of the intriguer, it might be represented by a line trending upward; from the standpoint of the victim, by one trending downward. In the Massinger play, there is no climax, in the sense in which we have hitherto been using the term. The only possibility of making one would be to take it as formed by Act III, Scene 2, because this scene is the most elaborate one in the play, and the only one in which both main plot and subplot are interwoven. But such an external test is not the sort one uses for tragedy.

[5] Catastrophe. It presents the completed results of the intriguer’s plans, and the total overthrow of the victim. In contrast to the tragic catastrophe it need not be causally determined by what has preceded. Here, as elsewhere throughout the action, causality is not emphasized, and here as elsewhere chance may determine the issue. Thus, in the play mentioned, one-half of the misfortune of Overreach is due, not to Wellborn’s machinations at all, save very indirectly, but to the “Deus ex machina” in the person of Marrall. Nor need the catastrophe have any quality of finality; it is sufficient that it furnish some sort of finish, which may not preclude further activity, renewed machinations, more victimizing, or even a later “turning of the worm” in a retaliatory stroke. Whereas tragedy must be final, comedy need not be more than provisional; it offers a solution only of the specific problem presented. Not that its conclusion is bound to be provisional; this will depend partly upon what has been the underlying purpose of the intrigue. Compare, as illustrating this, the character of the conclusion in A New Way to Pay Old Debts, which is approximately final, with that of The Alchemist, which impresses one as not more than provisional. In many cases, it is true, an air of conclusiveness is given by a sweeping moral regeneration of all knaves, taking place in the last act, but this is usually specious and unsatisfying; it is always quite different from the fundamental and absolute readjustment in the true tragic solution.

These are the chief differences to be noted between the comic and the tragic plot. Subordinate differences will, of course, follow as corollaries, but to take them up here would involve detailed analysis of comedy after comedy. The essential thing is to have marked the principal lines of divergence in the two types.

There are, indeed, cases where the lines seem to cross, and perhaps really do so. In Othello, for example, we have an action which conforms, in some respects, rather to the comic than the tragic type. Othello himself is less a fighter than a victim, while Iago’s attitude from the beginning is that of the arch-intriguer in the comedies we have been discussing. He considers himself injured, as does Wellborn; he plans a deliberate attack, as does Wellborn, and enlists the help of others; he chooses the point where his victim is weakest and makes his assault there, appealing to Othello’s impulsive and unreasoning love, as Wellborn appeals to his uncle’s consuming greed of gain. There is, moreover, in Iago’s attitude a kind of grim, colossal humor, while in his scheming there is a cool, if somewhat crude, power that makes us respect him and wins our intellectual sympathy, as does the arch-intriguer in a comedy. The divergence from comedy is found in the fact that (1) the character of the victim is so noble, and is so treated as to evoke our emotional sympathy; and (2) that he is strong enough, when finally aroused, to retaliate with terrible energy and with such terrible effectiveness that our thought is drawn away from the intellectual phases of the case to its emotional issues. [1] But, great as these differences are, the similarity in plan of the first four acts can scarcely be ignored, and it may be one reason why the play does not appeal to all of us as being tragic in the highest sense.

[1 Compare the case of Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice, where the feeling toward the victim may range, according to the character of the audience and of the actor, all the way from pity to scornful derision.]

To take an instance of the converse: Molière’s Le Misanthrope seems, to some readers at least, not at all the typical comedy, and if we examine the plan of the plot we shall find that it has traits distinctive rather of tragedy than of comedy; it presents, namely, a real conflict of forces, and one that is grounded in the spiritual nature of the persons concerned. With very slight changes it might have been made a tragedy, and as it is, when read in some moods, it is apt to seem more tragic than comic.

To resume: the plan of the comic action differs decidedly from that of the serious drama in the character of its conflict, in its freedom from the necessity of emphasizing law and its consequent license in use of chance or accident, in the absence of a true climax and a true falling action, and in the nature of its catastrophe. If the serious drama is represented by the projected pyramid, the comedy, such as Massinger’s, may be represented by two lines, an ascending one for the intriguer, a descending one for the victim.

Applying these results to other comedies, it will be seen that they conform fairly well. In the comedies of Plautus the victim is usually a rich old man, the intriguer usually his son or nephew, always assisted by a slave, and often by some other young man. The differences between play and play are found in the differences in the method of attack and in the motives for it. In Jonson’s comedies the plan is the same in principle, but the schemes are exceedingly complicated; there are usually several intriguers with plans somewhat opposed, and there results a number of separate little puzzles, with separate solutions, but all finally brought together in the general solution of the dénouement. Molière’s plots, again, are more simple. [1]

[1 For a fuller discussion of this type of comedy, cf. Woodbridge, Studies in Jonson’s Comedy.]

Turning now from this large group of comedies, let us see how far its principles apply to the group loosely classed as “romantic.” At the beginning of the chapter we turned away from these because the other, by virtue of its simplicity and its clearness of definition, lent itself more readily to analysis. The results thus gained may help us in dealing with the more difficult and elusive “romantic” comedy, or, at least, may afford a firm base from which we may proceed to its investigation.

In the intrigue comedy it was noted that, in supplying the intriguer with a motive for his scheming, the love-interest was usually employed, and it was suggested that if the love-interest was sufficiently emphasized it might overbalance the comic interest, and the play might become more or less serious. In turning from the plays of Plautus to those of Terence one notices, in some cases, a tendency toward this very thing. Terence’s more delicate talent seems to have inclined him to lay a slightly greater emphasis on the serious element of the plot, and there results a change in the proportionate values of the serious and the comic elements. It varies in different plays, but on the whole it seems fair to say that Terence treats the motive-interest, if we may so distinguish it from the intrigue-interest, with a tenderness of touch and gentle delicacy of sympathy that in a later age would have developed into the so-called “romantic” plot. In the Heautontimorumenos, the remorseful old father doing self-imposed penance for his harshness toward his son, the devotion of that son to his mistress, Antiphila, the little touches that sketch the character of the girl Antiphila herself; in the Andria, the overwhelming love of Pamphilus and Glycerium, which seems to have in it something more than the passion we find depicted in Plautus; – these give us glimpses, though no more than glimpses, of a possible development into another sort of comedy.

Such a development is found in full maturity in the work of Shakespeare; and though we may not take the plays of Terence as a link in an actual evolutionary chain, – for the evolution took place on other lines, – we may use them in our own thought as furnishing a transition phase between the two kinds of comedy. [1]

[1 In Italian comedy, however, there seems actually to have been some such evolution. Cf. Violet Paget’s Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy.]

In dealing with Shakespeare we have, it must be remembered, only approximate dates, and cannot base too much on chronology, yet enough seems established to give us some rough notions of grouping and development. The comedies, following the approximate chronology now agreed upon, may be arranged as follows:

Love’s Labour’s Lost.
The Comedy of Errors.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Merchant of Venice.
The Taming of the Shrew.
King Henry IV, two parts.
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Much Ado about Nothing.
As You Like It.
Twelfth Night.

All’s Well that Ends Well.
Measure for Measure.

Cymbeline.
The Winter’s Tale.
The Tempest.

Of the earliest group two, Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Comedy of Errors, have been already accounted for. In both the comic interest determines the main plot, which is in the one case developed out of the characters, in the other out of pure incident apart from character. Yet in the latter case it is significant that Shakespeare, using Plautus’ plot, added to it here and there touches of seriousness not in his original, and the proportions of the two elements in the play are more nearly as in some of Terence’s comedies.

In The Two Gentlemen of Verona we have the romantic comedy proper: there is the comic episode, which could be cut out without maiming the play’s structure, and the serious love-plot, double (as often in Terence) and following in its logical divisions the lines of the serious drama. Because it is so simple and typical, it is worth while to examine it somewhat in detail.

Act I. Exposition: love of Proteus and Julia, friendship of Proteus and Valentine.

Rising Action: Valentine leaves for Milan, Proteus also is to be sent thither.

Act II. Exposition, continued: love of Valentine and Silvia.

Rising Action, continued: in development of Proteus’ treachery toward Julia and toward Valentine. A possible opposition is hinted in Julia’s resolution to go to seek Proteus.

Act III. Climax: apparent success of Proteus’ plans, and banishment of Valentine.

Act IV. Return Action: turn of fortune for Valentine suggested in his being made king of the outlaws; for Proteus it is suggested by the appearance of Julia in Milan; for both it is precipitated by Silvia’s plan to run away.

Act V. End of Return Action, and Resolution: Silvia’s flight accomplished, the pursuit of her brings about the solution.

Here it will be seen that there is a true conflict of forces, a true rise, turning-point, and descent. And if Proteus has some of the characteristics of the arch-intriguer, it is the serious, not the comic aspect of his activity that is emphasized, and its criminal nature.

The broad comedy in the play is embodied in the episodes where Speed and Launce appear. They could be cut out, yet they are really related to the main-plot scenes. For, as the Greeks used to follow up their tragedies by a comic parody, so Shakespeare seems here to have intended a parody of his own serious situations. In II, 2, is presented the parting of the two lovers; in the next scene Launce appears and sets forth, with the help of his slippers and his cane, his own farewell to his family: the tears of his parents, the wails of his cat, and the unnatural indifference of his “stony-hearted dog.” Again, in III, 1, immediately following upon Valentine’s desperate grief at the separation from Silvia, comes Speed with the announcement that he, too, is in love, and he proceeds to discuss the situation. The parallelism may be accidental, but it can scarcely be deemed so. A similar case occurs in Love’s Labour’s Lost, in the Armado-Costard-Jaquenetta episodes, while in As You Like It the parody is elaborated, in Touchstone and Awdry, past the point of mere parody, almost into an independent sub-interest.

But, besides this burlesque treatment of the serious issue, there is, in the presentation of the issue itself, the beginning of a kind of comedy peculiar to Shakespeare, namely, a touching of the serious with a slightly comic light, – of the most tenderly delicate sort, it is true, but unmistakable comedy nevertheless. This is the case in the scenes in which Julia appears (note especially Act I, Scene 2). It is the first trace of the author’s power to look at things in two ways at once, a first gleam of the genius that was later to look at the old Lear through the eyes of the “bitter fool,” and utter his tragedy in a jest, “And yet I would not be thee, nuncle; thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides, and left nothing i’ the middle”: (Goneril enters) “here comes one o’ the parings.”

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, again, there are the two distinct lines: one the love-interest, – double again, and as usual with the lines inter-crossing until straightened out by Oberon, – and the other the comic interest in the tradesmen of Athens and their interlude. The third group, the fairies and Puck, brings in a semi-lyric element foreign to our present discussion. So far all is clear: the comic in the tradesmen’s scenes is easily placed, and it does not affect the main plot. But once more, in this main plot, we find the note of comedy even stronger than in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, while in the entire treatment there is a tone of whimsicality that is perhaps a result of the midsummer night’s witchery. The serious and the comic standpoints are represented for us in Oberon and Puck, as they look on at the confusion of the two pairs of lovers. Oberon, taking it earnestly, thinks of the consequences:

 “What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite
  And laid the love-juice on some true-love’s sight:
  Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
  Some true love turned and not a false turned true.”

Puck, the mocker, enjoys the situation:

 “Captain of our fairy band,
  Helena is here at hand;
  And the youth, mistook by me,
  Pleading for a lover’s fee.
  Shall we their fond pageant see?
  Lord, what fools these mortals be?
  Oberon. Stand aside: the noise they make
  Will cause Demetrius to awake.
  Puck. Then will two at once woo one;
  That must needs be sport alone;
  And those things do best please me
  That befall preposterously.”

And again, when Oberon reprimands the imp:

 “This is thy negligence: still thou mistakest.
  Or else committ’st thy knaveries wilfully.”

Puck answers, unabashed:

 “Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
  And so far am I glad it did so sort
  As this their jangling I esteem a sport.” [1]

[1 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, III, 2.]

And evidently the poet himself was able to see at once with the eyes of Oberon and of Puck.

In The Merchant of Venice a sterner note is struck. As always, there is the episodic comedy and the love-plots, but there is also the Shylock-Bassanio interest. And here the query intrudes itself: did Shakespeare mean the Shylock plot to be comic or not? It has, indeed, even now a grim kind of comic effect, but we must suspect that the Elizabethan audience laughed where we do not. Possibly Shakespeare meant him to be comic, and without purposing to do so lapsed occasionally into a sympathetic treatment simply because he could not help doing this with any character that he handled long. This would account on the one hand for the hardness of tone in the Jessica plot, and on the other hand for the sympathetic insight in such passages as Shylock’s magnificent outburst in answer to Salarino:

“Salar. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh: what’s that good for?

Shy. To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge... I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands... If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” etc.
[1 The Merchant of Venice, III, 1.]

According to this interpretation, we see in Shylock, despite such passages, our familiar comic victim, grown indeed more formidable, and requiring, not the justice but the injustice of the law courts to overcome him, but the comic victim nevertheless, whose downfall, as in typical comedy of intrigue, brings with it the happiness of the lovers. Shakespeare’s mistake, then, was in making us sympathize too keenly with Shylock, though, as we have said, this may not have been the case for his own day.

This brings us to Henry IV, whose structure we have already settled. For, though the character of Falstaff really overshadows the entire play, it does not affect its structure, and the comic scenes are episodic.

In The Merry Wives of Windsor we have a unique case: the episodic comedy of the two preceding plays is, by a tour de force, made the main plot of this one, while a serious subplot is added. The victimizing is an end in itself, instead of being, as in the usual comic main plot, a means to some other end; and Falstaff, from a unique comic hero, has deteriorated into a commonplace comic butt. He has lost his peculiar wit, and – most impossible of all – he takes himself seriously, so that instead of laughing with him we are laughing at him. The character of the play bears out the tradition concerning its writing; it is evidently a piece of hack work, and though the hack work of genius cannot be ignored, the play may, in the present discussion, be set one side.

The next three comedies form a closely related group, which need here scarcely be considered apart. All have serious love-plots and all have comic by-play, that in Twelfth Night being curiously affiliated with the type found in Molière and Jonson, while in Rosalind we might, if we chose, see an arch-intriguer turned somewhat ethereal and exceeding moral, managing the others for their best good and her own innocent amusement. In all three the serious plot is occasionally given a comic tone, the comedy being also partly perceived even by the participants themselves. In these three plays we get the perfection of the Shakespearean comedy, and we need not go on to the last two groups, for, though the bitter jests of All’s Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure and the idyllic temperateness of The Tempest show a tremendous range in tone and many interesting points of detail, there is nothing new in underlying structure.

Pausing here, then, and looking over the range of Shakespearean comedy, we find certain qualities characterizing it: a main plot embodying the love-interest, and episodic scenes embodying the comic interest, the love-interest tinged with comedy yet not so as to destroy its seriousness. It is thus allied with both kinds of drama: with the serious, in that its main ends are serious and its use of the emotions is so; with the comic by reason of this touch of comedy in the treatment, and also by its emancipation from law. For these serious plots have in this respect almost as much license as has pure comedy, and, whereas tragedy is grounded in the spiritual laws of human life, these present to us situations constructed by the fancy and imagination from materials furnished by human life. In the reconstruction, certain things are left out, and that which is above all emphasized in tragedy is here steadily ignored, the binding force of the law, – “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” The imagination is free to work, and in the result there is an element of the fanciful, even of the whimsical.

Thus, of the three forms, tragedy, comedy, and this Shakespearean type of comedy, each selects out of life certain parts – no one is complete. Comedy is, in one way, the most limited in its view and the most superficial, it emphasizes certain intellectual phases of things but leaves out others, and it avoids an appeal to the emotions; tragedy is the deepest, laying stress on the emotional phases of life, but treating them not simply in themselves, as does the lyric, but in their relations to will and to outer fact. The romantic comedy is somewhere between these two extremes: its treatment hovers between the surface view, which is characteristic of the comic, and the deeper insight that is essential to the tragic; it makes use of the emotions, but ignores their causal relations.

It will be evident that this intermediate position gives the fullest possible scope to the poetic imagination, and we see how in The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream it almost passes out of drama proper and verges on what we might call free dramatic fantasia. It is because of these qualities, too, that it is to the lover of the drama peculiarly satisfying. It has neither the thinness that often characterizes pure comedy by reason of its preponderating intellectuality, nor the almost oppressive emotional intensity of tragedy; yet it is free to employ the resources of both tragedy and comedy, while it may range in tone from the temperateness of the epic to the emotional depth of the lyric. It has at once richness and delicacy; it is at once philosophical and fanciful; it is the most “poetic” of forms. Even Jonson, the high priest of the intellectual in drama, when, for the only time in his dramatic career, he gave freer play to the other side of his nature, adopted a form akin to this; and Shakespeare, though his mightiest achievements are in tragedy, attained in this form his most nearly perfect artistic excellence.

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 4

2009-05-11T11:04:00.002Z

CHAPTER IV – THE NATURE AND SOURCES OF TRAGIC EFFECT

The word “tragic,” as commonly used, denotes anything sad, especially something having the qualities of suddenness and finality. It is scarcely distinguished from the pathetic, and, though when the two words are brought together a difference is felt, it is a difference rather of intensity than of quality. But for our purposes the word must be interpreted more narrowly, to mean the kind of effect produced by the sight of a losing struggle carried on between a strong but imperfect individuality and the overpowering forces of life. This will do as a rough beginning, as a trial definition, to be corroborated or modified as it is applied to those tragedies which are by universal consent held to be among the greatest. Choosing almost at random, let us take for this purpose the tragedy Macbeth, the tragedy Othello, and the tragedies whose centre of interest is the figure of Orestes.

In Macbeth we have a double protagonist, for a treatment of Lady Macbeth as subordinate involves one in great difficulties. We have here a man in whom are mingled great strength and great weakness: he is a brave and able soldier, but is incapable of prolonged and consistent effort; his thinking is superficial and his morality is therefore not vital and durable; a man of generous and kindly impulses, but open to influence either for good or evil if another stronger and steadier force be brought to bear upon him. Such a force is found in Lady Macbeth. Her mind is cool and steady, and her effectiveness in carrying out any policy she may take up, whether that policy be good or bad, is therefore greater than his could ever be. The occurrence of favorable opportunity, and her ambition for her husband determine her toward evil. Macbeth, morally unsound but wavering in his policy, is upheld by his wife, and together they enter upon the series of acts which end in the ruin of both. The tragic effects are found in their struggles to do that which is impossible to escape the consequences of their own acts.

Othello presents, stated briefly, a struggle between two natures: the one impulsive, passionate, generous, endowed with tremendous power to love and hate, but not well poised, without controlling judgment; the other cold, intellectually agile, self-sufficient and self-controlled, able to use himself and others as tools with a skill founded in an accurate though limited understanding of human motives. In this struggle, Othello’s weakness brings about his fall, but Iago’s success is not complete because his understanding is thus limited – because the world is not, after all, wholly moved by the motives which he understands and counts upon. Each falls a victim to the laws of society which are based in human nature.

In Orestes we have the spectacle of a man who, through no fault of his own, is placed in a position where he must choose between two evils, and, whichever he chooses, he will be contravening some of the most sacred laws of religion and of nature. He chooses, and bears the retribution which his act, though necessary, necessarily involved.

In these instances we find certain constant elements which had been already implied in our trial definition. There is always a struggle, there is the fighter, and there is the opposing force. Let us examine these elements.

And first, the fighter. Our definition said, a strong but imperfect individuality. It has already (chap. III) been suggested that the dramatic person must be vital and positive. Not that he must necessarily act positively; the colorlessness of much of Hamlet’s outer activity is quite different from that of his two friends, Rosenkranz and Guildenstern. It is not the result of forcelessness, but the resultant of conflicting forces within him. The hero must be imperfect, because, for one reason, a perfectly poised character is usually too nearly invulnerable for the opposing force to get a firm hold. Aristotle clearly saw this when he said that the hero must not be a perfectly good man, but, as we shall see, this provision has to be accepted with some reservations. [1] The deepest reason for it is found in the nature of the opposing force.

[1 Cf. infra, pp. 117 ff.]

For the best form of tragedy is found, according to Hegel, when the opposing force is closely united with the soul of the fighter himself – when it has effected a lodgment in the enemy’s trenches and fights from within as well as from without. Such is the case in Macbeth, such is Orestes’ case, such is the case in Othello, such is preeminently the case in Hamlet and in Wallenstein. The hero is, as it were, his own worst enemy. So that one is almost inclined to state categorically that the hero must be thus imperfect, because the tragic struggle must be within him in order to be truly tragic.

But tempting as it is to generalize from these supreme examples, we must be careful not to construct such a theory of the tragic as will exclude such plays as Antigone, and Romeo and Juliet. Here we have another class of effects which we cannot ignore, and in which the tragic element is certainly of a different kind from that found in the other group. We have, in each of these cases, a tragic hero or heroes whose struggle is with outer circumstances, and whose fall is necessitated, not by inner weakness, but by the brute strength of external fact. Thus, Antigone is, so far as her tragic end is concerned, a perfect character. But a combination of circumstances suddenly arises, because of which she is forced to choose between conformity to a social or political law and obedience to a spiritual or religious law. Her brother’s corpse lies unburied outside her native city. Her king and uncle – having over her since her father’s death also a father’s authority – imperatively commands that the body shall not be buried. This command Antigone feels bound, by all the sacredness of family ties and religious custom, to contravene. She chooses to break the law of the state, and by the state she dies. The story of Orestes might, of course, be similarly interpreted, and thus brought within this group of tragedies.

It may indeed be said that such a death in such a cause is not defeat but triumph, and so it is, from one standpoint. But such a standpoint is not one from which we can judge drama with any practical helpfulness. It would involve us in endless subtleties, probably ending in the assertion that the only thing truly tragic is the moral ruin of a soul, – which would cut out nearly everything in drama except Macbeth and Browning’s A Soul‘s Tragedy, or at least would swing around the whole emphasis in the tragedies we know, transferring the interest from the so-called “heroes” to the so-called “villains,” who, having power only to “kill the body” of their victims, kill, in so doing, their own souls.

Evidently this will not do, and we must return to a simpler and perhaps a somewhat more external way of judging. Antigone may be spiritually a conqueror, – her death is surely amply avenged, – but considered simply as a woman, as a human being with but one earthly life to live, she is conquered. This, indeed, she herself recognizes when she answers the chorus, who have been trying to show her the heroic aspect of her fate:

“Chorus. But ‘tis great renown for a woman who hath perished that she should have shared the doom of the godlike, in her life, and afterward in death.

Antigone. Ah, I am mocked! In the name of our fathers’ gods, can ye not wait till I am gone, must ye taunt me to my face, O my city, and ye, her wealthy sons? Ah, fount of Dirce, and thou holy ground of Thebe whose chariots are many; ye, at least, will bear me witness, in what sort, unwept of friends, and by what laws I pass to the rock-closed prison of my strange tomb, ah me unhappy! who have no home on the earth or in the shades, no home with the living or with the dead... From what manner of parents did I take my miserable being! And to them I go thus, accursed, unwed, to share their home. Alas, my brother, ill-starred in thy marriage, in thy death thou hast undone my life!” [1]

[1 Antigone, trans. Jebb, pp. 155 ff.]

To change the instance: – the end of the prison-scene in Faust means that the girl has won for herself the great spiritual victory:

 “Marguerite. Gericht Gottes! Dir hab’ ich mich
       übergeben!
  Dein bin ich, Vater! Rette mich!
  Ihr Engel! Ihr heiligen Schaaren,
  Lagert euch umher, mich zu bewahren!
  Heinrich! Mir graut’s vor dir.
  
  Mephistopheles. Sie ist gerichtet!
  
  Stimme. [von oben] Ist gerettet!”

But her drama is none the less a tragedy, and while the “voice from above” proclaims her “saved,” Mephistopheles is, humanly speaking, entirely right in deeming her “lost.” The two judgments here thus opposed may be taken as representative of the two standards – the standard which judges a human life by itself, and sees in death an ultimate fact; and the standard which looks beyond and above to a different set of spiritual values, in which death is a comparatively unimportant element, or important only as it acts upon the hero’s nature as a motive. The second standard may or may not be the true one; the first seems the only practicable one to apply to art. For, as we have already said, the artist works with phenomena only; life has for him only what it seems to have for those who live it, and death for him is ultimate because it ends our known activity. [1]

[1 Cf. supra, pp. 32-34, and infra, pp. 88-90.]

Remembering, then, that there is another way of judging, we may once more return to our definition of tragedy: as a losing struggle wherein the opposing and victorious forces may lie either chiefly within the hero’s own nature, in which case we have a conflict which is chiefly spiritual – Hamlet, Orestes; or they may lie chiefly outside, in which case we have a struggle more or less external, the hero remaining unmoved – Antigone, Romeo, and Juliet; or it may be both internal and external – Othello, possibly Wallenstein. Of course in one sense it must always be both, for the spiritual forces of the inner struggle will always have some outward and material embodiment, the outer conflict will always have an answering inner phase. [1] Here, as always, it is a question of proportion, of relative emphasis, and there is no possibility of strict demarcations of classes.

[1 Cf. infra, pp. 129 ff.]

One other element there is which these all have in common, besides the necessity of there being a struggle and a losing one: the element, namely, of causality. Aristotle saw this clelirly and laid great emphasis upon it:

“Tragedy is an imitation ... of events terrible and pitiful. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow from one another. The tragic wonder will then be greater than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even accidents are most striking when they have an air of design.” [ Poetics, IX.]

“These last [reversal of fortune and recognition] should arise from the internal structure of the plot, so that what follows should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action. It makes all the difference whether one event is the consequence of another, or merely subsequent to it.” [ Ib., X.]

“It is therefore evident that the unravelling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the Deus ex Machina. Within the action there must be nothing irrational.” [ Ib., XV.]

That is to say, the opposing force must derive its power, not only really but evidently, from what has gone before. Aristotle even goes so far as to say that if the event be not really probable, it should at least, by a kind of sleight of hand, be made to seem so. [1] But, if such jugglery is necessary, it means weakness. The drama should be the place where we may see, more easily recognizable than in actual life, the universal operation and validity of irresistible law. Othello is not a great tragedy because a husband mistakenly kills his wife, but because he is seen to be, in so doing, the victim and the agent of absolute and remorseless law. Wallenstein is not a great tragedy because the general is assassinated, or even because he is a traitor, but because these things are seen to be the inevitable conclusion of the given series of events. The thing which we must be made to feel is, in Amiel’s phrase, “The fatality of the consequences which follow upon every human act, – the leading idea of dramatic art and the most tragic element of life.” [2]

[1 Poetics, XXIV.]

[2 Journal, 6th April, 1851.]

To take an opposite instance, the following is a true story of our Civil War: A young Confederate soldier had, after months of service, obtained leave to go home for a few weeks. His companions crowded around him, giving him messages to friends, and letters to be sent when he reached a safe district. As he was ready to start he turned back, with the words, “Guess I’ll have one more look at the Yanks,” and went out again to the intrenchments. He leaned forward on the ridge, raised his head above it, and a bullet from the Union ranks struck him. He fell forward, dead.

Such an event appeals to us with more than common force, by virtue of its grim irony. It is one of those accidents which Aristotle would have said have an air of design, but it is not available for tragedy – at least, not for the chief event of tragedy – because it is, after all, accident. It may, indeed, be said that nothing is accidental, everything is the result of unvarying law, and this is certainly true. But not all events bear upon them the recognizable stamp of this causality, and there are therefore in our experience a vast number of occurrences which go by the name of accidents. The dramatist may be able by his insight and power of presentation to take some of these occurrences out of this category. If he can, they are his to use. If he cannot, they are not fit material for tragedy; their appearance in drama is a sign of decay, it is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the “melodramatic.” If examples of this kind of abuse are wanted, they may be found in almost any of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher.

Such an incident as that just given, if not strictly speaking tragic, is certainly pathetic, and we are now ready to return to the distinction, suggested at the beginning of the chapter, between these two classes of effects. That is pathetic which involves suffering, unmerited, or out of proportion to guilt, or at least considered without reference to the guilt of the sufferer. It implies a certain passivity on his part, or a resistance so manifestly inadequate as to amount to the same thing. Thus, the sufferings of animals under abuse are pathetic, the sufferings of sick people are so, so is much spiritual suffering which is recognized as inevitable and endured as such. Thus, Ophelia and Desdemona may be called pathetic, while Hamlet and Othello are tragic, and we might multiply examples indefinitely. This is perhaps the reason why children have never been used as tragic heroes. To themselves, their world is great and their emotions intense, and, suffering being a wholly subjective matter, their actual sufferings are doubtless often as great as those of adults. But the dramatist is concerned with act as well as feeling, with struggle as well as pain, and the child has not the command of himself and of the world to meet these requirements. Occasionally the treatment of children in literature, by some singular combination of good fortune and skill and sympathy, does approximate the tragic; it does this in Kipling’s remarkable story, The Drums of the Fore and Aft. But the means by which the author has attained this result, so far as they are discoverable, only go to prove the truth of the general rule. An interesting instance of its validity may be found in the three Theban plays of Sophocles. In the Oedipus Rex Antigone and Ismene are simply pathetic figures, used to enhance the effect of their father’s fall. In the Oedipus Coloneus Antigone is rising out of this passivity, but she is still in the main pathetic in this sense. In the Antigone she has become truly tragic, though retaining a certain pathetic tone, by virtue of the quietness of her resistance. [1]

[1 It is not meant to imply that the three plays were written in sequence or regarded as a trilogy. They were written at long intervals, and probably not in the order of the story, and were not performed together. Cf. Jebb’s introduction to his translation of Antigone, §§ 22, 23.]

It is, then, not enough that an incident be pathetic that the recital of it saddens us. It must not be merely

             “a tale of things
  Done long ago, and ill done,”

but must involve action and reaction, blow and counterblow, the conflict of forces.

It has become a commonplace of dramatic criticism to say that the Greek tragic differs from ours in that their tragic force was a resistless fate, while with us it springs from recognized antecedents, usually to be found in the voluntary acts of the hero himself. Thus Freytag says:

“The dramatic ideas and the dramatic actions of the Greeks dispensed with a rational world-order, dispensed, that is, with an interlinking of events that is completely accounted for by the conditions and the onesidedness of the characters represented. We are become freer men, we recognize on the stage no other fate than such as arises out of the essential nature of the hero himself.” [2]

[2 Die Technik des Dramas, p. 81. And cf. pp. 119-20.]

Such phrases are, however, apt to be misleading. Whatever be the difference in the form of statement, the underlying tragic motive in Oedipus, and in Lear or Hamlet or Othello, is really the same, namely, “the fatality of the consequences which follow upon every human act.”

It has been assumed that much of Ibsen’s work is in this respect Greek rather than modern. But even in Ghosts, where the idea of an overpowering fate is most prominent, this idea affords the tragic material only, and neither in Ibsen nor in Sophocles is the victim of this “fate” regarded, per se, as the tragic hero. In Ghosts the victim, Oswald, is not the hero at all – he is a passive sufferer under what the dramatist, mistakenly or not, represents as unalterable law. The real protagonist is Oswald’s mother, and the tragic effect is found in the spectacle of her heroic struggle against a power that she finally discovers to be unconquerable.

There is, as has been suggested, a type of tragedy which does not entirely conform to the principles we have been deducing. We have examples of it in Shakespeare’s Richard III, in Jonson’s Catiline and Sejanus, in Massinger’s The Roman Actor. In these cases the hero is an absolutely vicious character who holds his place as hero at all only by reason of high intellectual powers. The tragedy presents to us the spectacle of his downfall, it presents the vengeance taken by society upon one who has done violence to all its laws. It does not portray an inner struggle, it does not present a spiritual problem; it shows the means by which a moral monster is prevented from permanent enjoyment of the fruits of his vices and his crimes.

Such a theme can, it is evident, never be treated so as to attain the highest tragic effect. It may contain much pathos in the subordinate characters – it usually does contain this. When it is great at all its greatness is intellectual solely. It might be better to call this group satiric tragedies, with emphasis on the “satiric,” for it possesses the grim irony of satire and its judicial attitude, and thus affiliates with one group of satiric comedy. The differences between Richard III and Sejanus on the one hand, which are called tragedy, and Volpone on the other, which is called comedy, are superficial; their kinship is essential.

Thus far we have been considering the elements of the tragic in themselves, and, so far as is possible, apart from their effect on the spectator. Aristotle chose the other point of view and defined the tragic solely in terms of its effect. [1] The two elements of this effect he made pity and fear, with a third element which may be here disregarded because, despite the efforts of philosophers and commentators, it is still not quite clear what he meant, nor are we sure that his statement, if we do understand it, is true for us moderns. But pity and fear will be found to be readily convertible into the terms we have used. “Pity” corresponds to the suffering and the struggle, “fear” corresponds to the causality. For Aristotle elsewhere distinguishes pity from fear by saying that pity is caused by the perception of suffering which we do not think of as affecting ourselves; fear is caused by the perception of suffering which we realize may be ours. Now this last element is exactly what is involved in causality, it is the element of universal law, whose universality involves us in its sweep, and the perception of which produces, according to our mood, either an enlargement of spirit or a sense of oppression which is probably another name for Aristotle’s fear.

[1 Poetics, VI.]

Thus we may sum up the elements of tragic effect in three words: suffering, struggle, causality. Suffering alone is pathetic merely; struggle alone may be heroic merely (note the Heracles of Euripides’ Alkestis); causality alone gives us the rational merely: the union of the three produces the tragic.

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 3

2009-05-11T00:47:00.007Z

CHAPTER III – THE MECHANICAL DIVISIONS OF THE DRAMA

(1) The Acts

We have called the division of the play into acts and scenes a mechanical one, in distinction from the logical division which has just been discussed. The single fact that the five acts of a play are commonly of about equal length would make it antecedently improbable that they should correspond to the organic articulation of the action’s parts. That they actually do not so correspond will be evident from the most superficial inspection of any play. For the first act does not cover the introduction alone; the second act does not suffice to contain the rising action, which begins in the first act and overlaps into the third; the third act almost always contains the climax, but it also includes the penultimate stages of the rising action and the initial stages of the falling action; the main part of the falling action is contained in the fourth act, but its last part runs over into the fifth act, which is therefore not exclusively devoted to the catastrophe.

