【英文读物】The Art of Story-Telling.docx

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1、【英文读物】The Art of Story-TellingPREFACE.By Professor John Adams, Chair of Education, University of London.Those who do not love schoolmasters tell us that the man who can do something supremely well contents himself with doing it, while the man who cannot do it very well must needs set about showing o

2、ther people how it should be done. The masters in any craft are prone to magnify their gifts by maintaining that the poetor the stove-pipe makeris born, not made. Teachers will accordingly be gratified to find in the following pages the work of a lady who is at the same time a brilliant executant an

3、d an admirable expositor. Miss Shedlock stands in the very first rank of story-tellers. No one can claim with greater justice that the gift of Scheherazade is hers by birthright. Yet she has recognised that even the highest natural gifts may be well or ill manipulated: that in short the poet, not to

4、 speak of the stove-pipe maker, must take a little more trouble than to be merely born.It is well when the master of a craft begins to take thought and to discover what underlies his method. It does not, of course, happen that every master is able to analyse the processes that secure him success in

5、his art. For after all the expositor has to be born as well as the executant; and it is perhaps one of the main causes of the popularity of the born-not-made theory that so few people are born both good artists viiiand good expositors. Miss Shedlock has had this rare good fortune, as all those who h

6、ave both read her book and heard her exemplify her principles on the platform will readily admit.Let no one who lacks the gift of story-telling hope that the following pages will confer it. Like Comenius and like the schoolmaster in Shakespeare, Miss Shedlock is entitled to claim a certain capacity

7、or ingenuity in her pupils, before she can promise effective help. But on the other hand let no successful story-teller form the impression that he has nothing to learn from the exposition here given. The best craftsmen are those who are not only most able but most willing to learn from a fellow mas

8、ter. The most inexperienced story-teller who has the love of the art in his soul will gather a full harvest from Miss Shedlocks teaching, while the most experienced and skilful will not go empty away.The reader will discover that the authoress is first and last an artist. “Dramatic joy” is put in th

9、e forefront when she is enumerating the aims of the story-teller. But her innate gifts as a teacher will not be suppressed. She objects to “didactic emphasis” and yet cannot say too much in favour of the moral effect that may be produced by the use of the story. She raises here the whole problem of

10、direct versus indirect moral instruction, and decides in no uncertain sound in favour of the indirect form. There is a great deal to be said on the other side, but this is not the place to say it. On the wide question Miss Shedlock has on her side the great body of public opinion among professional

11、teachers. The orthodox master proclaims that he is, of course, a moral instructor, but adds that in the schoolroom the less said about the matter the better. Like the authoress, the orthodox ixteacher has much greater faith in example than in precept: so much faith indeed that in many schools precep

12、t does not get the place it deserves. But in the matter of story-telling the artistic element introduces something that is not necessarily involved in ordinary school work. For better or for worse modern opinion is against the explicitly stated lesson to be drawn from any tale that is told. Most peo

13、ple agree with Mark Twains condemnation of “the moral that wags its crippled tail at the end of most school-girls essays.”The justification of the old-fashioned “moral” was not artistic but didactic. It embodied the determination of the story-teller to see that his pupils got the full benefit of the

14、 lesson involved. If the moral is to be cut out, the story-teller must be sure that the lesson is so clearly conveyed in the text that any further elaboration would be felt as an impertinent addition. Whately assures us that men prefer metaphors to similes because in the simile the point is baldly s

15、tated, whereas in the metaphor the reader or hearer has to be his own interpreter. All education is in the last resort self-education, and Miss Shedlock sees to it that her stories compel her hearers to make the application she desires.In two other points modern opinion is prepared to give our autho

16、ress rein where our forefathers would have been inclined to restrain her. The sense of humour has come to its proper place in our schoolroomspupils humour, be it understood, for there always was scope enough claimed for the humour of the teacher. So with the imagination. The time is past when this “

