How to Write a Novel - Chapter 7 (On characterisation - the second part)

 Now let me look at characterization in a traditional way by giving examples of them from novels that are popularly common.

Flat character -  "Flat characters are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not change throughout the course of a work. By contrast, round characters are complex and undergo development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise the reader." (https://www.britannica.com/art/flat-character)

Typical examples are villains and sidekicks or friends of the hero. Horatio is always loyal to Hamlet right to the end, and loyalty is his characteristic from beginning to end with no change, except to be a foil for Hamlet to say things to him like " there is more in heaven and earth than what is written of in your books, Horatio" and "tell my story." We do not know if he does or not but presume he will, as the story comes to us from Saxo-Grammaticus and Shakespeare and not Horatio, interestingly enough. Such characters are also called stock characters and stereotypes, static ones.

Dr Watson is also the perfect foil or sidekick.

The perfect villain is Moriarty. He is the antagonist who even kills the protagonist, hero, but fails.

Round characters are dynamic and become archetypal, are often major or main and hero, heroine and protagonist. 

Thomas Gradgrind in Hard Times by Charles Dickens is a round, developing, changing character, who becomes a hero by virtue of a change of heart. He thus becomes a protagonist and not just a central character. This is true also of Louisa Gradgrind who evolves into a heroine over time. But minor characters too change and evolve or degenerate, as Rachael becomes more angelic, despite her suffering and Tom Gradgrind in the course of the novel grows progressively worse. 

As usual, while talking of these things, I go over familiar ground so get bored but more interesting is absent character, and the character of non-living things and living creatures others than human beings that make novels interesting.  Another thing that really interests us is the comic character. They are memorable when pulled off well, Falstaff is a famous example. My examples come from drama twice, here, hope you don't mind. The jester, the clown, the harlequin, the fool, Punch, they are a type that enthralls us. 

To come back to Merrylegs, the dog, in Hard Times. 

‘Thquire,—you don’t need to be told that dogth ith wonderful animalth.’

‘Their instinct,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘is surprising.’

‘Whatever you call it—and I’m bletht if I know what to call it’—said Sleary, ‘it ith athtonithing.  The way in whith a dog’ll find you—the dithtanthe he’ll come!’

‘His scent,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘being so fine.’

‘I’m bletht if I know what to call it,’ repeated Sleary, shaking his head, ‘but I have had dogth find me, Thquire, in a way that made me think whether that dog hadn’t gone to another dog, and thed, “You don’t happen to know a perthon of the name of Thleary, do you?  Perthon of the name of Thleary, in the Horthe-Riding way—thtout man—game eye?”  And whether that dog mightn’t have thed, “Well, I can’t thay I know him mythelf, but I know a dog that I think would be likely to be acquainted with him.”  And whether that dog mightn’t have thought it over, and thed, “Thleary, Thleary!  O yeth, to be thure!  A friend of mine menthioned him to me at one time.  I can get you hith addreth directly.”  In conthequenth of my being afore the public, and going about tho muth, you thee, there mutht be a number of dogth acquainted with me, Thquire, that I don’t know!’

Mr. Gradgrind seemed to be quite confounded by this speculation.

‘Any way,’ said Sleary, after putting his lips to his brandy and water, ‘ith fourteen month ago, Thquire, thinthe we wath at Chethter.  We wath getting up our Children in the Wood one morning, when there cometh into our Ring, by the thtage door, a dog.  He had travelled a long way, he wath in a very bad condithon, he wath lame, and pretty well blind.  He went round to our children, one after another, as if he wath a theeking for a child he know’d; and then he come to me, and throwd hithelf up behind, and thtood on hith two forelegth, weak ath he wath, and then he wagged hith tail and died.  Thquire, that dog wath Merrylegth.’

‘Sissy’s father’s dog!’

‘Thethilia’th father’th old dog.  Now, Thquire, I can take my oath, from my knowledge of that dog, that that man wath dead—and buried—afore that dog come back to me.  Joth’phine and Childerth and me talked it over a long time, whether I thould write or not.  But we agreed, “No.  There’th nothing comfortable to tell; why unthettle her mind, and make her unhappy?”  Tho, whether her father bathely detherted her; or whether he broke hith own heart alone, rather than pull her down along with him; never will be known, now, Thquire, till—no, not till we know how the dogth findth uth out!’

‘She keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this hour; and she will believe in his affection to the last moment of her life,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.

‘It theemth to prethent two thingth to a perthon, don’t it, Thquire?’ said Mr. Sleary, musing as he looked down into the depths of his brandy and water: ‘one, that there ith a love in the world, not all Thelf-interetht after all, but thomething very different; t’other, that it hath a way of its own of calculating or not calculating, whith somehow or another ith at leatht ath hard to give a name to, ath the wayth of the dogth ith!’ (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/786/786-h/786-h.htm#page216)

And absent characters? Sissy's father Jupe is one.