The relation between the mechanical and the logical divisions of the play may be thus diagrammed:

It might seem, then, that the acts have no organism in themselves – that they are merely marked off with a tape at equal distances in the course of the play. This is not altogether the case. The division into acts is indeed somewhat a matter of stage convenience: it gives the audience time to relax, and the actors time for rest or for change of costume, it furnishes opportunity for extensive scene-shifting. Moreover, from the author’s point of view it is useful because it gives him a few points in the action wherein, the continuity being completely broken, he may assume greater changes and longer lapses of time than is advisable between scenes.

But each act ought to be, to some extent, a whole in itself; it ought to have a “beginning, middle, and end,” a rise and fall somewhat like the rise and fall of the drama as a whole. In the Greek tragedy the sections of the action falling between the choruses formed such wholes, while in the Senecan tragedies, whence modern drama took its formal five-act structure, each act is distinctly complete in itself. In the Medea, for example, the five acts present each a distinct stage of the action. Disregarding the choruses, they may be thus epitomized:

Act I. Presents Medea’s turbulent mood as she realizes that she is about to be deserted by her husband.

Act II. Stirred by the bridal chorus, she meditates revenge, but does not yet determine on whom it shall fall. In order to perfect and carry out her yet immature plans, she obtains leave to remain in the palace one day longer.

Act III. Her anger increases and hardens into cold resolve. In an interview with Jason she assures herself that he really loves the two children he has had by her. She therefore decides to kill them, as well as Creusa, his new bride.

Act IV. She invokes the aid of magic to endow with destructive powers the rich gifts she purposes to send to Creusa. Her incantations finished, she sends the gifts by her sons.

Act V. A messenger announces that Creusa and her father have died in agony, and that the city is in flames. Medea, rejoicing in this first fruit of her vengeance, proceeds to complete it. One of her sons she kills before his father arrives, the other she kills in Jason’s presence. She herself departs in her magic chariot.

It will be seen that each act makes one step in the course of the action, each is dominated by a distinct mood in Medea herself: in the first act, it is half-dazed surprise and anger; in the second, wild rage and fierce longing for vengeance; in the third, hard and deliberate resolve; in the fourth, the elation of conscious power; in the fifth, exultation in completed vengeance, alternating with horror at her own deeds.

Each act, moreover, besides completing its section of the action, points forward, at its close, to the action that is to follow. Thus at the end of Act I comes her dark prophecy that, as through crime she entered the house of Theseus, through crime she will leave it. At the end of Act II this is made more definite when she gains the day’s reprieve in which to work out her vengeance. At the end of Act III she suggests the details of the plot she is to carry forward in the next act. At the end of Act IV she sends the fatal gifts, and we wait for Act V to learn the result.

Turning now to the modern drama, we find that the structure of the classic French plays is closely similar to their Senecan models. But with Shakespeare the case is different. Of no one of his plays can such an epitome as the one just given possibly be made. The acts have no such unity; instead of presenting a single step in the action, a single mood in the protagonist, they are a network of activities, a complex of moods.

Yet in some cases a kind of unity is discoverable. This is especially true of Macbeth. Here, the first act shows Macbeth yielding to the evil promptings of ambition, while Duncan’s visit gives him the opportunity to follow out his desires. The second act centres about the murder of Duncan. The third act presents the consummation of Macbeth‘s plots and the beginning of the reaction. The fourth and fifth acts, which are, as is usual with Shakespeare, not so well constructed, present the preliminary and the final stages of the reaction. Take now, in greater detail, the third act:

Scene 1. As a kind of introduction, Banquo sums up Macbeth’s course hitherto:

“Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all
As the weird women promised; and, I fear,
Thou play’dst most foully for’t——”

Part 1. Then his mind reverts to the part of the witches’ oracle which has concerned himself. This second thought strikes the keynote of the act, since it is the memory of that prophecy which leads Macbeth to plan Banquo’s murder.

Part 2. The court enters, and Macbeth enjoins Banquo to be back for the night’s feast. His emphasis on Banquo’s return – “fail not our feast,” “Adieu, till you return at night” – points forward with double irony, first, to the measures Macbeth is about to take that Banquo may not “return at night,” and, second, to the terrible manner in which the murdered man is, after all, to fulfil the king’s injunction.

Part 3. Then follows the interview between the king and the murderers, really a scene in itself, with its own introduction (lines 73-85), rise (86-115), climax (116-126), and conclusion.

Thus the scene falls into three parts, an introduction, a transitional part, and a last part forming the first link in the rising action of the act.

Scene 2. This scene is chiefly of value as character-exposition. It does not advance the story. The opening words again insist, like the repetition of a theme in music, upon the Banquo motive:

“Lady Macbeth. Is Banquo gone from court?
Servant. Ay, Madam, but returns again to-night.”

Then follows the interview between Lord and Lady Macbeth, giving the necessary insight into their desperate moods. The phrases, “these terrible dreams that shake us nightly,” “the torture of the mind,” “life’s fitful fever,” “O, full of scorpions is my mind,” are needed to give the spiritual atmosphere of the act. The scene ends by reverting to the theme with which it began.

Scene 3. The murder of Banquo. The escape of Fleance is the first check to Macbeth’s plans.

Scene 4. The banquet-scene. It is in three parts:

The brilliant introduction emphasizes the king’s royal state. The few words with the murderer serve to set Macbeth’s mind at rest as to the success of his plot against Banquo.

With the entrance of the ghost the change comes, and there follows the half-crazed agony of the king, and the hurried breaking up of the banqueters.

The last few lines of the scene sketch the after-mood of the king, varying between remorse and a feverish and desperate resolution.

This scene is, of course, the climax of the act, as of the play. It presents the consummation of the king’s plans and the beginning of the reaction. If we seek a turning-point in a few lines, we might find it in these, where he seems dimly conscious of the nemesis to come:

              “the time has been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end: but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.”

Scene 5. The witches and Hecate plan to draw on Macbeth “to his confusion.”

Scene 6. The two lords hint their suspicions with regard to Macbeth, and speak of the party Macduff is raising for resistance.

Thus the act has a regular rise and fall. It rises to the murder of Banquo, the escape of Fleance suggests the turn, while the banquet-scene and the two following scenes develop the threefold character of the reactionary forces, the forces, namely, of the moral order, of the supernatural realm, and of the political world.

In Lear, Act III, there is, considering the complicated nature of the double plot, a fairly compact structure. For the Lear-plot the act may be considered as extending from Scene 1 to Scene 6; for the Gloucester-plot, from Scene 3 to Scene 7. Making a double order, we may sketch it as in the accompanying diagram:

It is to be noted that the treatment of the two plots is in this act different in kind: that of Lear is expository, that of Gloucester is narrative. The first has its expository climax in the hovel-scene, it falls away in the gentler tone of the farmhouse scene, ending in the old king’s exhausted sleep; the second has a steady rise through the three scenes, culminating in the blinding of Gloucester, and having an abrupt fall in the wounding of Cornwall.

But such cases of good act-structure are not to be taken as typical of Shakespeare. In Lear, for example, the other four acts are, in this respect, hopelessly inorganic. Macbeth is more evenly good, though the first three acts are the best. It is noteworthy, too, that where, as in Lear, one act surpasses the others in structural compactness, it is the third. Now the third act has for its nucleus the climax of the play as a whole, and it can thus hardly help having a well-marked rise and fall. However, an act may be well constructed and not have both rise and fall – everything depends on what is its position in the play. Take the first two acts of Macbeth; Act I may be thus summarized:

SCENE 1. Witches. Introductory suggests the “tone” of the play.
SCENE 2. Camp. Introductory exposition.
SCENE 3. Witches, Macbeth, and Banquo. Exciting force.
SCENE 4. Duncan, his generals, etc. Exciting force strengthened by partial fulfilment of the witches’ prophecies, which increases Macbeth’s confidence in them.
SCENE 5. Lady Macbeth resolves on the murder of Duncan. This initiates the rising action.
SCENE 6. Duncan received by Lady Macbeth.
SCENE 7. Lady Macbeth strengthens Macbeth’s resolution.

Here the first scene is merely preliminary – like the striking of chords in music; the second is introductory; the third and fourth present the exciting force; the fifth, sixth, and seventh present the first stages of the rise. The act is perfectly compact and ends at exactly the right moment.

Compare now Act II.

SCENE 1. Expositional of Macbeth’s highly wrought state.
SCENE 2. Contrasting sketch of Lady Macbeth’s mood. Macbeth enters, having done the murder. The knocking on the gate.
SCENE 3. The discovery of the murder. Flight of Malcolm and Donalbain.
SCENE 4. Ross and Macduff discuss the murder. Macduff will not attend Macbeth’s coronation.

The act, in contrast with the preceding, has a rise and fall: it works up to the murder and presents the beginning of the reaction from the deed as shown on Macbeth and on those about him. Taken in greater detail, it has two points of supreme tension: the first in Scene 2, the second in Scene 3. The first part of Scene 1, the talk between Banquo and Macbeth, is skilfully managed so as to be pregnant with suggestion. Banquo’s frank remark, “I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters,” recalls the theme of the rising action, while Macbeth’s quick, guilty answer, “I think not of them,” is in marked contrast. There follows Macbeth’s soliloquy – really a separate scene, and paralleled by the soliloquy of Lady Macbeth at the beginning of Scene 2. After Macbeth enters, having killed Duncan, the first point of tension is reached; when the knocking commences there is a sudden relaxing. The porter’s entry makes a break, then the second rise begins, culminating in the discovery of the murder. From this point the tension relaxes again.

Thus the movement of this act is seen to be quite different from that of the preceding one, and yet different from Act III. If they were to be symbolized in diagrams, they would be about as follows (the Roman numerals indicate acts; the Arabic, scenes):

One more point is to be noted. It was seen in the Medea of Seneca that each act had toward its close some suggestion of the action that was to follow in the next. The same thing may be observed at the end of almost any of the acts in Shakespeare’s plays. Of the three acts just analyzed, the first closes with the criminal resolve of Macbeth and his Lady; the second has the scene with Macduff, which is subtly suggestive of his antagonism to Macbeth; the third blocks out the three main forces of the return action.

One might multiply instances of such secondary, anticipatory rise. A notable exception is found in Romeo and Juliet, in the position of the street brawl scene, wherein Tybalt is killed. We should expect it at the end of Act II instead of at the beginning of Act III. It would have given exactly the note of warning needed to intensify the scenes of the climax, yet would not have trenched so closely upon these scenes. The third act would then have begun with the orchard scene, and would have gained the jewel-like unity that is the concomitant of singleness of impression in complexity of material.

In studying act-structure, however, it must of course be remembered that the absence of a curtain made the divisions between the acts much less marked then than now. Yet the case of Macbeth shows that structural act-unity could be, though it seldom was attained by Shakespeare.

The fact is, we must not expect from Shakespeare perfection of structure. In seeing and seizing upon the essential dramatic moments in his theme he was almost unerring, but in the working out he was usually careless – possibly he was really indifferent, conscious that he possessed the “one thing needful.” Certainly the attempt to deduce laws from his act-structure gives, in the main, only negative results, whereas a study of the dramatic moments – what we have called the logical divisions – of his dramas is exhaustlessly fruitful.

Our modern drama has a character intermediate between the French seventeenth century and the English Elizabethan and Stuart drama. Each act has greater complexity than had the French, greater compactness than the English. Ibsen, in so many respects affiliated with the Greek drama, usually preserves the unity of place and sometimes that of time, as in Ghosts, and each act is individual in its presentation of some phase of the theme. Sudermann’s dramas are models in cleanness of construction, and they have the effectiveness that comes of masterly technique. In Wildenbruch’s Heinrich und Heinrich’s Geschlecht, his latest and perhaps his strongest drama, the act-structure is remarkably compact. The play is built up about the humiliation of the emperor at Canossa and is in two “evenings,” each forming a play by itself, of which the first is the more powerful. An analysis of its acts makes an interesting contrast with the Shakespearean form. It has a prologue and four acts.

Prologue. This shows Heinrich when a boy of ten. It serves to give an insight into his original, unperverted nature, and thus to invoke the sympathies of the audience.

Act I. The State House in Worms. King Heinrich returns from a victorious campaign against the rebellious Saxons. Messengers from the Pope arrive, refusing to grant his request for the emperorship, and censuring him for his evil courses. He sends back a message of defiance couched in studiedly insulting terms. The act is chiefly expositional, presenting the two great factors in the struggle that is to ensue, namely, the king’s intense love for his people and the radical antagonism between his nature and ideals and those of the Pope.

Act II. There are two scenes, the first in Rome, the second in Worms.

Scene 1. Pope Gregory is giving judgment on the penitents brought before him. Heinrich’s defiance reaches him. He wavers between the dictates of wordly ambition and those of the spiritual vision.

Scene 2. Heinrich is under the Pope’s ban, but bitter and unyielding. The children of Worms come out with Christmas gifts for the little prince, his son. Softened by this evidence of their love, Heinrich resolves for their sakes to humble himself before Pope Gregory, and secure tranquillity for his people.

Act III. Canossa.

Scene 1. An audience room in the castle. Gregory is beset by the Saxon faction, enemies of Heinrich, who offer to depose him and let the Pope create an emperor who shall be a tool of the church. As Gregory wavers before the temptation to grasp at temporal power, it is announced that King Heinrich has come to do penance.

Scene 2. Another audience room. After three days of struggle with conflicting motives, Gregory admits the royal penitent and recalls his curse. Heinrich, at the height of spiritual exaltation, learns of the Pope’s dealings with the Saxons, and the perception of this double dealing shatters his faith. His mood changes to one of hard cynicism, and he leaves the presence determined to gain the emperorship by force of arms.

Act IV. Rome. A fortified tower where the Pope has taken refuge. Heinrich enters the city with his army. In disguise, he visits Gregory and asks him to crown him emperor. Gregory refuses, and Heinrich goes, to set up a new pope who shall do his will. Gregory dies, while from below are heard the cries of the populace, “Emperor Heinrich and Pope Vibert!”

From this epitome it will be seen how each act presents one phase of the subject treated. The first suggests the factors in the problem; the second presents the two great protagonists, Heinrich and Gregory, showing how each is torn by conflicting impulses; the third brings the problem to its issue; the fourth presents the provisional solution, which the second part of the play is to bring in question, but which affords temporary stability.

Among modern French work, an example of beautiful act-structure is Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, which, though called a “heroic comedy,” has a partly tragic theme and the structure of serious drama. It has five acts, each located in a single place: the first, at the Hotel de Bourgogne; the second, at Rageneau’s bakery, a rendezvous for Bohemian Paris; the third, a street before a house; the fourth, a camp at the siege of Arras; the fifth, a convent garden. Each act is a wonder of construction, being highly complex in material, yet close-knit, with no tendency to straggle or fall apart. The first two acts have each a central climax, with a secondary rise toward the close, anticipatory of the following act. The third act has the central climax, but the secondary one is less marked. The fourth act is constructed like a fifth act, with a central climax and a sudden fall to a catastrophe; but the curious double nature of the hero’s activity makes this conclusion only partial, and the brief fifth act is needed for the final resolution.

Summarizing: the division into acts has been called mechanical, in distinction from those logical divisions that are grounded in the development of the theme itself. In the Senecan drama, however, and in the classic French drama modelled thereon, each act has a lyric unity not found in the freer, more epic English drama. The best of the modern work combines the complexity and variety of the English manner with the more careful form of the French.

(2) The Scenes

The word “scene” has several meanings. It may denote merely the place in which the action occurs; it may refer to the entrances and exits of the persons; or it may mean such a section of the play as, in virtue of its significance, constitutes a unit in the treatment. According to French usage, any change in the number of persons on the stage, either by addition or diminution, makes a new scene. In common English usage, a new scene is indicated when the stage has been cleared and a new entrance occurs. The place of the action may or may not be changed. Thus, in Macbeth, Act II, the first three scenes occur in the same place, a court of the castle. The first scene would, according to French usage, be three scenes: one with Banquo and Fleance; one with Banquo, Fleance, and Macbeth; one with Macbeth alone. It is in our editions indicated as a single scene, because the entrances and exits overlap; but between Macbeth’s exit and the entrance of Lady Macbeth the stage is clear, hence a new scene is made. Either method of division has drawbacks. The French method often gives importance to an exit or an entrance – that of a servant, for instance – which does not make a real break in the action, and almost always there will be several, sometimes a dozen, of these little, mechanical scenes, going to make up what we may call the logical scene – that is, the scene which develops one phase of the subject. On the other hand, the English method sometimes leaves unemphasized an entrance or an exit that is of great importance, and we have really two logical scenes in one mechanical one. Thus in Macbeth, Act III, Scene 1, there are three distinct parts: (1) Banquo alone, (2) Banquo, Macbeth, and the court, (3) Macbeth and the murderers.

When, therefore, we say that the scene should have in little what the act and the play has in large, – a compact, organic structure with a “beginning, middle, and end,” – it is of the logical, not the mechanical scene that we are speaking.

If Shakespeare is weak in act-management, he is strong in scene-management. Perhaps this is because the scene is small enough to be kept in view as a whole, even by the careless and rapid worker that Shakespeare often was; but, whatever be the reason, one may choose almost at random and find a scene exhibiting fine technique.

As in the case of the act, so in the scene the rise and fall has not always the same form. Act II, Scene 3, of Macbeth has a central rise, but Scene 1 rises toward the close, Scene 2 falls toward the close, and the three scenes, following Freytag’s method, might be thus diagrammed:

and Scenes 1 and 2 ought, logically, to be taken either as four scenes or as one great scene in four parts, for Macbeth and his wife count here as one person, and their two soliloquies are complementary parts of the continuous rise to the murder itself.

In some ways, the words “rise” and “fall” are not helpful, however, and it almost seems unfortunate that Freytag imposed them on dramatic criticism. They are purely figurative, and figurative expressions are misleading when allowed to harden into formulas. As just used, they referred to the tension of the actors in the scenes, and hence of the audience as it follows the action. Thus Scene 1 begins quietly, with Banquo’s words to Fleance, the conversation with Macbeth has more tension, and the soliloquy reaches a spiritual tumultuousness that goes over, on the same pitch, though with difference of tone, into the next scene, and increases on Macbeth’s reëntry after the murder. The knocking on the gate acts like a dash of cold water: it breaks the continuity of mood and produces a sudden relaxation of tension.

For another instance of good scene-structure, take Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene i:

Introduction. Benvolio and Mercutio by their casual talk prepare us for what is to follow:

 “The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl.”

Exciting Force. Tybalt and other Capulets enter; a dispute arises between Tybalt and Mercutio.

Rise. Romeo enters, bears Tybalt’s insults, and tries to calm him.

First Climax. Fight between Tybalt and Mercutio, Mercutio mortally wounded. The news of Mercutio’s death overcomes Romeo’s self-control.

Second Climax. Reëntry of Tybalt. Romeo defies him, they fight, Tybalt is killed.

Return and Resolution. Entry of the populace, with Montagues, Capulets, and the prince. The guilt of Romeo’s action is argued, the prince decides against him and banishes him.

The scene, with its two climaxes, might be thus diagrammed:

In the above scene, the words “rise” and “fall” have regard not only to the inner excitement of the participants, but to the outer events that advance the story.

In other cases the entire scene is broad exposition of spiritual states. Thus, in Lear, Act III, Scene 4, we have an elaborate study of the old man’s madness. The beginning is quiet, but by the end of his first long speech the king has worked himself up to an excitement whose character he himself recognizes:

 “O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.”

He becomes outwardly calm again, but the entry of Edgar feigning madness brings before his eyes the very madness he fears for himself, and perhaps draws him on toward it. At all events, his excitement grows again until it reaches the frenzy in which he cries, “Off, off, you lendings! come, unbutton here,” and tears away his clothes. This is the point of greatest spiritual tension in the scene. Gloucester’s entrance makes a break, and brings to the front Edgar, whose feigned ravings drop to the whimpered refrain, “Poor Tom’s a-cold,” “Tom’s a-cold,” while Lear’s fury subsides to a dazed quietude. Here the words “rise” and “fall” refer wholly to the spiritual intensity of the scene.

Summing up: the play, as a whole, is like an organism: it is articulated into acts, which are in turn articulated into scenes. Each act and each scene has its own individual completeness – a completeness which is, however, subordinated to that of the whole of which it forms a part. The scenes fall naturally into larger or smaller groups, and cannot be considered out of their position without in some fashion having violence done them. Each scene, regarded as a unit in a greater whole, resembles not one brick in a straight wall, but one stone in an elaborate arch: the form of the stone will be determined by the point in the arch at which it is placed and the purpose – whether this be ornament or support – which it serves.

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 2

2009-05-09T15:03:00.007Z

CHAPTER II – LOGICAL DIVISIONS OF THE ACTION

Whatever be the disposition of the contesting forces, certain things in the working out are unvarying. There is always a rising action, there is always a falling action, no matter to which of these the chief activity of the hero is relegated; there is always a turning-point and a catastrophe; there are certain other minor but essential elements. It is well to consider these before we take up the more mechanical divisions of acts and scenes, and they will be discussed under the heads: Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Catastrophe.

And, first, it will be well to look for a moment at the diagram which has, since Freytag presented it, become stock property in dramatic exposition. The play is represented as a pyramid, rising to its turning-point or climax and falling to its catastrophe. The metaphor will be found to be a helpful one. When the climax occurs at about the mechanical middle of the play, the diagram may be made thus (in the diagrams, A = introduction, B = rising action, C = turning-point, D = falling action, E = catastrophe):

while, according as it falls before or after this point, we may modify the figure thus:

or thus:

indicating in the one case a rapid rising action and a slow descent, and in the other the reverse. Othello is, in one interpretation, an example of the last, if we make the steps of the rising action the successive scenes in which Iago arouses and fixes the jealous suspicion of Othello. According to this, Scene 3 of Act III is only one member of the ascent, which rises further in Scene 4 of the same act, and culminates in Act IV, Scene 1. The falling action may be said to begin in the same scene, where Othello, deeming his fears confirmed, first strikes Desdemona. This places the turning-point appreciably beyond the middle of the play, and gives a relatively short and abrupt descent. [1]

[1] Introduction. The introduction, whose purpose is to prepare the listener for the play, used often to be set apart from the play itself as a prologue, or given by one of the actors in a set speech. It is by Shakespeare incorporated into the tissue of the play, and forms the first scene, or occasionally a scene-group. There are certain things which it must do, and others which it may do. It must, quickly and deftly, put the hearer in possession of enough facts to make him intelligent in following the play. It must tell him who the speakers are and prepare him for those who are soon to enter; it must at least hint to him the place and time of the action, although this duty is much lightened by the extensive use of scenery on our modern stage. Besides this, it may set the tone of the piece, indicate its “stimmung,” thus throwing the sensitive listener into the right mood, much in the same way that the “vorspiel” to some operas does (instance that to Lohengrin and to Parsifal). But not all dramatic introductions are thus successful. As instances where they are so, may be mentioned the witch scene in Macbeth, the scene of the mob in Julius Caesar, of the night watch on the battlements in Hamlet, of the street brawl in Romeo and Juliet.

[1 Cf. supra, p. 73, and infra, p. 84.]

It is evident that the management of the introduction is a severe test of the author’s skill. He must tell his audience a great deal without seeming to tell them anything. To this end various devices have been employed. We are familiar, on our modern stage, with the chambermaid who vivaciously chronicles the family history as she dusts the family apartment; another resource, often used by the Elizabethans, who had not discovered the chambermaid, is that of the friend just returned from abroad, who must be told all the news. Some such expedient the author is almost forced to employ, even at the risk of seeming “stagey,” and few indeed are the plays whose beginnings have not some trace of effort and artificiality; for there is one thing more fatal to a play than artificiality, and that is obscurity. The audience must at any price be made to understand what they are witnessing, and be made to do it with the least possible effort on their part, so that even the boy in the gallery is quite clear in his mind. Under the most favorable conditions, it will always be a rather trying interval, this process of comprehension, and the habitual reader of plays is often conscious of a sinking of the heart as he is confronted with a new set of “dramatis personae.” Many of Shakespeare’s beginnings are not wholly successful: instance the first scene of Hamlet, whose perfection is destroyed by Horatio’s tedious account to Marcellus of the political relations of Denmark. Good beginnings are those of Macbeth, I, 2; Othello, I, 1; the first part of the opening scene in Coriolanus, the whole of the first scene of Romeo and Juliet, and of Julius Caesar. It is an interesting study to go over some of these scenes and see just how much information we have been given, which is absolutely needed to understand the play, and how deftly and without effort this has been accomplished.

It is almost a rule of the stage that the introduction shall prepare the audience to receive the hero, but that the hero himsejf shall not appear. Where the scene is a long one, this is not so necessarily the case, and the hero often enters toward its close (see the opening scene or scenes of Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanus). On the other hand, King Lear plunges at once into the action – for the few preliminary speeches of Gloucester can scarcely be counted – since, by good fortune of the plot and the author’s skill in taking advantage of it, there was no need of a preliminary exposition.

In a few cases, moreover, the hero appears at once, and the reason for this is easily apparent. Thus, in Richard III, the first monologue of the king is typical of the way in which his personality dominates the whole drama. Iago’s part in the first scene of Othello may be similarly interpreted, if we take the play as having a double hero, and the difference in their respective activities will account for the introduction of Iago and not Othello into the first scene. Compare, too, the different effect of Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, where the Jew himself is at once introduced to us, and Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, where he does not enter until the second scene. There is a corresponding difference, which it is hard to think accidental, between the parts played by the two men in the respective plays, and the attitude of the two authors toward them.

[2] Rising Action. After the introduction comes the action proper of the play. It begins with what is called the “exciting force,” that is, the force which is to change things from their condition of balance or repose, and precipitate the dramatic conflict. From the moment of the exciting force to the moment of the turning-point, the activity thus begun, be it that of the hero or of the opposition, must show a continual, though not necessarily an even-paced, gain in power and reach. We have noted how this continual rise is illustrated by Macbeth: the first two scenes form the introduction, and the third scene, Macbeth’s meeting with the witches, furnishes the exciting force. Here first is suggested to him the thought that afterwards develops into act, in the murders of Duncan and Banquo, while the fulfilment of the first two of the witches’ prophecies, at the end of the same scene, serves to emphasize their authority. From this point through to the turning-point we have a series of scenes, each of which advances the action somewhat, each carries Macbeth and his wife more and more irretrievably forward along the path they have chosen. The only exception is Act II, Scene 4, which is, also, the only one which does not bring forward one or both the protagonists. The scene is perhaps introduced to suggest the beginning of the return action, and, rather curiously, it is balanced by Act IV, Scene 1, where Macbeth’s baleful activity overlaps into the return action. This is only another instance of the singularly symmetrical structure of the play. [1]

[1 Cf. supra, p. 70.]

But the rising action ought also to introduce the opposing forces and make the audience familiar with the characters in which they are embodied, although it is left for the second part of the play to give them greater prominence. Thus, the flight of Malcolm to safety in England hints at a future opponent to Macbeth; Macduff’s refusal to go to the coronation of Macbeth at Scone is significant; the failure to kill Fleance suggests the possibility of further checks; the refusal of Macduff to come to court emphasizes his hostility already shadowed. By this means we are prepared for the return action even before it has actually set in; we are constantly reminded that this seeming success is perhaps only strengthening the hand of avenging fate, that “God is not mocked”; and we are thus, in the first part, kept from forgetting what in the second part is to be borne in upon us with tremendous force, namely, the universality and inviolability of law.

[3] Turning-point or Climax. At a certain point in the rising action a moment comes when the activity of the aggressive force is completed; a moment after which the reversal begins, and there looms into view the force that is to dominate the last half of the action. This point is the climax, or, better, the turning-point of the play. It is, of course, possible intellectually to separate this climactic point of the rise from the initial point of the fall, but actually the two moments are often found organically united in the same scene or scene-group. If the play is of the first type, the turning-point will be the moment when the hero completes the accomplishment of his purposes and feels the check of opposition. Thus in Macbeth the banquet-scene begins with the news of Banquo’s death, which assures the usurper that his most dreaded rival is removed. But with the news comes the first check, “Fleance is scaped,” and this is followed up by the appearance of Banquo’s ghost, foreboding the retribution to come. The two following scenes may be considered as complementary to this, but they are, very properly, less elaborated, and are transitional to the return action. [1]

[1 Cf. supra, p. 70.]

In the second type of play, the turning-point shows the converse of this, and represents the hero as passing from a state of relative quiescence to a state of activity. Thus in Othello the great scene, III, 3, between Iago and Othello makes the beginning of the turn, though here again we ought perhaps to make a two-membered climax, consisting of this scene plus the first scene of Act IV to the word “Devil!” spoken by Othello to Desdemona, and the blow that goes with it. In a play where the struggle is subjective, and both the contending forces are lodged within the hero himself, the turning-point should be the moment when that force which is ultimately to conquer first gains its decided supremacy. Of this type is Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, a play which, however, illustrates dramatic principles as much by their breach as by their observance. Its theme is the struggle between passion and honor, but in the actual working out this theme is obscured by the crowd of unessential details. Its turning-point should come at the point where passion conquers. There are two places where this point might be said to be: first, in Athens, when, after the departure of Octavia as mediator to Caesar, Antony returns to Egypt and Cleopatra; second, at Actium, when Antony flies, following the galleys of Cleopatra. In Shakespeare’s play the first of these two points has been wholly ignored, the second has been very inadequately treated. The battle itself is given to a messenger to describe, and the following scene, III, 2, supremely impressive as its first part is, is not enough. It would have been right if set in a larger scene-group, like some of the scene-groups in Hamlet or in Julius Caesar; but, taken as a single one out of the thirteen scenes of which this act is composed, it is artistically inadequate, out of proportion. It is, of course, not necessary that the climax be a scene of great outward magnificence, though, in fact, it often is so (cf. Macbeth, Julius Caesar), yet a certain outward impressiveness is, after all, requisite, simply because, as we have seen earlier, the drama deals solely with the phenomenal. It cannot, as do Ibsen and Maeterlinck in some of their later and more extreme works, deal apparently in commonplaces and expect us to read into these the most supreme spiritual verities. It cannot, as does Shakespeare in this play, scatter half a dozen superb scenes through a play that has a total of forty-two, and leave the hearer to choose these half dozen to remember. The dramatist should expect much of his audience, but not so much as this. He should do his own selecting, his own emphasizing, for herein lies the difference between the raw material and the art-product.

On the other hand, the turning-point or climax must be spiritually emphatic as well as outwardly imposing; the climax in Macbeth is not the climax in virtue of presenting a royal banquet with rich, massive effects; that in Julius Caesar is not so in virtue of its impressive massing of senators assembled in the capitol of the world. There must be inner significance as well, as in these cases there is. So, too, the climax need not be the mechanical middle of the play; it must be its spiritual centre, the point toward which it makes from the beginning, and from which it passes downward to the end.

[4] Falling Action. What the exciting force is to the rising action, that the tragic force is to the falling action. It is, as we have seen, often closely united to the climax; sometimes they are, in a sense, one and the same, as in the Oedipus Tyrannus, where the very announcement that seems to make him perfectly secure really precipitates the discoveries that end in the catastrophe. However this may be, the tragic force is the initiation of the counter activity that is to govern the second half of the play and bring about the catastrophe. In Macbeth, as we have seen, it is tripartite; [1] in Romeo and Juliet it is dual, being embodied in the authority of the state and of Juliet’s parents; note that here one of these two – that of the state – is emphasized before the climax, the other follows immediately upon the climax, being incorporated in the same scene with it. These two forces are the occasion of the lovers’ ruin – the occasion rather than the cause, for the causal connection is, after all, indirect, and if the falling action in the play has a weakness, it is in this fact, – the fact, namely, that the forces of the falling action are not the forces that bring about the catastrophe. [2]

[1 Cf. p 70.]

[2 Cf. infra, p 145]

If, as is commonly the case, the play is of the first type, and the hero has been prominent in the first half of the play, the falling action will bring forward the characters of the opposition, and the hero will either be in the background, as in Macbeth, or, if this is not the case, his treatment will be different, as in Romeo and Juliet.

The management of the falling action offers peculiar difficulties. Up to the climax there has been growing suspense. After the tragic force appears, and the development of the opposition has begun, the listener begins to foresee what is to come, his mind naturally plunges forward, and he is impatient if the dramatist’s exposition be slower than his own thought-processes. It is like being forced to await the completion of a slowly spoken sentence, whose point we have already anticipated. Perhaps this is the reason why the turning-point and tragic force are often put late in the play, making the actual duration of the return action less than that of the rise. But there is another device for breaking through this over-confident expectancy of the listener. It is the insertion, in the midst of the falling action, of an event which for a moment breaks its advance, seems even to turn it back; there is shown a way of escape for the victim, or at least a jutting crag by which he may delay his fall. This is called the “final suspense.” Instances of it are: the victory of Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, IV, 7; the successful carrying out by Romeo and Juliet of all the first part of their scheme; the remorse of Edmund in Lear, V, 3, which moves him to revoke his order to kill Lear and Cordelia; the news brought to King Richard in Richard III, IV, 4, that the army and navy of his opponents are both scattered; in Julius Caesar, taking the first part as a whole in itself, Caesar’s determination not to go to the senate house that particular day.

Thus the dramatist, having throughout labored to impress upon us the inevitableness of fate, now for a moment reverses his methods and tries to undo all this. But only for a moment; the check has done its duty by keying up the slackened attention, and this done, the action swings back to its true movement and plunges forward to the catastrophe.