17、mode of being conscious” was looked at askance in school. Parents and teachers no longer speak contemptuously about “the busy faculty,” and quote Genesis in its condemnation.xMiss Shedlock has been well advised to keep to her legitimate subject instead of wandering afield in a Teutonic excursion int

18、o the realms of folk-lore. What parents and teachers want is the story as here and now existing and an account of how best to manipulate it. This want the book now before us admirably meets.JOHN ADAMS. INTRODUCTION.Story-telling is almost the oldest Art in the worldthe first conscious form of litera

19、ry communication. In the East it still survives, and it is not an uncommon thing to see a crowd at a street-corner held by the simple narration of a story. There are signs in the West of a growing interest in this ancient art, and we may yet live to see the renaissance of the troubadours and the min

20、strels whose appeal will then rival that of the mob orator or itinerant politician. One of the surest signs of a belief in the educational power of the story is its introduction into the curriculum of the Training-College and the classes of the Elementary and Secondary Schools. It is just at the tim

21、e when the imagination is most keenthe mind being unhampered by accumulation of factsthat stories appeal most vividly and are retained for all time.It is to be hoped that some day stories will only be told to school groups by experts who have devoted special time and preparation to the art of tellin

22、g them. It is a great fallacy to suppose that the systematic study of story-telling destroys the spontaneity of narrative. After a long experience, I find the exact converse to be true, namely, that it is only when one has overcome the mechanical difficulties that one can “let oneself go” in the dra

23、matic interest of the story.By the expert story-teller I do not mean the professional elocutionist. The namewrongly enoughhas become associated in the mind of the public with persons who beat their breast, tear their hair, and 2declaim blood-curdling episodes. A decade or more ago, the drawing-room

24、reciter was of this type, and was rapidly becoming the bugbear of social gatherings. The difference between the stilted reciter and the simple story-teller is perhaps best illustrated by an episode in Hans C. Andersens immortal story of the Nightingale.1 The real Nightingale and the artificial Night

25、ingale have been bidden by the Emperor to unite their forces and to sing a duet at a Court function. The duet turns out most disastrously, and whilst the artificial Nightingale is singing his one solo for the thirty-third time, the real Nightingale flies out of the window back to the green wooda tru

26、e artist, instinctively choosing his right atmosphere. But the bandmastersymbol of the pompous pedagoguein trying to soothe the outraged feelings of the courtiers, says, “Because, you see, Ladies and Gentlemen, and, above all, Your Imperial Majesty, with the real nightingale you never can tell what

27、you will hear, but in the artificial nightingale everything is decided beforehand. So it is, and so it must remain. It cannot be otherwise.”And as in the case of the two nightingales, so it is with the stilted reciter and the simple narrator: one is busy displaying the machinery, showing “how the tu

28、nes go”the other is anxious to conceal the art. Simplicity should be the keynote of story-telling, but (and here the comparison with the Nightingale breaks down) it is a simplicity which comes after much training in self-control, and much hard work in overcoming the difficulties which beset the pres

29、entation.I do not mean that there are not born story-tellers who could hold an audience without preparation, but 3they are so rare in number that we can afford to neglect them in our general consideration; for this work is dedicated to the average story-tellers anxious to make the best use of their

30、dramatic ability, and it is to them that I present my plea for special study and preparation before telling a story to a group of childrenthat is, if they wish for the far-reaching effects I shall speak of later on. Only the preparation must be of a much less stereotyped nature than that by which th

31、e ordinary reciters are trained for their career.Some years ago, when I was in the States, I was asked to put into the form of lectures my views upon the educational value of telling stories. A sudden inspiration seized me. I began to cherish a dream of long hours to be spent in the British Museum,

32、the Congressional Library in Washington and the Public Library at Bostonand this is the only portion of the dream which has been realized. I planned an elaborate scheme of research work which was to result in a magnificent (if musty) philological treatise. I thought of trying to discover by long and