Godot is powerful as he is absent, back to drama.

The more absent a character the more powerful. In Jane Eyre, there is a character who is absent mostly, Rochester's wife, and her maid Grace Poole is suspected to be her, but this "madwoman in the attic" who set the house on fire after finding out that Jane is to marry Rochester on seeing her bridal gown and other wedding finery, a fire in which Rochester is badly wounded, is a very powerful presence, so powerful as to get another writer Jean Rhys to write a  novel on her, called The Wide Saragasso Sea.

The tragic heroine is powerful, witness Ophelia.

So is the femme fatale, witness  Medusa.

The heroine who succeeds is powerful, as in the story of Jane Eyre with her "reader, I married him" at the end, making us feel thrilled. The one who does not, like Catherine, in Wuthering Heights is too. The woman of loose virtue fascinates us as in Madame Bovary and Nana, or at leat fascinated men, and women love witches, as in Macbeth. 

But which character do I love the most among women. Hester Prynne, the woman in the Scarlet Letter, and her child Pearl hold endless fascination for me. 

And the most chilling villain? Roger Chillingworth of Scarlet Letter.

Chapter 15.

Roger Chillingworth—a deformed old figure, with a face that haunted men's memories longer than they liked—took leave of Hester Prynne, and went stooping away along the earth. He gathered here and there an herb, or grubbed up a root, and put it into the basket on his arm. His gray beard almost touched the ground, as he crept onward. Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure. She wondered what sort of herbs they were, which the old man was so sedulous to gather. Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs, of species hitherto unknown, that would start up under his fingers? Or might it suffice him, that every wholesome growth should be converted into something deleterious and malignant at his touch? Did the sun, which shone so brightly everywhere else, really fall upon him? Or was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous shadow moving along with his deformity, whichever way he turned himself? And whither was he now going? Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance? Or would he spread bat's wings and flee away, looking so much the uglier, the higher he rose towards heaven?

[213]

“Be it sin or no,” said Hester Prynne, bitterly, as she still[214] gazed after him, “I hate the man!”

She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or lessen it. Attempting to do so, she thought of those long-past days, in a distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study, and sit down in the[215] firelight of their home, and in the light of her nuptial smile. He needed to bask himself in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonely hours among his books might be taken off the scholar's heart. Such scenes had once appeared not otherwise than happy, but now, as viewed through the dismal medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves among her ugliest remembrances. She marvelled how such scenes could have been! She marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him! She deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had ever endured, and reciprocated, the lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger Chillingworth, than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her[216] heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side.

“Yes, I hate him!” repeated Hester, more bitterly than before. “He betrayed me! He has done me worse wrong than I did him!”

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth's, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. But Hester ought long ago to have done with this injustice. What did it betoken? Had seven long years, under the torture of the scarlet letter, inflicted so much of misery, and wrought out no repentance?

The emotions of that brief space, while she stood gazing after the crooked figure of old Roger Chillingworth, threw a dark light on Hester's state of mind, revealing much that she might not otherwise have acknowledged to herself.

He being gone, she summoned back her child.

“Pearl! Little Pearl! Where are you?”

[217]

Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. At first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom forth, and—as it declined to venture—seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky. Soon finding, however, that either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime. She made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snail-shells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than any merchant in New England; but the larger part of them foundered near the shore. She seized a live horseshoe by the tail, and made prize of several five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun. Then she took up the white foam, that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scampering after it, with winged footsteps, to catch the great snow-flakes ere they fell. Perceiving a flock of beach-birds, that fed and fluttered along the shore, the naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock after these small sea-fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little gray bird, with a white breast, Pearl was almost sure, had been hit by a pebble, and fluttered away with a broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her[218] sport; because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself.

Her final employment was to gather sea-weed, of various kinds, and make herself a scarf, or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mermaid. She inherited her mother's gift for devising drapery and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid's garb, Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother's. A letter,—the letter A,—but freshly green, instead of scarlet! The child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with strange interest; even as if the one only thing for which she had been sent into the world was to make out its hidden import.

“I wonder if mother will ask me what it means?” thought Pearl.

Just then, she heard her mother's voice, and flitting along as lightly as one of the little sea-birds, appeared before Hester Prynne, dancing, laughing, and pointing her finger to the ornament upon her bosom.

“My little Pearl,” said Hester, after a moment's silence, “the green letter, and on thy childish bosom, has no purport. But dost thou know, my child, what this letter means which thy mother is doomed to wear?”

“Yes, mother,” said the child. “It is the great letter A. Thou hast taught me in the horn-book.”

