CHAPTER IX EXERCISES 1. Summarize the plots of five nineteenth century novels and of five contemporary novels. Compare them as to complexity of plot, number of characters, point of view of author. 2. What makes the plots of the following stories interesting: Stockton, The Lady or the Tiger; Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue; Aldrich, Marjorie Daw; O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi; Dickens, Our Mutual Friend; Thackeray, The Newcomes; Conrad, The Nigger of the Narcissus; Scott, Ivanhoe; Hardy, The Return of the Native? 3. What qualities in the following characters from fiction interest you: Emma, the Vicar of Wakefield, Robinson Crusoe, Jeanie Deans, Meg Merrilies, Mr. Pickwick, Bill Sykes, Sidney Carton, Bella Wilfer, Becky Sharp, Major Pendennis, Mr. Slope, Miss Matty Jenkyns, Hetty Sorrel, Maggie Tulliver, Diana Merion, Uncle Toby, Eustacia Vye, Alan Breck, Captain John Silver, Robert Elsmere, the Brushwood Boy, Kim, Lord Jim, Theobald Pontifex, Denry, Soames Forsyte, Mr. Britling, Silas Lapham, Donatello, Tom Sawyer, Natty Bumppo? 4. Study the methods by which the characters listed above are presented to the reader. 5. Study the setting in the following stories. For what purpose is it used? How is it presented? Does it fulfill the requirements suggested in the text? Hardy, The Return of the Native; Stevenson, The Sire de Maletroit's Door; O. Henry, Mammon and the Archer; Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans; Jane Austen, Persuasion; Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities; Meredith, Richard Feverel; Lewis, Main Street; Elinor Wylie, Jennifer Lorn. 6. Do you find the ideas expressed in the following stories interesting? Why? Sterne, Tristram Shandy; Maria Edge worth, Castle Rackrent; Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby; Thackeray, Vanity Fair; Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin; George Eliot, Daniel Deronda; Galsworthy, Fraternity; Wells, Joan and Peter; Tolstoi, War and Peace; Wasserman, The Goose-Man; Ford, A Man Could Stand Up. 7. Find five stories, long or short, which you consider beautiful, and determine where the beauty in each lies. 8. Write a review of a contemporary novel. 9. Write a critical paper on the work of a novelist. REFERENCES Howells, W. D., Criticism and Fiction, Harper, 1893. Matthews, Brander, The Philosophy of the Short-Story, Longmans, Green and Co., 1901 (written in 1885). Newman, Frances, The Short Story's Mutations, Huebsch, 1927. The Novel of Tomorrow and the Scope of Fiction, BobbsMerrill, [c 1922]. Perry, Bliss, A Study of Prose Fiction, Houghton Mifflin Co., [c 1902]. Wharton, Edith, The Writing of Fictioh, Scribner, 1925. Winchester, C. T., Some Principles of Literary Criticism, Macmillah, [c 1899], Chapter VIII. CHAPTER X EXERCISES 1. Prepare a critical report on a biography, an autobiography, a diary, a book of memoirs, or a collection of letters. Suggestions: Boswell, Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson; Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Macaulay; Hendrick, The Life and Letters of Walter Hines Page; Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln; Bok, The Making of an American; Amy Lowell, John Keats; Plutarch, Parallel Lives of the Greeks and Romans; Barrie, Margaret Ogilvy; Pepys, Diary; Lamb, Letters; Cellini, Autobiography; M. A. D. Howe, Memories of a Hostess. 2. Name as many histories as you can that are literature. Report on the literary qualities and value of one of them. 3. Prepare to make a critical report on a single essay. Some essayists who will repay study are Charles Lamb, E. V. Lucas, R. W. Emerson, T. B. Macaulay, Agnes Repplier, William Beebe, Logan Pearsall Smith, R. L. Stevenson, Don Marquis, H. L. Mencken. The following are good collections of essays: Rhys, Ernest (ed.), A Century of English Essays, "Everyman's Library," Dutton, 1913; Morley, Christopher (ed.), Modern Essays, First and Second Series, Harcourt, Brace and Co., [c 1921, 1924]. BIOGRAPHY REFERENCES Carlyle, Thomas, "Biography" (first published in Fraser's Magazine, No. 27, April, 1832). Copeland, C. T., and Hersey, F. W. C. (ed.), Representative Biographies of English Men of Letters, Macmillan, 1921. Cross, W. L., An Outline of Biography, Holt, 1924. Johnston, James C., Biography: the Literature of Personality, Century, 1927. Lee, Sir Sidney, Principles of Biography (The Leslie Stephen Lecture), Cambridge University Press, 1911. Thayer, W. R., The Art of Biography, Scribner, 1920. HISTORY Carlyle, Thomas, "On History" (first published in Fraser's Magazine, No. 10, 1830). Fling, Fred Morrow, The Writing of History, Yale University Press, 1920, Chapter VIII. Fortescue, John, The Writing of History, Longmans, Green and Co., 1926. Jusserand, J. J., Abbott, W. C., Colby, C. W., Bassett, J. S., THE ESSAY ing Age, June 3, 1922, from Cornhill Magazine, May, 1922. "History and Literature," Yale Review, October, 1924. Middleton, Richard, "The Decay of the Essay," Mono logues, Mitchell Kennerley, 1914. O'Leary, R. D., The Essay, Crowell, 1928. CHAPTER XI EXERCISES 1. Would the following novels make good plays? Why, or why not? George Eliot, Adam Bede; Dickens, Our Mutual Friend; Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Galsworthy, The White Monkey; Meredith, Diana of the Crossways; Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Pendennis. 2. Prepare a critical paper on the work of a dramatist, basing it on a study of at least three of his plays. Use these plays in following the exercises given below. Suggestions: Barrie, O'Neill, Galsworthy, Pinero, Milne, Sheridan, Dryden, Dekker. 3. Are the plays you have chosen for study truly dramatic? Are they well adapted for presentation on the stage? Have they a definite purpose? 4. Study the dialogue of some prose play, preferably one by the author you have chosen. Is it interesting? always? Is it natural? Is it clear? Is it appropriate to the play? Is it useful? Is it concise? Does it characterize the speakers successfully? 5. Read the opening scenes of three plays and examine them critically for faults and virtues in the exposition of facts (is it clear? adequate? redundant? forced?), the setting of the tone of the play, the correct emphasis on the characters and on the central purpose. 6. Study the middle scenes of these plays. Do they lead inevitably to the climax? Is there in them anything unnecessary or irrelevant? 7. Where is the climax of these plays placed? Is it well placed? Is it marred by what comes before or what comes after? Does the stage picture support the effect of the emotional crisis? 8. Study the closing scenes of these plays, considering the speed of the conclusion, the use of surprise and suspense, the quietness or the turmoil of the conclusion, and the emphasis (as in the opening scenes). Is the happiness or unhappiness of the outcome justified? 9. Consider the characters in one play. Are they real people or are they puppets? What makes them so? Does the story grow out of their characters or are they created to fit the story or the theme? Does the ending, happy or unhappy, come as the inevitable result of their characters or in spite of them? Are there any unnecessary characters? What use has the dramatist made of character contrast? Is one character exploited at the expense of the others? REFERENCES Andrews, Charlton, The Drama To-day, Lippincott, [1913]. Archer, William, Play-Making, Small, Maynard and Co., [c 1912]. Baker, George Pierce, Dramatic Technique, Houghton Mifflin Co., [c 1919]. Burton, Richard, How to See a Play, Macmillan, 1914. |