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!

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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."

 

How to Write a Novel - Chapter 5 (the last section on Point of view)

 The thing about the fallible narrator is that though he is fallible we think he is infallible. We think he is trustworthy and reliable, and who makes us think so. The writer. It is his skill that makes it so for us.

I want to quote in this respect from Henry James's preface to The Ambassadors to illustrate this point.

"That charming principle is always there, at all events, to keep interest fresh: it is a principle, we remember, essentially ravenous, without scruple and without mercy..."

How does Henry James keep interest fresh?

1. He tell us through Strether's fiance, Mrs Newsome, that her young son is in the 'trap' of an elderly woman from Paris.

2. This is not like drama, as Henry James states, as he makes dramatic irony stand on its head. When Strether reaches Paris and meets the "fallen woman" or the "other woman", Strether becomes convinced over a period of time that she is nothing of the sort. As he is genuinely convinced we become convinced too. He becomes infallible to us. We are as much in the dark as the character is but he is so sincere, so genuine, so well delineated in being honest we feel we can completely rely on him and trust him. This is what is great about Henry James's story-telling. He takes us consummately for a ride, as later he lets us down when Strether finds out the woman is all what Mrs Newsome says and only what she says, and this shows how much his method is removed from dramatic irony, how different he is from Shakespeare, as here the audience is not in the know about anything the characters don't know, and Henry James' mastery is he knew this kind of compositional excellence can only be created in the novel. James is a very dangerous writer in developing point of view to such an extent for unity of effect in the reader that it is good he did not turn to crime, as he could persuade us of anything, and it would have had disastrous consequences for the sensitive if it led them to action.

Does Henry James have a predecessor? Yes, of course, in Pride and Prejudice, we have a masterly reversal of point of view, that of Elizabeth's who starts out by liking Wickham and hating Darcy but ends up seeing Wickham as ruinous and loving Darcy. This is a kind of hourglass pattern in the novel and worth it for its tendency to show us how a reader can be putty in the hands of a great writer if he or she wants it.

But to come back to the preface of The Ambassadors that should have come at the end and not the beginning but which we have to come back to to the end, so that we can agree with James that he has indeed created a masterpiece.

"One’s work should have composition, because composition alone is positive beauty; but all the while—apart from one’s inevitable consciousness too of the dire paucity of readers ever recognising or ever missing positive beauty—how, as to the cheap and easy, at every turn, how, as to immediacy and facility, and even as to the commoner vivacity, positive beauty might have to be sweated for and paid for! Once achieved and installed it may always be trusted to make the poor seeker feel he would have blushed to the roots of his hair for failing of it; yet, how, as its virtue can be essentially but the virtue of the whole, the wayside traps set in the interest of muddlement and pleading but the cause of the moment, of the particular bit in itself, have to be kicked out of the path! All the sophistications in life, for example, might have appeared to muster on behalf of the menace—the menace to a bright variety—involved in Strether’s having all the subjective “say,” as it were, to himself.

Had I, meanwhile, made him at once hero and historian, endowed him with the romantic privilege of the “first person”—the darkest abyss of romance this, inveterately, when enjoyed on the grand scale—variety, and many other queer matters as well, might have been smuggled in by a back door. Suffice it, to be brief, that the first person, in the long piece, is a form foredoomed to looseness and that looseness, never much my affair, had never been so little so as on this particular occasion. All of which reflexions flocked to the standard from the moment—a very early one—the question of how to keep my form amusing while sticking so close to my central figure and constantly taking its pattern from him had to be faced...

I was more than agitated enough to reflect that, grimly deprived of one alternative or one substitute for “telling,” I must address myself tooth and nail to another. I couldn’t, save by implication, make other persons tell each other about him—blest resource, blest necessity, of the drama, which reaches its effects of unity, all remarkably, by paths absolutely opposite to the paths of the novel: with other persons, save as they were primarily his persons (not he primarily but one of theirs), I had simply nothing to do. I had relations for him none the less, by the mercy of Providence, quite as much as if my exhibition was to be a muddle; if I could only by implication and a show of consequence make other persons tell each other about him, I could at least make him tell them whatever in the world he must; and could so, by the same token—which was a further luxury thrown in—see straight into the deep differences between what that could do for me, or at all events for him, and the large ease of “autobiography.” It may be asked why, if one so keeps to one’s hero, one shouldn’t make a single mouthful of “method,” shouldn’t throw the reins on his neck and, letting them flap there as free as in “Gil Blas” or in “David Copperfield,” equip him with the double privilege of subject and object—a course that has at least the merit of brushing away questions at a sweep. The answer to which is, I think, that one makes that surrender only if one is prepared not to make certain precious discriminations.