Hester looked steadily into her little face; but, though there was that singular expression which she had so often remarked in her black eyes, she could not satisfy herself whether Pearl really attached any meaning to the symbol. She felt a morbid desire to ascertain the point.[219]

“Dost thou know, child, wherefore thy mother wears this letter?”

“Truly do I!” answered Pearl, looking brightly into her mother's face. “It is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart!”

“And what reason is that?” asked Hester, half smiling at the absurd incongruity of the child's observation; but, on second thoughts, turning pale. “What has the letter to do with any heart, save mine?”

“Nay, mother, I have told all I know,” said Pearl, more seriously than she was wont to speak. “Ask yonder old man whom thou hast been talking with! It may be he can tell. But in good earnest now, mother dear, what does this scarlet letter mean?—and why dost thou wear it on thy bosom?—and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?”

She took her mother's hand in both her own, and gazed into her eyes with an earnestness that was seldom seen in her wild and capricious character. The thought occurred to Hester, that the child might really be seeking to approach her with childlike confidence, and doing what she could, and as intelligently as she knew how, to establish a meeting-point of sympathy. It showed Pearl in an unwonted aspect. Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an April breeze; which spends its time in airy sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take it to your bosom; in requital of which misdemeanors, it will sometimes, of its own vague purpose, kiss your cheek with a kind of doubtful tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then[220] be gone about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleasure at your heart. And this, moreover, was a mother's estimate of the child's disposition. Any other observer might have seen few but unamiable traits, and have given them a far darker coloring. But now the idea came strongly into Hester's mind, that Pearl, with her remarkable precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when she could be made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's sorrows as could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent or the child. In the little chaos of Pearl's character there might be seen emerging—and could have been, from the very first—the steadfast principles of an unflinching courage,—an uncontrollable will,—a sturdy pride, which might be disciplined into self-respect,—and a bitter scorn of many things, which, when examined, might be found to have the taint of falsehood in them. She possessed affections, too, though hitherto acrid and disagreeable, as are the richest flavors of unripe fruit. With all these sterling attributes, thought Hester, the evil which she inherited from her mother must be great indeed, if a noble woman do not grow out of this elfish child.

Pearl's inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet letter seemed an innate quality of her being. From the earliest epoch of her conscious life, she had entered upon this as her appointed mission. Hester had often fancied that Providence had a design of justice and retribution, in endowing the child with this marked propensity; but never, until now, had she bethought herself to ask, whether, linked with that design, there might not likewise be a purpose of mercy and beneficence. If little Pearl were entertained with faith and trust, as a spirit messenger no less than an earthly child, might it not be her[221] errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart, and converted it into a tomb?—and to help her to overcome the passion, once so wild, and even yet neither dead nor asleep, but only imprisoned within the same tomb-like heart?

Such were some of the thoughts that now stirred in Hester's mind, with as much vivacity of impression as if they had actually been whispered into her ear. And there was little Pearl, all this while, holding her mother's hand in both her own, and turning her face upward, while she put these searching questions, once, and again, and still a third time.

“What does the letter mean, mother?—and why dost thou wear it?—and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?”

“What shall I say?” thought Hester to herself. “No! If this be the price of the child's sympathy, I cannot pay it.”

Then she spoke aloud.

“Silly Pearl,” said she, “what questions are these? There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about. What know I of the minister's heart? And as for the scarlet letter, I wear it for the sake of its gold-thread.”

In all the seven bygone years, Hester Prynne had never before been false to the symbol on her bosom. It may be that it was the talisman of a stern and severe, but yet a guardian spirit, who now forsook her; as recognizing that, in spite of his strict watch over her heart, some new evil had crept into it, or some old one had never been expelled. As for little Pearl, the earnestness soon passed out of her face.

But the child did not see fit to let the matter drop. Two or three times, as her mother and she went homeward, and as often at supper-time, and while Hester was putting her to bed,[222] and once after she seemed to be fairly asleep, Pearl looked up, with mischief gleaming in her black eyes.

“Mother,” said she, “what does the scarlet letter mean?”

And the next morning, the first indication the child gave of being awake was by popping up her head from the pillow, and making that other inquiry, which she had so unaccountably connected with her investigations about the scarlet letter:—

“Mother!—Mother!—Why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?”

“Hold thy tongue, naughty child!” answered her mother, with an asperity that she had never permitted to herself before. “Do not tease me; else I shall shut thee into the dark closet!” (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25344/25344-h/25344-h.htm)

And the hero. Gilgamesh and Achilles. No need to look further though both are not from novels.

 

How to Write a Novel - Chapter 6 (Characters and Characterization)

 A character comes with an ambiance around him or her or it. This is not where I am supposed to use the word ambiance but with the setting, but it can be used here too.

Creating a character is not the issue, writers do it all the time. What the issue is is making a memorable one, an unforgettable one, one that comes to life, like Sherlock Holmes did, so much so that when Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill him off people made him resurrect him. The character became larger than life.

