Autobiography and Selected Essays. Thomas Henry Huxley
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related to the theme and to each other?
Do you find any digressions?
Is the method used in developing the groups inductive or deductive?
Is the method different in different groups?
Are the groups arranged for good emphasis in the whole composition?
c. Questions on the Conclusion.
How does the author conclude the essay?
Does the conclusion sum up the points of the essay?
Are any new points suggested?
Is the thought of the whole essay stated?
Do you consider it a strong conclusion?
3. Make out an outline which shall picture the skeleton of the essay studied. In making the outline express the topics in the form of complete statements, phrase the thought for clear sequence, and be careful about such matters as spacing and punctuation.
B. Analysis of paragraph structure.
1. Can a paragraph be analyzed in the same manner as the whole composition?
2. Can you express the thought of each paragraph in a complete sentence?
3. Can you find different points presented in the paragraph developing the paragraph topic, as the large groups of the whole composition develop the theme?
4. Are the paragraphs closely related, and how are they bound together?
5. Can any of the paragraphs be combined to advantage?
6. Read from Barrett Wendell's English Composition the chapter on paragraphs. Are Huxley's paragraphs constructed in accordance with the principles given in this chapter?
7. Is the paragraph type varied? For paragraph types, see Scott and Denny's Paragraph Writing.
C. Comparative study of the structure of the essay.
1. Do you find any difference between Huxley's earlier and later essays as regards the structure of the whole, or the structure of the paragraph?
2. Which essay seems to you to be most successful in structure?
3. Has the character of the audience any influence upon the structure of the essays?
4. Compare the structure of one of Huxley's essays with that of some other essay recently studied.
5. Has the nature of the material any influence upon the structure of the essay?
III. Suggestions for the Study of Style.
A. Exactly what do you mean by style?
B. Questions on sentence structure.
1. From any given essay, group together sentences which are long, short, loose, periodic, balanced, simple, compound; note those peculiar, for any reason, to Huxley.
2. Stevenson says, "The one rule is to be infinitely various; to interest, to disappoint, to surprise and still to gratify; to be ever changing, as it were, the stitch, and yet still to give the effect of ingenious neatness."
Do Huxley's sentences conform to Stevenson's rule? Compare Huxley's sentences with Stevenson's for variety in form. Is there any reason for the difference between the form of the two writers?
3. Does this quotation from Pater's essay on Style describe Huxley's sentences? "The blithe, crisp sentence, decisive as a child's expression of its needs, may alternate with the long-contending, victoriously intricate sentence; the sentence, born with the integrity of a single word, relieving the sort of sentence in which, if you look closely, you can see contrivance, much adjustment, to bring a highly qualified matter into compass at one view."
4. How do Huxley's sentences compare with those of Ruskin, or with those of any author recently studied?
5. Are Huxley's sentences musical? How does an author make his sentences musical?
C. Questions on words.
1. Do you find evidence of exactness, a quality which Huxley said he labored for?
2. Are the words general or specific in character?
3. How does Huxley make his subject-matter attractive?
4. From what sources does Huxley derive his words? Are they every-day words, or more scholarly in character?
5. Do you find any figures? Are these mainly ornamental or do they re-enforce the thought?
8. Are there many allusions and quotations? Can you easily recognize the source?
7. Pater says in his essay on Style that the literary artist "begets a vocabulary faithful to the colouring of his own spirit, and in the strictest sense original." Do you find that Huxley's vocabulary suggests the man?
8. Does Huxley seem to search for "the smooth, or winsome, or forcible word, as such, or quite simply and honestly, for the word's adjustment to its meaning"?
9. Make out a list of the words and proper names in any given essay which are not familiar to you; write out the explanation of these in the form of notes giving any information which is interesting and relevant.
D. General questions on style.
1. How is Huxley's style adapted to the subject-matter?
2. Can you explain the difference in style of the different essays by the difference in purpose?
3. Compare Huxley's way of saying things with some other author's way of saying things.
4. Huxley says of his essays to workingmen, "I only wish I had had the sense to anticipate the run these have had here and abroad, and I would have revised them properly. As they stand they are terribly in the rough, from a literary point of view."
Do you find evidences of roughness?
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