The “first person” then, so employed, is addressed by the author directly to ourselves, his possible readers, whom he has to reckon with, at the best, by our English tradition, so loosely and vaguely after all, so little respectfully, on so scant a presumption of exposure to criticism. Strether, on the other hand, encaged and provided for as “The Ambassadors” encages and provides, has to keep in view proprieties much stiffer and more salutary than any our straight and credulous gape are likely to bring home to him, has exhibitional conditions to meet, in a word, that forbid the terrible fluidity of self-revelation.

NOTE THAT: FORBID THE FLUIDITY OF SELF REVELATION! The fluidity of third person is better! 

 Half the dramatist’s art, as we well know—since if we don’t it’s not the fault of the proofs that lie scattered about us—is in the use of ficelles...

The material of “The Ambassadors,” conforming in this respect exactly to that of “The Wings of the Dove,” published just before it, is taken absolutely for the stuff of drama; so that, availing myself of the opportunity given me by this edition for some prefatory remarks on the latter work, I had mainly to make on its behalf the point of its scenic consistency. It disguises that virtue, in the oddest way in the world, by just looking, as we turn its pages, as little scenic as possible; but it sharply divides itself, just as the composition before us does, into the parts that prepare, that tend in fact to over-prepare, for scenes, and the parts, or otherwise into the scenes, that justify and crown the preparation. It may definitely be said, I think, that everything in it that is not scene (not, I of course mean, complete and functional scene, treating all the submitted matter, as by logical start, logical turn, and logical finish) is discriminated preparation, is the fusion and synthesis of picture. 

Henry James dismisses "today's reader",  the common idea of beauty, method, autobiography and the first person, not to mention drama, more subtly, for words like unity/consistency/intensity of effect/affect, scene, picture, composition and "the figure in the carpet:. For him, the novel is THE FORM of his time. He is the last of the great, traditional logocentric writers. To achieve all this, he uses the point of view specifically, very accurately, carefully, so finely that we have to learn of him if we want to use it. Enough said. Point taken, Well learned. Please do read The Ambassadors and if not, at least the full Preface and try to understand what a great lesson he has to teach us about form, genre, topic, central theme, the 'composition' of the novel and the POINT OF VIEW.,

I am not asking for your agreement with Henry James' views but stating that if you are a real student of literature, prose, non-fiction or novel writing you would do well to familiarize yourself with his prefaces and novels.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/432/432-h/432-h.htm#preface - you can read the Preface here to get its full beauty.

How to Write a Novel - Chapter 4 (More on the point of view)

 Of course, before going on I need to clear something up, which is that 'point of view' is not about the use of first-person, second-person, third-person, and plural forms of these only. Or about implying it by using the passive voice to leave it to be guessed by the reader the way I ended the last paragraph in the last chapter. Beckett often does that, it is a very common way of writing notes for drama, a kind of shorthand and maybe he brought it in from that or carried it from fiction to drama, not quite sure which and it doesn't matter. Suffice it to say it opens one more door.

A young, new writer or an old one who should be mature but need not be in technique, and still may write great literature, may use the point of view not being very clear about it. This leads to mixed narratives that need to be looked at to be learned from. Let us think of the actual process of composition and demystify it. When a writer writes he is there in his writing, plus a narrator, plus the character or characters in whom also one finds him, and only then do they have in them something of their own. Few writers reach the point where the character refines the author out of existence in himself, to misquote Joyce.  Dickens and Beckett admit to their folly by giving David Copperfield Dickens' initials in reverse in the novel of the same name and Beckett does the same in More Pricks than Kicks by naming his character Belaqua Shuah, S B in reverse, but this is just the tip of this particular iceberg.