How did he do it?

A character is taught to students in the following terms, as flat or round (EM Forster), static or dynamic, stereotype or archetype, hero, heroine, villain, protagonist, antagonist, sidekicks, main or major and minor characters, developing or unchanging/developed characters or devolving ones, stock and not, etc.

All this has been well documented and written of/f and perhaps I too will go on to write of them but I want to think of them in a different way.

When we create a character all this is in the back of our minds, true, but we think of other things which are physical description, situations in which the character will be found, how to reveal the character's psychological motives and intentions, through monologues or interior ones or actions and reactions or soliloquies and asides, as well as dialogues and conversations, and the events that happen to them or that they make happen.  

People remember Sherlock Holmes' cap, his pipe, his violin, his magnifying glass, and his drug-taking habit. They remember the address of his house, 22 Baker Street.  They remember his sharp and aquiline features and angular look.

That is the power of situating a character firmly in a time or place as well as through physical description with slight touches of his personality thrown in like his love for music and his, perhaps, addiction to cocaine or opium or some such drug, not to mention to tobacco, but his ability to solve a crime or mystery is not at any point imputed by us to his substance-taking habit.

People remember his famous refrain, "elementary, my dear Watson," after or before explaining something no one can crack, let alone his "sidekick", which is the power of building a character into someone who can be identified.

But what is the real charm of a Sherlock Holmes? It is not that he is British or Victorian but that while we read his short stories or novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, we try to guess and outwit him in finding whodunit and fail while he doesn't and he convinces us that his reasoning is true and we failed to see it but it falls into place for us finally and we wonder how we didn't see it all along when it was so obvious.

But what is the extra ingredient Arthur Conan Doyle added?

He somehow hid his self so well that we ascribe the ability to be supernatural to Holmes and not his puppeteer. We do not know why this happened but we can hope to replicate it not by imitating him but by steeping ourselves in the process of creation of our own characters to the extent where they are more alive to us and all than anyone we have come across in life itself is. 

Let me share something from Arthur Conan Doyle that fascinated me but not from any Sherlock Holmes story. It comes from his historical fiction called The White Company and deals with a knight called Sir Nigel who is singularly unimpressive at first. He has weak eyes and is small of stature and no one knows why he is thought of so highly. But our entire perception of him changes. Let me give the passage.

"Sir Nigel was a slight man of poor stature, with soft lisping voice and gentle ways. So short was he that his wife, who was no very tall woman, had the better of him by the breadth of three fingers. His sight having been injured in his early wars by a basketful of lime which had been emptied over him when he led the Earl of Derby's stormers up the breach at Bergerac, he had contracted something of a stoop, with a blinking, peering expression of face. His age was six and forty, but the constant practice of arms, together with a cleanly life, had preserved his activity and endurance unimpaired, so that from a distance he seemed to have the slight limbs and swift grace of a boy. His face, however, was tanned of a dull yellow tint, with a leathery, poreless look, which spoke of rough outdoor doings, and the little pointed beard which he wore, in deference to the prevailing fashion, was streaked and shot with gray. His features were small, delicate, and regular, with clear-cut, curving nose, and eyes which jutted forward from the lids. His dress was simple and yet spruce. A Flandrish hat of beevor, bearing in the band the token of Our Lady of Embrun, was drawn low upon the left side to hide that ear which had been partly shorn from his head by a Flemish man-at-arms in a camp broil before Tournay. His cote-hardie, or tunic, and trunk-hosen were of a purple plum color, with long weepers which hung from either sleeve to below his knees. His shoes were of red leather, daintily pointed at the toes, but not yet prolonged to the extravagant lengths which the succeeding reign was to bring into fashion. A gold-embroidered belt of knighthood encircled his loins, with his arms, five roses gules on a field argent, cunningly worked upon the clasp. So stood Sir Nigel Loring upon the bridge of Avon, and talked lightly with his lady.

And, certes, had the two visages alone been seen, and the stranger been asked which were the more likely to belong to the bold warrior whose name was loved by the roughest soldiery of Europe, he had assuredly selected the lady's. Her face was large and square and red, with fierce, thick brows, and the eyes of one who was accustomed to rule. Taller and broader than her husband, her flowing gown of sendall, and fur-lined tippet, could not conceal the gaunt and ungraceful outlines of her figure. It was the age of martial women. The deeds of black Agnes of Dunbar, of Lady Salisbury and of the Countess of Montfort, were still fresh in the public minds. With such examples before them the wives of the English captains had become as warlike as their mates, and ordered their castles in their absence with the prudence and discipline of veteran seneschals. Right easy were the Montacutes of their Castle of Twynham, and little had they to dread from roving galley or French squadron, while Lady Mary Loring had the ordering of it. Yet even in that age it was thought that, though a lady might have a soldier's heart, it was scarce as well that she should have a soldier's face. There were men who said that of all the stern passages and daring deeds by which Sir Nigel Loring had proved the true temper of his courage, not the least was his wooing and winning of so forbidding a dame."