[5] Catastrophe. We have traced the dramatic struggle through its rise, turning-point, and fall. We now come to its termination. In our ordinary thought, the catastrophe is taken as almost synonymous with death, and this is based on a true conception. For the drama deals with human life, and death is, for the dramatist, the end. It is the fitting conclusion for the tragedy because it really concludes – it is final, precluding possibility of amendment or reprieve.

Evidently, however, its true character depends, not on itself, but upon the nature of the action which it concludes. Death is in itself always solemn, it often moves to pity, sometimes to horror; but it is tragic only when it comes as the natural, the inevitable conclusion of a tragic struggle. And in such cases the death itself will often actually seem a relief, just because it does terminate the struggle, just because it has been felt to be inevitable and so its occurrence relaxes the strain of expectation. This is the case in Macbeth. After the horror of the hero’s life, its baleful activity without, its moral disintegration within, the physical conflict at the end comes as a return to health. Macbeth himself feels it. After the first sinking of heart that comes with the loss of his last support, there follows the rebound, the natural, if desperate joy in a fair fight, and there is a ring of freedom in his last defiance:

 “Lay on, Macduff,
  And damn’d be he that first cries, Hold, enough!”

Similarly, Brutus certainly feels death to be a release as he says:

 “Caesar, now be still:
  I killed not thee with half so good a will.”

In King Lear the consummation of the tragedy is, it is true, in a death; not, however, Lear’s death, but Cordelia’s, and this is tragic, not as it concerns Cordelia, but as it touches Lear himself. The climax of “pity and fear” is in the sight of the mad old man, with the strength of despair, carrying in his dead daughter to show to all men, – the sight of him as he holds the feather to her lips to reveal her breathing, and, dim-eyed in the flesh, sees, with the vision of fevered desire, faint tokens of life. The tension breaks, and he dies, but his death is not tragic. It completes the tragedy of his life, and is fit, right, necessary; but for him it is a release. Kent’s feeling is ours:

 “Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him much
  That would upon the rack of this tough world
  Stretch him out longer.”

But death is often, too, the consummation of the tragedy in another way. In Antigone, the young girl’s death is the tragedy, because it marks the completeness of her subjugation to crushing human law; whereas the deaths of Haemon and of Eurydice, in so far as they are tragic at all, are so not in themselves, but in their effect on Creon. In Romeo and Juliet the deaths of the two lovers constitute the tragedy because only thus is forever shut off the possibility of recovered happiness.

What the catastrophe must bring about is not primarily death, but finality, – an equilibrium of forces which shall convince us of its permanence, It may be compared to the crash of the landslide by which the too precipitous cliff regains a natural slope. In Julius Caesar there may be said to be two points of catastrophe: the first for Caesar, the second for the conspirators. In the first half of the play, Caesar falls because he had risen too high; Brutus and Cassius, representing the norm, pull him down. But then they in their turn rise too high, and the second half of the play shows how they are therefore in their turn overthrown.

In the management of the catastrophe, more than anywhere else, there should be concentration, both of thought and expression. During the earlier part of the play, much elaboration is possible, much incident, much working-up of character and episode; but as we near the close the lines should narrow. Earlier, many outcomes were possible; now nothing is possible except the single end to which everything has been tending. Upon this the rays must all converge, everything subsidiary must be eliminated. And if the drama has been well motived and well constructed, there will be no need for elaboration, or even for much emphasis. The end is inevitable, all it requires is bare statement. To give more than this, to attempt explanation and commentary, implies carelessness on the part of the author, or a lack of faith in his work. Of carelessness, we have an illustration in the last lines of Julius Caesar, the conversation between Messala, Strato, and Octavius, concerning the promotion to favor of Brutus’ servant. It is a petty detail, that spoils the simple greatness of the close. In another way, the concluding lines, given to Octavius, will, to some of us, seem another dissonance. The play naturally ends with Antony’s words, “This was a man,” and we would fain rest here. Octavius’ cold words point forward into a new realm of life, and at the moment when we ought to feel that all is finished, we are reminded of the political rearrangements to come, the division of spoil – things which are historically true enough, but which are here not fitting. Perhaps it was Shakespeare’s optimism that moved him to make this sort of mistake as often as he did, but if so it was optimism ill-timed.

Summing up: we find that the action of the drama falls naturally into two parts, a rise and a fall; that the rising action has four parts: the introductory exposition, the exciting force, the working out, and the climax or turning-point. The falling action has three parts: the tragic force, the working out, and the catastrophe, while often the final suspense makes a fourth part.

Often, however, dramatic critics make a three-fold division instead of a twofold, namely, into the rising action, the climax, and the falling action. But if the climax is organically developed out of the rising action, as it ought to be, it is organically a part of it and should not be separated from it, even in thought.

These, then, we have called the essential elements of the drama, in distinction from those mechanical divisions, called acts and scenes, of which the dramatic structure is made up.

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 1

2009-05-07T21:18:00.001Z

PART II – TECHNIQUE

CHAPTER I – THE TWO TYPES OF DRAMA

Thus far we have been considering the drama with reference to the general principles which govern it. We have distinguished drama from other literary forms; have considered those qualities which have always been deemed indispensable for good dramatic effect, namely, truth, unity, proportion, seriousness; and have determined, at least in part, what are the essential elements of tragedy and comedy.

Turning now from these fundamental principles, which apply with more or less exactness to other forms of art than the drama, we come to consider in detail the way in which the dramatic form works itself out, – the rules of its technique.

But here, too, before proceeding to those more mechanical regulations which are a part of the craft and are somewhat variable, we ought first to emphasize such laws as are a part of the art and are basic, and therefore permanent.

The serious drama, as we have seen, presents a struggle between two forces. Like any struggle, it proceeds from the first repose to the first grappling, then follows the tug and strain of the wrestle, until a moment comes when the advantage begins to go with one side or the other. From that moment on, the struggle moves inevitably, though perhaps not in a direct line, on to the final overthrow of one of the contestants. Such is. the course of every drama. The character of the contest may be of various kinds; it may be single combat, – man against fellow-man or man against society and social law; or man against himself; while the sphere of the contest may be in the physical or the spiritual world, or in both.

In any case, the play falls logically into two parts, called the rising and the falling action, whose point of junction and division is this decisive moment just spoken of, called in dramatic terms the climax or turning-point. In these two parts are set forth respectively the action of the two contestants, the rising action being devoted predominantly to the one that is the aggressor, the falling action to the other. There are evidently two possibilities: (1) the hero takes the initiative, is the aggressor, or (2) he is in the beginning relativelv passive and acts only when he is drawn or driven into action bv the attack of the opposing force. In the first case, the hero is most prominent in the rising action, in the second, he does not come to his fullest expression until the falling action. Of the first sort, we may take as examples Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Antigone. Of the second, Othello, more doubtfully, Lear.

Thus in Macbeth: in Act I, Scene 3 suggests his aggressive attitude toward his king, and hence toward the political and social law; Scene 4 further emphasizes this; Scenes 5 and 7 clinch his definite determination to kill the king, a determination in which Lady Macbeth is even more prominent than Macbeth himself. In Act II we have the murder of Duncan; in Act III the murder of Banquo. But in Scene 4 of this act, i.e. almost the exact mechanical middle of the play, occurs the banquet-scene, which presents the beginning of the reaction in Macbeth’s own spirit; in Scene 5 Hecate dooms him with the authority of her magic power; in Scene 6 we have the beginning of the political reaction. (Note the beautiful completeness of this scene-group, wherein the triple reaction – the spiritual, the supernatural, the political – is foreshadowed.) [1] After the banquet-scene Macbeth ceases to have prominence. In Act IV his activity does overlap a little in the murder of Macduff’s children, but it is significant that Macbeth himself does not appear here, and the bulk of the act is taken up with the opposition, – hence the elaboration of the scene in Macduff’s castle and in the English court between Malcolm and Macduff. In Act V we have a simple working out of the double catastrophe, for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and except for the sleepwalking scene, the act oscillates between Macbeth and the insurgent army. [2]

[1 Cf. infra, p. 83.]

[2 Cf. infra, p. 73.]

Thus, resuming, we have the first two acts and half of the third devoted to exposition of the double hero’s activity; the last half of the third act and all of the fourth and fifth to exposition of the reaction of this activity. The play illustrates, with diagrammatic clearness, the essential character of this type of drama.

Compare with this Othello. In the first scene we have the arch enemy, Iago, with his fellow-conspirator and tool, Roderigo. Their opposition is stated, and its activity begun. In Scene 2 Iago is still the central figure, in Scene 3 comes Othello’s great speech before the council, but the scene ends again with Iago and Roderigo, concerting their villany:

 “I have’t, it is engender’d. Hell and night,
  Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.”

In Act II, Scene 1, Desdemona and Othello appear, but are quiet, almost colorless. The illumination is still focussed brilliantly upon Iago, and the scene closes with his elaboration of his plan of revenge. Scene 3 witnesses his first decisive move, in working out that part of his scheme that concerns Cassio. In the first half of Act III Iago strikes directly at Othello, and the end of this scene leaves him now in his turn thoroughly roused, with all his untamable passions inflamed. From this point on Othello receives greater and greater emphasis, though Iago is not allowed to fall into the background. In Scene 4 occurs the first encounter between Othello and Desdemona, which involves the question of the handkerchief. In Act IV, Scene 1, Iago still works up his evidence; Scene 2 has the second interview of Othello with Desdemona, and ends with the plan of Iago and Roderigo for Cassio’s death; Scene 3 gives Desdemona her needed prominence. Act V, Scene 1, has the murder of Cassio by Roderigo, which means the perfecting of Iago’s plans, but which also ultimately involves his own ruin. Scene 2 has the catastrophe.

Thus it will be seen that, in contrast to Macbeth, this play begins by presenting its hero at poise, in a state of repose from which he is not roused until the third act, while from the third act on his passionate activity moves forward in a continuous and tremendous crescendo. Any one who remembers the part as acted by the elder Salvini will remember the overwhelming effect of this crescendo as brought out by the almost brutally titanic power of the actor.

The two types of drama possess each its peculiar advantages and drawbacks, and each makes its different and characteristic impression. In the first, the interest of the audience is more immediately enlisted for the hero, who appears as aggressive and defiant. But the last half of the play is harder to make effective, because the opposing force is apt to be less concentrated and less able to focus the attention. It is, in general, less interesting to see the hero acted upon, than to see him acting. In Macbeth we must all feel the weakness of the second half compared with the first, the immediate falling off in effectiveness after the banquet-scene. Yet it was necessary, as we have seen, to set forth the activity of the opposition, and Shakespeare was forced to do this in a series of scenes which tend to scatter the attention and dissipate the interest of the audience. In Othello, on the other hand, the interest constantly rises throughout the play, beginning on a low and unemphatic note, and rising through scene after scene to the final clashing chords of the catastrophe. The play can scarcely even be said to have its climax in the third act. [1] It is rather a steady ascent through a series of scenes, each more intense and decisive than the preceding. Possibly, however, it may be said that the contrast with Macbeth is not quite fair, because in Othello the opposing force is also concentrated in one person, – is embodied in the genius of Iago, – so that it is as if the play had two heroes, one for each half of the action. On this basis the drama might after all be classed with Macbeth, because Iago is in one sense the hero, and his activity begins at once. This may be so, but perhaps it only shows that a drama of the highest power will have the strength of each type and avoid the weakness of each. But, on the whole, the Macbeth type has been the one oftenest adopted by the great dramatists. Shakespeare’s plays almost all conform to it, and this is one of the reasons why his plays are so often weak in their working out, why the second half often fails to fulfil the promise of the first. It is significant that two of his plays of which this is not true, Othello and Lear, are of the other type.

[1 Cf. infra, pp. 77-78, and p. 84.]

In the Greek drama we find both types. To begin with, however, we must remember that the Greek tragedy often leaves out what would be our rising action, and begins somewhere about our turning-point, or even beyond that, in the falling action, at the fourth or fifth act. Thus, when Freytag places the Oedipus Tyrannus in the second class with Lear and Othello, he is using an inapplicable standard. For, to the Greek mind, what went before the written play was also a part of it. Thus, the real plot of the Oedipus may be stated, for our purposes, as follows: A young man slays his father and marries his mother, and by this double crime, committed in ignorance, gains possession of a throne. As a result, misfortune descends upon his people, ruin upon him. That is to say, he first acts, boldly and decisively; then he suffers the results of his acts. The parallel with Macbeth is apparent, though disguised by the circumstance that whereas the Englishman took his hero at the beginning of his crime and followed him through to the end, the Greek began near the end, presupposing the earlier acts. The Oedipus Tyrannus may be considered as beginning at a point corresponding to the banquet-scene in Macbeth; that proviso made, the correspondences become clear, and the play is seen to be one of the first type. To class it with Othello is to miss its significance.

The Philoctetes and the Ajax may, however, properly be so classed; probably, also, the Electra. In each of these the hero appears as reacting against forces that have been in long-continued opposition to him. On the other hand, Antigone is plainly of the first type, like Macbeth and Oedipus, only here there is no difficulty, because the play includes within itself, formally, and not by implication merely, both the deed and the result.

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 1 Ch 5

2009-04-20T12:01:00.001Z

CHAPTER V – THE NATURE AND SOURCES OF COMIC EFFECT

Perhaps nothing in the province of literary forms is so baffling as comedy. Considered objectively, as an art-product, it trenches on the realm of the grotesque, confessedly one of the most difficult problems of aesthetics, while in its subjective aspect it requires an analysis of our intellectual processes which has not yet been satisfactorily given us by psychologists. Moreover, in considering concrete literary examples of comedy we are constantly checked by the conviction that the perception of what is comic is something very unstable, subject to change with process of time, and showing wide divergence among different classes of society living at the same time. This is, of course, partly true also of our perception of the tragic, but by no means to the same extent. For tragedy, as we have seen, deals with phases of human nature which are relatively eternal and unchanging. We cannot, of course, affirm that our perception of the tragic in the Oedipus is exactly the same as was that of Sophocles’ contemporaries; but certainly time has made far less difference here than it has in the understanding and appreciation of Aristophanes, and this quite aside from the inevitable obscurity of the comic poet’s political allusions. Apparently, the feelings to which tragedy appeals attained a high degree of development at an earlier time than did those to which comedy appeals, and they have therefore undergone less change.

Especially in the last few centuries has the comic sense been undergoing a modification intimately connected with the development of that group of feelings which may be roughly classed as the philanthropic. At the end of the sixteenth century, the sweetest-natured gentleman of his age could, without argument, class physical deformity among the legitimate sources of laughter. [1] To-day such a sentiment would at once stamp the holder of it as lacking in fine feeling and sympathetic instincts. It has only recently occurred to Shakespeare students that many of his scenes which to us are tragic or pathetic were perhaps comic or partly comic to his audience, and, right or wrong in the given instances, the suggestion is extremely interesting as a recognition of the instability of the comic sense, and as a step toward the study of its evolution. [2]

[1 Sidney, Defense of Poesy, ed. Cook, p. 51.]

[2 Cf. John Corbin, The Elizabethan Hamlet, and Barrett Wendell, William Shakespeare.]

Such a study is here inadmissible; all we can do is to recognize that the problem exists, and admit that what is to be said in this chapter must necessarily be subject to modification when the subject shall have been worked out further.

It is generally agreed that the sense of the comic arises from a perception of incongruity. The incongruity may be physical or spiritual, or both; it may be perceptual or conceptual, or both; it may exist in space or in time, or in both; and, according as it is one or another of these, there results one or another variety of comic effect. It may be helpful to make a rough scheme of these classes of comic effects, always remembering that any such scheme can only approximate completeness and only suggest truth.

A. The incongruity is purely conceptual, as in the various forms of wit. Here we may class puns, double meanings, irony, hyperbole, etc. An example is the well-known question, addressed to a servant carrying a roasted hare, “Is that your own hare or a wig?”

B. The incongruity is perceptual as well as conceptual.

I. It is based on a perception of successive events. The source of the comic effect may be stated in general terms as the contrast between expectation and fulfilment. A simple example of this is the case of a man who goes to sit down in a chair, the chair is drawn away, he sits on the floor. Such an occurrence is almost certain to raise a laugh, and the comic in our modern variety show is largely of this character.

In comedy of a higher type, the cases are less simple, but the principle is the same. The occurrences are partly or wholly in the realm of the intellectual or social, rather than the physical life. Examples of this are the relations between Rosalind and Orlando in As You Like It, and the development of the main plots of any of Plautus’ or Terence’s comedies. [1] These last, however, contain much of the simpler comic, of the variety-show type; so also does Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. The case in As You Like It, on the other hand, affiliates with the next group. Indeed, nearly all comedy of intrigue, though its main plot may be reduced to this type, involves some character-treatment, and must therefore be referred in part to the following group.

[1 Cf. infra, pp. 139 ff.]

II. The incongruity is based on a perception of appearances, simultaneous rather than successive. An example is the effect produced by the juxtaposition of a very tall and a very short man, or a very fat and a very thin man. The case is a good one to take, because it is so easily analyzable. The two members of the comparison are here supplied to perception, while a third element – the conception of the normal man – exists in the mind of the percipient as the standard from which both deviate. That this conceptual norm must exist, and must be a norm common to both members of the comparison presented, is shown by the fact that the contrast between a tall man and a child is usually not funny to us, because we apply different standards to the two; whereas, if the child attempts to take on a man’s ways, he brings upon himself the application of the man’s standard, and gets laughed at. Similarly, we laugh when a man adopts a child’s manner. Again, the sight of a big tree and a small one side by side is not usually funny, because we have no definitely established standard of size for trees in general. The examples might be multiplied indefinitely, showing the necessity for a common standard, and a definite one.

Starting from these simple cases, we find comic effects ranging all the way up to those of very great complexity. The cases of actual physical deformity, of drunkenness, of the milder forms of insanity, all of which have ceased to be funny to many people, still are highly comic to many, and must be classed here; also instances like the use made of Falstaff’s huge size, in King Henry IV, or of Ursula’s in Bartholomew Fair. Our modern comic stage has much of this sort of thing. More complex, but essentially akin, are the cases where the emphasis is laid upon eccentricities of character. The standard applied may be a moral one, as often in Jonson, or an intellectual one, as perhaps in the case of Osric or Polonius in Hamlet, or a social one, as in many of Molière’s plays. Here we must class all the so-called “Comedy of Humors.” Here belong all the effects to which Meredith has exclusively applied the term “Comedy,” his standard of reference being the standard of common sense of the well-trained social man considered primarily as in society. [1]

[1 Cf. George Meredith, An Essay on Comedy.]

C. There appears to be yet another source of comic effect, which is, however, fortunately growing less and less important. That, namely, which arises from the mere sight of pain, especially pain involving violent movement. To take, as usual, a simple instance, the sight of a man getting a beating is apt to appear funny to some people, even to-day, and any one who reads Aristophanes and Plautus and Terence, or even the Elizabethan and pre-Elizabethan drama, is almost forced to conclude that beatings were esteemed funny per se. Of course the comic effect in these cases may often be interpreted as lying not in the beating qua beating, but in the beating qua surprise, as, for instance, in the Comedy of Errors, IV, 4, where Dromio enters, with the rope’s end his master had sent him for, and, instead of thanks, gets a taste of it himself. But, placing the most charitable construction on such instances, we are still forced to suspect that, in the comic incident as in case of roast pig, the beating may have helped to “impart a gusto.” And this suspicion is strengthened if we note that in all comic surprise the surprise is almost always somewhat disagreeable for the person at whom we laugh, which only means that such comic denouements are, so to speak, beatings in disguise. Perhaps, then, Hobbes was right, at least in his estimate of the natural man, when he calls the comic sense “a sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the inferiority of others, or with our own formerly.”

Leaving out of account this last group, which is partly provided for in group B, we have two main classes of comic effects, of which the second falls into two parts, according as the contrasts occur; simultaneously or successively, and so have to do respectively with plot and with character. But of course, though these groups are separable in thought, they are not so in experience, and the scheme just given makes, we must repeat, no claim to subtlety of discrimination. For in dealing with anything so shifting and elusive as the comic sense, any schematic statement imposing, as it does, hard and fast limits where no such really exist, must of necessity be inadequate and partly false. But it is nevertheless useful if it be taken as merely indicating the main lines of comic effect. It will be found that most literary comedy can be easily put in one or another or in several of the above categories.

The first division, A, may be disregarded in this discussion, since it is only incidental in the drama. Group B, I and II are essential, as they concern the treatment of life in its two aspects: character (physical or spiritual) and plot. For it is with these that the drama essentially deals.

It is evident that all the cases suggested in the scheme just given have certain things in common; they imply a certain attitude on the part of the percipient quite different from the serious or tragic attitude. Every case makes an appeal to the intellect primarily, and to the emotions only secondarily, if at all. The very word “incongruity” implies a process of comparison, which implies the reference to some standard or norm. A fat man is funny, not in virtue of his fatness per se, but because most men are not fat. One may ask, “But why is that funny?” which is merely to ask why any incongruity is comic. There is as yet no answer, any more than there is to the question why laughter rather than any other bodily contortion should be the physical expression of amusement. We must take these as ultimate facts, and leave their further explanation to the physiological psychologists.

To return, the whole matter is seen to be dependent on perception of relations and the assumption of a standard, of reference.

But further, the incongruity will be perceived as comic only if the attention be held closely to the particular contrast to be made. If it is allowed to wander, to take into consideration other aspects of the subject presented, the sense of the comic may give place to some other feeling. The appeal has thus far been to the intellect merely, and to the intellect working along a narrow and definitely prescribed line. But if the emotions are called in, or if the mind breaks over the prescribed limits of the treatment, the comic incongruity may be forgotten in more serious thoughts. If, for instance, after smiling at the sight of our very tall man walking beside our very short one, we approach them, and suddenly perceive that the short man is a cripple and deformed, the smile vanishes. Why? Because a whole set of feelings are called into activity of such a nature and strength as quite to overwhelm the intellectual perception of contrast. We perceive the contrast, indeed, all the more vividly, but our thought dwells not on the contrast per se, intellectually considered, but on what it involves to the cripple himself. Our emotions are aroused, our sympathy is evoked.

Thus it may be said that the perception of the comic has in it something arbitrary and limited. It requires a point of view which shall cut off from the mental vision the real issues of life and its vital substance, – the emotions and susceptibilities that make it subject to pleasure or pain. If the view be changed, so as to include these, the comic usually vanishes. [1] The distinction is one of treatment, of attitude, not of original material, and this is why the same material may be either comic or tragic according to its treatment – why even the same treatment may appear to us comic or tragic according as we fix our attention upon one or another aspect of it; for this reason two people may watch the same occurrence, and one may smile and the other be saddened by it.

[1 But cf. infra, p. 65-66.]

Take as further illustration an instance from life and one from literature:

A boy stands convulsed with laughter as he watches the wild contortions of two cats whose tails have been wired together; another boy, too small to interfere, may be suffering actual pain at the same sight. What is the difference? In a sense, both boys are right, for, though they are looking at the same occurrence, what they see is not the same: the thing the big boy sees is funny; the thing the little boy sees is painful. The little boy feels the pain of the tightly wound wire as it cuts into the animals’ flesh, he feels the frenzy of the helpless creatures, he resents the brute strength that can willingly cause such tortures. The big boy, on the other hand, simply does not see or feel anything of all this: he sees merely the contortions of the animals, their total failure to comprehend the real cause of their difficulty, and the inadequacy of the means they take to meet it. At the present time society, on the whole, stands with the small boy and condemns the big one; three centuries ago it would have done precisely the reverse; and each position is intellectually explicable though to us only one seems morally justifiable.

Take now an instance from literature:

In Lear the subject-matter is the treatment of an old, helpless father by his daughters, and it is so handled as to be one of the most terrible tragedies ever written. But is this the only possible treatment? Turn to Aristophanes, and find in The Clouds precisely the same theme made the basis of a comedy – of comedy, indeed, to appreciate which we must divest ourselves of some modern preconceptions, but genuine comedy nevertheless, and not cruel, simply because it is out of the realm of the emotions entirely.

There is, then, this fundamental difference between tragedy and comedy: a difference in point of view – a difference not in the thing as perceived by the eye, but in the thing as conceived by the mind. We may say that tragedy interprets life by emphasizing its vital realities; comedy reconstructs it by emphasizing certain aspects of it, selected so as to make good contrasts, striking incongruities. Each is eminently selective, but the principle of selection is different. And the comic standpoint may be assumed toward almost any subject: it may be momentary, and we have its light playing over the situation for an instant and then going out, as when Hamlet rouses himself from his bitter melancholy to make sport of Polonius or Osric; or it may be pervasive, affecting the entire conception of life as represented by the artist, as in Shakespeare’s early comedies (Love’s Labour’s Lost, Comedy of Errors) and Jonson’s typical ones; or it may single out certain characters for comic treatment in the midst of an otherwise serious presentation of a subject, as in Shakespeare’s later comedies. And according as it is more or less pervasive do we get all the gradations between unmixed comedy or pure farce at the one extreme and the tragedy with comic lights at the other.

To return now to our classification of comic effects. It has thus far been based on differences in subject-matter, and we have distinguished the comedy whose main point lies in the incongruities of men’s character, from the comedy which emphasizes mainly the incongruities in the things that happen to men. And if The Comedy of Errors is a purer example of the second class than King Henry IV is of the first, this is because, dramatically, character can scarcely be presented save through action, and Aristotle’s assertion – difficult to explain as it stands – is unquestionably true if we change its application and read: “Without action there cannot be a comedy; there may be without character.” [1]

[1 Cf. Poetics, VI, “Without action there cannot be a tragedy; there may be without character.”]

But in the group of character comedies there is another basis of distinction. For incongruity of character implies – it springs from – imperfection of character. If a man’s character were in perfect poise, if it were absolutely symmetrical, it would not be comic. Comedy, then, is really based on imperfections in character, but considered from the comic, not the tragic standpoint.

Now it is evident that one may view these imperfections in one of several ways: one may simply enjoy them as such, without forming a judgment of the moral or intellectual level of the person in whom they are manifested. Or one may, without losing sight of the comic, regard the person with sympathy, or even love. Or one may, consciously or unconsciously, make a judgment, and there is added to our perception of the comic, and modifying this perception, a feeling of superiority, moral or intellectual or both, while we may express this judgment in terms varying from the gentlest irony to the severest condemnation, according to our mood and the nature of the subject. This was the sort of comedy of which Sidney was speaking when he said, “The comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which he representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be, so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one.” [1] The significant thing here is the use of the two words “scornful” and “ridiculous.” “Ridiculous” carries with it a notion of superiority on the part of the percipient which is not so palpably implied in other words for the comic; “scornful” still further emphasizes this, leaving out the notion of the comic altogether; and the concluding phrase of the passage makes the writer’s standpoint yet clearer.

[1 The Defense of Poesy, p. 28.]

Such a passage, especially coming from Sidney, is highly significant. What he would have said if he had lived to see the Shakespearean comedy we can only surmise. Perhaps he might then have seen the possibility of anothher kind of comic perception, wherein we laugh at the folly and love the fool. But, as it stands, the passage fairly represents the type of comedy we have termed judicial.

Jonson’s is a stronger statement of the same view:

 “But, with an armed, and resolved hand,
  I’ll strip the ragged follies of the time
  Naked as at their birth...
  ... and with a whip of steel,
  Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs.
  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
 “... Well, I will scourge those apes,
  And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,
  As large as is the stage whereon we act;
  Where they shall see the time’s deformity
  Anatomized in every nerve and sinew.
                     ... my strict hand
  Was made to seize on vice...” [1]

[1 Every Man out of His Humour; Induction.]

And Meredith’s description of Molière’s comedy gives us only another aspect of this kind of comedy:

“Never did man wield so shrieking a scourge upon vice, but his consummate self-mastery is not shaken while administering it. Tartuffe and Harpagon, in fact, are each made to whip himself and his class, the false pietists, and the insanely covetous. Molière has only set them in motion. He strips Folly to the skin, displays the imposture of the creature, and is content to offer her better clothing... The source of his wit is clear reason: it is a fountain of that soil; and it springs to vindicate reason, common sense, rightness and justice.” [1]

[1 Meredith: An Essay on Comedy, pp. 27, 28.]

These two attitudes, the non-judicial and the judicial, though of course neither one is ever adopted with perfect consistency by any given writer, make a convenient basis for distinguishing the two main tendencies of comedy. If we seek for literary types, we shall find the one predominating in Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot; the other predominating in Jonson, Molière, Thackeray, Meredith; while Addison and Goldsmith are on the border line between.

We have called the second sort satiric comedy, because its tendency is toward satire. This will be apparent if we make a mental survey of the two fields of comedy and satire, and see how difficult it is at some points to distinguish them. Making Shakespeare one end of the scale, and Juvenal the other, we find next Shakespeare, but with satiric qualities, Addison and Thackeray; close to Juvenal, but with comic qualities, Swift, with Pope and Dryden as subordinate types; between these would come Jonson and Molière, while Aristophanes verges rather on satire, and Rabelais rather on comedy, though a rigid classification of either of these last is beyond possibility.

On the other hand, the pure comedy shades off into other forms. It is, we have said, non-judicial, but one of the reasons why it is non-judicial is because it is sympathetic. Now we have seen that keen sympathy is usually incompatible with comic perception. That it was inevitably and invariably incompatible we expressly did not affirm. For here, as in the case of satiric comedy, there is no hard and fast line drawn, but the two things may shade off the one into the other. We may have the purely comic, where the sympathies, in this sense, are not invoked, as in the Launce episodes of The Two Gentlemen of Verona; or as in Sir John Falstaff, – the pure comic preponderating, but enough sympathy so that transition to the pathetic is possible, as hinted in the scene of Falstaff’s rebuff at the hands of the young king, and the account of his death. [1] Accentuate the sympathy farther, retaining the comic, and you get Cervantes’ comedy; accentuate it still farther and you get the Fool in Lear.

[1 King Henry IV, Part II, Act V, Scene 5, King Henry V, Act II, Scenes 2 and 3. Probably the first of these Scenes was intended by Shakespeare to be comic.]

Thus we find that the comic sense tends to vary in one of these two directions, – toward the pathetic or even the tragic on the one hand, and toward the satiric on the other. And it is evident that in the case of comedians like Jonson and Molière, who stand part way on the road toward satire, any discussion which does not take into account the satiric as well as the comic aspect must necessarily be inadequate.

One more quality of comedy must be mentioned here, though its purport will be more fully shown in the chapter on comic plot-structure. It is this: comedy, from the arbitrariness, the narrow limitation of its view, leaves out much of life; moreover, the things it leaves out are those things that we are accustomed to call the serious realities of life, – the realities of pain and death, and the inexorable sway of law. Hence, comedy is not bound, as is tragedy, to base itself on law; it may make a much freer use of what we call chance; the events and people with which it deals may, if we may use a figure, all be largely external. As an actual fact, comedy does do this, and compared with tragedy, the emphasis on causality, on law, is slight.

Summing up: we have seen that comic effects have a common basis in incongruity, contrast; that the incongruity may lie principally in the realm of events, and we have comic intrigue, or in the realm of appearances, and we have comic character; while usually both these are found in conjunction, but with preponderating emphasis on one or the other, which gives us farce or intrigue comedy on the one hand and character comedy on the other. We have seen, too, that comedy differs from tragedy not so much in subject-matter as in point of view and treatment. Finally, we have noted that comedy itself varies according to the attitude of the author or the percipient, tending, where it becomes judicial, toward satire; where it becomes sympathetic, toward pathos and tragedy.

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 1 Ch 4

2009-04-18T11:06:00.001Z

CHAPTER IV – THE NATURE AND SOURCES OF TRAGIC EFFECT

[1 Cf. infra, pp. 117 ff.]

“Chorus. But ‘tis great renown for a woman who hath perished that she should have shared the doom of the godlike, in her life, and afterward in death.

Antigone. Ah, I am mocked! In the name of our fathers’ gods, can ye not wait till I am gone, must ye taunt me to my face, O my city, and ye, her wealthy sons? Ah, fount of Dirce, and thou holy ground of Thebe whose chariots are many; ye, at least, will bear me witness, in what sort, unwept of friends, and by what laws I pass to the rock-closed prison of my strange tomb, ah me unhappy! who have no home on the earth or in the shades, no home with the living or with the dead... From what manner of parents did I take my miserable being! And to them I go thus, accursed, unwed, to share their home. Alas, my brother, ill-starred in thy marriage, in thy death thou hast undone my life!” [1]

[1 Antigone, trans. Jebb, pp. 155 ff.]

To change the instance: – the end of the prison-scene in Faust means that the girl has won for herself the great spiritual victory:

 “Marguerite. Gericht Gottes! Dir hab’ ich mich
       übergeben!
  Dein bin ich, Vater! Rette mich!
  Ihr Engel! Ihr heiligen Schaaren,
  Lagert euch umher, mich zu bewahren!
  Heinrich! Mir graut’s vor dir.

  Mephistopheles. Sie ist gerichtet!

  Stimme. [von oben] Ist gerettet!”

[1 Cf. supra, pp. 32-34, and infra, pp. 88-90.]

[1 Cf. infra, pp. 129 ff.]

“Tragedy is an imitation ... of events terrible and pitiful. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow from one another. The tragic wonder will then be greater than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even accidents are most striking when they have an air of design.” [ Poetics, IX.]

“These last [reversal of fortune and recognition] should arise from the internal structure of the plot, so that what follows should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action. It makes all the difference whether one event is the consequence of another, or merely subsequent to it.” [ Ib., X.]

“It is therefore evident that the unravelling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the Deus ex Machina. Within the action there must be nothing irrational.” [ Ib., XV.]

[1 Poetics, XXIV.]

[2 Journal, 6th April, 1851.]

[1 It is not meant to imply that the three plays were written in sequence or regarded as a trilogy. They were written at long intervals, and probably not in the order of the story, and were not performed together. Cf. Jebb’s introduction to his translation of Antigone, §§ 22, 23.]

It is, then, not enough that an incident be pathetic that the recital of it saddens us. It must not be merely

             “a tale of things
  Done long ago, and ill done,”

but must involve action and reaction, blow and counterblow, the conflict of forces.

