《The philosophy of composition》.pdf

THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION (1846) CHARLES DICKENS, ina note now lyingbefore me, a uding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of Barnaby Rudge, says- By the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his Caleb Wi iams backwards? He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for somemode of accounting forwhat had been done. I cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin- and indeed what he himself acknowledges, is not altogether inaccordancewithMr.Dickens idea-but theauthor of CalebWi iams was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat similar process. Nothing ismore clearthanthateveryplot,worth thename,must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with thepen. It isonlywith thedenouementconstantly inview that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation,by making the incidents,and especia y the tone at a points, tend to the development of the intention. There is a radica error, I think, in the usua mode of constructing a story. Either history affords a thesis- or one issuggestedby an incidentof theday- or, atbest, theauthor sets himself to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative-designing, genera y, to fi in with description, dialogue, or autoria comment, whatever crevices of fact, or action, may, from page to page, render themselves apparent. I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always inview- for he isfalse tohimself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest- I say tomyself, inthe first place, Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the inte ect, or (more genera y) the sou is susceptible, what one sha I, on the present occasion, select? Having chosen a novel, first, and secondly a v