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. |
From inside the book
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Page 1
... VOICE OF THE MUSE AND THE VOICE OF THE POET ' Arma virumque cano . . . ' ' Arms and the man I sing ' ; the voice of Virgil breaks suddenly from the silence , to begin the song of Aeneas . Before these words there is nothing ; after them ...
... VOICE OF THE MUSE AND THE VOICE OF THE POET ' Arma virumque cano . . . ' ' Arms and the man I sing ' ; the voice of Virgil breaks suddenly from the silence , to begin the song of Aeneas . Before these words there is nothing ; after them ...
Page 107
... voice divine Following , above the Olympian hill I soar , Above the flight of Pegasean wing . The meaning , not the name I call ; for thou Nor of the Muses nine , nor on the top Of old Olympus dwell'st , but heavenly born . Before the ...
... voice divine Following , above the Olympian hill I soar , Above the flight of Pegasean wing . The meaning , not the name I call ; for thou Nor of the Muses nine , nor on the top Of old Olympus dwell'st , but heavenly born . Before the ...
Page 229
... voice of the poet becomes the voices of the poem , overheard fragments of asthenic complaint , after all , reconfirm our original intuition of life in ' April ' . The warm forgetfulness under the snow is death and the cruelty of April ...
... voice of the poet becomes the voices of the poem , overheard fragments of asthenic complaint , after all , reconfirm our original intuition of life in ' April ' . The warm forgetfulness under the snow is death and the cruelty of April ...
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