“The dramatic ideas and the dramatic actions of the Greeks dispensed with a rational world-order, dispensed, that is, with an interlinking of events that is completely accounted for by the conditions and the onesidedness of the characters represented. We are become freer men, we recognize on the stage no other fate than such as arises out of the essential nature of the hero himself.” [2]

[2 Die Technik des Dramas, p. 81. And cf. pp. 119-20.]

[1 Poetics, VI.]

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 1 Ch 3

2009-04-17T22:28:00.001Z

CHAPTER III – SERIOUSNESS – ΣΠΟΥΔΗ

“Tragedy,” said Aristotle, “is an imitation of an action that is serious.” The word he uses here, σπουδαίας, is explained by Butcher as uniting the two notions of grave and great; it has been paraphrased by Arnold in the expression “high and excellent seriousness,” and these phrases come as near as any to indicating a certain quality of greatness which we all recognize as indispensable to the serious drama.

To begin with, one must carefully guard oneself against the mistake of confusing greatness of subject with greatness of treatment. Only the second can produce greatness in the art-product, yet these two things have been, and still are, constantly confounded. Donne’s poems, we are told, are sublime because their theme is so. Milton’s Paradise Lost is greater than Virgil’s Aeneid by the whole difference in grandeur between the conceptions of the two poems, one dealing with the founding of Rome, the other with the fall of man from his first state. It is easy to see the absurdity of such judgments, taking them individually, and nearly as easy to fall into similar absurdities on one’s own account. The reason may be that there is in such notions a root of truth. For, if the subject does not make the poem, at least subject and poem have a common source, the one being chosen, the other created, by the poet; and it is quite probable that if a “sublime” subject genuinely appeals to a poet, he has in him elements of sublimity, although these may not be accompanied by the power to create a sublime poem.

And we must make another distinction, between the subject-matter as it exists apart from the artist in the actual world of experience, and the subject as recognized by the artist, recreated in his mind as his theme. Sometimes one of these is truly great when the other is not. Thus, a jealous man does not usually impress us as having any elements of greatness, yet Othello is great, because greatly conceived; querulous and impotent old age seems unpropitious for drama, as do the half-crazed murmurs of an old clown, yet Lear and his fool are among the greatest dramatic creations. Such greatness is due, not to the original subject-matter, but to the poet who, whatever his theme, views it so truly and deeply that he reaches its inner significance as human life – and it is in the depths of human life that greatness will be found, if found anywhere.

The necessity that tragedy and the serious drama shall possess an element of greatness or largeness – call it nobility, elevation, what you will – has always been recognized. The divergence has come when men have begun to say what they mean by this quality, and – which is much the same thing – how it is to be attained. Even Aristotle, when he begins to analyze methods, sounds, at first hearing, a little superficial. The hero must be, he says, “one who is highly renowned and prosperous, – a personage like Oedipus, Thyestes, and other illustrious men of such families.” [1] Now we are used to seeing tragic effects produced in the treatment of characters who are neither renowned nor of noble family. Yet, for his own time, Aristotle was right. For dramatic action means struggle, and struggle of the most intense kind; the dramatic agent must therefore possess, not only latent passion and potential energy, but opportunity which shall make this energy kinetic. Such opportunity came in the past chiefly to such men as by birth or fortune were placed in positions of power, who were forced to take part in affairs having large issues and demanding positive and individual activity. They had, as others did not have, opportunity for self-expression in action; they had greatness thrust upon them, while the average man of their times was lost in the corporate body. For, even in Greece, society had not yet wholly freed itself from the tradition of tribal solidarity and tribal responsibility, and the individual appears in half-relief, epic rather than dramatic, controlled by events rather than originating action. This the Greek dramatists felt, and it was one of the reasons why they sought their heroes in the rolls of kings and their actions in the annals of nations. They were right, and Aristotle merely stated, in his somewhat bare way, a generalization from their practice. What is wrong is the assumption made by later theorists and dramatic artists that, because the Greeks had found their tragic heroes among kings, therefore royalty was sufficient to constitute a tragic hero, and a great national issue was, as such, fit subject for a tragic action. Thus Racine, in Athalie, has chosen a crisis in Hebrew history. He has not, however, presented to us actions in themselves of great tragic import – or rather, he has not interpreted to us the tragic import of the actions which he presents. A vicious queen, who has won her throne by murder, retains it by force. By a successful coup d’état of the minority, she is deposed and put to death. This theme has historical importance; it lacks dramatic importance because the sources of the action are not rooted in the spiritual nature of the heroine or of any other of the actors. Yet two points in the action might have furnished a theme that would have been truly dramatic. One is the conflict between the queen’s ambitious lust of power and her impulse of love for the boy who proves her rival. Another is the conflict of impulses in the old general, Abner, whose instinctive patriotism bids him free his country from an oppressive and unrighteous rule, but whose military training enjoins him to render unquestioning obedience to his sovereign. Each of these themes is suggested in Racine’s drama, and as each suggestion occurs the reader awaits its further development, but awaits it in vain. The author evidently had in mind the historical importance of his action rather than its spiritual import.

[1 Poetics, XIII.]

Compare the way in which Shakespeare has treated a similar subject. Julius Caesar, like Athalie, is concerned with a crisis in a nation’s history, where a tyrant is overcome by a small but steadfast minority. But the tragic interest does not depend upon our knowledge that the fate of Rome hung upon the result of Brutus’ conspiracy. This fact, kept in the background, or used as a motive force in the half-prophetic consciousness of Brutus himself, does indeed enhance the appeal to our interest, but the nearer and stronger appeal is made through the individuality of the men Caesar, Antony, Brutus, Cassius, while the tragic theme is found in the spiritual experiences of Brutus, torn by a double and conflicting allegiance. Thus, in Brutus, Shakespeare has done exactly the thing that Racine missed doing, and Julius Caesar has in this respect a greatness that Athalie wholly lacks.

That the spiritual issue might have been made yet clearer may be acknowledged; it will certainly be recognized if we extend our field of comparison, and consider Browning’s use of a similar theme in Strafford. As in Athalie, as in Julius Caesar, there is in Strafford the tyrant, the oppressed people crying for relief, the reluctant, sad-hearted leaders shrinking from the issue, yet forced to meet it. But here, as in Julius Caesar, the greatness of the interests involved does not constitute the tragedy, though it furnishes the occasion for it and makes for it a background of sombre grandeur. The tragic interest gathers about the three figures Pym, Charles, Strafford; it centres in the spiritual experiences of the great statesman who is forced by fate to do violence to one-half of himself in being true to the mandates of the other half. All the powers of the dramatist are exerted toward this one end – toward laying bare the inner life of the man, the mortal pain of a great soul forced to be untrue to itself. To say that Strafford is a greater drama than Julius Caesar would be at least venturesome; it would probably be a mistake, for there are many considerations to be taken into account in the final judgment of a drama. The three plays are here presented as a group to illustrate the way in which political eminence in the actor and national issues involved in the action may be used or abused by the dramatist. [1]

[1 The three, or more particularly the last two, would well repay study from other points of view. The characters and motiving of Caesar as compared with Charles, and of Brutus as compared with Strafford and Pym, the use made of historical background, the treatment of the subordinate characters, all these are subjects that could be so treated as to illuminate the questions of dramatic effect in general.]

It is apparent that a proper use of these elements, as subsidiary aids to dramatic effect, is entirely legitimate. It is equally apparent that they must be recognized as subsidiary only, that they must not be given first place as factors of this “greatness” which we have been discussing. The essential requirement is that the dramatic hero be free to express himself in action, that he be given scope first to develop and then to express his individuality; and material power, social and political eminence are valuable only because they furnish these things, and only when they do so. What is required lor great drama is not great political or religious or social issues as such, but the enlargement of soul and stress of passion that sometimes accompanies great issues. What is needed for the tragic hero is not the crowned head, but the royal nature. “Royal” by a figure only, for such a nature is not now necessarily found among monarchs; and kings, once singularly fit subjects for dramatic treatment, are becoming singularly unfit, The monarch, bound and shackled by constitutal provisions, loses his personality, though in his private capacity he may still keep his freedom. The very eminence that once gave scope to his individuality now tends to repress it, and, private individuality and official greatness being thus dissevered, the special dramatic meaning of this greatness is gone; there is no longer the identity expressed in the significant title, “Oedipus, King.”

On the other hand, this freedom and scope for individuality, no longer the concomitant of royalty as such, is in modern times often found in the status of the so-called “private” man. The “royal” nature that is developed by power and opportunity, and which in turn uses power and opportunity for its self-expression, may be found in a man whose eminence is social or political; it is even conceivable that a great tragic hero may be found in one who has no apparent “eminence” of any kind. Such a one, it may be said, is Beatrice Cenci, but the case is not clear enough to prove the point. Certainly our modern stage-drama, with its love of “middle-class” subjects, has not yet produced anything really great. On the other hand, it is significant that the greatest classic dramas – those of Shakespeare and of Sophocles, those of Schiller, Euripides, Corneille – all conform to this seemingly superficial rule of Aristotle, as do the greatest English dramas of this century, those of Shelley, of Tennyson, of Browning, and of Swinburne. The German “familiendrama” and the French society drama lack this element of greatness, or where they possess it they too will be found to be in conformity.

There is another consideration which might have motived Aristotle’s remark, though it probably did not do so. Dramatic action is not merely action as seen in the outer event, but action viewed in relation to its source in passionate emotion and in relation to its reactionary emotional effect. It is therefore necessary that we understand the spiritual states of the agent, and this is in the main brought about only through his own words. For the medium of the drama is self-expression by the actors, not description by the writer, and self-expression principally in words. But such power of self-expression implies in the agent a large degree of culture of a certain kind, as well as a certain bent of character; in general, men must reach rather a high level, intellectually, before they become sufficiently conscious of their own spiritual states to express them.

In the modern drama, owing to the increased complexity and subtlety of the dramatic motiving, it is increasingly important that we understand the thought as well as the acts of the persons involved. Consider what the play of Hamlet would be if its hero were not endowed with the most marvellous power of self-expression, counterbalancing his power of self-repression. Our appreciation of the play depends upon our understanding of the relation between his apparently meaningless acts and his spiritual states, which are deeply significant; and it is because, whether intentionally or not on the author’s part, Hamlet does not, after all, adequately express these spiritual states [1] that the drama still remains not perfectly clear in its motiving.

[1 Possibly the reason why he does not is because these spiritual states were not clearly conceived by the author himself. He seems to have been working away from an earlier, traditional Hamlet, toward a new conception of the character, but never to have quite freed himself from the earlier tradition. Cf. Corbin: The Elizabethan Hamlet.]

A very recent attempt to introduce’ the uneducated classes into the drama as its central figures seems only to bear out the principle just developed. Hauptmann, in Die Weber, presents a society of working people degraded by crushing labor and hopeless poverty almost to the level of brutes. The result is not satisfying. There are scenes of keen pathos, there are scenes with tragic lights, but the participants have not sufficient power of self-expression: they need a spokesman. We know they are hungry, sick, dying, and we pity them; but they are incoherent, and their incoherence is none the less baffling because we know that in reproducing it the author is giving us a faithful portrait of actual conditions. The same material might have been used with great effect in another literary form – in the story, for instance, or the novel, for this form would have given the author a chance to interpret his characters to the reader, to speak for them where they cannot speak for themselves. But they are not suitable for dramatic treatment – at least it yet remains to prove them so.

Summing up, then: Aristotle’s generalization from Greek usage is seen to have been borne out by later dramatic writers, but the reasons for its validity must be recognized, or there is danger of a superficial and conventional interpretation. The use of great national issues is right so long as the dramatist does not rely for his great effects upon our knowledge of the great issues involved. It is well that the hero be outwardly great as well as inwardly, – the two things will usually go together, – but the dramatist must not be content to substitute the outward for the inward greatness.

But if this quality of “greatness” does not essentially consist in these things, in what does it essentially consist?

Shelley, in another connection, says:

“The highest moral purpose aimed at in the highest species of the drama is the teaching the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself.” [1] And an answer to the question just propounded would be, that a drama, which deals truly and – which is the same thing – vitally with the human heart in its struggles with itself and with the outer world, will possess greatness and seriousness. Such an answer may seem utterly hackneyed, but it is, in the end, the only one that can be given. For the artist has to do with phenomena, and in the world of phenomena the human spirit – whatever we may think of it absolutely – is relatively the greatest thing we know. There are ideas metaphysical which bring with them a kind of enlargement of mind technically known in Aesthetic as the feeling of sublimity: such are the conceptions of God as found in the Hebrew religion and in some of the religions of the far East, the conception of the soul, or of a future life. Such ideas as these are found in the writings of Dante and of Milton, and it is occasionally suggested that their writings are for this reason greater than, for example, Shakespeare’s. In reply, we may say that it is at least doubtful whether it is the metaphysics of Milton that give him his greatness, while we may be sure it is not this which gives Dante his. But, even if it were so, Shakespeare’s defence is clear. With metaphysical notions as such the dramatist has nothing to do. His concern is, first and last, with the human spirit, and these ideas concern him, not directly, but only in so far as they appeal to and influence the men and women whom he is portraying. It is not his province to

[1 Preface to the Cenci.]

 “Assert eternal providence
  And justify the ways of God to men,”

but rather to show the ways of men toward God, or whatever stands to them for God, and toward each other. Dante may say:

 “Varamente quant’io del regno santo
  Nella mia mente potei far tesoro,
  Sara ora materia del mio canto.” [1]

[1 Paradiso, XXXIII.]

The dramatist approaches such subjects only indirectly, through his created persons. It is thus that Hamlet gazes out into

 “That undiscovered country from whose bourn
  No traveller returns.”

It is thus that Antigone faces death, firm, but hopeless, in those last words of hers:

“Ah, fount of Dirce, and thou, holy sons of Thebe whose chariots are many; ye, at least, will bear me witness, in what sort, unwept of friends, and by what laws I pass to the rock-closed prison of my strange tomb, ah me unhappy! who have no home on the earth or in the shades, no home with the living or with the dead... Unwept, unfriended, without marriage-song, I am led forth in my sorrow on this journey that can be delayed no more. No longer, hapless one, may I behold yon day-star’s sacred eye; but for my fate no tear is shed, no friend makes moan.” [1]

[1 Antigone, trans. Jebb, pp. 161 ff.]

It is thus that Beatrice looks over the brink, shuddering:

 “My God! can it be possible I have
  To die so suddenly? So young to go
  Under the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground!
  To see no more sweet sunshine; hear no more
  Blithe voice of living being; ...
    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
 “What! O, where am I? Let me not go mad!
  Sweet heaven forgive weak thoughts! If there should be
  No God, no Heaven, no Earth in the void world;
  The wide, gray, lampless, deep, unpeopled world!
  If all things then should be my father’s spirit, ...
    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
                  ... “Who ever yet returned
  To teach the laws of death’s untrodden realm?
  Unjust, perhaps, as those which drive us now,
  O, whither, whither?” [1]

[1 Shelley: The Cenci, V, 4.]

This is the sublimity of the dramatist. [1] But such passages as these show also, better than any exposition can do, the source of the dramatic σπουδη in the poet’s interpretative portrayal of human souls. We might say that any human soul, so long as it be strong and positive, – that is, truly alive, – might, if deeply viewed, be a “great” subject. He might not possess the kind of qualities that become dramatic; his story might not have the kind of unity necessary in a play; but simply in this one quality of greatness and seriousness he would be fit. The quality is not, of course, confined to drama; hardly, even, to so-called “serious” writing. It is possessed by Dante and Shakespeare and Sophocles, it is true, but it also underlies Rabelais and pervades Cervantes. It marks every line of Browning’s writing, while to take examples somewhat at random – Tennyson seldom shows it, Byron almost never. But while other forms of writing may possess this quality, the serious drama must possess it. There are other sources of greatness and seriousness: a poem may have it by virtue of its sweep and velocity of thought, as in Byron’s Cain; or of its nobility of thought and its majestic sound and rhythm, as in Milton; or by a certain large simplicity, as in Keats’ Hyperion. The serious drama may have all these; it must have the greatness that springs from a wise and vital treatment of human nature.

[1 Cf. infra, pp. 40-42.]

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 1 Ch 2

2009-04-16T20:44:00.000Z

CHAPTER II – DRAMATIC UNITY

Few sayings have been the occasion of such bitter and long-continued controversy as Aristotle’s remarks on the unity of the drama. For this reason, and because they furnish a convenient point of departure, it may be well to quote his own words:

“Tragedy is an imitation of an action, that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude... A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or in the regular course of events, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well-constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to the type here described.” [Aristotle, Poetics, VII.]

“Unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist in the unity of the hero. For infinitely various are the incidents in one man’s life, which cannot be reduced to unity; and so, too, there are many actions of one man out of which we cannot make one action... As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the imitation is one, when the object imitated is one, so the plot, being an imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.” [Aristotle, Poetics, VIII.]

“Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse of characters of a higher type... They differ, again, in length: for Tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit; whereas the Epic action has n limits of time.” [Aristotle, Poetics, V.]

The first two passages quoted, emphasizing the need for what is technically known as “unity of action,” will be seen to have permanent and essential validity. The last passage is evidently a passing generalization made from the usage of Aristotle’s contemporaries. It was, however, taken up by the French of the early sixteenth century and, under the title “unity of time,” exalted to the position of a chief canon in dramatic art. A third requirement, that of “unity of place,” though not even suggested by Aristotle, was taken for granted, partly as a corollary of the unity of time, partly in imitation of Greek and Senecan usage. These three canons, supported by the authority of the French Academy, and, after some resistance, accepted and defended by Corneille, determined the form of French drama until the beginning of this century, when Victor Hugo, in Hernani, broke bounds, and the “Romantic” reaction became powerful. In Germany the drama for a time slavishly followed French models, but the break with the unities came somewhat earlier than in France, and may be taken as dating from Lessing’s notes on dramatic writing, published between 1767 and 1769. In England the period of great drama fell so much earlier than in France or in Germany, that it escaped almost altogether the tyranny of “classic” tradition. To Shakespeare, Aristotle can have been little more than a name, and though Seneca’s tragedies were translated in his lifetime, their influence was only one of the factors which determined the form of the national drama. [1]

[1 For the blending of the Senecan and the national tradition, cf. R. Fischer, Zur Kunstentwicklung der Englischen Tragödie.]

Yet, relatively small as was their influence in our own literature, the “unities” have been too important elsewhere to be passed over in a discussion of the drama. Moreover, the very absurdities into which they led their adherents are instructive as to the true basis of dramatic theory. Nothing, for example, could be more suggestive than the treatise in which Corneille [1] defends The Three Unities, of Action, of Time, and of Place. A few extracts will indicate his position.

[1 P. Corneille, Discours III, Des Trois Unités.]

“The rule regarding the unity of time is based upon this remark of Aristotle, ‘that the tragedy ought to confine the duration of its action within one revolution of the sun, or to try to exceed this but slightly.’ [1] These words have given occasion to this famous controversy, whether they ought to be understood to mean a natural day of twenty-four or an artificial day of twelve... For my part, I find that there are subjects which it is so inconvenient to reduce within so brief a time, that not only would I grant them the entire twenty-four hours, but I would even avail myself of license allowed by the philosopher to exceed this number a little, and would without scruple extend it to thirty.”

[1 Note Corneille’s mistranslation of Aristotle, which really begs the whole question. Compare Butcher’s translation, quoted above.]

In support of the rule he argues thus:

“The dramatic poem is an imitation, or, better, a portrait of the actions of men; and there is no doubt that portraits are the more excellent in proportion as they the more closely resemble their original. The representation [of a drama on stage] lasts two hours, and the verisimilitude would be perfect if the action which it presented did not demand more for its actual occurrence. Let us not, then, fix upon either twelve hours or twenty-four, but let us compress the action of the poem into as brief a space as we possibly can, in order that its representation have the greater verisimilitude and be the more perfect.”

As to unity of place, he admits that the rule is not found either in Horace or in Aristotle, but he nevertheless holds it binding, and characterizes as “un peu licencieuse” the interpretation of it which would allow a single drama to represent such places as a man could go to and return from in a day. He goes on:

“I could wish, in order not to offend the spectator in any way, that what we represent before him in two hours could actually take place in two hours, and that what we make him see, on a stage that is immovable, could confine itself to one room, or one hall, according to choice; but often this is so inconvenient, not to say impossible, that it is necessary, for place as for time, to admit some enlargement of the limits.”

He concludes that in cases of absolute necessity it is sufficient that the action be confined within the walls of a single city. At the close of his treatise, however, the common sense of the practical playwright overcomes for a moment the conventionality never quite genuine of the Academician, and asserts itself in the impatient remark:

“It is easy for the theorists to be rigid; but if they were to give to the public six or a dozen poems of this sort, they would perhaps widen their rules even more than I have done, when they had seen by experience what restraint their precision causes, and how many beautiful things it banishes from our stage.”

Evidently the trouble here arises from a misuse of the word “imitation,” and a misconception of what “truth to nature” really is. Art does not copy nature, it follows and interprets it, and Corneille’s first proposition, about which he says “there is no doubt” – namely, that the more closely the stage presentation copies the actual events the more perfect is the drama – this proposition is false and subversive of good art; if he had followed it consistently, he would not have been the great artist he was.

On the other hand, the practice of “following these rules at a distance” has something to be said for it. Shakespeare’s dramas would have been better if they had not taken quite so much license. The structure of Lear is marred by the too frequent changes of scene, not because these destroy the illusion, but because every such change demands a fresh adjustment of the reader’s mind to the new conditions, and such use of his energies is waste of his energies unless there is some compensating gain. In Antony and Cleopatra we have an illustration of the way in which bad artistic form may almost nullify the effectiveness of the artist’s real perceptions; for the noble scenes scattered through the play do not wholly atone for the sprawling, helter-skelter character of the treatment.

In modern plays the elaborateness of the scenery has taken the place of the “classic” tradition as a check on frequent changes of scene, and, except in plays that are chiefly spectacular, the tendency is to cut down scene-shifting, especially within the act. The greater emphasis, too, on the inner rather than the outer aspects of the dramatic situation [1] may have had something to do with the simplification of setting and compactness of treatment that marks the work of at least some groups of modern dramatists. It may be noted in the plays of the young German writers, Sudermann, Hauptmann, Fulda; it is yet more striking in the dramas of Ibsen, some of which preserve the same scene throughout, while two, Ghosts and John Gabriel Borkman, observe the unity of time in almost Corneille’s strictest interpretation. The same is true of Sudermann Die Heimath, [2] and it is interesting to note that these two plays, which have roused more than common interest on the stage as well as among the reading public, show such conformity to the standards of a past age. But it is also significant that all three of these plays resemble the Greek drama in presenting to us the culminating point of an action that has been going on for years; the plays themselves include little more than would be found in the last act of a Shakespearean drama, and their likeness to the classic form may be taken as a natural result of this essential similarity of theme.

[1 Cf. for an expansion of this, the comparison between Shakespeare and Browning, pp. 129-133.]

[2 Acted by Duse and by Bernhardt under the title Magda.]

The gain in these cases, however, is not due, as Corneille would have said, to the greater accuracy with which the facts can be copied, but to the greater economy of attention made possible by concentration in the treatment and by elimination of distracting features. Ibsen’s Ghosts, which presents the occurrences of a single day in Mrs. Alving’s drawing-room, is not, because of this, a whit more “true” than Shakespeare’s Macbeth, whose action covers at least months and ranges between England and Scotland. Except when they are of importance for other reasons than those Corneille gives, the unities of time and of place may be set aside as non-essential. The dramatist cannot copy his subject, – he ought not to do so, and the extent to which he copies its outer setting cannot be rigidly prescribed to him. Since he must often make us feel, by means of a few phrases, a soul’s long-drawn agonies, why may he not also make us feel, by means of a two hours’ play, a soul’s life-history? Surely, if he can, he may.

But if these requirements concerning time and place were conventional rules imposed upon drama from without, that concerning action is a vitally grounded law, growing out of the very nature of the art-form; and it is characteristic of the directness and truth of Aristotle’s thought that he is not content with a casual mention of this point, as in the matter of the time-limit, but pauses to emphasize and elaborate his idea, – reverts to it now and again to add some further comment from another point of view.

What he means by unity of action he makes very clear. It is organic unity, he explains, not formal or verbal, that he wants, and this is not necessarily attained by making the actions all centre about one man. He hits the point exactly when he says that it is the action chosen, which must be a whole. It must, that is, be such an action as can be adequately set forth, with its “beginning, middle, and end,” during the two hours allotted to the poet, and by the means at his command. This effectually cuts him off from treating certain themes. National issues, for instance, cannot be handled by him, except as they touch upon individual human lives. They may, indeed, have a certain large unity, they are as truly controlled by laws, and as open to philosophic treatment as is the life of a single man, but the drama cannot handle them. Gibbon’s Decline and Fah of the Roman Empire may, by a figure of speech, be called a magnificent drama. It has, on a gigantic scale, complete and organic unity; it has, in the true sense, a beginning, a middle, and an end. It does for the Roman Empire what Shakespeare does for Macbeth – portrays a process of disintegration and ruin, and traces it to its source in contravention of the laws of human life and intercourse. But Gibbon’s subject-matter is outside the dramatist’s realm. He may touch upon it, as Shakespeare does in Julius Caesar, but the centre of interest will be not the state, but the man, as here it is Brutus. Where this is not the case, as in several of Shakespeare’s historical plays, Henry VIII, or Henry V, or King John, the play is in so far imperfect. That even Shakespeare erred thus often is not surprising. Such plays appealed to the patriotism of his audience and ministered to their inherent Teutonic love of incident and spectacle; they were to those times what the plays based on Napoleon’s life have within recent years been to ours. But such productions are not good dramatic art. The play must have, not merely a running story that can be told, but a centre, and a determined line of development. Shelley expressed this when he wrote, in his preface to The Cenci, “Such a story, if told so as to present to the reader all the feelings of those who once acted it, their hopes and fears, their confidences and misgivings, their various interests, passions, and opinions, acting upon and with each other, yet all conspiring to one tremendous end, would be as light to make apparent some of the most dark and secret caverns of the human heart.” It is this “conspiring to one tremendous end” that is the test of the plot and of the characters.

But it is a test that cannot be applied by rule of thumb. Aristotle, indeed, speaks, in his cool, definite way, of “the structural union of the parts being such that if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.” [1] Such a test can well be applied to the dramas of Sophocles: try to “cut” the Antigone or the Oedipus, either by reducing the number of characters or by removing incidents; it is like hewing away a limb from a living creature. But, with modern plays, it is another matter. It is true the French of the sixteenth century, following a perverted classic tradition, attempted to attain this same kind of unity: their plays have few under-plots, the number of characters is kept as low as possible. But to the Teutonic mind, these productions lack the power that comes of unified complexity, while they have not, on the other hand, the lyric intensity and vitality of the Greek drama. Schopenhauer puts this feeling perhaps over-vigorously, as is his way, but effectively, when he says that the French tragedies “in general observe this [unity] so strictly that the course of the drama is like a geometrical line without breadth. There it is always a case of ‘Only get on! Pensez à votre affaire!’”

[1 Poetics, VIII.]

In the modern French drama, however, as in all English, we have to face the question of episode and subordinate characters – problems which virtually did not exist for Aristotle, since the severely narrow limits of tragedy did not admit of any episode in our sense of the word, and minor characters scarcely appeared. Shakespeare’s dramas, on the contrary, abound in episodes that have little apparent connection with the main plot, many of which could be cut out without “disjointing” or “disturbing” the structure of the play. In actual stage presentation some of these actually are left out, and, unless we sit book in hand, we are not likely to notice the omissions. This is less true of the tragedies, however, and in the greatest of these we shall usually find that many of these seemingly trifling incidents are set there with a purpose, and make toward the main end. “Almost too copiously and with apparent carelessness, the great artist fastens his golden ornaments in all parts of his piece; but he who goes to unclasp them finds them grown iron-fast into the texture of the whole.” [1]

[1 Freytag, Technik des Dramas, p. 45.]

That a given scene may be omitted without leaving the story of the action incomplete is, of course, no indication that such a scene is superfluous, or runs counter to true unity. Many scenes are needed to give shading to character, to supply contrast, or background. Here, again, nothing can be decided by rule, and even about the greatest of the plays we find that opinion differs. The underplot in Lear is, according to one critic, a blemish, since it is “connected but loosely with the main action,” and “retards the movement and needlessly renders the whole more bitter.” Others [1] regard this same underplot as a source of strength, since it furnishes a reflection of the main action and thus heightens the total effect, as the subordinate theme in a symphony may be a reflection or variant of the principal theme, or as the subordinate lines of a picture may follow the lead of the main color masses. It matters less which judgment we finally adopt than the manner in which we arrive at the judgment. The only tribunal of appeal is taste, but it should be taste that has been trained by long and thoughtful familiarity with the best art.

[1 Vide Ulrici: Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art, I, 437 ff.; Brandes: William Shakespeare, II, 135.]

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique: Part 1 Ch 1

2009-04-15T21:09:00.000Z

PART I – LAW

CHAPTER I – POETIC TRUTH

All art, said Aristotle, is imitation. That he did not mean by this the mere copying or mirroring of facts is sufficiently clear from his remarks about the ideal and philosophic character of poetry: “Tragedy represents men as better than they are,” [1] “It should preserve the type and yet ennoble it.” [2] In the light of such passages, the word “imitation” takes on another significance from that we might at first be inclined to give it, but it is still misleading, and it seems better to substitute the broader term, “poetic truth.” What does this mean, and what does it imply?

[1 Poetics, II.]

[2 Ib., XV.]

All art, and hence all great drama, is in its nature both universal and personal, both general and selective. The painter cannot, for example, paint every leaf of a tree, and if he did so his painting would certainly be more unsatisfactory to us than if he had worked with less minuteness. His art lies in determining which of the impressions into which the infinitely complex total which we call “tree” may be resolved – which of these is to be preserved as essential, which may be rejected. No two artists would ever make quite the same choice, yet each might be, artistically, true to the subject. Each would, if he were a great artist, give us something better than the landscape itself, he would interpret it to us – make it mean more than it had before. Millet once said, in effect, “A flock of sheep must be regarded by the painter, not as a collection of animals, but as one single huge animal, moving on many feet, and it must be so painted.” And it is because Millet himself painted sheep in this way that his work is really art. To take another illustration, there is a certain living artist who has wonderful power in drawing the urchins of London’s streets, conveying, with a few seemingly careless strokes, the very life and movement of the boys. It is said that he first makes a rather detailed drawing of his subject, then goes over his work, eliminating line after line, until he has reduced it, as it were, to its lowest terms, and there remains no line not absolutely necessary. The finished product, with its appearance of carelessness, is really the result of the most careful selection. It is conceivable that such a process should all have been mental, and nothing have appeared on paper but the final result; conceivable, too, that it might be partly or wholly unconscious on the part of the artist; but the process, or something like it, is characteristic of all art, and in proportion as the artist is great will his selective power be true and unerring, never rejecting the significant and retaining the unessential. To this end, however, he needs large and deep knowledge of his subject. Wordsworth said that a simple recital of the facts of a given phenomenon might be at once formally accurate and essentially untrue because it had been made either mechanically or ignorantly, noting the unessential and the significant without discriminating between them. Such discrimination comes with knowledge, which enables us to check our observation of particular instances by a knowledge of the universal, gained through observation of other particular instances.

It will now be evident what was meant by saying that art is in its nature both universal and personal or selective. It becomes the one by means of the other, for the selection will reject the accidental and temporary and retain the essential and permanent. In this selective process the personality of the artist is tested; upon his personality depends the value of his work to others. If it is deep enough and big enough to be in unison with the individuality (if the expression is legitimate) of humanity, he will see in his subject, be it landscape or human soul, the things that all humanity must see when it looks deeply enough, though it may need his quickened vision to point them out. Thus the artist must be at once different from his fellow-man, and like him. “Once in a while an individual Ideal, when expressed, enlightens the world of art, and then we have the artistic genius; he is the prophet who shows to others an ideal field which they at once recognize as effective for themselves, although but for him it would have been unknown to them. To express his own ideal must be the artist’s work.” [1] Of the ideal in this sense Amiel’s remark is true: “The ideal, after all, is truer than the real; for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things: it is their type, their sum, their raison d’être, their formula in the book pf the Creator, and therefore at once the most exact and the most condensed expression of them.” [2]

[1 H.R. Marshall, Aesthetic Principles, p. 97.]

[2 Amiel, Journal, p. 105.]

The danger in this selective art-process is evident, especially if we note some phases of it in painting. The extremists of the so-called “impressionist” school are simply carrying this process to its farthest issue. They reproduce of a landscape only a single aspect. All its possibilities of suggestion, its complexity and shading, are swept away to make room for the artist’s single impression. The result is rather remarkable. If one happens to approach such a picture from the right direction, with exactly the right light, and in a peculiarly receptive mood, one may receive from it an impression startlingly vivid. If, on the other hand, these conditions are not fulfilled, the picture may be absolutely meaningless to us. The reason is plain enough. The artist has so narrowed his presentation of impressions that it appeals to but few besides himself – it has become personal past the point of contact with others.

The same thing occurs in literature, though it is not so easily demonstrable. Schopenhauer is a case of the too narrowly selective, the viciously personal. He attempts satire, let us say; what results? Often enough, it is not satire, but invective, more or less hysterical. He is giving us things as they appear to him, but they appear to him as they do not appear to a sane man, and his work becomes interesting, not as art, but as pathology. If one would see the difference between satire and anger, that is, between legitimate and illegitimate personality, compare him with Juvenal or Swift at their best, or compare the fourth part of Gulliver’s Travels with the first three parts.

