Types of Prose Narratives: A Text-Book for the Story WriterFansler, Harriott Ely
General
Types of Prose Narratives: A Text-Book for the Story Writer
Fansler, Harriott Ely
English prose literature; Storytelling
_Students' Themes_--
Juan Luna's Life Dolores Asuncion 604
Life of Elizabeth Glade Nellie Barrington 607
The Biography of a Traitor Walfrido de Leon 609
=Annals=
The State of England, in Stephen's Reign _Peterborough Chronicle_ 616
_Students' Themes_--
Annals of Mangaldan Translated by Bernabe
Aquino 621
Annals of Pagsanjan Dolores Zafra 622
=Chronicles=
Rivalry between Two Towns Froissart 630
_Students' Themes_--
A Short History of Ilagan Fernando Maramag 636
Some Incidents of the Rebellion of
1898: A True Relation Marcelino Montemayor 639
INTRODUCTION
There are many interesting possibilities for both the reader and the
writer in a study of narrative types. It is a truism to say that
everybody loves a story. Every race, every nation, every tribe, every
family, has its favorite narratives. Every person has his and likes to
repeat them. Even the driest old matter-of-fact curmudgeon delights
in relating an incident if nothing else. Perhaps he tells you of how
he lost and found again his pocket talisman--a buckeye, maybe, or
a Portuguese _cruzado_. He will assure you that he does not really
believe that the unfortunate events that followed his loss of it
were occasioned by its absence, or the return of good-luck casually
connected with its recovery; but still, he adds, he feels much better
with the old thing in his pocket. "And that was a queer coincidence,
wasn't it?" he insists, starting again over the details of the
happening. So with us all: we all know and love stories, our own or
another person's.
It is a fine thing to write a story. It is good through one's
imagination and skill to entertain one's fellows or through one's
accurate observation of life and history to benefit society. The
narrator has always been honored. In earliest times he was the seer
and prophet, forming the religion of his wandering tribe; later he
was the welcomed guest, for whom alone the frowning castle's gate
stood always open; and after the dark ages, in the time of the
revival-of-the-love-of-written-things, he was the favorite at the
court of favoring princes, who lavished upon him preferment and money
and humbly offered him the laurel crown, their highest tribute. In our
own day his reward surpasses that of kings and presidents. They come to
him, and for immortality invoke his name. In earliest times he composed
in verse so that his story might be remembered and handed down. In
latest times he writes most often in prose--a more difficult medium
to handle with distinction, but one more widely understood and more
readily appreciated than poetry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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