.....

"Lady Loring, glancing up, saw in the fading light three companions walking abreast down the road, all gray with dust, and stained with travel, yet chattering merrily between themselves. He in the midst was young and comely, with boyish open face and bright gray eyes, which glanced from right to left as though he found the world around him both new and pleasing. To his right walked a huge red-headed man, with broad smile and merry twinkle, whose clothes seemed to be bursting and splitting at every seam, as though he were some lusty chick who was breaking bravely from his shell. On the other side, with his knotted hand upon the young man's shoulder, came a stout and burly archer, brown and fierce eyed, with sword at belt and long yellow yew-stave peeping over his shoulder. Hard face, battered head piece, dinted brigandine, with faded red lion of St. George ramping on a discolored ground, all proclaimed as plainly as words that he was indeed from the land of war. He looked keenly at Sir Nigel as he approached, and then, plunging his hand under his breastplate, he stepped up to him with a rough, uncouth bow to the lady.

“Your pardon, fair sir,” said he, “but I know you the moment I clap eyes on you, though in sooth I have seen you oftener in steel than in velvet. I have drawn string besides you at La Roche-d'Errien, Romorantin, Maupertuis, Nogent, Auray, and other places.”

“Then, good archer, I am right glad to welcome you to Twynham Castle, and in the steward's room you will find provant for yourself and comrades. To me also your face is known, though mine eyes play such tricks with me that I can scarce be sure of my own squire. Rest awhile, and you shall come to the hall anon and tell us what is passing in France, for I have heard that it is likely that our pennons may flutter to the south of the great Spanish mountains ere another year be passed.”

“There was talk of it in Bordeaux,” answered the archer, “and I saw myself that the armorers and smiths were as busy as rats in a wheat-rick. But I bring you this letter from the valiant Gascon knight, Sir Claude Latour. And to you, Lady,” he added after a pause, “I bring from him this box of red sugar of Narbonne, with every courteous and knightly greeting which a gallant cavalier may make to a fair and noble dame.”

This little speech had cost the blunt bowman much pains and planning; but he might have spared his breath, for the lady was quite as much absorbed as her lord in the letter, which they held between them, a hand on either corner, spelling it out very slowly, with drawn brows and muttering lips. As they read it, Alleyne, who stood with Hordle John a few paces back from their comrade, saw the lady catch her breath, while the knight laughed softly to himself.

“You see, dear heart,” said he, “that they will not leave the old dog in his kennel when the game is afoot. And what of this White Company, archer?”

“Ah, sir, you speak of dogs,” cried Aylward; “but there are a pack of lusty hounds who are ready for any quarry, if they have but a good huntsman to halloo them on. Sir, we have been in the wars together, and I have seen many a brave following but never such a set of woodland boys as this. They do but want you at their head, and who will bar the way to them!”

“Pardieu!” said Sir Nigel, “if they are all like their messenger, they are indeed men of whom a leader may be proud. Your name, good archer?”

“Sam Aylward, sir, of the Hundred of Easebourne and the Rape of Chichester.”

“And this giant behind you?”

“He is big John, of Hordle, a forest man, who hath now taken service in the Company.”

“A proper figure of a man at-arms,” said the little knight. “Why, man, you are no chicken, yet I warrant him the stronger man. See to that great stone from the coping which hath fallen upon the bridge. Four of my lazy varlets strove this day to carry it hence. I would that you two could put them to shame by budging it, though I fear that I overtask you, for it is of a grievous weight.”

He pointed as he spoke to a huge rough-hewn block which lay by the roadside, deep sunken from its own weight in the reddish earth. The archer approached it, rolling back the sleeves of his jerkin, but with no very hopeful countenance, for indeed it was a mighty rock. John, however, put him aside with his left hand, and, stooping over the stone, he plucked it single-handed from its soft bed and swung it far into the stream. There it fell with mighty splash, one jagged end peaking out above the surface, while the waters bubbled and foamed with far-circling eddy.

“Good lack!” cried Sir Nigel, and “Good lack!” cried his lady, while John stood laughing and wiping the caked dirt from his fingers.

“I have felt his arms round my ribs,” said the bowman, “and they crackle yet at the thought of it. This other comrade of mine is a right learned clerk, for all that he is so young, hight Alleyne, the son of Edric, brother to the Socman of Minstead.”

“Young man,” quoth Sir Nigel, sternly, “if you are of the same way of thought as your brother, you may not pass under portcullis of mine.”