It is in finding the mean between this personal narrowness that is too selective, and the photographic impersonality that is not selective at all, that the individuality of the artist, his training and his ideals, are tested. It is this that determines how much his work shall possess of what we may call poetic, or artistic, truth. The difference between such truth and the truth of philosophy is not so much in the final result as in the means employed to reach it. The philosopher seeks to discover the essential and universal, and to state it in terms of the universal. The artist seeks to state it in terms of the particular. If he wishes to present the contrast between the misguided human heart, preoccupied with its gloomy or ghastly criminal purposes, and the sane and kindly standards of the world of freer men, the philosopher will state this in terms of universal application; the poet may symbolize it by the rough and sudden knocking at a castle gate, and the drowsy murmurs of a sleepy porter.

Such a selective process is forced upon the dramatist, also, by the practical conditions of his problem. A play must, when acted, not exceed three hours, but this is an extreme estimate, and includes the time for scene-shifting and other waits; the business of the play itself ought not to use more than two-thirds of this time. He has, then, two hours in which to present his action, with its causes and results. Obviously, there are in real life few cases where such an action occupies so short a time; it is more apt to stretch over months or years, and its links are “the little, nameless, unremembered acts” of our daily life. The artist cannot possibly reproduce all these, and he must, therefore, be in a sense “untrue” to his model. [1] Yet, if he could reproduce them, he would not. For life, nature, in itself, as distinguished from nature as seen by us, is unemphatic. Its so-called contrasts, its humor, its varying emphasis, its “meaning,” have their existence, not in the things themselves, but in the mind of the observer. It is, therefore, the artist’s part to supply these, to mould his material, impressing upon it the stamp of his mind, and thus giving it emphasis, proportion, perspective, – which brings us back again to the selective process. Out of the infinite series of occurrences he chooses such links as seem to him most important, or such as may be made to symbolize more than themselves. These critical moments he emphasizes, the rest he lets go, trusting that from what we see we will infer what we do not see. [2]

[1 Cf. infra, pp. 14-16.]

[2 Cf. the discussion of “the unities” in the following chapter, especially pp. 14-19.]

Take Macbeth. The dramatist must present to us the moral ruin, – the spiritual disintegration of a man, with its inner causes. What does he do? He selects his moments, presents these, and lets them stand for all that goes between. We first hear of our hero as a high-minded and courageous soldier. Then we see him, fresh from victory, receive the first suggestion of greater honors to be won; we see how the idea takes hold of him, and we suspect that one so easily touched must have been less sound at heart than we and others had supposed. What goes on in his mind immediately after this we are not told, but after the scenes with Lady Macbeth, we can look back and imagine. That is, we find ourselves responding to the poet’s demand, we are become co-workers with him. After the murder, again, we get no insight into Macbeth’s inner life until after he has been made king. Then comes the banquet-scene, which, brief as it is, throws a blaze of light backward over the interval. We recognize with perfect certitude the disintegration that has been going on in a spirit that we now see to have been never really strong, either for good or evil. And now our mind can go forward without teaching, we shall expect from the harassed king no firmness of touch, we know his spirit is fevered, that he is the slave of his past. For Lady Macbeth we are given no clews through the course of the play until, at the end, we are allowed, for one brief glimpse, to see her off her guard, when her will of steel is relaxed in delirious sleep. But those few lurid moments reveal to us a whole life-history, and it is enough.

If one would realize the tremendous compression of the play, and get the full significance of its method, let him note how another artist has treated a similar theme. Dostoiefsky, in Crime and Punishment, gives us the history of a few days in a young man’s life, during which he commits a crime, and afterwards, hovering on the verge of madness, undergoes spiritual tortures of the most exquisite kind. His mental processes are given almost from minute to minute, not an hour is unaccounted for. The effect of the whole is, it is true, tremendous; but it is not the kind of effect that art ought to produce, it is not the purified “pity and fear” which makes a subject beautiful in art which is merely terrible in nature. The writer certainly possessed such knowledge of the human soul as is given to few; had he possessed also the power to wield this knowledge, his book would have been one of the grandest art-productions to which a man ever gave being. But one feels that he is not master of his inspiration, he is mastered by it, and the book has upon it the taint of madness from which the author, if we may trust report, was not wholly free. And thus it happens, that while Shakespeare had probably a less profound understanding than Dostoiefsky of the inner life of a sin-darkened soul, we feel that his drama is a great artistic creation, whereas of Dostoiefsky’s story we feel that it might have been this, but is not.

The discussion has led us to the verge of that never-dying controversy concerning the merits of the realistic and the idealistic in art. To enter upon it would carry us beyond the limits of our subject. Be it suggested, however, that the antithesis between the two terms is not absolute and fixed, for all true art is, as we have seen, ideal, and all true art is based in reality. The difference between the two schools is quantitative, it is a difference in the proportionate emphasis they lay upon these two aspects of art, and their divergence should never be so great as to lead them, the one beyond the limits of art into the photographic, the other beyond the limits of art into the over narrowly personal.

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique: Frontmatter

2009-04-12T11:48:00.001Z

THE DRAMA ITS LAW AND ITS TECHNIQUE

BY
ELISABETH WOODBRIDGE, PH.D.

ALLYN AND BACON

Boston and Chicago

PREFACE

Freytag’s Technik des Dramas, written thirty-five years ago, remains up to this time the best work of its kind. Yet its defects of manner and of arrangement are apparent even to the casual reader, and they become yet more evident when the book is subjected to the test of the college class-room. Such a test – one for which the book was never intended – obscures its merits, which are many, and emphasizes its defects, which might appear few and superficial, but which are peculiarly irritating to both teacher and student. Yet the need of such a book is indicated by the number of treatises on the drama which have appeared since Freytag wrote. All of these that I have seen, however, are either too exclusively philosophical, and in their theorizing about the art ignore the practical details of the craft, or they are not philosophical enough, and in their preoccupation with the craft lose sight of the fundamental principles, the absolute standards, of the art.

In this, as in all other essentials, Freytag was sound; his proportionate emphasis is right, and when I first began to realize the defects of the book, I thought that by making some changes it could be rendered more practically available while no less suggestive. I soon discovered, however, that it was not possible to fit Freytag’s discussion into the Procrustean framework of my own plan. His book lacks system, but it does possess the unity that must always characterize the utterances, however careless, of an honest and conscientious thinker. My book, I saw, might rectify some of the faults of the original, but would fall short of its merits. So I laid Freytag quite aside, and wrote the following chapters with as little regard as possible to the discussions in the Technik. “As little as possible,” – for to make any claim to entire independence would be preposterous. No one can read the utterances of a thoughtful critic and veteran in stage-craft like Freytag without being influenced by them. Even if one has arrived independently at the theories and the judgments therein contained, the formulation and illustration of these theories and judgments by another mind must affect him, if not by altering his thought, at least by enriching its subject-matter. I wish, therefore, to make a comprehensive acknowledgment of my indebtedness to the Technik. Comprehensive and general it must be, for just because his book, despite its diffuseness and its desultoriness, is vital and fundamental, it is impossible to lay a finder on the exact places where I am in its debt.

One of the chief merits of Freytag’s work is its mass of illustrative comments on ancient and modern dramas. More especially was his use of the Greek dramatists valuable and suggestive, and I hesitated before determining to omit from this treatment any such detailed discussion. Without a sympathetic familiarity with Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides for tragedy, and with Aristophanes for comedy, no one can claim the right to “judge righteous judgment” in things dramaturgic. When Freytag wrote, such a familiarity was scarcely to be gained without years of toil; since his time, modern classical scholarship has experienced a wonderful growth, bearing fruit in a number of critical treatises whose profound learning is informed by philosophic insight and delicate taste, is directed by a sense for historic proportion, is dominated by just aesthetic standards. With such works at hand as the treatises of Jebb, of Butcher, of Haigh, any detailed treatment of the ancient drama would be presumptuous, not to say superfluous, and its place is more fittingly taken by the bibliography at the end of the volume, which points out to the student some of the guides to whom he will commit himself when he shall explore this part of the field.

Of Freytag’s illustrations from modern drama, many are based on German plays, and are thus less illuminating to the average American reader – even the college student – than to the German audience for whom they were intended; hence they greatly increase the bulk of the book without adding proportionately to its effectiveness. I have confined my illustrations more strictly to English literature, using the drama of other nations only where it is needed for comparison. Such a method is theoretically lawful as well as practically expedient, since English drama was in its formative period – that is, up to Dryden – scarcely at all influenced by any other drama save the Roman and, chiefly indirectly, the Greek. With our own contemporary drama it is different. It is not possible to set up a language-barrier when our English and American stages are occupied with the plays of Italian, French, German, and Scandinavian writers.

Of contemporary drama Freytag’s book takes almost no account. Indeed, when he wrote, the renaissance, if we may venture to call it so, of drama had only just set in. Ibsen had been writing plays only a few years, and his greatest were yet to come; Sudermann was six years old; Hauptmann was an infant; Fulda was not yet born, nor was Maeterlinck, nor Rostand, the brilliant actor-dramatist who is now hailed by some of his countrymen as their young Shakespeare; in England a few critics were hopelessly hoping that the drama was not really so dead as it seemed. Small wonder that Freytag’s mention of modern work had rather the character of an exhortation and a warning than of a critical judgment. But in the last thirty years many good plays, many brilliant ones, some great ones, have been written, and it is well not to ignore them. In the ordinary college courses it is, indeed, scarcely possible to lay much emphasis on these, yet it is unfortunate to treat the drama as though it came to an end, for England in 1616, and for Germany in 1832. Such an attitude lends color of truth to the assertion that the drama is no longer a living art form. One of the signs of its life is that it is changing; and we must not be deceived by the frequent presentations of Shakespeare’s plays into thinking that our stage is like the Elizabethan, or that our Shakespeare is the Shakespeare of Elizabeth and of James. In the study of drama Shakespeare must be our centre, but just as we cannot arrive at the truest judgment if we leave out the Greeks, so too we cannot if we ignore our own contemporaries.

Finally, there is one great section of the drama which Freytag left untouched, – comedy. Yet it is present as an element in every one of Shakespeare’s plays, it is the predominant element in many of them, and a discussion of the drama which ignores this is, not Hamlet with Hamlet left out, but something more preposterous – Henry IV with Falstaff left out.

For an exhaustive, or even a fairly satisfactory, discussion of dramatic comedy an entire volume is needed; such a volume ought to be written. In the three chapters here devoted to the subject I have tried merely to make a survey of the field, to suggest points of view whence it may be studied, to point out lines along which it may be explored. So little has it been investigated that I cannot offer the student even the nucleus for a bibliography. My hope is that others may come to realize the fascination of this branch of dramatic theory, and that more may be done to illuminate this, at present the most complex and the least adequately treated subject in the realm of literary criticism.

INTRODUCTION

A drama is a presentation of an action, or closely interlinked series of actions, expressed directly by means of speech and gesture. It is, however, distinguished from other literary species, not only by its form, but by its subject-matter and its point of view. Its subject-matter is the action and reaction of human will, and it is treated with a view, not to the sequence of events, but to their essential relations as causes and effects. The drama is like the epic in that it deals with events of human life; it differs from it by emphasizing more strongly the volitional and_subjective rather than the incidental and objective elements in such events: it is like the lyric in that it is concerned with emotional, or, more broadly, with spiritual states; it differs from it by emphasizing, not the emotional or spiritual state considered in itself, but this considered as issuing from or developing into volition. Thus, though it has a closer connection with the inner life than has the epic, and a closer connection with the outer life than has the lyric, it trenches upon the realm of both epic and lyric, and every great drama has in it each of these elements, though their relative proportions may vary.

Vary, indeed, they do. The Greek drama, developing out of the choral ode, always kept a strongly lyric cast; the Teutonic drama is as strongly epic in character. The Greek type, as we get it in Seneca, degenerates into the rhetorical monologue, from which the French classical drama never wholly freed itself; the Teutonic type easily lapses into the presentation of a series of events without inner unity, as in some of Shakespeare’s historical plays which are little more than chronicles thrown into dramatic form. Within the limits of art, however, there is possibility of wide divergence in the proportionate values of the two elements, and the Oedipus Tyrannus does not exclude Macbeth from the number of great dramas.

In the following discussion it has been assumed that, beneath the differences of form that distinguish the ancient drama from the modern, there is enough identity in their informing spirit and underlying motive to justify a treatment of them as one. Differences there are, nor are they merely those of form, and Freytag states one side of the truth when he says: “Since Aristotle formulated some of the chief laws of dramatic effect, the culture of the human race has grown older by more than two thousand years. It is not merely the artistic forms – the stage and the manner of presentation – which have altered, but, what is more important, the spiritual and moral nature of man, the relation of the individual to the race and to the highest forces of life, the idea of freedom, and the conception of the divine being, all these have undergone great changes.” This is true, yet the more familiar one grows with the Greek drama the more one comes to realize that in the fundamental constitution of human nature there has been little change, and that in proportion as the drama is great it is the same for all ages. Or, if there are in this respect great essential differences, as there are certainly great superficial ones, we English are closer to the Greeks in sympathy than we are to some peoples of more recent times, for example, the French of the seventeenth century, and are more at one with the writer of Oedipus Tyrannus than with the writer of Athalie.

The two elements that are emphasized in dramatic treatment of human nature are, broadly speaking, free will and causality. It is a commonplace of criticism to say that the Greek drama presented the latter, the modern drama the former, and indeed the Greek and the modern use of these two elements is different. But the doctrine of the freedom of the individual is not new, it is as old as the words, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” The doctrine which sees the individual borne remorselessly forward to his fate by forces which he did not initiate is not confined to Greece, it is as old as the first commandment in the Decalogue, or the words, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”; but it is also as modern as Ibsen. The ancient world laid greater stress on the second of these two truths, the modern world on the first, but it is only the proportionate emphasis that has changed: nothing old has been wholly lost, nothing really new has been added.

In discussing any art it is possible to treat it in two ways, according as one considers the principles or laws that underly it as an art, or the rules of technique that govern it as a craft. In the first aspect it is brought into more or less close relation with all art; in the second aspect it needs a narrower and more detailed treatment of those things which mark it off from the other arts. The following discussion has attempted to open up the subject first in the more general aspect, and then in the more specific.

Like all art, the drama, to be of value at all, must have truth; to be coherent and effective, it must have unity; to command our veneration, it must have that quality which the Greeks called σπουδη, and which we call greatness, seriousness, nobility. In one sense, any one of these qualities, deeply interpreted, includes the others, but it is possible also to separate them in thought. It has seemed best to take them thus separately and then to try to follow up the two main lines, the tragic and the comic, along which dramatic art has developed.

A New Lit Theory Book Post Series

2009-04-12T11:42:00.003Z

Here we begin The Drama: Its Law and Its Technique, by Elisabeth Woodbridge.

Woodbridge taught dramatic theory about 100 years ago. She loved Freytag and his theories, but in teaching his text, found it lacking as a classroom appendage. So she produced this book as a way of presenting Freytag to her students.

In other words, she cashed in on Freytag and hoped that other professors would also compel their students to buy her book for their courses.

Woodbridge’s book is quite good however. You can find it in the altogether on archive.org, as image files, PDF, OCR raw text, and the html version I will serialize.

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 26 and advertisements

2009-04-11T21:18:00.000Z

XXVI.
PATRONS AND PROFITS FOR TWENTY-TWO YEARS

On the 20th of this month (September, 1911) it will be just twenty-two years since Edwards received payment for his first story. On Sept. 20, 1889, The Detroit Free Press sent him a check for $8. On that $8 the Fiction Factory was started.

Who have been the patrons of the Factory for these twenty-two years, and what have been the returns?

A vast amount of work has been necessary in order to formulate exact answers to these questions. Papers and other memoranda bearing upon the subject were widely scattered. During Edwards’ travels about the country many letters and records were lost. The list that follows, therefore, is incomplete, but exact as far as it goes. More work was realized upon, by several thousands of dollars, than is here shown. For every item in the record Edwards has a letter, or a printed slip that accompanied the check, as his authority. The errors are merely those of omission.

Titles of the material sold will not be given, but following the name of the publication that purchased the material will be found the year in which it was either published or paid for.

     Adventure
     The Ridgeway Company,
     Spring & Macdougal Streets, New York City
1911 – 1 novelette                             $ 250.

     All-Story Magazine
     The F.A. Munsey Co.,
     176 Fifth Ave., New York City
1904 – 1 serial                                  225.
1906 – 2 short stories, 1 serial.                255.
1906 – 2 serials                                 950.
1908 – 3 serials                               1,000.

     American Press Association,
     45 & 47 Park Place, New York City
1905 – 2 Short stories                            80.

     The Argosy,
     F.A. Munsey Co.,
     176 Fifth Ave., New York City
1900 – 1 serial                                  250.
1901 – 1 serial                                  200.
1902 – 1 serial                                  260.
1903 – 1 novelette, 4 serials                  1,050.
1904 – 1 short story, 1 novelette, 4 serials     975.
1905 – 3 serials, 1 novelette                    925.
1906– 2 serials.                                 600.
1911 – 1 serial                                  260.

     Boston Globe,
     Boston, Mass.
1897 – 1 short story                               4.

     Boyce's Monthly,
     Chicago, Ills.
1901 – 1 short story                              10.

     Banner Weekly, The,
     Beadle & Adams, New York City
1889 – 1 short story                               4.

     Blue Book, The,
     Chicago, Ills.
1907 – 1 novelette                               220.
1908 – 2 novelettes                              400.
1910 – 1 short story, 1 novelette                240.
1911 – 1 novelette, 3 short stories              350.

     Chips,
     Frank Tousey's Publishing House,
     New York City
1901 – 1 short story.                              4.

     Chatter,
     12 Beekman St., New York
1890 – 1 short story                               5.
     – 1 short story                               5.

     Chicago Inter-Ocean,
     Chicago, Ills.
1898 – 1 article, space rates                      2.50

     Chicago Record,
     Chicago, Ills.
1897 – 1 short story                               5.
1898 – 1 short story                               7.
     – 1 short story                               4.
1901 – short story                                 6.

     Chicago Dally News,
     Chicago, Ills.
1898 – 1 short story                               3.
1899 – 1 short story                               3.50
1899 – 4 short stories                            14.50
1901 – 1 short story                               5.

     Chicago Blade,
     Chicago, Ills.
1891 – 2 articles, space rates, 1 short story     10.

     Chicago Ledger,
     Chicago, Ills.
1891 – 3 serials                                 120.
1892 – 2 serials                                  55.
1896 – 1 serial                                   50.
1904 – 1 serial                                   75.
1905 – 2 serials                                  80.
1906 – 2 serials                                 100.
1907 – 1 serial                                   75.

     Columbian Magazine,
     New York City
1910 – 1 short story                              15.

     Demorest's Monthly,
     New York City
1899 – 1 article                                   5.

     Dillingham Co., G.W.,
     New York City
1903 – royalties                                  96.60
1906 – royalties                                  10.20
1908 – royalties                                   1.50
1909 – Cloth book rights                         100.

     Detroit Free Press, The,
     Detroit, Michigan
1889 – 1 short story                               8.
     – 1 short story                               7.
1890 – 2 serials                                 203.
1889 – 2 short stories                            23.
1891 – 1 short story, space rates                 95.
1892 – 6 short stories                            48.50
1893 – 1 short story                              10.
1894 – 1 space rate                               20.
1895 – 1 space rate                               22.
1896 – 1 short story                               1.50
1899 – 2 short stories                             7.
1900 – 1 short story                               3.

     Essanay Film Manufacturing Company,
     Chicago, Illinois
1910 – M.P. scenario                              25.

     Figaro,
     170 Madison St., Chicago,
1890 – 1 space rate                               30.
1891 – 1 space rate                               90.
1892 – 1 space rate                               10.

     Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly,
     110 Fifth Ave., New York City
1891 – 1 short story                               8.

     Gunter's Magazine,
     Street & Smith, New York City
1910 – 1 short story                              40.

     Harper's Weekly,
     New York City.
1911 – 1 short story                              75.

     Illustrated American,
     1123 Broadway, New York City
1896 – 2 verses                                   10.

     Kellogg Newspaper Co., The A.N.,
     71–73 W. Adams St., Chicago
1903 – 1 serial                                  115.

     Life, New York City
1897 – 1 short story                               3.

     Ledger Monthly,
     Ledger Building, N.Y.
1899 – 1 short story                              10.

     Lubin Mfg. Co.,
     Philadelphia, Pa.
1910 – M.P. scenario                              30.

     Ladies' World, The,
     New York City
1890 – 2 short stories                             8.
1891 – 1 verse                                     2.
     – 1 verse                                     2.
1892 – 2 verses                                    4.
1894 – 1 verse                                     2.
1898 – 1 short story                               2.

     McClure'e Newspaper Syndicate, The,
     116 Nassau St., New York City,
1901 – 2 short stories, 2 serials                295.
     – 1 serial                                  200.

     McC's Monthly,
     Detroit, Michigan
1898 – 2 short stories                            10.

     Munsey's Magazine,
     New York City,
1896 – 1 short story                              10.
1904 – 1 short story                              40.
1910 – 1 short story                              75.

     New York World,
     New York City,
1894 – 1 short story                               5.64
1897 – 2 short stories                            15.02
1898 – 1 short story                               4.68
1899 – 1 short story                               5.50

     Overland Monthly,
     508 Montgomery St., San Francisco
1897 – 1 short story                              10.

     Ocean,
     F.A. Munsey Co., New York City
1907 – 1 serial                                  450.

     People's Magazine, The,
     Street & Smith, New York
1906 – 1 serial                                  200.
1907 – 1 serial                                  250.
1908 – 2 serials                                 600.

     Popular Magazine, The,
     Street & Smith, New York City
1904 – 2 novelettes                              265.
1909 – 1 serial                                  200.

     Puck,
     Keppler & Schwartzmann,
     Puck Building, New York City
1891 – 2 short stories                            20.
1892 – 1 short story                               5.
1893 – 2 short stories, 1 verse                   14.
1896 – 1 short story                               6.
1897 – 2 short stories, 1 verse                   22.
1899 – 2 short stories                            17.

     Railroad Man's Magazine,
     F.A. Munsey Co.,
     New York
1906 – 2 serials                                 700.
1907 – 1 serial                                  500.
1908 – 2 serials                                 650.
1909 – 2 short stories                            70.

     Red Book,
     Chicago, Ills.
1906 – 1 short story                              75.
1909 – 1 short story                              40.

     Scrap Book,
     F.A. Munsey Co., N.Y.C.
1905 – 1 serial                                  200.
1908 – 1 serial                                  300.
1910 – 1 serial                                  400.
1911 – 1 serial                                  400.

     Saturday Times, The,
     Chicago, Ills.
1907 – 1 serial                                   60.

     Southern Tobacco Journal,
     Winston, N.C.
1897 – 1 verse                                     2.

     Short Stories,
     Current Literature Pub. Co.,
     New York City
1891 – 1 short story                               5.
1898 – 2 short stories                            10.
1900 – 2 short stories                            30.

     San Francisco Chronicle,
     San Fran.
1896 – 1 short story                               6.

     Saturday Night,
     James Elverson Pub.
     Philadelphia, Pa.
1890 – 1 serial                                   75.
1891 – 1 serial, 8 short stories                 166.
1892 – 5 short stories                            10.
1893 – 1 serial, 5 short stories                 160.

     Truth,
     203 Broadway, New York City
1893 – 1 short story                               3.50
1897 – 7 short stories                            57.

     Top-Notch Magazine,
     Street & Smith, New York City
1911 – 1 serial                                  150.

     Translation Rights
1908                                              40.

     Vitagraph Company of America, The,
     Brooklyn. N.Y.
1909 – M.P.                                       10.

     Wayside Tales,
     Detroit Monthly Publishing: Co.,
     Detroit, Mich.
1901 – 3 short stories                            23.
1902 – 2 short stories                            35.
1903 – 1 short story                              15.

     White Elephant,
     Frank Tousey's Pub. House,
     New York City
1897 – 2 short stories                            30.

     Western World,
     Chicago, Ills.
1900 – 2 serials, 7 short stories, 1 space rates 308.80

     Woman's Home Companion,
     New York
1905 – 1 serial, space rate                      205.

     Yankee Blade,
     Boston, Mass.
1890 – 2 short stories                            20.
1891 – 3 short stories, 2 verses                  13.
1893 – 1 short story                               6.50
     – 1 short story 4.

     Powers Company,
     New York City
1910 – M.P.                                       25.

     Street & Smith,
     New York City
1900 – 34 issues "Motor Boys"                  2,550. 
1908 – 7 paper-book rights                       700.
1909 – 21 paper-book rights                    2,100.
1910 – 2 paper-book rights                       200.
1911 – 5 paper-book rights                       500.

     Dodd, Mead & Co.,
     New York City
1904 – Cloth book rights                         200.

     Harte & Perkins,
     New York
  Nickel Novels:                    $ 23,964.44
1893 –  4 @ $ 50 each                            200.
1894 –  3 @ $ 50 each                            150.
     – 31 @ $ 40 each                            960.
1896 – 24 @ $ 40 each                            960.
1897 –  2 @ $ 40 each                             80.
1898 – 16 @ $ 40 each                            640.
1899 – 33 @ $ 40 each                          1,400.
1900 – 51 @ $ 40 each                          2,040.
Completing Story                                  20.
1901 – 10 @ $ 30 each                            300.
     –  8 @ $ 50 each                            400.
     – 16 @ $ 40 each                            640.
1902 – 31 @ $ 40 each                           1,240.
1903 – 44 @ $ 40 each                           1,760.
1904 – 26 @ $ 40 each                           1,040.
     –  4 @ $ 50 each                             200.
1905 – 10 @ $ 50 each                             500.
1906 – 18 @ $ 50 each                             900.
1907 – 33 @ $ 50 each                           1,650.
1908 – 45 @ $ 50 each                           2,250.
1909 –  9 @ $ 60 each                             540.
1910 – 54 @ $ 60 each                           3,240.
1911 – 54 @ $ 60 each                           3,240.
  Ten-Cent Novels:
1893 – 13 @ $100 each                           1,300.
1894 – 10 @ $100 each                           1,000.
1895 –  2 @ $ 40 each                             100.
  Serials for "Guest;"
1894 –  2 @ $300 each                             600.
     –  2 @ $500 & $400                           900.
1897 –  1                                         300.
1895 –  2 @ $300 & $200                           500.
1898 –  2 @ $300                                  600.
1899 –  1                                         300.
1906 –  1                                         250.
1907 –  1                                         300.
  Juvenile Serials:
1893 –  2 @ $100 & $75                            175.
1894 –  1                                         175.
1894 –  1                                         100.
1901 –  4 @ $100 each                             400.
1902 –  4 @ $100 each                             400.
  Miscellaneous:
1897 –  4 magazine sketches                        40.
     –  1 magazine sketch                           6.16
1900 – 10 magazine sketches                       100.
1901 –  9 trade-paper sketches                    100.
1902 –  1 trade-paper sketch                       10.
                                                 ___________
     Total                                   $ 65,859.60

The finest music in the room is that which streams out to the ear of the spirit in many an exquisite strain from the hanging shelf of books on the opposite wall, every volume there is an instrument which some melodist of the mind created and set vibrating with music, as a flower shakes out its perfume or a star shakes out its light. Only listen, and they soothe all care, as though the siiken-soft leaves of poppies had been made vocal and poured into the ear. – James Lane Allen.

§

When William Dean Howells occupied an editorial chair in Harper’s office, a young man of humble and rough exterior one day submitted personally to him a poem. Mr. Howells asked:

“Did you write this poem yourself?”

“Yes, sir. Do you like it?” the youth asked.

“I think it is magnificent,” said Mr. Howells. “Did you compose it unaided?”

“I certainly did,” said the young man firmly. “I wrote every line of it out of my head.”

Mr. Howells rose and said:

“Then, Lord Byron, I am very glad to meet you. I was under the impression that you died a good many years ago.”

Announcement

In addition to “The Fiction Factory,” The Editor Company are publishers at Ridgewood, New Jersey, of THE EDITOR, (The Journal of Information for Literary Workers), which has been published solely in the interests of writers for eighteen years, and of the following books:

THE WRITER’S BOOK $2.50

Compiled by William R. Kane.

PRACTICAL AUTHORSHIP 1.50

By James Knapp Reeve.

1001 PLACES TO SELL MMS 1.00

(The American Writer’s, Artist’s and Photographer’s Year Book) in its ninth edition.

POINTS ABOUT POETRY .60

By Donald G. French.

RHYMES AND METERS .50

By Horatio Winslow.

THE FICTION WRITER’S WORKSHOP .50

By Duncan Francis Young.

HOW TO WRITE A SHORT STORY .50

THE EDITOR MANUSCRIPT RECORD (loose leaf) .50

ESSAYS ON AUTHORSHIP .25

THE WAY INTO PRINT .25

THE EDITOR COMPANY

RIDGEWOOD, NEW JERSEY

THE EDITOR

IF you write, or if you have an itching to write, we want to talk to you.

THE EDITOR, we may explain, is “The Journal Of Information For Literary Workers.” It is not at all pretentious, and not at all dull. It is a matter-of-fact little magazine, always filled with good, readable articles on the technique of writing. Sometimes they are contributed by authors and sometimes by editors.

We aim to show our patrons, so far as such things may be taught, how to write fiction, poetry, articles and the like, and then how to sell them, provided they are up to the standard demanded by editors. We have been assured so many times that it wearies us, that our magazine has been the lever that pried open the editorial doors of pretty nearly every publication in the country. In addition to our articles we present our Literary Market department in which we list monthly the complete report of editorial needs, announcements, policies, changes, prize-contests, etc. This enables the writer to keep his finger on the magazine pulse; he knows what to write, when to write it, how to write it, when to submit it, what payment will be made, and countless other points. Authors such as George Allan England, who is selling regularly to McClure’s, Red Book, Bohemian, etc., have been good enough to say that this department alone is worth the subscription price. Now add to the foregoing a spice of good verse, bright editorial comment, and you’ll know why every editor and very nearly every author of note sends his writer-friends to us.

Why you can’t write and do without the authors’ trade-journal! You will always find something between the covers of the magazine that drives you to work, that spurs you to greater efforts, that puts you on the high road to success.

We pride ourselves on the fact that THE EDITOR is a good, live text-book. It is a pretty sort of a teacher, you know, who never sees an educational journal; new methods and systems are cropping out constantiy. And no writer – we leave this to you – likes to send a manuscript to a magazine that suspended a few months ago; nor allow an article to go unread that may cover just the point on which his or her rejections cling. The writer wants hints, helps, and as many of them as possible; everybody does. There is no magazine that better meets this want than THE EDITOR.

We’ve succeeded in pleasing and making famous the promising writer-folk of this country since 1894. Mayn’t we have you?

15 cents a copy … $1.00 a year

THE EDITOR COMPANY

RIDGEWOOD, NEW JERSEY

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 25

2009-04-10T21:02:00.000Z

XXV.
EXTRACTS GRAVE AND GAY, WISE AND OTHERWISE

Cigars on the Editor:

“The berth check came to me this morning. I suppose the cigars are on me. At the same time, there is another kind of check which you get when you buy your Pullman accomodation at the Pullman office in the station. It was that which I had in mind. I suppose the one you enclosed is the conductor’s check. I don’t believe I ever saw one before.”

How “Bob” Davis hands you a Lemon

“The first six or seven chapters of ‘Hammerton’s Vase’ are very lively and readable – after which it falls off the shelf and is badly shattered. Everybody in the yarn is pretty much of a sucker, and the situations are more or less of a class. I think, John, that there is too much talk in this story. Your last thirty pages are nothing but.

What struck me most was the ease with which you might have wound the story up in any one of several places without in any way injuring it. That is not like the old John Milton of yore. You used to pile surprise upon surprise, and tie knot after knot in your complications. But you didn’t do it in ‘Hammerton’s Vase’ – for which reason I shed tears and return the manuscript by express.”

How Mr. White does it:

“I am very sorry to be obliged to make an adverse report on ‘The Gods of Tlaloc.’ For one thing the story is too wildly improbable, for another the hero is too stupid, and worse than all the interest is of too scrappy a nature – not cumulative. You have done too good work for The Argosy in the past for me to content myself with this…. When I return Aug. 9, I shall hope to find a corking fine story from your pen awaiting my perusal. I am sure you know how to turn out such a yarn.”

A tip regarding “Dual-identity”:

“The story opens well, and that is the best I can say for it. I put up the scheme to Mr. Davis and he expressed a strong disinclination for any kind of a dual-identity story.” – Matthew White, Jr.

How Mr. Davis takes over the Right Stuff:

“We are taking the sea story. Will report on the other stuff you have here in a day or two. In the meantime, remem-ber that you owe me an 80,000-word story and that you are getting the maximum rate and handing me the mmimum amount of words. You raised the tariff and I stood for it and it is up to you to make good some of your threats to play ball accordmg to Hoyle. It is your turn to get in the box and bat ‘em over the club-house. And remember, I am always on the bleachers, waiting to cheer at the right time.”

How Mr. White lands on it:

“‘Helping Columbus’ pleases me very much, and on our principle of paying for quality I am sending you for it our check for $350.”

During the earlier years of his writing Edwards made use of an automatic word-counter which he attached to his Caligraph – the machine he was using at that time. He discovered that if a story called for 30,000 words, and he allowed the counter to register that number, the copy would over-run about 5,000 words. At a much later period he discovered by actual comparisons of typewritten with printed matter just the number of words each page of manuscript would average in the composing-room. From his publishers, however, he once received the following instructions:

“To enable you to calculate the number of words to write each week, we make the following suggestions: Type off a LONG paragraph from a page of one of the weeklies that has been set solid, so that the number of words in each line will correspond with the same line in print.

When you have finished the paragraph you can get the average length of the typed line as written on your machine, and by setting your bell guard at this average length you will be able to fairly approximate, line for line, manuscript and printed story.