Let us look at it more carefully. There is the author. Then there is a narrator, sometimes, who may be the author at that particular place in time, or not, or partly him. There is a character who may have something of the author in him or not.   The latter two may or may not be the same person. Clear? No? That is exactly what I mean too. If the author knew what he was doing he would be clear., it would be clear but when he does not or allows mix-ups it won't be, whether it is a bad habit with him or immaturity, youth, or he pulls it off successfully. The best writers learn by doing and not necessarily from a textbook so all this is allowed bu meanwhile it may help you to see what I mean by looking at Hard Times or More Pricks than Kicks in slightly more detail. Unless I proof-text things, they mean nothing.

Here is the beginning of Chapter 2 of "Hard Times."

"Thomas Gradgrind, sir.  A man of realities.  A man of facts and calculations.  A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over.  Thomas Gradgrind, sir—peremptorily Thomas—Thomas Gradgrind.  With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to.  It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic.  You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind—no, sir!

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general.  In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words ‘boys and girls,’ for ‘sir,’ Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge.  He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.

‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, ‘I don’t know that girl.  Who is that girl?"

To break it up for you - the first paragraph is the character thinking. We are in his head. This is omniscient narrative as the narrator can see inside the heads of his characters, and whether it is a limited omniscience or not is not clear yet for those who have read the novel till this juncture, but in the next paragraph, we need/see/notice the narrator. He interpolates himself with a "no doubt". He is not to be doubted, in other words, unlike Thomas Gradgrind. And we see why when he suddenly uses three similes/metaphors why we should side with the narrator.  He says the students are to the owner of the school "little pitchers soon to be filled with facts." A disconcerting image. Then he compares Gradgrind, ideally named, to a "cannon...prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge" bringing in power, colonialism and imperialism to education and the classroom, as negative things, and lastly, he uses the metaphor of a "galvanizing apparatus" for Gradgrind, and by using the adjective "grim" with "mechanical" and "substitute" which will take the place of "imagination", storming it away, he brings in irony against the industrial revolution with its mechanization and dehumanization. 

The narrator thus assumes a voice that is clearly connected to the author here and intrudes on us telling us not to think well of the character that he himself has created, in that particular time-frame in the novel. Whether this is 'showing' or wise I leave you to decide, but for me while it is not "showing" Dickens' savage similes and metaphors redeem it. 

Show and not tell, they say. 

This brings me to Henry James and the point of view. If you read me carefully, you'd understand that there is something called the omniscient (all-knowing) point of view, the limited omniscient point of view and first-person point of view, second-person point of view, third-person point of view, all in singular and plural etc., and all limited, so far, plus point of view in absentia by using the passive voice.

There can also be shifting points of view as I noted up above, from character to narrator in the instance I gave you, for example.

But which is the best one? According to many the third person point of view or he or she. This is where Henry James plays an appreciable trick. He brings in the fallible narrator or the narrator whose point of view cannot be taken for granted as the gospel truth. Take "The Ambassadors" and Lewis Lambert Strether. He goes to Europe to search for a missing American, a young man Chad, sent to look for him by his parent, the woman whom Lambert is engaged to, and also going to appease his own curiosity about Europe, from the New World (America), and is told by his fiance that Chad Newsome the young man is in the clutches of a femme fatale from France, who is obviously a witch, a harridan, a shrew and an older woman who is a temptress and all that. When he meets the femme fatale finally, he finds she has a beautiful daughter  Jeanne, a bad husband reportedly,  is called Marie de Vionnet, and does not seem anything like a femme fatale.  She charms him completely and against the hints thrown out by his friend Maria Gostrey, an American woman who knows Europe well but no longer holds rigid Boston Brahmin, puritan morals,  Lambert is about to go back at the end of the novel to report to his fiance that her son is not in anyone's grip and is only friends with the perfectly winsome and morally upright Marie. 

However, then at almost the very end of the novel he finds out that Chad is having a full-blown affair with Marie and everyone, almost, except he, knows about it and thinks nothing much of it. The word cougar did not yet exist, but one thinks of it in 2020, in relation with the novel and of Chad as only a cad, in relation with the decadence of Europe which is what Henry James has been getting at circuitously, that behind all the culture is only a superficiality that finally is only about, God forbid, sex an older woman wants with a younger man whom she seduces and keeps in her pocket, therefore, as he is handsome and American, for her own interests and the whole relationship has nothing to do with love on her or his part.

Henry James is the master of the fallible narrator or the untrustworthy/unreliable one whose views change in the course of the novel or are all along wrong as in the case of the Turn of the Screw. There are always two turns at least, in Henry James's screw(s), if not more.

