A. The means of attaining Coherence : 1. The use of transition paragraphs and summaries. 6. Make a plan of some short exposition in one of your textbooks. 7. Find in each of the following topics several subjects each suitable for an exposition of about 1000 words: Automobiles, Housekeeping, Camping, Travel, Vacations, Clubs. 8. Qualify each of the subjects into which you have broken up the topics under (7) so that a precise point of view will be indicated. For example, if in working out (7) you have broken up "Camping" into such a topic among others - as "Getting into Good Physical Condition for a Fortnight's Camping Trip in Maine," you might indicate one possible point of view by such a title as "Advice to a City Boy on Getting into Good Physical Condition for a Fortnight's Camping Trip in Maine." 1 9. Write an introductory paragraph for an exposition, in which you informally (a) secure interest, (b) tell what kind of people you are addressing, and (c) tell what your main divisions are. 10. Find four books (not text-books) which seem to you to be expository in aim. Does the title, or anything in the preface, show to what class of readers they are addressed? If for this amiable but uninstructive exchange of adjectives we substitute the reasons and standards on which such adjectives ought to be based, we have Criticism, which is simply the detailed application to a certain piece of work of such standards as the writer himself seems to have tried, or should have tried, to keep in mind while executing it. The very person who says that he 1It is not to be imagined that this would be a good actual title: it is too clumsy. But it serves to indicate a definite expository problem. E cannot write criticism is probably making criticisms a hundred times a day, but he is not giving his reasons or following up his judgment by trying to subdivide good and bad into their manifold degrees and kinds. One of the reasons why he is not doing this is because he is lazy. He says, Of course I do not know anything about criticism, but I know what I like." 66 30. What to Write About. your own. 1. Choose something about which you have opinions of If the subject is prescribed for you, read in the subject—not about it until you acquire a decided opinion. It is just as ineffective to criticize something that you do not care about as it is to argue the opposite side of the question from that on which your real enthusiasm lies. 2. Choose something that you like with reservations rather than something that you wholly like or wholly dislike. 3. Subdivide large subjects, just as you would in exposition, argument, or description; a short criticism of Shakespeare would be as futile as a short description of Switzerland or a one-page explanation of the organization of the German army. 4. Cut down your subjects, not merely because short criticisms on large subjects are theoretically impossible, but because your actual reading necessitates limitation of the field. You have read only a few of Shakespeare's plays; therefore, you cannot criticize them all. 31. Considering the Reader. You may choose for your reader an individual or a large group, a real person or an imaginary person, a person in agreement with you or one in disagreement, a person who has seen the work that you are talking about or one who has not, an expert ɔr a beginner, a schoolboy or a college freshman or a person of much greater general maturity and special knowledge. But in any case be definite: choose some one whom you can visualize clearly in your literary imagination, and then consider him throughout the criticism. 32. Subordinate Elements in Criticism. 1. Remember that an account of the life of an author or painter or musician is not a criticism of his work, although it may be useful as a subordinate part of a criticism upon his work. 2. Remember that a summary of the contents of a book or a perfectly neutral account of the subject-matter of a symphony or picture is not criticism, although it may be useful in preparing the way for criticism,1 just as the expository element in argument is a useful preliminary to the argument itself. 3. If these expository elements are needed, keep them strictly subordinate, keep them strictly neutral, and as a rule get them in early. like a detective like Jane Austen's 33. Consider What the Author 2 Has Tried to Do and judge him with reference to his aim. For example, no one supposes that a novel of incident story and a novel of character Pride and Prejudice have the same aim. The former makes a great deal of plot and very little of character; the latter makes a great deal of character and requires only enough plot to bring out all the latent possibilities of the people in the story. To criticize Pride and Preju · 1 As is the case in College Readings, 196–199. 2 The word author as used in this chapter means not merely a person who has written something, but a person who has created any work of art, book, picture, symphony, statue, or cathedral. dice unfavorably, therefore, because it is less exciting than The Hound of the Baskervilles is much like saying that you prefer bicycles to steam rollers because steam rollers are so heavy. Remember that when we ask “Is it a good book?" we mean to ask if it is a good biography, or a good book of essays, or a good tragedy in blank verse, or a good collection of short stories. Excellence in each of these types is a different kind of excellence. To decide whether a book is good without knowing what are the points of excellence in its special kind would be like judging a dog without reference to its breed or a building without regard to its purpose. To consider what the author is trying to do is a matter of finding out (1) what are the aims which all may be presumed to follow who attempt that particular kind of thing lyric caricature, symphony, concerto, short story, or oration. We find out these aims by studying the technique of various arts and by learning in each the names of the principal terms, the history of that art, the lives of its great masters, the names and characteristics of their principal works, and the history of opinion about them.2 (2) What special purpose the author had in the work under consideration. This his biography may perhaps tell, or the preface of his book; or perhaps we may safely learn it by inference. 1 To see how this may be worked out, cf. College Readings, 201. 2 It is impossible even to mention here the names of elementary books on the different kinds of criticism. Perhaps the most useful single volume for the beginner is Charles Mills Gayley and Fred Newton Scott's Introduction to the Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism. For criticism in the other arts, see the articles on those arts in the Encyclopædia Britannica and search the subject catalogue of the nearest large library. |