A complete story should contain 3,000 lines. Calculating in this way, you will be able to turn in each week a story of about the right length. Our experience shows us that the calculated length of a story based on a roughly estimated number of words usually falls short of our requirements, and although to proceed in the manner suggested above may involve a little extra work – not above half an hour at the outside and on one occasion only – by it alone are we convinced that you will strike the right number of words for each issue.”

“Along the Highway of Explanations”:

“I cannot see ‘The Yellow Streak’ quite clear enough. You whoop it up pretty well for about three-quarters of the story, and then it begins to go to pieces along the highway of explanations.” – Mr. Davis.

Concerning the “Rights” of a Story:

“Unless it is otherwise stipulated, WE BUY ALL MANUSCRIPTS WITH FULL COPYRIGHT.”– F.A. Munsey Co.

And again:

“The signing of the receipt places all rights in the hands of the Frank A. Munsey Company, but they will be glad to permit you to make a stage version of your story, only stipulating that in case you succeed in getting it produced, they should receive a reasonable share of the royalties.

The Last Word on the Subject:

“Mr. White has turned over to me your letter of October 12, as I usually answer letters relating to questions of copyright. I think, under the circumstances, if you want to dramatize the story we ought to permit you to do so without payment to us. The only condition we would make would be that if you get the play produced, you should print a line on the program saying, – ‘Dramatized from a story published in The Argosy,’ or words to that effect.” – Mr. Titherington, of Munseys.

Paragraphing, Politics and Puns:

“Your paragraphs are pretty good, so far. But SHUN POLITICS AND RELIGION in any form, direct or indirect, as you would shun the devil. And please don’t pun – it is so cheap.”– Mr. A.A. Mosley, of The Detroit Free Press.

Climaxes, Snap and Spontaneity:

“We don’t like to let this go back to you, and only do so in the hope that you can let us have it again. The sketch is capitally considered, the character is excellent, the way in which it is written admirable, the whole story is very funny, and yet somehow it does not quite come off. The climax – the denouement – seems somewhat labored and lacks snaps and spontaneity. Can’t you devise some other termination – something with more ‘go?’ This is so good we want it to be better.” – Editor Puck.

Novelty and Exhilarating Effect:

“We have no special subject to suggest for a serial, but would cheerfully read any you think desirable for our needs. The better plan always is to submit the first two installments of about four columns each. Novelty and exhilarating effect are desirable.” – Editor Saturday Night.

Saddling and Bridling Pegasus:

“We are very much in need of a short Xmas poem – from 16 to 20 lines – to be used at once. Knowing your ability and willingness to accomodate at short notice, I write you to ask if you can get one to us by Saturday of this week, or Monday at latest. I know it is a very short time in which to saddle and bridle Pegasus, but I am sure you can do it with celerity if any one can.” – Editor The Ladies’ World.

Carrying the Thing too Far:

“We regret that we cannot make use of ‘The Brand of Cain,’ after your prompt response to our call, but the title and story are JUST A LITTLE BIT too sensational for our paper, and we think it best to return it to you. It is a good story, and well written, but we get SO MUCH condemnation from our subscribers, often for a trifle, that we are obliged to be very careful. Only a week or two ago we were severely censured because a recipe in Household Dep’t called for a tablespoon ful of wine in a pudding sauce, and the influence of the writer against the paper promised if the offense were repeated.” – From the editor of a woman’s journal.

And, finally, this from Mr. Davis:

“We are of the non-complaining species, ourself, and aim only to please the mob. Rush the sea story. If it isn’t right, I’ll rush it back, by express…. Believe, sir, that I am personally disposed to regard you as a better white man than the average white man because you a larger white man, and, damnitsir, I wish you good luck.”

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 24

2009-04-10T19:02:00.003Z

XXIV.
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT?

Edwards wrote only one serial story during 1910, and turned his hand to that merely to bring up the financial returns and leave a safe margin for expenses. Nickel novels, a few short stories, a novelette for The Blue Book and the lengthening of two stories for paperbook publication comprised the year’s work. He “soldiered” a little, but when a writer “soldiers” he is not necessarily idle. Edwards’ thoughts were busy, and the burden of his reflections was this: Heaven had endowed him with a small gift of plot and counter-plot, and a little art for getting it into commercial form; but were his meager talents producing for him all that they should? Was the purely commercial aim, although held to with a strong sense of moral responsibility, the correct aim? After a score of years of hard work did he find himself progressing in any but a financial direction? Forgetting the past and facing the future with eyes fixed at a higher angle, how was he to proceed with his “little gift of words?” What should he do with it?

In the bright summer afternoons Edwards would walk out of his Fiction Factory and make a survey of it from various points. He was always so close to his work that he lost the true perspective. He was familiar with the minutiae, the thousand and one little details that went to make up the whole, but how did it look in the “all-together,” stripped of sentiment and beheld in its three dimensions?

Paradoxically, the work appeared too commercial in some of its aspects, and not commercial enough in others. The sordid values were due to the demand which came to Edwards constantly and unsolicited, and which it was his unvarying policy always to meet. “All’s fish that comes to the writer’s net” was a saying of Edwards that had cozzened his judgment. He was giving his best to work whose very nature kept him to a dead level of mediocrity. And within the last few years he had become unpleasantly aware that at least one editor believed him incapable of better things. This was largely Edwards’ fault. Orders for material along the same old lines poured in upon him and he hesitated to break away from them and try out his literary wings.

Years before he had faced a similar question. The same principal of breaking away from something that was reasonably sure and regular for something else not so sure but which glowed with brighter possibilities, was involved. Vaguely he felt the call. He was forty-four, and had left behind him twenty-odd years of hard and conscientious effort. As he was getting on in years so should he be getting on with some of his dreams, before the light failed and the Fiction Factory grew dark and all dreaming and doing were at an end.

One evening in Christmas week, 1910, he mentioned his aspirations to a noted editor with whom he happened to be at dinner. The book that was to bring fame and fortune, the book Edwards had always been going to write but had never been able to find the time, was under discussion. “Write it,” advised the noted one, “but not under your own name.”

Edwards fell silent. What was there in the work he had done which made it impossible to put “John Milton Edwards” on the title page of his most ambitious effort? Were the nickel novels and the popular paperbacks to rise in judgment against him? He could not think so then, and he does not think so now.

“Why don’t you write up your experiences as an author?” inquired the editor a few moments later. “You want to be helpful, eh? Well, there’s your chance. Writers would not be the only ones to welcome such a book, and if you did it fairly well it ought to make a hit.”

This suggestion Edwards adopted. Having the courage of convictions directly opposed to the noted editor’s, the other one he will not accept.

The reflections of 1910 began to bear fruit in 1911. With the beginning of the present year Edwards gave up the five-cent fiction, not because – as already stated in a previous chapter – he considered it debasing to his “art,” but because he needed time for the working out of a few of his dreams.

Presently, as though to confirm him in his determination, two publishing houses of high standing requested novels to be issued with their imprint. He accepted both commissions, and at this writing the work is well advanced. If he fails of material success in either or both these undertakings, by the standards elsewhere quoted and in which he thoroughly believes, the higher success that cannot be separated from faithful effort will yet be his. And it will suffice.

Even in 1910 Edwards had been swayed by his growing convictions. Almost unconsciously he had begun shaping his work along the line of higher achievement. During 1911 he has been hewing to the same line, but more consistently.

Edwards has demonstrated his ability to write moving picture scenarios that will sell. But is the game worth the candle? Is it pleasant for an author to see his cherished Western idea worked out with painted white men for Indians and painted buttes for a background? Of course, there are photoplays enacted on the Southwestern deserts, with real cowboys and red men for “supers,” but somewhere in most of these performances a false note is struck. One who knows the West has little trouble in detecting it.

This, however, is a matter of sentiment, alone. The nebulous ideas most scenario editors seem to have as to rates of payment, and the usually long delay in passing upon a “script,” are important details of quite another sort. And, furthermore, it is unjust to throw a creditable production upon the screen without placing the author’s name under the title. Of right, this advertising belongs to the author and should not be denied him.

In 1910 a moving picture concern secured a concession for taking pictures with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Far East Show, and Edwards was hired to furnish scenarios at $35 each. He furnished a good many, and of one of them Major Lillie (Pawnee Bill) wrote from Butte, Montana, on Sep. 2;

“Friend Edwards:

I saw one of the films run off at a picture house a few days ago and I think they are the greatest Western scenes that I have ever witnesed – that is, they are the truest to life. I had a letter from Mr. C—– yesterday, and he thinks they are fine.

Your friend,
“G.W. Lime,”

For a time Edwards thought his faith in the moving picture makers was about to be justified. But he was mistaken. He received a check for just $25, which probably escaped from the film men in an unguarded moment, and no further check, letter or word has since come from the company. The proprietors of the Show had nothing to do with the picture people, and regretted, though they could not help the loss Edwards had suffered.

When the moving picture writers are assured of better prices for their scenarios, of having them passed upon more promptly and of getting their names on the films with their pictures, the business will have been shaken down to a more commendable basis. Possibly the film manufacturers borrow their ideas of equitable treatment for the writer from some of the publishing houses.

The “hack” writer, in many editorial offices, is looked down upon with something like contempt by the august personage who condescends to buy his “stuff” and to pay him good money for it. Perhaps the “hack” is at fault and has placed himself in an unfavorable light. Writers are many and competition is keen. Among these humble ones there are those who have suffered rebuff after rebuff until the spirit is broken and pride is killed, and they go cringing to an editor and supplicate him for an assignment. Or they write him: “For God’s sake do not turn down this story! It is the bread-line for me, if you do.”

Did you ever walk through the ante-room of a big publishing house on the day checks are signed and given out? Men with pinched faces and ragged clothes sit in the mahogany chairs. They have missed the high mark in their calling. They had high ambitions once – but ambitions are always high when hope is young. They are writing now, not because they love their work but because it is the only work they know, and they must keep at it or starve (perhaps and starve).

A taxicab flings madly up to the door in front, and a stylishly clad gentleman floats in at the hall door and across the ante-room to the girl at the desk. They exchange pleasant greetings and the girl punches a button that communicates with the private office of the powers that be.

“Mr. Oswald Hamilton Brezee to see Mr. Skinner.”

Delighted mumblings by Mr. Skinner come faintly to the ears of the lowly ones. The girl turns away from the ‘phone.

“Go right in, Mr. Brezee.” she says. “Mr. Skinner will see you at once.”

Mr. Brezee’s “stuff” has caught on. Dozens of magazines are clamoring for it. Mr. Brezee vanishes and presently reappears, tucking away his check with the careless manner of one to whom checks are more or less of a bore. He passes into the hall, and in a moment the “taxi” is heard bearing him away.

The lowly ones twist in their chairs and bitterness floods their hearts. Like the author ot “Childe Harold,” Brezee awoke one morning to find himself famous. These others, with the dingy Windsor ties and the long hair and pinched faces never awake to anything but a doubt as to where the morning meal is to come from.

After hours of waiting in the ante-room, checks are finally produced and passed around to the lowly ones and they fade away into the haunts that know them best. Next pay-day they will be back again, if they are alive and have been given anything to do in the meantime.

Is this game worth the candle? What shall these men do with their “little gift” but keep it grinding, merciless though the grind may be? They cannot all be Oswald Hamilton Brezees.

Before a young man throws himself into the ranks of this vast army of writers, let him ponder the situation well. If, under the iron heel of adversity, he is sure he can still love his work for the work’s sake and be true to himself, there is one chance in ten that he will make a fair living, and one chance in a hundred that he may become one of the generals.

The Factory returns for 1910 and for part of 1911 are given below. Edwards believes that, in its last analysis, 1911 will offer figures close to the ten-thousand dollar mark – but it is a guess hedged around with many contingencies.

    1910:

54 nickel novels @ $60 each,    $ 3240.00
Short story for Munsey's,           75.00
Short story for The Blue Book,      40.00
Novelette for The Blue Book        200.00
Moving picture, Essanay Co,         25.00
Short story for Gunter's            40.00
Short story for Columbian           15.00
Paper-book rights,                 200.00
Serial story for Scrap Book,       400.00
Moving picture,                     25.00
                                   ______
          Total                 $ 4260.00

    Part of 1911:

5 paper-book rights,            $  500.00
Serial for All-Story               400.00
Novelette for Adventure,           250.00
Serial for The Argosy,             250.00
Novelette for The Blue Book,       200.00
Short stories for The Blue Book,   150.00
Short story for Harper's Weekly,    75.00
Serial for "Top-Notch,"            150.00
                                   ______
          Total                 $ 1975.00

George Ade asked an actress, who was one of the original cast of “The County Chairman,” to whom he had just been introduced, “Which would you rather be – a literary man or a burglar?” It is related that the actress, who was probably as excited as Ade, answered, “What’s the difference?” And this is supposed to be a humorous anecdote!

§

The man who tells stories, sometimes fiction and sometmes stories, about the Harper publications, evolves the following realistic story about “The Masquerader,” originally published in The Bazaar. Well, it seems that one morning, the editor sat her down and found the following letter, which is truly pathetic and possibly pathetically true: “You may, and I hope you have, some little remembrance of my name. But this will be the very oddest letter you have ever received. I am reading that most clever and wonderfully well-written novel, “The Masquerader.” I have very serious heart trouble and may live years and may die any minute. I should deeply regret going without knowing the general end of that story. May I know it? Will be as close as the grave itself if I may. I really feel that I may not live to know the unravelling of that net. If I may know for reason good and sufficient to yourself and by no means necessary to explain, may I please have the numbers as they come to you, and in advance of general delivery?” The editor sent on the balance of the story, but it was never revealed whether it made the person well again or not. Edwards imagines that the whirl of action in books would not be good for the heart – or, for the matter of that, the soul.

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 23

2009-04-09T19:29:00.002Z

XXIII.
THE INJUSTICE OF IT

The commercial world may hearken sentimentally to that plaintive ballad, “Silver Threads Among the Gold,” as it floats into the Emporium from a street organ, but the commercial world never allows sentiment to interfere with business. When a man presents himself and asks for a job, he is examined for symptoms of decrepitude before his mental abilities are canvassed. The wise seeker for place, before making the rounds of the Want Column, will see to it that his hair is of a youthful color, for there is nothing so damned by the octopus of trade as hoary locks. A bottle of walnut juice, carefully administered, may bridge the gap and lead from failure to success.

“New blood!” that’s the cry. “Age is too conservative, too partial to the old and outworn standards, too apt to keep in a rut. Give us the mop of black hair and the bright, snappy eye! Give us energy and brilliant daring and a fresh view-point! We’ll be taking a few chances, but what of that? We must follow the fashion.”

Some of the publishers have gone to the extreme of the prevailing mode. The yearling from the football field, if he happens to have been sporting editor of the college journal, is brought to the sanctum, shoved into the chair of authority, and given $50 a week and the power to go ahead and be ruthless. He rarely disappoints his employer. Whenever he does, his employer is to be congratulated. Usually, however, he sticks to his schedule. He thinks he is Somebody, and attempts to prove it by kicking all the old contributors out of the office and forwarding invitations for manuscripts to every member of the Class of ‘10.

There is no writer of experience who has failed to meet this sort of editor. For years a publishing house may have steadily increased in power and prestige through the loyalty and labor of the old contributor, only to give some darling of the campus a desk and the authority to begin oslerizing faithfulness and ability.

This injustice would be humorous were some of its aspects not so tragic. The smug publishers themselves may have something to answer for. They have wrung their ratings in Dun and Bradstreet from the old contributor, and when they abandon a policy that has brought success they are steering through troubled waters and into unknown seas.

For anything short of incompetence this casting aside of the old in order to try out the new is reprehensible. To weather a decade or two of storm and stress a writer must have been versatile. Versatility increases with his years, and he is as capable of brilliant daring and a fresh viewpoint as any youth in the twenties.

Times out of number this has been made manifest. Stories disguised with a pen-name and a strange typewriter have won welcome and success where the old name and the old typewriter would have insured rejection. Note this from one who has been twenty-five years at the game:

“In the near-humorous line I may mention the fact that I once tried to get the editor of a certain paper to let me furnish him a serial, but he didn’t think I could write it. Soon afterward a friend who had been contributing serials to that particular paper was asked by the editor to furnish a serial. As it chanced, the writer happened to be engaged in other work. So he came to me and wanted to know if I could not write the desired serial. When I informed him that the editor had turned my offer down, he then suggested that I write the serial and let him send it in under his own name. It was a chance to try the sagacity of that particular editor. I salved my conscience, wrote the serial, and my typewritten copy was submitted to the editor under the name of my friend. The serial was accepted, with medals thrown all over it – my literary friend being informed that it was just the thing the editor wanted, and that he had hard work to get authors who could suit his view as to what was available for his particular publication. My friend got the honor, if there was any, of seeing the serial run under his name; and I got the money for doing the work.”

If an author ever suffers an editor’s contempt, what must the editor suffer on being caught red-handed in such a way as this? It is the worm’s prerogative to turn whenever it finds the opportunity.

Illustrating this point, and several other points with which this chapter is concerned, the following letter from another writer, who has been turning out successful manuscripts for upward of twenty years, is reproduced:

“Dear Bro. Edwards:

You certainly DO put a poser to me. At the present time I have difficulty in seeing anything that has happened to me in the twenty-odd years of my following the literary game in anything but a tragic light. I believe my success, such as it was, was tragic. At least, it has rivetted my reputation to a certain class of literature – heaven save the mark! – and makes it almost impossible for me to sell anything of a bettter quality. I might tell you of plenty of cruel things that have been done to me by publishers and editors when they knew or suspected that I was hard up; and plenty of silly things done to me by the same folk when they thought I didn’t particularly NEED their money. But funny things–?

It’s the point of view makes the thing funny. The child pulling the wings off a fly to see the insect crawl over the window pane is amused; but I don’t suppose the fly sees the humor of the situation. I could tell you tales of submitting the same manuscript three times to an editor whom we both know well, having it shot through with criticism the first two times and then having it accepted and paid for at extra rates within two years of the first submission, and without even a word of the title changed! Is THAT the kind of an incident you want?

One of the funniest things that ever happened to me was that an editor of a popular magazine used to say that my stuff resembled Dickens, and when I wrote half-dime novels the readers used to write in and say the same. The quality of mind possessed by the scholarly editor and the street boys who read ‘Bowery Billy’ must be somewhat the same – eh?

There was once a magazine that bore as its title the name of a publisher as famous as any American ever saw, and the editor bought a story of me at the rate of half a cent a word, and owed me two years for it. Finally, one time when I was very hard up I went to the office and hung around until I could see the ‘boss’ and put it up to him to pay me. He did. He knocked off 33-1/3 per cent for ‘cash.’ Pretty good, eh?

I tell you, Edwards, there’s nothing funny in the game that I can see – not for the so-called literary worker. The gods may laugh when they see a man with that brand of insanity on him that actually forces him to write. But I doubt if the writer laughs – not even if he writes a ‘best seller.’ For success entails turning out other successes, and that is hard work. Excuse me! I am going back to the farm. I will write only when I have to, and only as long as my farm will not support me. I’ve got hold of a pretty good place cheap, down here with the outlook of making a good living on it in time. No more the Great White Way, with the Dirty Black Alley behind it, in mine! I am not going to carry my hat in my hand around to editors’ offices and take up collections for long. Besides, most of the editors blooming now are just out of college and are not dry behind the ears yet. They think that Johnny Go-bang, who edited the sporting page in the Podunk University Screamer, knows more about writing fiction than the old fellows who have been at it a couple of decades. And I reckon they are right. They are looking for ‘fresh’ material; some of it is pretty ‘raw’ as well as fresh. I fooled an editor the other day by sending a manuscript on strange paper, written on a new typewriter, and with an assumed name attached. Sold the story and got a long letter of encouragement from the editor. Great game – encouraging ‘new’ writers! About on a par with the scheme some rum sellers have of washing their sidewalks with the dregs of beer kegs. The spider and fly game. Now. if I told that editor what an ass he had made of himself, would he ever buy another manuscript of me again? I fear not!

Perhaps I am pessimistic, Brother Edwards. There’s no real fun in the writing game – not for the writer, at least. Not when he is forty years old and knows that already he is a ‘has-been.’ Good luck to you. Hope your book is a success, and if I really knew just what you wanted I’d try to whip something into shape for you. For you very well know that, if other fiction writers give you incidents for your book, they’ll mostly be fiction! That is the devil of it. If a fiction writer cuts a sliver off his thumb while paring the corned beef for dinner, he will make out of the story a gory combat between his hero and a horde of enemies, and give details of the carnage fit to make his own soul shudder.

I hope to meet up with you again some time. But pretty soon when I go to New York I’ll wear my chin-whiskers long and carry a carpet-bag; and you bet I’ll fight shy of editor’ offices.”

Another example of injustice to writers which, however, happened to turn out well for the writer:

“I offered a short serial to a certain newspaper syndicate. Soon I received a lettter saying they could pay me $200 for the serial rights. Before my letter accepting the offer reached them, I had another letter from the syndicate withdrawing the offer. The editor stated pathetically that the proprietor had returned and had asked him to withdraw it. I then sent the serial to a Chicago newspaper, which paid me $200 for serial rights – BUT NEVER PUBLISHED THE STORY. Finally I rewrote the story, had it published as a book by a leading Eastern publishing house, and it sold well.”

Here, again, is injustice of another kind:

“Once a certain Eastern magazine authorized me to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and write a description of a Pueblo dance and of Pueblo life, and send the manuscript on with photographs for illustration. I did the work. And I was rewarded by the generous editor with a check for $20! You can imagine how profitable that particular stunt was, for I took a week’s time and paid my own expenses. But not out of that twenty. There wasn’t enough of it to go ‘round.”

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 22

2009-04-09T19:29:00.001Z

XXII.
NEW SOURCES OF PROFIT

The out-put of the Fiction Factory brought excellent returns during the years 1908 and 1909. Industry followed close on the heels of opportunity and the result was more than gratifying. The 1908 product consisted of forty-four nickel novels for Harte & Perkins, two novelettes for The Blue Book, four serials for the Munsey publications, and one novelette for The People’s Magazine. This work alone would have carried the receipts well above those of the preceding year, but new and unexpected sources of profit helped to enlarge the showing on the Factory’s books.

The rapidity with which Edwards wrote his serial stories – sometimes under the spur of an immediate demand from his publishers, and sometimes under the less relentless spur of personal necessity – seemed to preclude the possibility of profit on a later publication “in cloth.” Only a finished performance is worthy of a durable binding. Realizing this, Edwards had never made a determined effort to interest book-publishers in the stories. In the ordinary course of affairs, and with scarcely any attention on his part, two serials found their way into “cloth.” “Danny W.,” accepted and brought out by Dodd, Mead & Co., was written for book publication, and serialized after it had appeared in that form. It fell as far short of a “best seller” as did the two republished serials.

Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that additional profit through publication in cloth seemed out of the question, Edwards wondered if there were not something else to be gained from the stories besides the serial rights.

His stories were dramatic and, in several instances, had appealed to play-writers. For a time he had hopes that dramatic rights might prove a source of additional income. His hopes, in this respect, have not been completely dashed, inasmuch as competent hands are at this date (September, 1911) fitting some of his stories for the stage. Something may come of it, but his experience has made him wary and he is not at all sanguine.

Eliminating book and dramatic rights from the equation, and what remained? A letter from Waltham, Mass., dated April 23, 1908, uncovered possibilities of which Edwards had never dreamed. Most of these possibilities, as it transpired, were a dream, but, as in the matter of dramatic rights, some day the dream may come true in a large and substantial manner. Here is the letter:

“Dear Sir:

If you have not yet disposed of the sole and unrestricted rights of translation into the GERMAN language of your books: ‘The Billionaire’s Dilemma’ and ‘The Shadow of the Unknown,’ will you permit me to submit them to my GERMAN correspondents – some of the best known GERMAN PUBLISHERS – with the idea of effecting a sale?

I shall require a single copy of ‘The Billionaire’s Dilema,’ but not of ‘The Shadow of the Unknown’ having preserved the story as it appeared first in the POPULAR, [] to send abroad, with a statement of the best terms you will make for the *cash out-right purchase of both book and serial rights.

If the serial rights of translation in GERMAN belong to the POPULAR, you will have to come to a satisfactory understanding with them, in order to legally assign to me the SERIAL, as well as your own individual, book-rights, because all GERMAN publishers insist on serial rights, although they seldom or never use them, as MAGAZINES are not good and little used there.

My experience has been, that the MAGAZINE COMPANIES are very broad in their treatment of their writers, and usually willing to re-transfer their SERIAL rights of translation, in order to facilitate a sale, and make them universally known.

Of course less is paid for translation rights of stories that have only appeared in SERIAL form in the STATES.

If any of the publishers I represent purchases your stories, you have the best possible guarantee of perfect translation and speedy publication.

Awaiting the courtesy of an early reply and the necessary copy of ‘The Billionaire’s Dilemma,’ I have the honor to be, dear Sir,

Yours very truly,

“Eugene Niemann.” [*]

[* A mistake, the story appeared in The Blue Book.]

[* Edwards uses a ficticious name for this correspondent.]

Several guns were fired during this invasion of Germany, but only one shell “went home.” This was not the fault of Mr. Niemann. In Edwards’ brief experience with him he found him always a scholar and a gentleman. Sincerity and courtesy were his never-failing traits. The pleasant little twists he gave his English, and the occasional naive expression that struggled through his typewriter, along with the prodigal use of “caps,” will perhaps excuse a further offering from the correspondence. Here is the shot that hit the mark:

“May 12, 1908.

“Dear Sir:–

Before I have even had time to forward ‘The Billionaire’s Dilemma’ and ‘On the Stroke of Four’, and to await your other announced stories, a letter comes from one of my German correspondents, saying he had run through your short story: “The Shadow of the Unknown’ and would purchase the rights of translation if you will accept an offer of FORTY DOLLARS.

Perhaps you will say, “such an offer is absurd,” but first let me state to you, that the best books placed in GERMANY bring at the most ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS, and oftener anywhere from FIFTY to ONE HUNDRED, that the chief profit, is not a monetary one, rather the spreading of the writer’s name and fame.

‘The Shadow of the Unknown,’ writes the publisher, is a very short story, and if you will be guided by my long experience, dear Sir, you will accept the offer, in order to make our name popular and facilitate a better sale of your following stories, which I shall take double pleasure in forwarding, feeling surer of a good offer.

Were I guilty of business indiscretion, you would be surprised to know the names of the already published ‘BOOKS’ I have sold and am daily selling the GERMAN rights of, for hardly a monetary consideration at all, and yet the literary satisfaction quite out-balances all other considerations, does it not?

I enclose the customary form of assignment, which you can sign and have duly witnessed by a NOTARY PUBLIC, if you see fit to accept the offer, and which you will please then send me per AMERICAN EXPRESS C.O.D. subject to examination to avoid every possible chance of error.

The personal receipt need not be signed before the NOTARY PUBLIC, your signature without witness suffices.

Hoping to do much better for you with your other fine stories and appreciating your confidence, I remain, dear Sir,

Very truly yours,

“EUGENE NIEMANN.”

After the dust had settled, and the invasion was finally completed, $40 had been added to the year’s receipts of the Fiction Factory; but Edwards clings to the hope that some day more of his “fine stories” may be greedily bought by the German publishers. These German publishers are honorable enough to buy, where they might pirate, and there are a few American publishers who might take lessons from them in business probity. With a small tidbit from a letter of May 18, the pleasant Mr. Niemann will be dismissed:

“Later, with your permission, I will take up the stories I sell in GERMANY for sale in FRANCE, DENMARK, NORWAY and SWEDEN?

The monetary remuneration in the SCANDINAVIAN countries is yet smaller than in GERMANY, but the people are fine readers, and that for all, who truly LOVE their ART is the chief standpoint I take it?!”

During the latter part of July and the earlier part of August Edwards was in New York for a couple of weeks. As usual when in the city he worked even harder than he did at home. Two nickel novels were written, a serial was put through the Factory for Mr. Davis, and he collected $200 for a novelette which he sold to People’s. There was an interesting, almost a humorous, circumstance connected with the serial.

Edwards called the story “The Man Who Left.” When the manuscript was completed he took it in to Mr. Davis, and two or three days later called again to learn its fate.

The Munsey offices are up close to the roof in the Flatiron building. The lair of the editor who presides over the destinies of The All-Story Magazine, The Railroad Man’s Magazine and The Scrap Book [*] is flanked on the side by a prospect of space that causes the occasional caller to hang on to his chair. Across from this dizzy void is a partition hung with framed photographs of contributors – a rogues’ gallery in which Edwards, when he last saw the collection, had a prominent place. North of an imaginary line drawn between the window and the partition sits the editor, grimly prominent against a motto-covered wall. As the caller faces the editor he is, of course, confronted by placards reminding him that “This is My Busy Day – Cut it Short,” and “Find A Man for the Job not A Job for the Man,” and others cunningly calculated to put him on tenterhooks.

[* Now no more as The Cavalier, the former monthly, now a weekly has “absorbed” The Scrap Book.]

To this place, therefore, came Edwards, proffering inquiries about “The Man Who Left.” He read fateful things in the august countenance, and he was not surprised when Mr. Davis handed him a lemon, but he was surprised when he took the lemon back.

“Rotten,” said Mr. Davis, “r-r-rotten! When I’m out for peaches, Edwards, I side-step the under-ripe persimmons. ‘The Man Who Left’ ought to have made his get-away along about line one, paragraph one, chapter one; and then if he had staid out plumb to the place where you have written ‘Finis’ this gorgeous but unconvincing tale would have been vastly improved. Am I a Jasper that you seek thus to inveigle me into purchasing a gold-brick? Here, take it away! Now let me have it again. I am going to give you three hundred for it and tuck it away in the strong-box. Later you are to evolve, write and otherwise put upon paper a fictional prize for which ‘The Man Who Left’ will be returned to you in even exchange. Do you get me? ‘Nuff said. I think you’re out of mazuma, and that’s why I’m doing this. My friends’ll ruin me yet!”

Now the humor, if there is any, fits in about here: Edwards went back to Michigan and wrote a serial which he sent on to replace “The Man Who Left.” Here is the letter in reply:

My dear Edwards:

While I was away on my vacation, some one spilled a pitcher of milk. In other words, they put “The Man Who Left” to press for The All-Story Magazine, and it is now too late to yank it back. That’s the trouble of leaving anything in the safe that should not be there. You and I, however, being practical men, can understand the facility with which the yarn was nabbed up.

Now, the point is, I can use the “Mydus” yarn and get a check off to you next week, provided I have some basis on which to operate. What’s the lowest price for which you will give me ‘Mydus,’ call all previous arrangements equal, and let things stand as they are. The way to trim me and square accounts is to come back with a quick, short, sharp, cheap reply, and let it go at that.

Hurry up this ‘Mydus’ business and we’ll see what we can do. Sincerely yours,

“R. H. DAVIS.”

The spilling of that “pitcher of milk” while Mr. Davis was away on his vacation had netted Edwards just an even $300.

Another source of profit from the serial stories which the Fiction Factory had been turning out for years was revealed to Edwards in a letter dated Nov. 19, 1908. This, like the matter of translation rights, came to Edwards as a pleasant surprise; but, unlike the “German invasion,” it was to prove vastly more profitable. Here is the letter:

“Dear Sir:

Upon looking over the files of The Argosy we find that you have written the following serial stories. Are the book rights of these your property? If not, can you get Mr. Munsey to give them to you? If you can, and will lengthen the stories to about 75,000 words, we will pay you $100 each for the paper book rights of same.

We cannot offer you more, as we would put these out in cheap paper edition, but this publication would do a great deal toward popularizing your name and work with the class of readers who buy The Argosy and other fiction magazines.

The stories are as follows: (Here were listed the titles of seven Argosy serials.)

Very truly yours,

“STREET & SMITH.”

Edwards caught at this opportunity. He failed to realize, at the time, just how much work was involved in lengthening the stories for paper-book publication. In his reply to Street & Smith he offered a list of forty-five serials, and promised others if they could use so many. He was requested, on Dec. 4, to forward copies of all the stories for reading. The same letter contained this paragraph:

“I note that your letter is dated December 2nd and that you state you expect to be in New York inside of three weeks. I think it might be to our mutual advantage if you could come on in a week or ten days, for there is a new line of work which I think you could do for us about which I would like to talk with you.”

Just before Christmas Edwards and his wife arrived in New York. On some of the serials which had appeared in the Munsey magazines Edwards owned all but serial rights, but there were many more wherein all rights were held by the publishers.

The folly of a writer’s selling all rights when disposing of a story for serial publication dawned upon Edwards very strongly, at this time. The conviction was driven “home” at a little dinner which Edwards tendered to several editors and readers. During the course of the dinner one of the guests – an editor in charge of a prominent and popular magazine – averred bluntly that “any writer who sells all rights to a story to a magazine using the story serially, is a fool.”

With Edwards this sale of all rights had resulted from carelessness more than anything else, and had he not been dealing with friends like Mr. White and Mr. Davis he might have suffered financial loss because of his folly. Two or three interviews with Mr. Davis secured the paper-book rights, but with the understanding that if any of the lengthened stories were brought out in cloth, one-half of the royalties were to go to The Munsey Company.

In the whole list there were only seven stories long enough for immediate issue in paper-book form. These were paid for, at once. The other stories fell short of the required ntunber of words all the way from 5,000 to 30,000 words. There was no profit to Edwards in lengthening the stories at the price of $100 each. What benefit he derived – and is now deriving, for the work continues – was in the advertising which the wide circulation of the paper-covered books afforded him. Also, Edwards considered the value of cementing his friendship with the old-established publishing house of Street & Smith, a house noted for the fairness of its dealings with contributors and for the prompt payment for all material upon acceptance. “Making good” with publishers of such high standing is always of inestimable value to a writer.