33、 patient researches what species of lullaby were crooned by Egyptian mothers to their babes, and what were the elementary dramatic poems in vogue among Assyrian nursemaids which were the prototypes of “Little Jack Horner,” “Dickory, Dickory Dock,” and other nursery classics. I intended to follow up

34、the study of these ancient documents by making an appendix of modern variants, showing what progress we had madeif anyamong modern nations.But there came to me suddenly one day the remembrance of a scene from Racines “Plaideurs” in which the counsel for the defence, eager to show how fundamental is

35、his knowledge, begins his speech:4“Before the Creation of the World”And the Judge (with a touch of weariness tempered by humour) suggests:“Let us pass on to the Deluge.”And thus I, too, have “passed on to the Deluge.” I have abandoned an account of the origin and past of stories which at the best wo

36、uld only have displayed a little recently-acquired book-knowledge. When I thought of the number of scholars who could treat this part of the question so infinitely better than myself, I realized how much wiser it would bethough the task is much more humdrumto deal with the present possibilities of s

37、tory-telling for our generation of parents and teachers, and, leaving out the folk-lore side, devote myself to the story itself.My objects in urging the use of stories in the education of children are at least five-fold:First, to give them dramatic joy, for which they have a natural craving. Secondl

38、y, to develop a sense of humour, which is really a sense of proportion. Thirdly, to correct certain tendencies by showing the consequences in the career of the hero in the story. (Of this motive the children must be quite unconscious, and there must be no didactic emphasis.) Fourthly, by means of ex

39、ample, not precept, to present such ideals as will sooner or later (I care not which) be translated into action. Fifthly, to develop the imagination, which really takes in all the other points.So much for the purely educational side of the book. But the art of story-telling, quite apart from the sub

40、ject, appeals not only to the educational world or to parents as parents, but also to a wider outside public, who may be interested in the purely human point of view.In great contrast to the lofty scheme I had originally5 proposed to myself, I now simply place before all those who are interested in

41、the Art of Story-telling in any form the practical experience I have had in my travels across the United States and through England; and, because I am confining myself to personal experience which must of necessity be limited, I am very anxious not to appear dogmatic or to give the impression that I

42、 wish to lay down the law on the subject. But I hope my readers may profit by my errors, improve on my methods, and thus help to bring about the revival of an almost lost artone which appeals more directly and more stirringly than any other method to the majority of listeners.In Sir Philip Sidneys “

43、Defence of Poesy” we find these words:“Forsooth he cometh to you with a tale, which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner, and pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things

44、by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste.”CHAPTER I.The Difficulties of the Story.I propose to deal in this chapter with the difficulties or dangers which beset the path of the Story-teller, because, until we have overcome these, we cannot hope for the finished and artistic presentation

45、 which is to bring out the full value of the story.The difficulties are many, and yet they ought not to discourage the would-be narrators, but only show them how all-important is the preparation for the story, if it is to have the desired effect.I propose to illustrate by concrete examples, thereby

46、hoping to achieve a two-fold result: one to fix the subject more clearly in the mind of the studentthe other to use the Art of Story-telling to explain itself.I have chosen one or two instances from my own personal experience. The grave mistakes made in my own case may serve as a warning to others,

47、who will find, however, that experience is the best teacher. For positive work, in the long run, we generally find out our own method. On the negative side, however, it is useful to have certain pitfalls pointed out to us, in order that we may save time by avoiding them: it is for this reason that I

48、 sound a note of warning. These are:I.The danger of side issues. An inexperienced story-teller is exposed to the temptation of breaking off from the main dramatic interest in a short exciting story, in order to introduce a side issue, which is often interesting and helpful, but should be reserved fo

49、r a longer and less dramatic story. If the interest turns 7on some dramatic moment, the action must be quick and uninterrupted, or it will lose half its effect.I had been telling a class of young children the story of Polyphemus and Ulysses, and, just at the most dramatic moment in it, some impulse prompted me to go off on a side issue to describe the personal appearance of Ulysses.The children were visibly bored, but with polite indifference they listen