“Nay, fair sir,” cried Aylward hastily, “I will be pledge for it that they have no thought in common; for this very day his brother hath set his dogs upon him, and driven him from his lands.”

“And are you, too, of the White Company?” asked Sir Nigel. “Hast had small experience of war, if I may judge by your looks and bearing.”

“I would fain to France with my friends here,” Alleyne answered; “but I am a man of peace—a reader, exorcist, acolyte, and clerk.”

“That need not hinder,” quoth Sir Nigel.

“No, fair sir,” cried the bowman joyously. “Why, I myself have served two terms with Arnold de Cervolles, he whom they called the archpriest. By my hilt! I have seen him ere now, with monk's gown trussed to his knees, over his sandals in blood in the fore-front of the battle. Yet, ere the last string had twanged, he would be down on his four bones among the stricken, and have them all houseled and shriven, as quick as shelling peas. Ma foi! there were those who wished that he would have less care for their souls and a little more for their bodies!”

“It is well to have a learned clerk in every troop,” said Sir Nigel. “By St. Paul, there are men so caitiff that they think more of a scrivener's pen than of their lady's smile, and do their devoir in hopes that they may fill a line in a chronicle or make a tag to a jongleur's romance. I remember well that, at the siege of Retters, there was a little, sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp. But, my soul's bird, you hear me prate as though all were decided, when I have not yet taken counsel either with you or with my lady mother. Let us to the chamber, while these strangers find such fare as pantry and cellar may furnish.”

“The night air strikes chill,” said the lady, and turned down the road with her hand upon her lord's arm. The three comrades dropped behind and followed: Aylward much the lighter for having accomplished his mission, Alleyne full of wonderment at the humble bearing of so renowned a captain, and John loud with snorts and sneers, which spoke his disappointment and contempt.

“What ails the man?” asked Aylward in surprise.

“I have been cozened and bejaped,” quoth he gruffly.

“By whom, Sir Samson the strong?”

“By thee, Sir Balaam the false prophet.”

“By my hilt!” cried the archer, “though I be not Balaam, yet I hold converse with the very creature that spake to him. What is amiss, then, and how have I played you false?”

“Why, marry, did you not say, and Alleyne here will be my witness, that, if I would hie to the wars with you, you would place me under a leader who was second to none in all England for valor? Yet here you bring me to a shred of a man, peaky and ill-nourished, with eyes like a moulting owl, who must needs, forsooth, take counsel with his mother ere he buckle sword to girdle.”

“Is that where the shoe galls?” cried the bowman, and laughed aloud. “I will ask you what you think of him three months hence, if we be all alive; for sure I am that——”

Aylward's words were interrupted by an extraordinary hubbub which broke out that instant some little way down the street in the direction of the Priory. There was deep-mouthed shouting of men, frightened shrieks of women, howling and barking of curs, and over all a sullen, thunderous rumble, indescribably menacing and terrible. Round the corner of the narrow street there came rushing a brace of whining dogs with tails tucked under their legs, and after them a white-faced burgher, with outstretched hands and wide-spread fingers, his hair all abristle and his eyes glinting back from one shoulder to the other, as though some great terror were at his very heels. “Fly, my lady, fly!” he screeched, and whizzed past them like bolt from bow; while close behind came lumbering a huge black bear, with red tongue lolling from his mouth, and a broken chain jangling behind him. To right and left the folk flew for arch and doorway. Hordle John caught up the Lady Loring as though she had been a feather, and sprang with her into an open porch; while Aylward, with a whirl of French oaths, plucked at his quiver and tried to unsling his bow. Alleyne, all unnerved at so strange and unwonted a sight, shrunk up against the wall with his eyes fixed upon the frenzied creature, which came bounding along with ungainly speed, looking the larger in the uncertain light, its huge jaws agape, with blood and slaver trickling to the ground. Sir Nigel alone, unconscious to all appearance of the universal panic, walked with unfaltering step up the centre of the road, a silken handkerchief in one hand and his gold comfit-box in the other. It sent the blood cold through Alleyne's veins to see that as they came together—the man and the beast—the creature reared up, with eyes ablaze with fear and hate, and whirled its great paws above the knight to smite him to the earth. He, however, blinking with puckered eyes, reached up his kerchief, and flicked the beast twice across the snout with it. “Ah, saucy! saucy,” quoth he, with gentle chiding; on which the bear, uncertain and puzzled, dropped its four legs to earth again, and, waddling back, was soon swathed in ropes by the bear-ward and a crowd of peasants who had been in close pursuit.