One of Street & Smith’s editors, at this time, was St. George Rathborne, author of “Dr. Jack” and dozens of other popular stories that have appeared in paper covers. Here was another author who had become an editor, bringing to his duties an experience and ability that made for the highest success. Mr. C.A. MacLean, another member of the Street & Smith editorial staff, was also a gentleman with whom Edwards had occasional dealings. Mr. MacLean, beginning at the lowest rung of the ladder, had mounted steadily to the post of editor of The Popular Magazine and Smith’s Magazine, by sheer force of his own merit pushing those publications to the forefront of magazines of their class. To these gentlemen, and particularly to Mr. Rathborne, [*] Edwards is indebted for unfailing kindness and courtesy, and takes this means to acknowledge it.

[* Mr. Rathborne has recently given up his editorial duties and has retired to what seems to be the ultimate goal of writers and editors – a farm. He is somewhere in New Jersey.]

The special work which was mentioned in Street & Smith’s letter of Nov. 19 consisted of a new weekly publication for which Edwards was to furnish the copy. Seventy-five dollars each was to be paid for these stories.

With all this work ahead of the Fiction Factory, the year 1909 dawned in a blaze of prosperity. During 1909 Edwards found himself so busy with the paperbooks and the other publication that he had no time for serial stories. After thirty-four issues the new publication was discontinued, and Edwards went back to writing novels for Harte & Perkins, at $60 each.

During 1909 Edwards tried his hand at moving pictures. The alluring advertisements under the scare-head, “We Pay $10 to $100 for Picture Plays,” caught his eye and fired his ambition. He wrote a scenario, sent it in, and waited expectantly for his $100. He had been only two hours preparing the “photoplay” and it looked like “easy money.” When the check arrived it was for $10! He wrote in to ask what had become of the remaining $90? Thus answered The Vitagraph Company of America, Oct. 27, ‘09:

“In regard to the payment for a manuscript of this character, we never give more than ten dollars, for two or three reasons.

In the first place, we only use the idea. The manuscript has to be revised in almost every instance in order to put it in practical shape for the directors.

Again, they contain an idea which is more or less stereotyped or conventional and cannot be claimed as entirely original only as applied to the action of the play.

Regarding your own idea, I will frankly say that the same idea has often been embodied in other plays, but the general suggestion of it gives a new phase to the action of the idea.

THE EDITOR merely surmises, or so we think, that a thoroughly original manuscript in practical shape would be worth at least $25, but we seldom get one of that kind. We would welcome one at any time and would pay its full value.,

The members of our staff, who are obliged to write practical working scenarios, appreciate the above facts because they know what it means to perfect a scenario with the synopsis of the story, the properties, settings, &c., &c.

We merely state these things so you will understand that we are thoroughly fair in your case and will certainly be so in every instance.

Ideas, if they are entirely original, would be worth more than ten dollars, but they are scarcer than hen’s teeth at any price.

We find most of the ideas which we receive, and we receive hundreds of them, are nothing but repetition or old ones in new guises.

Again we will say, if we can get original ideas we will pay their full value.”

Another case of sic transit – this time, sic transit masuma.

Here follows a transcript from the Factory’s books for the two years with which this chapter has dealt:

    1908:
Dillingham, last royalities on "Tales of Two Towns"  $     1.50
45 nickel novels @ $50 each                             2250.
"The Shadow of the Unknown"                              200.
"The Shadow of the Unknown," translation rights           40.
"Parker & O'Fallon"                                      300.
"In the Valley's Shadow"                                 200.
"The Man Who Left,"                                      300.
"Trail of the Mydus,"                                    350.
"Just A Dollar,"                                         350.
"Frisbie's Folly,"                                       350.
"The Man Called Dare,"                                   300.
"The Streak of Yellow,"                                  200.
7 paper-book rights at $100 each,                        700.
                                                      ________
                        Total,                        $ 5541.50

    1909:
34 issues "Motor Boys" @ $75 each                     $ 2550.
21 paper-book rights @ $100 each                        2100.
9 nickel novels @ $60 each,                              540.
"The Stop on the 'Scutcheon," short story                 35.
Moving-picture,                                           10.
"Brealong Even," short story                              40.
"Divided by Eight," short story                           35.
                                                      ________
                        Total                         $ 5310.

The following advertisement from an English paper, which is vouched for, once more illustrates the truth of the statement that fact is stranger than fiction. The owner of the houses, it may be mentioned, was ill in bed, far away, and the neighbors evidently did not question the right of the men to do as they did. The advertisement is as follows:

LOST. – Three fine cottages have mysteriously disappeared from the property Nos. 296, 298 and 300 High road, Willesden Green, London. Please communicate with J.M. Godwin, 71 Bank Street, London, W.C.

§

O. Henry told a whimsical tale of what he considered unfair competition in the short story field. He was in the office of a big magazine, when he witnessed the return to a dejected looking young fellow of a couple of manuscripts. “I am sorry for that fellow,” said the editor. “He came to New York from New Orleans a year ago, and regularly brings some stories to our office. We can never use them. He doesn’t make a dollar by his pen, and he is getting shabby and pale.” A month or so later O. Henry saw the same writer in the same office, and the editor was talking to him earnestly. “You had better go back to New Orleans,” said that gentleman. “Why?” said the young man. “Some day I may write a story you may want.” “But you can do that just as well in New Orleans,” said the editor, “and you can save board bills.” “Board bills,” ejaculated the young man. “What do I care about board bills! I have an income of twenty thousand a year from my father’s estate.’

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 21

2009-04-08T12:34:00.000Z

XXI.
A WRITER’S READING

That old Egyptian who put above the door of his library these words, “Books are the Medicines of the Soul,” was wise indeed. But the Wise, ever since books have been made, have harped on the advantage of good literature, and have said all there is to be said on the subject a thousand times over. If one has any doubts on this point let him consult a dictionary of quotations. No intelligent person disputes the value of books; and it should be self-evident that no writer, whose business is the making of books, will do so. To the writer books are not only “medicines for the soul” but tonics for his technique, febrifuges for his rhetorical fevers and prophylactics for the thousand and one ills that beset his calling. A wide course of general reading – the wider the better – is part of the fictionist’s necessary equipment; and of even more importance is a specializing along the lines of his craft.

“Omniverous reader” is an overworked term, but it is perfect in its application to Edwards. From his youth up he has devoured everything in the way of books he could lay his hands on. The volumes came hap-hazard, and the reading has been desultory and, for the most part, without system. If engaged on a railroad story, he reads railroad stories; if a tale of the sea claims his attention, then his pabulum consists of sea-facts and fiction, and so on. The latest novel is a passion with him, and he would rather read a story by Jack London, or Rex Beach, or W.J. Locke than eat or sleep – or write something more humble although his very own. He is fond of history, too, and among the essayists he loves his Emerson. Nothing so puts his modest talents in a glow as to bring them near the beacon lights of Genius.

Edwards has a library of goodly proportions, but it is a hodge-podge of everything under the sun. Thomas Carlyle “keeps company” with Mary Johnston on his bookshelves, Marcus Aurelius rubs elbows with Frank Spearman, “France in the Nineteenth Century” nestles close to “The Mystery” from the firm of White & Adams, and four volumes of Thackeray are cheek by jowl with Harland’s “The Cardinal’s Snuff-Box.” A most reprehensible method of book keeping, of course, but to Edwards it is a delightful confusion. To him the method is reprehensible only when he wants a certain book and has to spend half a day looking for it. Some time, some blessed time – he has promised himself for years and years, – he will catalogue his books just as he has catalogued his clippings.

Books that concern themselves with the writer’s trade are many, so many that they may be termed literally an embarrassment of riches. If a writer had them all he would have more than he needed or could use. Books on the short by J. Berg Eisenwein and James Knapp Reeve, Edwards considers indispensable. They are to be read many times and thoroughly mastered. “Roget’s Thesaurus” is a work which Edwards consulted until it was dogeared and coverless; he then presented it to an impecunious friend with a well-defined case of writeritis and has since contented himself with the large “Thesaurus Dictionary of the English Language,” by F.A. March, LL.D. This flanks him on the left, as he sits at his typrewriter, while Webster’s “Unabridged” closes him in on the right. The Standard Dictionary is also within reach. Dozens and dozens of books about writers and writing have been read and are now gathering dust. After a writer has once charged himself to the brim with “technique,” he should cease to bother about it. If he has read to some purpose his work will be as near technical perfection as is necessary, for unconsciously he will follow the canons of the art; while if he loads and fires these “canons” too often, they will be quite apt to burst and blow him into that innocuous desuetude best described as “mechanical.” He should exercise all the freedom possible within legitimate bounds, and so acquire individuality and “style” – whatever that is.

No sane man in any line of trade or manufacturing will attempt to do business without subscribing to one or more papers or magazines covering his particular field. He wants the newest labor-saving wrinkle, the latest discoveries, tips on new markets, facts as to what others in the same business are doing, and countless other fresh and pertinent items which a good trade paper will furnish. A writer is such a man, and he needs tabulated facts as much as any other tradesman or manufacturer. Periodicals dealing with the trade of authorship are few, but they are helpful to a degree which it is difficult to estimate.

From the beginning of his work Edwards has made it a point to acquire every publication that dealt with the business of his Fiction Factory. In eariy years he had The Writer, and then The Author. When these went the way of good but Tiiiprof iuWe things, THE EDITOR fortunately happened along, and proved incomparably better in every detail.

From its initial number THE EDITOR has been a monthly guest at the Factory, always cordially welcomed and given a place of honor. Guide, counsellor and friend – it has proved to be all these.

Edwards subscribes heartily to that benevolent policy known as “the helping hand.” Furthermore, he tries to live up to it. What little success he has had with his Fiction Factory he has won by his own unaided efforts; but there were times, along at the beginning, when he could have avoided disappointment and useless labor if some one who knew had advised him. Realizing what “the helping hand” might have done in his own case, he has always felt the call to extend it to others. Assistance is useless, however, if a would-be writer hasn’t something to say and doesn’t know how to say it. Another who has had some success may secure the novice a considerate hearing, but from that on the matter lies wholly with the novice himself. If he has it in him, he will win; if he hasn’t, he will fail. Edwards first advice to those who have sought his help has invariably been this: “Subscribe to THE EDITOR.” In nearly every instance the advice has been taken, and with profitable results.

This same advice is given here, should the reader stand in need of a proper start along the thorny path of authorship. Nor is it to be construed in any manner as an advertisement. It is merely rendering justice where justice is due, and is an honest tribute to a publication for writers, drawn from an experience of twenty-two years “in the ranks.”

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 20

2009-04-08T12:33:00.002Z

XX.
THE LENGTHENING LIST OF PATRONS

During the year 1906 the patrons of the Fiction Factory steadily increased in number. The Blue Book, The Red Book, The Railroad Man, The All-Story, The People’s – all these magazines bought of the Factory’s products, some of them very liberally. The old patrons, also, were retained, Harte & Perkins taking a supply of nickel novels and a Stella Edwards’ serial for The Guest.

Edwards’ introduction to The Blue Book came so late in the year that the business falls properly within the affairs of 1907. The first step, however, was taken on Aug. 13, 1906, and was in the form of the following letter:

“My dear Mr. Edwards:

Why don’t you send me, with a view to publication in The Blue Book, as we have renamed our old Monthly Story Magazine, one or more of those weird and fantastic novelettes of yours? If you have anything ready, let me see it. I can at least assure you of a prompt decision and equally prompt payment if the story goes. Anything you may have up to 6,000 words I shall be very glad to see for The Red Book.

Yours very truly,
“Karl Edwin Harriman.”

Here was a pleasant surprise for Edwards. He had met Mr. Harriman the year before in Battle Creek, Michigan. At that time Mr. Harriman was busily engaged hiding his talents under a bushel known as The Pilgrim Magazine. When the Red Book Corporation of Chicago, kicked the basket to one side, grabbed Mr. Harriman out from under it and made off with him, the aspect of the heavens promised great things for literature in the Middle West. And this promise, by the way, is being splendidly fulfilled.

When you take down your “Who’s Who” to look up some personage sufficiently notorious to have a place between its red covers, if you find at the end of his name the words, “editor, author,” you may be sure that there is no cloud on the title that gives him a place in the book. You will know at once that he must have been a good author or he would never have been promoted from the ranks; and having been a good author he is certainly a better editor than if the case were otherwise, for he knows both ends of the publishing trade.

Having been through the mill himself, Mr. Harriman has a fellow-feeling for his contributors. He knows what it is to take a lay figure for a plot, clothe it in suitable language, cap it with a climax and put it on exhibition with a card: “Here’s a Peach! Grab me quick for $9.99.” Harriman’s “peaches” never came back. The author of “Ann Arbor Tales,” “The Girl and the Deal,” and others has been successful right from the start

No request for material received at the Edwards’ Factory ever fails of a prompt and hearty response. A short story and a novelette were at once put on the stocks. They were constructed slowly, for Edwards could give them attention only during odd moments taken from his regular work. The short story was finished and submitted long in advance of the novelette. This letter, dated Sept 18, will show its success:

“My Dear Old Man: Why don’t you run on here and see me, now and again. Oh, yes, New York’s a lot better, but we’re doing things here, too. About ‘Cast Away by Contract,’ it’s very funny – such a ridiculously absurd idea that it’s quite irresistible. How will $75 be for it? O.K.? It’s really all I can afford to pay for a story of its sort, and I do want you in the book. Let me hear as soon as possible and I will give it out to the artist.

Very truly yours,
“K.H.”

And so began the business with Mr. Harriman. He still, at this writing (1911), has a running account on the Factory’s books and is held in highest esteem by the proprietor.

A letter, written May 13, 1905, (a year dealt with in a previous chapter), is reproduced here as having a weighty bearing on the events of 1906. It was Edwards’ first letter from a gentleman who had recently allied himself with the Munsey publications. As a publisher Mr. F.A. Munsey is conceded to be a star of the first magnitude, but this genius is manifest in nothing so much as in his ability to surround himself with men capable of pushing his ideas to their highest achievement. Such a man had been added to his editorial staff in the person of Mr. R.H. Davis. Mr. Davis, like Mr. Bryan, hails originally from Nebraska. Although he differs somewhat from Mr. Bryan in political views, he has the same powers as a spellbinder. He’s Western, all through, is “Bob” Davis, bluff, hearty and equally endowed with stories, snap and sincerity.

“Dear Sir:

We would like to have a few pictures of those writers who have contributed considerably to our various magazines. It is obvious that this refers to you. Therefore, if you will send us a portrait it will be greatly appreciated.

Very truly yours,
“R.H. Davis.”

Mr. Davis got the picture; also a serial or two and some short stories for new publications issued by the Munsey Company of which he was editor. Late in 1905 he called for a railroad serial, and he wanted a particularly good one.

Edwards had never tried his hand at such a story. He knew, in a general way, that the “pilot” was on the front end of a locomotive, and that the “tender” was somewhere in the rear, but his technical knowledge was hazy and unreliable. The story, if accepted, was to appear in The Railroad Man’s Magazine, would be read by “railroaders” the country over, and would be damned and laughed at if it contained any technical “breaks.”

Here was just the sort of a nut Edwards liked to crack. The perils of the undertaking lent it a zest, and were a distinct aid to industry and inspiration. He resolved that he would give Mr. Davis a story that would bear the closest scrutiny of railroad men and win their interest and applause. To this end he studied railroads, up and down and across. He absorbed what he could from books, and the rest he secured through personal investigation. When the story was done, he submitted the manuscript to a veteran of the rails – one who had been both a telegraph operator and engineer – and this gentleman had not a change to suggest! Mr. Davis took the story aboard. While it was running in the magazine a reader wrote in to declare that it must have been written by an old hand at the railroad game: the author of the letter had been railroading for thirty-five years himself, and felt positive that he ought to know! “The Red Light at Rawlines” scored a triumph, proving the value of study, and the ability to adjust one’s self to an untried situation.

Edwards had imbibed too much technical knowledge to exhaust it all on one story, so he wrote another and sent it to Mr. White. The latter informed him:

“I turned ‘Special One-Five-Three’ over to The Railroad Man’s Magazine at once, without reading it, and they are sending you a check for it this week, I understand. This does not mean that I did not care to consider it for The Argosy. I certainly have an opening for more of your stories, but when you took the railroad for your theme and treated it so intelligently, I think it better that you give The Argosy some other subject matter.”

Another story, written this year to order, also serves to show that facility in handling strange themes or environments does not always depend upon personal acquaintance with the subject in hand. Intelligent study and investigation can many times, if not always, piece out a lack of personal experience. Blazing a course through terra incognita in such a manner, however, is not without its dangers.

Harte & Perkins wished to begin the yearly volume of The Guest with a Stella Edwards serial. This story was to have, for its background, the San Francisco earthquake. Nearly the whole action of the yarn was to take place in the city itself. Edwards had never been there. He had vague ideas regarding the “Golden Gate,” Oakland and other places, but for accurate knowledge he was as much at sea as in the case of the railroad story. He set the wheels of industry to revolving, however, and familiarized himself so thoroughly with the city from books, newspapers and magazines that the editor of The Guest, an old San Francisco newspaper man, had this to say about the story:

“It will please you to learn that we think ‘A Romance of the Earthquake’ a very interesting story, with plenty of brisk action, picturesque in description, and DISPLAYING A THOROUGH KNOWLEDGE OF CALIFORNIA’S METROPOLIS AND VICINITY.”

Although these are interesting problems to solve, yet Edwards, as a rule, prefers dealing with material that has formed a part of his own personal experiences.

His “prospecting” trip for the year brought him into New York on Monday, Nov. 12. On Tuesday (his “lucky day,” according to the Coney Island seer of fateful memory), he called on Mr. White, and Mr. White took him across the hall and introduced him to Mr. Davis. The latter gentleman ordered four serials and, for stories of a certain length, agreed to pay $500 each.

Next day Edwards dropped in at the offices of Street & Smith and submitted a novelette – “The Billionaire’s Dilemma” – to Mr. MacLean, editor of The Popular Magazine (Mr. Lewis having retired from that publication some time before). Mr. MacLean carried the manuscript in to Mr. Vivian M. Moses, editor of People’s, and the latter bought it. This story made a hit in the People’s and won from Mr. George C. Smith, of the firm, a personal letter of commendation. Result: More work for The People’s Magazine.

About the middle of December, Edwards and his wife left for their home in Michigan. They had been in the city a month, and during that time Edwards had received $1150 for his Factory’s products. The year, financially, was the best Edwards had so far experienced; but it was to be outdone by the year that followed.

During 1907 a great deal of writing was done for Mr. Davis. Among other stories subpiitted to him was one which Edwards called, “On the Stroke of Four.” Regarding it Mr. Davis had expressed himself, May 6, in characteristic vein:

“My dear Colonel:

Send it along. The title is not a bad one. I suppose it will arrive at a quarter past five, as you are generally late….

Now that spring is here, go out and chop a few kindlings against the canning of the fruit. This season we are going to preserve every dam thing on the farm. In the meantime, put up a few bartletts for little Willie. We may drop in provided the nest contains room.”

He received an urgent invitation to “drop in.” But he didn’t. He backed out. Possibly he was afraid he would have to “pioneer it” in the country, after years of metropolitan luxury in the effete East. Or perhaps he was afraid that Edwards might read some manuscripts to him. Whatever the cause, he never appeared to claim the “bartletts,” made ready for him with so much painstaking care by Mrs. Edwards. But this was not the only count in the indictment. He sent back “On the Stroke of Four!” And this was his message:

“Up to page 106 this story is a peach. After that it is a peach, but a rotten peach, and I’d be glad to have you fix it up and return it.”

After Edwards has finished a story he has an ingrained dislike for tampering with it any further. However, had he not been head over ears in other work, he would probably have “fixed up” the manuscript for Mr. Davis. In the circumstances, he decided to try its fortunes elsewhere. Mr. Moses took it in, paid $400 for it, and pronounced it better than “The Billionaire’s Dilemma.”

At a later date, Mr. Davis wanted another sea story for Ocean which, at that time, was surging considerably. “On the Stroke of Four” had been designed to fill such an order. Inasmuch as it had failed, Edwards wrote a second yarn which was accepted at $450.

The sea, and the people who go down to it in ships, to say nothing of the ships themselves, were all out of Edwards’ usual line. He prepared himself by reading every sea story he could lay hands on, long or short. He bought text-books on seamanship and navigation, and whenever there were manoeuvers connected with “working ship” in a story, Edwards puzzled them out with the help of the text-books. With both deep-water serials he succeeded tolerably well. He is sure, at least, that he didn’t get the spanker-boom on the foremast, nor the jib too far aft.

Harte & Perkins again favored the Factory with an order for a “Stella Edwards” to begin another volume of The Guest. This was an automobile story, “The Hero of the Car,” and was accepted and highly praised.

Another novelette, “An Aerial Romance,” was bought by Mr. Moses for The People’s Magazine.

Beginning in March, Edwards had written some more nickel novels for Harte & Perkins – not the old Five-Cent Weekly, for that he was never to do again – but various stories, in odd lots, to help out with a particular series. On July 14 he was switched to another line of half-dime fiction, and this work he kept throughout the remainder of the year.

For the two years the Factory’s showing stands as follows:

   1906:
18 nickel novels @ $50 each     $ 900.00
Royalties on book, Dillingham      10.20
"The World's Wonder,"             300.00
"A Romance of the Earthquake,"    250.00
"The Sheriff Who Lost and Won,"   300.00
"The Reporter's Scoop,"            60.00
'The Deputy Sheriff,"              40.00
"The Red Light at Rawlin's,"      350.00
"Cast Away by Contract,"           75.00
"Special One-Five-Three,"         350.00
"The Disputed Claim,"             500.00
"Fencing with Foes,"              45O.00
"The Billionaire's Dilemma,"      200.00
                                --------
             Total             $ 3785.20

   1907:
"Under Sealed Orders,"         $  250.00
"The Pacific Pearlers,"           450.00
"Call of the West,"               200.00
"Wilderness Gold-Hunter,"         500.00
"Dupes of Destiny,"                75.00
"On the Stroke of Four,"          400.00
"The Hero of the Car,"            300.00
"An Aerial Romance,"              200.00
"West-Indies Mix-Up,"              60.00
33 nickel novels @ $50 each      1650.00
                                --------
             Total             $ 4085.00

In that remarkable group of authors who made the dime novel famous, the late Col. Prentiss Ingraham was one of the giants. These “ready “writers thought nothing of turning out a thousand words of original matter in an hour, in the days when the click of the typewriter was unknown, and of keeping it up until a novel of 70,000 words was easily finished in a week. But to Col. Ingraham belongs the unique distinction of having composed and written out a complete story of 35,000 words with a fountain pen, between breakfast and breakfast. His equipment as a writer of stories for boys was most varied and valuable, garnered from his experience as an officer in the Confederate army, his service both on shore and sea in the Cuban war for independence, and in travels in Mexico, Austria, Greece and Africa. But he is best known and will be most loyally remembered for his Buffalo Bill tales, the number of which he himself scarcely knew, and which possessed peculiar value from his intimate personal friendship with Col. Cody.

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 19

2009-04-07T11:49:00.001Z

XIX.
LOVE YOUR WORK FOR THE WORK’S SAKE

The sentiment which Edwards has tried to carry through every paragraph and line of this book is this, that “Writing is its own reward.” His meaning is, that to the writer the joy of the work is something infinitely higher, finer and more satisfying than its pecuniary value to the editor who buys it. Material success, of course, is a necessity, unless – happy condition! – the writer has a private income on which to draw for meeting the sordid demands of life. But this also is true: A writer even of modest talent will have material success in a direct ratio with the joy he finds in his work! – Because, brother of the pen, when one takes pleasure in an effort, then that effort attracts merit inevitably. If any writing is a merciless grind the result will show it – and the editor will see it, and reject.

There are times, however, when doubt shakes the firmest confidence. A writer will have moods into which will creep a distrust of the work upon which he is at that moment engaged. If necessity spurs him on and he cannot rise above his misgivings, the story will testify to the lack of faith, doubts will increase as defects multiply and the story will be ruined. THE WRITER MUST HAVE FAITH IN HIS WORK QUITE APART FROM THE MONEY HE EXPECTS TO RECEIVE FOR IT. If he has this faith he reaches toward a spiritual success beside which the highest material success is paltry indeed.

When a writer sits down to a story let him blind his eyes to the financial returns, even though they may be sorely needed. Let him forget that his wares are to be offered for sale, and consider them as being wrought for his own diversion. Let him say to himself, “I shall make this the best story I have ever written; I shall weave my soul into its warp and whether it sells or not I shall be satisfied to know that I have put upon paper the BEST that is in me.” If he will do this, he will achieve a spiritual success and – as surely as day follows night – a material success beyond his fondest dreams. BUT he must keep his eye single to the TRUE success and must have no commerce in thought with what may come to him materially.

To some, all this may appear too idealistic, too transcendental. There are natures so worldly, perhaps even among writers, as to scoff at the idea of spiritual success. They are overshadowed by the Material, and when the Spiritual, which is the true source of their power, is no longer the “still, small voice” of their inspiration, they will be bankrupt materially as well.

A writer cannot hide himself in his work. His individuality is written into it, and he may be read between the lines for what he is. A creation reflects the creator, and that the work may be good the writer should have spiritual ideals and do his utmost to live up to them. Let him have a purpose, be it never so humble, to benefit in some way his fellow-man, and let him hew steadily to the line. Love your work for the work’s sake and material benefits “will be added unto you.”

Years ago Edwards found an article in a newspaper that appealed to him powerfully. He clipped it out, preserved it and has made it of great help in his writing. It is a wonderful “Doubt-destroyer.” In the hope that it may be an inspiration to others, he reproduces it here:

STANDARDS OF SUCCESS.

At a time when material success is so generally regarded as the chief goal of human effort it is interesting to find a man in Professor Hadley’s position presenting arguments for a broader view of the question. In his baccalaureate sermon the president of Yale offered the graduates some advice which at least they should find stimulating. He does not discredit or discourage the ambition for practical success but he makes it plain that in his view there is danger in measuring success in life “by the concrete results with which men can credit themselves.” “We should value life,” he declares, “as a field of action.” We should care for the doing of things quite as much as for the results. Tried by this standard, aspiration and effort are to be more highly prized than achievement itself. The man who sincerely strives for a great object has succeeded, whether or not the object is attained or its attainment brings any tangible reward.

It is no novelty, of course, to hear a college president upholding ideal standards and rejecting utilitarian views of success, but few of the educators have cared to follow their theories, as President Hadley does, to their logical conclusion. Probably a majority of them would applaud Nansen’s courage in attempting to reach the north pole but would question the utility of the attempt. President Hadley admires Nansen simply “because he succeeded in getting so much nearer the pole than anybody before him ever did,” and thinks it is one of the most discouraging testimonies to the false standards of the nineteenth century that Nansen feels compelled to justify himself on the basis of the scientific results of his expedition. Furthermore, a man who tries to get to the pole is engaged in a glorious play, “which justifies more risk and more expenditure of life than would be warranted for a few miserable entomological specimens, however remote from the place where they had previously been found.”

The young man of to-day has no lack of exhortations to lead the life of strenuous effort. It is as well that he should be taught also that the reward for this effort will be barren if the whole object sought be material benefit to himself. Life is something to be used. Whether or not it has been successfully used depends not on the results so much as on the object sought and the earnestness of the seeking. It is somewhat novel to find an American college president expounding this philosophy to his students, but the philosophy is, on the whole, helpful. It will spur to effort in crises where the desire for more material success fails to provide a sufficient incentive.

§

A certain New York author is fond of his own work, and Robert W. Chambers is responsible for the story that he called at one of the libraries to find out how his latest book was going. He hoped to have his vanity tickled a little.

“Is —— in?” he said to the librarian, naming his book.

“It never was out,” was the reply.

§

What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past times. Books, it is true, are silent as you see them on your shelves; but, silent as they are, when I enter a library I feel almost as if the dead were present, and I know if I put questions to these books they will answer me with all the faithfulness and fullness which has been left in them by the great men who have left the books with us. – John Bright,

§

The spring poet has been much exploited in the comic papers. The would-be novelist has been plastered with signs and tokens until one could not fail to recognize him in the dark. But the ordinary, commonplace, experienced writer has been so shamefully neglected that few realize his virtues. The editor recognizes his manuscript as far off as he can see it, and seizes upon it with joy. The manuscript is typewritten and punctuated. It bears the author’s name and address at the top of the first page. It is signed with the author’s name at the end. It is NOT tied with a blue ribbon. No, the blue ribbon habit is not a myth. It really exists in every form from pale baby to navy No. 4 and in every shape from a hard knot to an elaborate rosette. – Munsey’s.

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 18

2009-04-07T11:48:00.000Z

XVIII.
KEEPING EVERLASTINGLY AT IT

Edwards had not visited New York in 1903, but he landed there on Friday, Jan. 1, 1904, – literally storming in on a train that was seven hours late on account of the weather. A cab hurried him and his wife to the place in Forty-fourth street where the pleasant landlady used to hold forth, but they found, alas! that the old stamping ground was in the hands of strangers. It was like being turned away from home.

Where should they go? Edwards remembered that, on one of his previous visits to New York, Mr. Perkins had recommended the St. George Hotel, over in Brooklyn. The St. George was within a few blocks of the south end of the bridge and the offices of Harte & Perkins were in William street, close to the north end. So Edwards and his wife went to the Brooklyn hotel and there established their headquarters.

On Jan. 2 Edwards called on the patrons of his Factory. The result was not particluarly encouraging. Harte & Perkins instructed him to stop work on the Five-Cent Library, but said that in about two months they would have a new library for him to take care of.

Edwards had brought with him to the city his dramatic version of “The Tangle in Butte,” the play which had come so near turning $5,000 into the Factory’s strong-box. It was Edward’s hope that he might be able to dispose of the play, but the hope went glimmering when he learned that there were 10,000 actors stranded in New York, and that things theatrical were generally in a bad way.

During 1903 Edwards had corresponded with Mr. H. H. Lewis, editor of The Popular Magazine, a recent venture of Messrs. Street & Smith’s. He had submitted manuscripts to Mr. Lewis but they had not proved to be in line with The Popular’s requirements. It is difficult, through correspondence, to discover just what an editor wants. The only way to get at such a thing properly is by personal interview. If the would-be contributor does nof then get the editor’s needs clearly in mind it is his own fault.

Edwards called on Mr. Lewis and had a pleasant chat with him. The assistant editor was Mr. A.D. Hall, a capable gentleman who had been with Messrs. Street & Smith for many years, and with whom Edwards was well acquainted.

At that time Louis Joseph Vance was writing for The Popular Magazine, among others, and Edwards met him in Mr. Lewis’ office. As Edwards was leaving, after outlining a novelette and receiving a commission to write it, he paused with one hand on the door-knob.

“I’ll turn in the story, Mr. Lewis,” said he, “and I hope you’ll like it and buy it.”

“Of course he’ll like it and buy it,” called out Vance. You’re going to write it for him, aren’t you?”

“Why, yes,” returned Edwards, “but–”

“You’re not a peddler,” interrupted Vance, “to write stuff and go hawking it about from office to office. We’re writers, and when we know what a man wants we deliver the goods.”

This was before the days of “The Brass Bowl” and “Terence O’Rourke,” but already Vance had found himself and was striking the key-note of confidence. Confidence – that’s the word. Back it up with fair ability and the writer will go far.

From The Popular’s editorial rooms Edwards went up Fifth avenue for a call on the editor of The Argosy. Much to his disappointment Mr. White was out of town for New Year’s and would not return until the following week.

The story which Edwards had presented to Mr. Lewis in its oral and tabloid form was one that had been written in 1903 and turned down by Mr. White. Before offering the manuscript to The Popular, Edwards intended to rewrite it and strengthen it.

A typewriter was ordered sent over to the St. George Hotel, and on Jan. 3 the rewriting of the novelette was begun. The story was called “The Highwayman’s Waterloo,” or something to that effect. On the following day twenty-four pages of the manuscript were submitted to Mr. Lewis, won his approval, and the rewriting proceeded.

Two chapters of a serial were also offered to Mr. White for examination. The story was called “The Skirts of Chance,” and had been begun before Edwards left home.

During 1902 and ‘03 Edwards had worked, at odd times, on what he designed to be a “high-class” juvenile story. It was 60,000 words in length, when completed in the Summer of 1903, and in September he had submitted it to Dodd, Mead & Company. Not having heard from the story, on this January day that saw him passing out fragments of manuscripts to The Popular and The Argosy he went on farther up Fifth avenue and dropped in to ask D., M. & Co., how “Danny W.,” was fareing at the hands of their readers. He was told that five readers had examined the story and that it was then in the hands of the sixth! Some of the readers – and this came to him privately – had turned in a favorable report. Because of this, the author of “Danny W.,” went back to Brooklyn considerably elated. It would be an honor indeed to have the book break through such a formidable brigade of readers and get into the catalogue of the good old house of Dodd, Mead & Company.

The “highwayman” novelette was finished and submitted in its complete form on Jan. 6. On the same day Mr. White informed Edwards that he was well pleased with the two chapters of “The Skirts of Chance” and told him to proceed with it.

Fortune was on the upward trend for Edwards, and he was sent for by Dodd, Mead & Company, on Jan. 15, and informed that they would either bring out “Danny W.,” on a royalty or pay a cash price for the book rights. Edwards, remembering his disastrous publishing experience with “A Tale of Two Towns,” accepted $200 in cash.

Mr. Lewis bought the novelette for $125, and Harte & Perkins, on the same day, gave Edwards a new library to do – 35,000 words in each story at $50.

Complete manuscript of “The Skirts of Chance” was submitted to Mr. White on Jan. 22, and on Jan. 27 Edwards received $300 for it.

By Feb. 8 Edwards had written and sold to Mr. Lewis another novelette entitled, “The Duke’s Understudy,” for which he received $140.

On Feb. 9 he and his wife returned to Michigan. Edwards had been in New York forty days and had gathered in $965. He left New York with orders for Argosy serials and with the new library, “Sea and Shore,” to be turned in at the rate of one story every two months.

