Openings: Narrative Beginnings from the Epic to the NovelWhat is the difference between a natural beginning and the beginning of a story? Some deny that there are any beginnings in nature, except perhaps for the origin of the universe itself, suggesting that elsewhere we have only a continuum of events, into which beginnings are variously 'read' by different societies. This book argues that history is full of real beginnings but that poets and novelists are indeed free to begin their stories wherever they like. The ancient poet Homer laid down a rule for his successors when he began his epic by plunging in medias res, 'into the midst of things'. The inspiring Muse of epic gives way to the poet's ego, dies, revives and dies again. Later writers, however, persistently play off the 'interventionist', in medias res opening against some sense of a 'deep', natural beginning: Genesis or the birth of a child. Ranging from Greek and Roman epic to the modern novel via Dante, Milton, Wordsworth, Sterne, and Dickens, A. D. Nuttall has written an ambitious and original book which will be of interest to a wide variety of readers. |
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Page 96
... distinct and powerful temptation motif such as could not have been present at the first fall . And if we cannot see the tempter , why , that suits Satan's purpose very well . Let him be as invisible to Eve as the blind poet is to the ...
... distinct and powerful temptation motif such as could not have been present at the first fall . And if we cannot see the tempter , why , that suits Satan's purpose very well . Let him be as invisible to Eve as the blind poet is to the ...
Page 172
... distinct presence before me , as I look far back , into the blank of my infancy , are my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape , and Peggotty with no shape at all ( 1. i . II ) The play on shape and shapelessness may carry a ...
... distinct presence before me , as I look far back , into the blank of my infancy , are my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape , and Peggotty with no shape at all ( 1. i . II ) The play on shape and shapelessness may carry a ...
Page 213
... distinct from the trivial posturing of the avant - garde — must emerge from a context : Nothing on its own can be new ' ( p . 121 ) . It is a mistake , then , blankly to oppose genesis and metamorphosis . Here below the level of the ...
... distinct from the trivial posturing of the avant - garde — must emerge from a context : Nothing on its own can be new ' ( p . 121 ) . It is a mistake , then , blankly to oppose genesis and metamorphosis . Here below the level of the ...
Contents
The Beginning of the Aeneid | 1 |
The Commedia | 33 |
Paradise Lost | 74 |
Copyright | |
3 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
Aeneas Aeneid allegory ancient becomes birth century Chaos Chaucer Christian Clarendon Press classical Commedia consciousness creation Criticism Dante Dante's darkness David Copperfield dead death Dickens divine E. R. Dodds Eclogues Eliot English epic essay F. H. Bradley fact father fiction figure Genesis Greek Heaven Homer human Ibid idea Iliad imagination Inferno inspiration invocation John Milton Latin light lines literal literary literature London Meanwhile medias res medias res opening medieval metaphor Milton mind Miss Trotwood Muse narrative natural beginning nekuia never notion novel Odyssey origin Oxford University Press Paradise Lost pastoral perhaps person poem poet poet's poetic poetry pre-echoed Prelude proem Purgatorio reader reality reference Renaissance Roman seems sense sentence Shakespeare sing somehow song speak spirit Sterne story strange tell things thought translation Tristram Shandy Trotwood turn unconscious Virgil Virgilian voice vols word Wordsworth writing wrote