A scared man was the keeper; for, having chained the brute to a stake while he drank a stoup of ale at the inn, it had been baited by stray curs, until, in wrath and madness, it had plucked loose the chain, and smitten or bitten all who came in its path. Most scared of all was he to find that the creature had come nigh to harm the Lord and Lady of the castle, who had power to place him in the stretch-neck or to have the skin scourged from his shoulders. Yet, when he came with bowed head and humble entreaty for forgiveness, he was met with a handful of small silver from Sir Nigel, whose dame, however, was less charitably disposed, being much ruffled in her dignity by the manner in which she had been hustled from her lord's side.

As they passed through the castle gate, John plucked at Aylward's sleeve, and the two fell behind.

“I must crave your pardon, comrade,” said he, bluntly. “I was a fool not to know that a little rooster may be the gamest. I believe that this man is indeed a leader whom we may follow.”

This is a masterly section where we are introduced to a character who we fear will not make a great leader though he is one and our fears are expressed through the mouth of another character Hordle John who is as disappointed as we are that Sir Nigel is not outwardly hero material being neither tall, dark, handsome or strong but our doubts are laid to rest with the episode of the bear where Sir Nigel quells it with just two words and an interjection and a gesture. We are also introduced to five others equally impressive and the bear, in terms as memorable, if you notice, like icing on a cake. That is characterization of fine mettle.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/903/903-h/903-h.htm#link2HCH0014

Reading this section may make you understand you are in the presence of a master of creating characters but how to recreate the magic is left to you, by me.

  

The Relevance of Historical Fiction in Contemporary Times. (Rough notes for a talk given)

 Definitions, famous, of History

John Jacob Anderson

"History is a narration of the events which have happened among mankind, including an account of the rise and fall of nations, as well as of other great changes which have affected the political and social condition of the human race." (John Jacob Anderson)

W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman

"History is not what you thought. It is what you remember. All other history defeats itself." (1066 and All That)

James Joyce

"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." (Ulysses)

Arnold J. Toynbee

"History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don't use the stuff well, it might as well be dead."

The Psycho-Historian

Between 1942 and 1944, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote the first short stories which were to become the basis for the Foundation trilogy. The main concept of the Foundation Trilogy is that if you are a good enough mathematician, you can accurately predict the future, based on the record of the past. Asimov read very widely indeed, so it should come as no surprise that his ideas were based on the writings of other historians.

Charles Austin Beard

"If a science of history were achieved, it would, like the science of celestial mechanics, make possible the calculable prediction of the future in history. It would bring the totality of historical occurrences within a single field and reveal the unfolding future to its last end, including all the apparent choices made and to be made. It would be omniscience. The creator of it would possess the attributes ascribed by the theologians to God. The future once revealed, humanity would have nothing to do except to await its doom."

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges

"History is and should be a science ... History is not the accumulation of events of every kind which happened in the past. It is the science of human societies."

Voltaire

"The first foundations of all history are the recitals of the fathers to the children, transmitted afterward from one generation to another; at their origin, they are at the very most probable, when they do not shock common sense, and they lose one degree of probability in each generation." (The Philosophical Dictionary)

Edward Hallett Carr

"History is ... a dialogue between the present and the past. (originally: Geschichte ist ... ein Dialog zwischen Gegenwart und Vergangenheit.)" (What Is History?)

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The major lessons of history? There are four: First, whom the gods destroy they first make mad with power. Second, the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. Third, the bee fertilizes the flower it robs. Fourth, when it is dark enough you can see the stars." (Attributed to historian Charles Austin Beard, but this version is the one Martin Luther King used in "The death of evil upon the seashore")

A Pack of Tricks

Not everyone likes the study of history or finds it useful. Henry Ford was a prime example of that and so was Henry David Thoreau, what may be one of the very few things those two gentlemen had in common.

Voltaire

"History is nothing but a pack of tricks we play on the dead." (French original) "J'ay vu un temps où vous n'aimiez guères l'histoire. Ce n'est après tout qu'un ramas de tracasseries qu'on fait aux morts ... "

Henry David Thoreau

"As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs." (Walden)

Jane Austen

"History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all—it is very tiresome." (Northanger Abbey)

Ambrose Bierce

"HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools: Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown 'Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish 'twere known, Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide, Wherein he blundered and how much he lied." (Devil's Dictionary)

Malcolm X

"A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself."

The Passage of Time

Whether you like history or not, there's no denying the impact it leaves on us.

Henry David Thoreau

"Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate." (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.)

Gusti Bienstock Kollman

"You know, it's so strange, I've lived through four forms of government in my life: monarchy, republic, Hitler's Reich, American democracy. The [Weimar] republic was only ... 1918 to 1933, that's fifteen years! Imagine that, only fifteen years. But, then, Hitler was going to last a thousand years and he lasted only ... 1933 to 1945 ... twelve, twelve years only! Hah!"

Plutarch

"So very difficult a matter it is to trace and find out the truth of anything by history." (Plutarch's Lives)

Douglas Adams

"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question "How can we eat?" the second by the question "Why do we eat?" and the third by the question "Where shall we have lunch?" (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe)

T.S. Eliot

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What's not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.