In May he was requested to go on with the Old Five-Cent Library. These stories were forwarded regularly one each week, until November, when orders were again discontinued.

In September, “Danny W.,” appeared. As with “A Tale of Two Towns,” the reviewers were more than kind to “Danny W.,” and there is just a possibility that they killed him with kindness. The idea obtains, in supposedly well-informed circles, that the only way for reviewers to help a book is to damm it utterly. Be this as it may, although illustrated in color and put out in the best style of the book-maker’s art, “Danny W.,” did not prove much of a success. A California paper bought serial rights on the story for $50, and thus the book netted the author, all told, the modest sum of $250.

During this year, also, The A.N. Kellogg Newspaper Company sold serial rights on “Fate’s Gamblers” for $30, took 50 per cent. as a commission and presented Edwards with what was left.

A short story, “The Camp Coyote,” was sold to Mr. Titherington, for Munsey’s; and Edwards had opened a new market in Street & Smith’s magazines. Thus was brought to a close a fairly prosperous year.

In 1905 the returns slid backward a little. During this year, and the year preceding, some stories which had failed with Mr. White were received with favor by Mr. Kerr, of The Chicago Ledger – at the Ledger price, ranging from $30 upward to $75.

The Woman’s Home Companion, to which Edwards had vainly tried to sell serial rights on “Danny W.,” accepted a two-part story entitled, “The Redskin and the Paper-Talk,” and paid $200 for it. This is the story of which a chapter was lost in the composing room, and Edwards received an honorarium of $5 for having a carbon duplicate of the few missing pages.

In 1905, also, The American Press Association did business with Edwards to the amount of $30. Another market for the Edward’s product – worth mentioning even though the amount of business done was not large.

The returns for the two years were as follows:

   1904:
"The Highwayman's Waterloo,"            $  125.00
"Danny W.,"                                200.00
"Danny W.," serial rights                   50.00
"The Skirts of Chance,"                    300.00
"The Duke's Understudy,"                   140.00
"At Large in Terra Incognita"              175.00
"The Man from the Stone Age," short story   25.00
"The Honorable Jim,"                       250.00
"Fate's Gamblers" serial rights             15.00
"A Deal with Destiny,"                     150.00
"The Enchanted Ranch,"                      75.00
"The Camp Coyote,"                          40.00
"Under the Ban,"                            75.00
"A Master of Graft,"                       225.00
26 Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each         1040.00
4 Sea and Shore libraries @ 50 each        200.00
                                         --------
                             Total      $ 3085.00

   1905:
"Cornering Boreas," short story           $ 30.00
"The Redskin and the Paper-talk,"          200.00
"The Redskin and the Paper-talk,"
                     additional pay't        5.00
"Mountebank's Dilemma," short story         25.00
"Helping Columbus,"                        350.00
"The Edge of the Sword."                   200.00
"Yellow Clique,"                           100.00
"A Mississippi Snarl,"                     200.00
"The Black Box,"                           200.00
"A Wireless Wooing," short story            15.00
"The Freelance,"                            50.00
"The Luck of Bill Lattimer,"                30.00
"Machine-made Road-agent," short story      15.00
"The Man from Mars,"                       275.00
10 Sea and Shore stories @ $50 each        500.00
                                         --------
                              Total     $ 2195.00

Good, philosophical Ras Wilson once said to a new reporter, “Young man, write as you feel, but try to feel right. Be good humored toward every one and everything. Believe that other folks are just as good as you are, for they are. Give ‘em your best and bear in mind that God has sent them, in his wisdom, all the trouble they need, and it is for you to scatter gladness and decent, helpful things as you go. Don’t be particular about how the stuff will look in print, but let’er go. Some one will understand. That is better than to write so dash bing high, or so tarnashun deep, that no one understands. Let’er go.”

There was once a poor man hounded to death by creditors. Ruin and suicide vied for his surrender. But he was a man of the twentieth century, and flippantly but with unbounded faith he collected a few odd pennies and hied him to a newspaper office. Stopping scarcely to frame his sentence he inserted a “want” advertisement, stating his circumstances and declaring he would commit suicide unless aid was proffered. Within twenty-four hours he had $250; before another sun his employer advanced as much more. Carefully advising the newspaper to discontinue the advertisement, he paid off his creditors – and lived happily ever afterward! No, this is not a fairy tale. The time was a few weeks ago, the city Chicago and the newspaper. The Tribune. The moral is, that originality in writing, coupled with a fresh idea, brings a check.

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 17

2009-04-06T17:44:00.003Z

XVII.
ETHICS OF THE NICKEL NOVEL

Is the nickel novel easy to write? The writer who has never attempted one is quite apt to think that it is. There are hundreds of writers, the Would-be-Goods, making less than a thousand a year, who would throw up their hands in horror at the very thought of debasing their art by contriving at “sensational” five-cent fiction. So far from “debasing their art,” as a matter of fact they could not lift it to the high plane of the nickel novel if they tried. Of these Would-be-Goods more anon – to use an expression of the ante-bellum romancers. Suffice to state, in this place, writers of recognized standing, and even ministers, have written – and some now are writing – these quick-moving stories. There’s a knack about it, and the knack is not easy to acquire. No less a person than Mr. Richard Duffy, formerly editor of Ainslee’s and later of the Cavalier, a man of rare gifts as a writer, once told Edwards that the nickel novel was beyond his powers.

So far as Edwards is concerned, he gave the best that was in him to the half-dime “dreadfuls,” and he made nothing dreadful of them after all. He has written hundreds, and there is not a line in any one of them which he would not gladly have his own son read. In fact, his ethical standard, to which every story must measure up, was expressed in this mental question as he worked: “If I had a boy would I willingly put this before him?” If the answer was No, the incident, the paragraph, the sentence or the word was eliminated. In 1910 Edwards wrote his last nickel novel, turning his back deliberately on three thousand dollars a year (they were paying him $60 each for them then), not because they were “debasing his art” but because he could make more money at other writing – for when one is forty-four he must get on as fast as he can.

The libraries, as they were written by Edwards, were typed on paper 8-1/2” by 13,” the marginal stops so placed that a typewritten line approximated the same line when printed. Eighty of these sheets completed a story, and five pages were regularly allowed to each chapter. Thus there were always sixteen chapters in every story.

First it is necessary to submit titles, and scenes for illustration. Selecting an appropriate title is an art in itself. Alliteration is all right, if used sparingly, and novel effects that do not defy the canons of good taste should be sought after. The title, too, should go hand in hand with the picture that illustrates the story. This picture, by the way, has demands of its own. In the better class of nickel novels firearms and other deadly weapons are tabooed. The picture must be unusual and it must be exciting, but its suggested morality must he high.

The ideas for illustrations all go to the artist days or even weeks in advance of the stories themselves. It is the writer’s business to lay out this prospective work intelligently, so that he may weave around it a group of logical stories.

Usually the novels are written in sets of three; that is, throughout such a series the same principal characters are used, and three different groups of incidents are covered. In this way, while each story is complete in itself, it is possible to combine the series and preserve the effect of a single story from beginning to end. These sets are so combined, as a matter of fact, and sold for ten cents.

Each chapter closes with a “curtain.” In other words, the chapter works the action up to an interesting point, similar to a serial “leave-off,” and drops a quick curtain. Skill is important here. The publishers of this class of fiction will not endure inconsistency for a moment. The stories appeal to a clientele keen to detect the improbable and to treat it with contempt.

Good, snappy dialogue is favored, but it must be dialogue that moves the story along. An apt retort has no excuse in the yarn unless it really belongs there. A multitude of incidents – none of them hackneyed – is a prime requisite. Complexity of plot invites censure – and usually secures it. The plot must be simple, but it must be striking.

One author failed because he had his hero-detective strain his massive intellect through 20,000 words merely to recover $100 that had been purloined from an old lady’s handbag. If the author had made it a million dollars stolen from a lady like Mrs. Hetty Green, probably his labor would have been crowned with success. These five-cent heroes are in no sense small potatoes. They may court perils galore and rub elbows with death, now and then, for nothing at all, but certainly never for the mere bagatelle of $100.

The hero does not drink, He does not swear. Very often he will not smoke. He is a chivalrous gentleman, ever a friend of the weak and deserving. He accomplishes all this with a ready good nature that has nothing of the goody-good in its make-up. The hero does not smoke because, being an athlete, he must keep in constant training in order to master his many dificulties. For the same reason he will not drink. As for swearing, it is a useless pastime and very common; besides, it betrays excitement, and the hero is never excited.

The old-style yellow-back hero was given to massacres. He slew his enemies valiantly by brigades. Not so the modern hero of the five-cent novel. Rarely, in the stories, does any one cross the divide. And whenever the villain is hurt, he is quite apt to recover, thank the hero for hurting him – and become his sworn friend.

The story must be clean, and while it must necessarily be exciting, it must yet leave the reader’s mind with a net profit in all the manly virtues. Is this easy?

Please note this extract from a letter written by Harte & Perkins Dec. 25, 1902 – it covers a point whose humor, Edwards thought, drew the sting of dishonesty:

Your last story, No. 285, opened well, had plenty of good incidents and was interesting; but there are several points in which it might have been improved.

Your description of Two Spot’s scheme of posing as a petrified boy is amusing, but the plan was dishonest and a piect of trickery. It was all right, perhaps, to let the boys go ahead without the knowledge of the Hero, but when he learned of it he should have put a stop to the plan immediately. It was all right to have him laugh at it, but at the same time he should have spoken severly to the boys about it and ordered them to return the money they had received through their trick. He did not do this in your story and it was necessary for me to alter it conciderably in the first part on that account.

The Hero is supposed to be the soul of honor, and in your story he is posed as a party to a deception practised on the citizens of Ouray, by which they were defrauded of the money they paid for admission to see the supposed “petrified boy.” Such conduct on his part would soon lose for him the admiration of the readers of th weeekly, as it places him on a moral level, almost, with the robbers whom he is bringing to justice.”

Consider that, you Would-be-Goods, who are not above putting worse things in your “high-class” work. And can you say “I am holier than thou” to the conscientious writer who turns out his 20,000 or 25,000 words a week along these ethical lines? Handsome is as handsome does!

Somebody is going to write these stories. There is a demand for them. The writer who can set hand to such fiction, who meets his moral responsibilities unflinchingly, is doing a splendid work for Young America.

And yet, as stated in a previous chapter, there are nickel novels and nickel novels – some to read and some to put in the stove unread. High-minded publishers, however, are not furnishing the careful head of the family with material for his kitchen fire.

It costs you nothing to think, but it costs infinitely to write. I therefore preach to you eternally that art of writing which Boileau has so well known and so well taught, that respect for the language, that connection and sequence of ideas, that air of ease with which he conducts his readers, that naturalness which is the true fruit of art, and that appearance of facility which is due to toil alone. A word out of place spoils the most beautiful thought. – Voltaire to Helvetius, a young author.

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 16

2009-04-06T17:44:00.000Z

XVI.
GROWING PROSPERITY

The years 1902 and 1903 were busier years than ever for the Fiction Factory. Nineteen-two is to be remembered particularly for opening a new departure in the story line in The Argosy, and for placing the first book with the G.W. Dillingham Company. Nineteen-three claims distinction for seeing the book brought out and for boosting the Factory returns beyond the three-thousand-dollar mark. But it must not be inferred that the book had very much to do with this. Edwards’ royalties for the year were less than $100.

In September, 1902, Edwards made one of his customary “prospecting” trips to New York. If there was anything in omens his stay in the city promised dire things. On the second day after his arrival he went to Coney Island with a friend. Together they called on the seventh son of a seventh son and had their palms read. The dispenser of occult knowledge assured Edwards that the future was very bright, that Tuesday was his lucky day and that Spring was the best time for him to consummate his business undertakings. That day, as it happened, was Tuesday. In the teeth of this promising augury, and within ten minutes after leaving the palmist’s booth, some Coney Island “dip” shattered Edwards’ confidence in Tuesday by annexing his wallet. The wallet, as it happened, contained all the money Edwards had brought from home, with the exception of a little loose change.

This was the second time Edwards had been all but stranded in the Metropolis, and this time the stranding was more complete. When he cast up accounts that evening he found himself with a cash balance of $1.63. Fortunately Mrs. Edwards was not along. He had left her at home with the understanding that she was to come on later. When a writer has come within hailing distance of the bread line there remains but one thing to do, and that is to start the Factory going with day and night shifts.

Edwards called on Mr. White, of The Argosy, and outlined a serial story. He was told to go ahead with it. For five days Edwards hardly stirred from his room. At the end of that time he had completed “The Desperado’s Understudy,” and had sold it to Mr. White for $250, spot cash.

After completing this serial, Edwards outlined to Mr. White a novelette which would furnish The Argosy with something new in the fiction line. The plot was based on a musical extravaganza which he had written, several years before, in collaboration with Mr. Eugene Kaeuffer, at one time connected with The Bostonians. Nothing had ever come of this ambitious effort, although book and musical score were completed and offered to Mr. McDonald of The Bostonians and to Mr. Thomas Q. Seabrooke. Mr. White liked the idea of the story immensely and gave Edwards carte blanche to go ahead with it.

This story, “Ninety, North,” paved the way for other fantastic yarns which made a decided hit in The Argosy and so pointed Edwards along a fresh line of endeavor which proved as congenial as it was profitable.

Several months before he visited New York Edwards had sold to The McClure Syndicate, a juvenile serial which may be referred to here as “The Campaign at Topeka.” For this he had been offered $200, which offer he promptly accepted. He had not received a check, however, and was at a loss to understand the reason. To this day the reason remains obscure, although later events pointed to a misunderstanding of some kind regarding the story between the Syndicate and one of its readers. Before Edwards left New York he was paid the $200. More than a year afterward he was informed that the serial had been sold to the Century Company for St. Nicholas, and that after publication in that magazine it was to be brought out in book form.

It was Mr. T.C. McClure who put Edwards in touch with the Dillingham Company and referred him to them as prospective publishers, in cloth, of the successful Syndicate story, “A Tale of Two Towns.” Edwards submitted galley proofs of the serial to Mr. Cook of the Dillingham Company, and ultimately signed a contract to have the book published on the usual royalty basis of ten per cent.

For Harte & Perkins, during the year, the Factory ground out nickel novels, juvenile serials, one sketch for the trade paper and a few detective stories. On Nov. 28, after he had returned home from New York, he was notified:

“Much as I regret to inform you of it, by a recent purchase of copyright stories we are placed in a position where we will not require any further material for any of our five-cent libraries for some time to come, so we must discontinue orders to you for all this material.”

Edwards, in a way, had become hardened to messages of this kind. The Argosy was an anchor to windward, and he resolved to give his attention to serials for Mr. White. In December, 1902, and January and February, 1903, he wrote and forwarded “Ninety, North,” a second fantastic story called “There and Back,” and the Arizona serial “Grains of Gold.” All three of these stories were sold at once, bringing in $700. In a letter dated Oct. 14, 1903, Mr. White had this to say about “There and Back:”

“Thanks for letting me see the enclosed letter regarding ‘Ninety, North.’ I am equally pleased with yourself at its significance. I am wondering whether you have heard much about your story ‘There and Back?’ My impression is that that has been one of the most popular stories you have ever written for The Argosy. When I see you I will tell you an odd little circumstance that occurred in connection with its run in the magazine.”

The circtunstances referred to by Mr. White took place in Paris. One of The Argosy’s readers happened to be in a café, looking over proofs of a forthcoming installment of “There and Back” while at her luncheon, when she heard the story being discussed, in complimentary terms, by a number of Frenchmen at an adjoining table. Strange indeed that Frenchmen should be interested in an American story, and stranger still that The Argosy’s reader should be reading an installment of the very same story while men in that foreign café were discussing it!

The first installment of “There and Back,” Mr. White informed Edwards, had increased The Argosy’s circulation seven thousand copies. [*]

[* “There and Back” went through the Fiction Factory in twelve days.]

On March 2 Harte & Perkins requested Edwards to continue work on the old Five-Cent Library. By taking up this work again he would be diminishing the Factory’s serial output, but he reflected that his fertility in the matter of serials would soon have Mr. White over-supplied. Therefore Edwards decided to go on with the nickel weeklies.

In March, as Mr. MacLean of The Popular Magazine once put it, Edwards “came out in cloth,” the Dillingham Company issuing “A Tale of Two Towns” on St. Patrick’s Day.

What are the feelings of an author when he opens his first book for the first time? If you, dear reader, are yet to “get out in cloth” for the first time, then some day you will know. But, if you value your peace of mind, do not build too gorgeous an air castle on the foundation of this printed thing. Printed things are at the mercy of the reviewers and, in a larger sense, of the great reading public. The reviewers, in nearly every instance, were kind with “A Tale of Two Towns.” In many quarters it was praised fulsomely, but the book did not strike that fickle sentiment called popular fancy. In six months, Mr. Cook, of the Dillingham Company, wrote Edwards that “A Tale of Two Towns” was “a dead duck.” In the December settlement, however, the remains yielded royalties of $96.60. For two or three years the royalties trailed along, and finally the edition was wound up with a payment of $1.50. Sic transit gloria!

During January, 1903, a theatrical gentleman requested Edwards to dramatize a book which Messrs. Street & Smith had issued in paper covers. “You can change the title,” the gentleman suggested, “and slightly change the incidents. In that way it won’t be necessary to write Street & Smith for permission or, indeed, to let them know anything about it.” Edwards knew, however, that nothing will so surely wreck a writer’s prospects as playing fast and loose with editors and publishers. He refused to consider the theatrical gentleman’s proposition. Instead, he forwarded his Argosy story, “The Desperado’s Understudy,” upon which Mr. White had given him dramatic rights, and offered to make a stage version of it. The offer was accepted and a play was built up from the story. The theatrical gentleman was pleased and said he would give $1,500 for the dramatization. Then, alas! the theatrical gentleman’s company went on the rocks at the Alhambra Theatre, in Chicago, and Edwards had repeated his former playwriting experience.

The two years’ work figured out in this wise:

    1902:
23 Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each        $ 920.00
8 detective stories @ $40 each             320.00
4 juvenile serials @ $100 each             400.00
1 sketch for trade paper                    10.00
"The Desperado's Understudy,"              250.00
"The Campaign at Topeka,"                  200.00
Short stories                               67.00
                                         --------
    Total                               $ 2167.00

    1903:
42 Five-Cent Libraries @ $40 each       $ 1680.00
2 detective stories @ $40 each              80.00
"Ninety, North,"                           150.00
"There and Back,"                          250.00
"A Sensational Affair," short story,        15.00
"Grains of Gold,"                          300.00
"Fate's Gamblers," [*]                     100.00
"The Morning Star Race," short story,       15.00
"A Game for Two,"                          200.00
Royalties on book, "A Tale of Two Towns,"   96.60
"The Point of Honor,"                      150.00
                                         --------
     Total                              $ 3036.60

[* This story sold through Kellogg Newspaper Company, Chicago. The two short stories sold to the late lamented Wayside Tales, Detroit, Mich.]

As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps without being able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer, and indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.

This doctrine, I am afraid, is at present carried much too far; for why should writing differ so much from other arts? The nimbleness of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, excercise his tools the worse by having learnt to use them. – Fielding, “Tom Jones.”

Pluripotency

2009-04-06T17:42:00.002Z

How the law of symbols applies to tales of fantasy, and is the author’s best friend

One of the seminal works at all fantasy writers ought to read is Sigmund Freud’s book on dreams. In this book one of the primary truths about dreams that Freud announces, is that dreams show us things that are two things at once – or are even more than two things at one and the same time.

Of course, artists and madmen have long been aware of such things as symbols. And long, long ago – when all tales were fantasy tales, and the realistic and rational world that we live in today had not yet been invented – the notion that some object or person could beat itself and at the same time something entirely different was a commonplace. A burning bush was God, a young herald in the army was also the god Apollo, and so forth.

But then, alas, the realistic and rational world was invented, and we were all condemned to live in it from cradle to grave, without any choice or say in the matter. We who have thus been condemned to a life and the world in which each and every object, person, animal and plant can be nothing besides itself, have the most difficult time in imagining what our ancestors of ages past knew as easily as breathing. So we are impoverished in our imagination, and power attempts at fantasy are laughably simple and even I might say crippled, halt and lame. Some of us cannot even imagine a world of fantasy, and we are compelled to create ‘rules’ that govern our magical objects and powers, and are harshly critical of stories in which there are no ‘rules’ governing their magical objects creatures and powers.

This worst of all limits ourselves in the very mechanics of our tales. In a fantasy tale, because every single character, object, animal and plant can be both itself and something else – anything else – as well as a third thing, at one and the same time, any plot device and story turn is possible.

Remember this, the next time you have any trouble with your fantasy story. There is no story difficulty that cannot be solved with a little recourse to magic. More than this, when you tell a fantasy tale you can tell two stories at ones – or three or more. If you want your hair out to be a prince, he can be a prince; but if you would also like to tell the story where the prince is a pauper, you can do that as well – all in the same tale. If you want the heroine to end up with George, she can do so; if you also find yourself feeling a little sorry for Edgar, she can end up with him as well, because George and Edgar can be the same person.

This comes up as a result of a note from Bardelys, who for a long time struggled with one of his tales. He couldn’t decide whether his young hero should be in the end revealed as a prince, or a nobody who helped a prince. The ‘Prince’ model is the typical, what I call ‘American Superboy’ model. In America, all our heroes must be princes, and in the fantasy tales, any son-of-a-nobody will in the end be shown to be in truth the son of a king, or or some powerful magician, or to have unusual powers of his own, or to be the Fated or Destined One of Ancient Prophecy (or multiples of these combined).

How very different was Tolkien’s model of the humble Hobbit, who in both The Hobbit, or There and Back Again and in The Lord of the Rings had his hobbits as mere helpers, and not princes themselves. (We can argue that Bilbo had common-sense shrewdness and resisted better than Dwarves Men or Elves the madness of lust for Dragon’s Gold, and that Frodo had extreme powers to resist the commands of the Ring; but I imagine that Tolkien would have insisted that these are the virtues of the common English peasant and reveal more of a reverse snobbery than any insistence that Bilbo and Frodo were extremely virtuous in any way. Tolkien’s very point was that the hobbits had more in them than the great and wise could guess on first glance.)

So Bardelys, having already built up his structure with the boy as a revealed Prince, thought better of it, and asked himself, ‘Yes, but what if he is a nobody all the way through?’ He liked this notion, and set up a parallel structure. Along the way he had to give up some things, of course, and in the end, he grudgingly returned to the Prince model.

And yet he kept looking back with longing at the notion that the boy would be a nobody through and through… And so in the end he managed it, by having the boy both a Prince and a nobody all the way through. To see how he managed it, you must read the full tale … if he ever gets around to finishing it.

(Composed by dictation Sunday 5 April 2009)

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 15

2009-04-06T01:37:00.001Z

XV.
FROM THE FACTORY’S FILES

A letter of commendation from the reader of a story to the writer is not only a pleasant thing in itself but it proves the reader a person of noble soul and high motives. Noblesse oblige!

The writer who loves his work is not of a sordid nature. The check an editor sends him for his story is the smallest part of his reward. His has been the joy to create, to see a thought take form and amplify under the spell of his inspiration. A joy which is scarcely less is to know that his work has been appreciated by others.

A letter like the one below, for instance, not only gives pleasure to the recipient but at the same time fires a writer with determination never to let his work fall short of a previous performance. This reader’s good will he must keep, at all hazards.

“Wayland, N. Y., March 22nd, 1905.

“Mr. John Milton Edwards,

Care The F.A. Munsey Co., New York.

My dear Sir:

I read the story in this last Argosy, entitled ‘Fate and the Figure Seven,’ and was in a way considering if it were possible that a man could act in the subconscious state you picture. Deem my surprise, last night, when I read of a similar case in the report of the Brockton accident

In case you should have failed to notice this item, I send you a clipping from a Buffalo paper.

I WISH INCIDENTALLY TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR SHARE IN MAKING LIFE PLEASANT FOR ME. I have enjoyed your works immensely from time to time on account of their decidedly original ideas. They are always refreshingly out of the ordinary rut.

Yours truly,

“A.F. V—-.”

There is one sentence in this letter which Edwards has put in capitals. If possible, he would have written it in letters of gold. In this little world, so crowded with sorrow and tragedy, what is it worth to have had a share in making life pleasant for a stranger? To Edwards it has been worth infinitely more than he received for “Fate and the Figure Seven.”

Another letter carries an equally pleasant message:

“Livingstone, Montana, Sep. 16, 1903.

Mr. John Milton Edwards,

Care The Argosy, New York City.

Dear Sir:

Having read your former stories in The Argosy on Arizona, and last night having commenced ‘The Grains of Gold,’ I trust you will pardon my expression of appreciation of said stories. I lived ten years in Arizona as private secretary to several of the Federal Judges, and also lived in Mexico, and am still familiar with conditions in that section.

I have enjoyed most keenly your handling of thrilling scenes on Arizona soil. It is an exasperation that they appear in serial form, as I dislike the month’s interval.

My only purpose in writing is to express my admiration of your plots and local color, and I remain.

Sincerely yours,

“Richard S. S—–.”

Edwards has always prided himself on keeping true to the actual conditions of the country which forms the screen against which his plot and characters are thrown. This is a gratifying tribute, therefore, from one who knows.

A letter which rather startled Edwards, suggesting as it did the Maricopa Indian incident which trailed upon the heels of “A Study in Red,” is this:

“Colorado Springs, Colo., 2-25-‘09.

Mr. John Milton Edwards,

Dear Sir: Through the kindness of the editor of the Blue Book I received your address. I am very much interested in your story entitled, ‘Country Rock at Kish-Kish,’ and know the greater part of it to be true to life, but would like to know if it is ALL true. Did Sager have a daughter? And where did Sager go when he left Arizona? Or is that just a part of the story? I am very much interested in that character, Sager. Can you tell me if he is still living, and where? Any information that you may be able to give me will be more than appreciated.

Thanking you in advance for the favor, I am,

Yours respectfully,

Mrs. James R. S—–.”

Edwards answered this letter – he answers promptly all such letters that come to him and esteems it a privilege – and received a reply. It appeared that Mrs. S—– was the grand-daughter of a man whom “Sager” had robbed of a large amount of money. “Country Rock at Kish-Kish” was built on a newspaper clipping twenty years old. This clipping Edwards forwarded to Mrs. S—– in the hope that it might help her in her quest for “Sager.” The letter was returned as uncalled for. Should this ever fall under the eye of Mrs. S—– she will understand that Edwards did everything in his power to be of assistance to her.

Now and again a letter, which compliments an author indirectly, will chasten his mounting spirit with the reminder of a “slip:”

“Rochester, N.Y., Nov. 17, 1905.

“Mr. John Milton Edwards:

Dear Sir: – Will you please tell me where I can get more of your stories than in the Argosy; and also, in reference to your story which concludes in December Argosy, how many large autos were in use in New York in 1892?

Yours respectfully,

“Howard Z—–.”

Carelessness in a writer is inexcusable. It is the one thing which a reader will not forgive, for it is very apt to spoil his pleasure in what would otherwise have been a good story. This is a sublimated form of the “gold-brick game,” inasmuch as the reader pays his money for a magazine only to find that he has been “buncoed” by the table of contents. If there is a flaw in the factory’s product, rest assured that it will be discovered and react to the disadvantage of everything else that comes from the same mill.

Many readers will be found whose interest in a writer’s work is so keen that they are tempted to offer suggestions. Such suggestions are not to be lightly considered. Magazines are published to please their readers, and they are successful in a direct ratio with their ability to accomplish this end. Naturally, the old doggerel concerning “many men of many minds” will apply here, and a single suggestion that has not a wide appeal, or that fails to conform to the policy of the magazine, must be handled with great care.

“Cincinnati, Ohio, Oct. 31, 1905.

“Mr. John Milton Edwards,

Care Frank A. Munsey Co., New York.

Dear Sir:

Because of the increasing interest in Socialism, would it not be a geod idea to write a story showing under what conditions we should live in, say, the year 2,000, if the Socialists should come into power?

You might begin your story with the United States under a Socialistic form of government, and later on Socialize the rest of the world.

Your imaginative stories are the ones most eagerly sought in the pages of The Argosy, and I think that a story such as I have suggested would serve to increase your popularity among the readers of fiction. Sincerely yours,

“J.H. S—–.”

It frequently happens that a comedian will get after a writer with a stuffed club or a slapstick. Some anonymous humorist, upon reading a story of Edwards’ in The Argosy, labored and brought forth the following:

“November 19,1904.

“John Milton Edwards,

Care Frank A. Munsey Co., New York.

My dear John:–

I have read with much pleasure and delight the first six chapters of your latest story, ‘At Large in Terra Incognita,’ as published in the December number of The Argosy.

I cannot understand why you failed to send me the proof-sheets of this story for correction, as you did with ‘There and Back.’ It is evident so far as I have read the person who corrected your proof-sheets was as ignorant as yourself.

Where you got the material for this story is not within my memory, retrospective though it is, and I am sure you must have been on one of your periodical drunks, otherwise the flights of fancy you have taken would have been more rational and not so far removed beyond the pale of the human intellect.

Now, my dear John, I beg of you to give up going on these habitual tears, because you are not only ruining your constitution but your reputation as a writer is having reflections cast upon it. I trust you will not take this letter as a sermon but rather in a spirit of friendly counsel.

I hope you will send me at once the remaining chapters of this great ‘At Large in Terra Incognita.’

Your Nemesis,

“Theo. Roosenfeldt,

Pres’t Trust-Busters’ Asso.”

Readers have usually the courage of their convictions and not many anonymous letters find their way into the office of the Fiction Factory. Edwards remembers one other letter which was signed “Biff A. Hiram.” At that time Edwards did not know Mr. Biff A. Hiram from Adam, but he has since made the gentleman’s acquaintance, and discovered how wide is his circle of friends.

If praise from a reader has a tendency to exalt, then how much more of the flattering unction may a writer lay to his soil when approval comes from a brother or sister of the pen? With such a letter, this brief symposium from the Factory files may be brought to a close.

“Mr. John Milton Edwards,

Dear Sir:–

Allow me to congratulate you upon your success with the novelette in a recent issue of the Blue Book. It is to my mind the BEST short story of its kind I have EVER read. As I try to write short stories I see its merits doubly. The modelling is splendid. Will you pardon my display of interest?

Very truly yours,

“K. B—–.”

Rules for Authors.

Dr. Edward Everett Hale, author of “The Man without a Country” and other notable books, gives a few rules which are of interest to the author and the journalist. Dr. Hale’s success in the literary world makes these rules, gleaned from the field of experience, especially valuable to young writers:

Know what you want to say.
Say it.
Use your own language.
Leave out all fine phrases.
A short word is better than a long one.
The fewer words, other things being equal, the better.
Cut it to pieces – which means revise, revise, revise.

Asotirica

Mostly, Give the Audience What We Want

Gratitude

First Person Snare: Addendum

Before and After in Heinlein’s Later Tales

Stranger in a Strange Land

Double Star

Glory Road

Conclusions

The Genius of DuMaurier

First Person Snare

The Pleasures of Misery

You are your technology

The Once and Future Law

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 5

CHAPTER V – PLOT IN COMEDY

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV – THE NATURE AND SOURCES OF TRAGIC EFFECT

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 3

CHAPTER III – THE MECHANICAL DIVISIONS OF THE DRAMA

(1) The Acts

(2) The Scenes

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 2

CHAPTER II – LOGICAL DIVISIONS OF THE ACTION

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 2 Chapter 1

PART II – TECHNIQUE

CHAPTER I – THE TWO TYPES OF DRAMA

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 1 Ch 5

CHAPTER V – THE NATURE AND SOURCES OF COMIC EFFECT

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 1 Ch 4

CHAPTER IV – THE NATURE AND SOURCES OF TRAGIC EFFECT

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 1 Ch 3

CHAPTER III – SERIOUSNESS – ΣΠΟΥΔΗ

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique Part 1 Ch 2

CHAPTER II – DRAMATIC UNITY

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique: Part 1 Ch 1

PART I – LAW

CHAPTER I – POETIC TRUTH

Drama: Its Law and Its Technique: Frontmatter

THE DRAMA ITS LAW AND ITS TECHNIQUE

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

A New Lit Theory Book Post Series

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 26 and advertisements

XXVI. PATRONS AND PROFITS FOR TWENTY-TWO YEARS

ADVERTISEMENTS

Announcement

THE EDITOR

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 25

XXV. EXTRACTS GRAVE AND GAY, WISE AND OTHERWISE

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 24

XXIV. WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT?

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 23

XXIII. THE INJUSTICE OF IT

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 22

XXII. NEW SOURCES OF PROFIT

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 21

XXI. A WRITER’S READING

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 20

XX. THE LENGTHENING LIST OF PATRONS

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 19

XIX. LOVE YOUR WORK FOR THE WORK’S SAKE

STANDARDS OF SUCCESS.

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 18

XVIII. KEEPING EVERLASTINGLY AT IT

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 17

XVII. ETHICS OF THE NICKEL NOVEL

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 16

XVI. GROWING PROSPERITY

Pluripotency

The Fiction Factory: Chapter 15

XV. FROM THE FACTORY’S FILES

Rules for Authors.

XXVI.
PATRONS AND PROFITS FOR TWENTY-TWO YEARS

XXV.
EXTRACTS GRAVE AND GAY, WISE AND OTHERWISE

XXIV.
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT?

XXIII.
THE INJUSTICE OF IT

XXII.
NEW SOURCES OF PROFIT

XXI.
A WRITER’S READING

XX.
THE LENGTHENING LIST OF PATRONS

XIX.
LOVE YOUR WORK FOR THE WORK’S SAKE

XVIII.
KEEPING EVERLASTINGLY AT IT

XVII.
ETHICS OF THE NICKEL NOVEL

XVI.
GROWING PROSPERITY

XV.
FROM THE FACTORY’S FILES