One immediately
thinks of Bovary, and how the dramatic scenes mark and affirm the
structural lines of that story.
Drama, then, gives the final stroke, it is the final stroke which it
is adapted to deliver; and picture is to be considered as subordinate,
preliminary and preparatory. This seems a plain inference, on the
whole, from all the books I have been concerned with, not Bovary only.
Picture, the general survey, with its command of time and space,
finds its opportunity where a long reach is more needed than sharp
visibility. It is entirely independent where drama is circumscribed.
It travels over periods and expanses, to and fro, pausing here,
driving off into the distance there, making no account of the bounds
of a particular occasion, but seeking its material wherever it
chooses. Its office is to pile up an accumulated impression that will
presently be completed by another agency, drama, which lacks what
picture possesses, possesses what it lacks. Something of this kind,
broadly speaking, is evidently their relation; and it is to be
expected that a novelist will hold them to their natural functions,
broadly speaking, in building his book. It is only a rough contrast,
of course, the first and main difference between them that strikes the
eye; comparing them more closely, one might find other divergences
that would set their relation in a new light.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276