What are the Important Definitions of History? – Answered!

Article shared by : 

Some of the important definitions of history given by different historians are given below:

The English word ‘History’ is derived from their Greek noun ‘Historia’. ‘History’ or ‘Historia’ simply means ‘enquiry’ or ‘research’.

The term ‘History’ has been taken from the German word ‘Geschichle’ means an intelligible and significant narration of the past events.

In fact development of history started with the ancient Greek historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides.

Herodotus popularly known as the ‘Father of History’ wrote about the Graeco-Persian wars this contains a mine of information including those relating to the ancient Egyptians and Persians. Thucidides developed this subjects on scientific lines. He wrote the “Pelopenesian Wars’ on the basis of evidence and showed the relation between causes and effects or results.

Thomas Charlyle “World History is a biography of great men”.

Prof. Renier: “History is the memories of societies.”

E.H. Carr: “History is an unending dialogue between the present and the past and the chief function of A historian is to master and understand the past as a key to the understanding of THE present.”

Prof. G.R. Elton: “History is concerned with all those human sayings, thoughts, deeds and sufferings which occurred in the past and have left present deposit; and it deals with them from the point of view of happening change and particular.”

Lord Acton: History is the unfolding story of human freedom.”

Prof. A.L. Rowse: “History is essentially the record of the life of men in societies in their geographical and their physical environments. Their social and cultural environments arises from the interaction of the one with the other, the society and its geographical condition.”

Prof. Carl G. Gustavson: “History is a mountain top of human knowledge from whence the doings of our own generation may be scanned and fitted into proper dimensions. History enables a person to see himself as part of that living process of human growth which has emerged out of the past and will inexorably project itself out beyond our own life-time. We are the product of the past but not the complete product.”

According to an article titled “7 Elements of Historical Fiction”, in general writers of fiction must address seven crucial elements: character, dialogue, setting, theme, plot, conflict, and world building.

Great examples of historical fiction in literature include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, and The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates.

Historical Fiction is a story that takes readers to a time and place in the past. How far back in time does an author have to go for their work to be considered Historical Fiction? ... Historical Fiction is set in a real place, during a culturally recognizable time.

Historical fiction transports readers to another time and place, either real or imagined. Writing historical fiction requires a balance of research and creativity, and while it often includes real people and events, the genre offers a fiction writer many opportunities to tell a wholly unique story.

Reading historical fiction allows us to be moved by what happened. ... The historical novelist exposes the reader to the inner lives of people across time and place, and in doing so illuminates history's untold stories, allowing the reader to experience a more complex truth.

Scaramouche.

1. The need for historical fiction by sensitive writers is what I want to stress.   Dickens' Hard Times is an example. Hard Times was not Historical Fiction when it was written. Tale of Two Cities was. but want to start with the startling assumption that what we write today is historical fiction in a sense, as it will be seen as that by future generations.

2. While reading Historical fiction we negotiate between the particular and the universal. Thus the biographical interpretation becomes relevant.

3. The second kind of interpretation that is needed is the historical interpretation. This also  brings in the political, the economic, the psychological, the philosophical, the religious, the social or sociological, the cultural, the anthropological, the textual etc.

"A historicist critic is one who seeks to place a text in its context, to reveal the embeddedness of, for example, Shakespeare's Macbeth in the witch-hunting mania of King James I's early reign. Historicists might use what we know about social customs, economics, politics, or religion to read a text. They might also do primary research in a historical archive, uncovering documents that shed new light on something about the text that a reader at several centuries' removed from the text's original publication previously could not see.

We weighed opposing viewpoints on the "author problem," viewpoints that either place more value on the author's intention or on the reader's reaction. Parts 2 and 3 explore a parallel "problem" in literary studies: what we might call the "time problem." Opposing viewpoints on the time problem lean toward historicist or presentist readings of texts, placing more value on the historical embeddedness we were describing above or, conversely, the modern relevance of a text."

"A presentist critic is one who seeks to place a text in a modern context, to reveal the relevance, for example, of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew to ongoing conversations about women's rights in the United States. When writing about Shakespeare, presentists might apply a modern theory or idea to the plays to see how they stack up, or they might use the plays as examples to make a point. Of course, we can also think of performances of Shakespeare's plays as interpretations in their own right. When performing Shakespeare, a presentist interpretation might set the play in a new geographical location, have characters performed in a way that aligns them with certain recognizable groups or types, or use other elements to emphasize a resonant theme."

"The plays’ ethical tally is always double-entry, with each positive balanced by a negative in another column. In this reckoning, Shakespeare is, irreducibly, both for and against Brexit."

"Reading for present relevance."