Feminists may or may not like the novel and Baudrillard points out North America became even more decadent in his book on it, on the U.S.A, but for students of point of view Henry James' novels are compulsory reading, both the two I mentioned already and "Portrait of a Lady", to start off with. So are his prefaces,  - like Shaw's prologues are - (interference by me), as Ezra Pound pointed out.

You could start by reading the preface to "The Ambassadors."

How to Write a Novel - Chapter 3 by Dr Koshy AV

 We look at setting with different eyes. Different points of view. They say while teaching beginners, first-person, second-person, third-person, et al, to infinity, if you could only figure that out. They say don't use the second person. A writer who always believed in breaking rules was Samuel Beckett. 

So he wrote in his novella Company this haunting section:

"The light there was then. On your back in the dark the light there was then. Sunless cloudless brightness. You slip away at break of day and climb to your hiding place on the hillside. A nook in the gorse. East beyond the sea the faint shape of high mountain. Seventy miles away according to your Longman. For the third or fourth time in your life. The first time you told them and were derided. All you had seen was cloud. So now you hoard it in your heart with the rest. Back home at nightfall supperless to bed. You lie in the dark and are back in that light. Straining out from your nest in the gorse with your eyes across the water till they ache. You close them while you count a hundred. Then open and strain again. Again and again. Till in the end it is there. Palest blue against the pale sky . You lie in the dark and are back in that light. Fall asleep in that sunless cloudless light. Sleep till morning light."

http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/beckett-company.pdf

You can call it lyrical, you can call it poetry, you can call it prose, you can call it prose poetry, but the p(o)int is the way he uses the second person, not often used but used so well here you do not notice the difference, as you too are being used by it now by me, as in the hands of an adept you can use any 'person' and make it work, whether first, second, third or third, second and first or all mixed up. 

First person - I, we.

Think: Arthur C Clarke's title - I,Robot.

Think: God to Moses - "I AM THAT I AM."

Think: Treasure Island by R L Stevenson

"

"The Sea-chest

 

LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man's money—if he had any—was certainly due to us, but it was not likely that our captain's shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, Black Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house; the fall of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps; and what between the dead body of the captain on the parlour floor and the thought of that detestable blind beggar hovering near at hand and ready to return, there were moments when, as the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror. Something must speedily be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth together and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner said than done. Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and the frosty fog."

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/120/120-h/120-h.htm - (Chapter 4 of Treasure Island. first paragraph)

I must admit, we see in the above passage a beautiful use of I and we for narrating a story in the first- person, the same fluent way I have used I and we in this sentence!

Second person, - You singular and you plural.

Read again carefully what you were given above.

Third-person - He, she, it, they. 

How to use it and first-person together: "In the depths of the sea it had crept into the cruel pot. For hours, in the midst of its enemies, it had breathed secretly. It had survived the Frenchwoman’s cat and his witless clutch. Now it was going alive into scalding water. It had to. Take into the air my quiet breath."

How to use he, she, it, and they together: "His aunt was in the garden, tending whatever flowers die at that time of year. She embraced him and together they went down into the bowels of the earth, into the kitchen in the basement. She took the parcel and undid it and abruptly the lobster was on the table, on the oilcloth, discovered.

“They assured me it was fresh” said Belacqua.

Suddenly he saw the creature move, this neuter creature. Definitely it changed its position. His hand flew to his mouth.

“Christ!” he said “it’s alive.”

His aunt looked at the lobster. It moved again. It made a faint nervous act of life on the oilcloth. They stood above it, looking down on it, exposed cruciform on the oilcloth. It shuddered again. Belacqua felt he would be sick.

https://evergreenreview.com/read/dante-and-the-lobster/ (The excerpts are taken from Beckett's Dante and the Lobster, in his collection of short stories More Pricks than Kicks.)

Enough to start you off with, whether you are singular or plural and a he, she or they.  You can't be an it but you can be it. Isn't it? Now go for it and start using these points of view. 

More about point of view and narration in the coming chapter. In depth and profundity, more is there to come and be written. The absent point of view is to write without bringing in an I, he, she, they, we, you, you as is being done here in these last three sentences, by the way. Except that, as in deconstruction, I used them all in the last or previous or preceding sentence to say I did not use any of them!