The Art of the Story-Teller Part 1

The Art of the Story-Teller.

by Marie L. Shedlock.

PREFACE.

Some day we shall have a science of education comparable to the science of medicine; but even when that day arrives the art of education will still remain the inspiration and the guide of all wise teachers. The laws that regulate our physical and mental development will be reduced to order; but the impulses which lead each new generation to play its way into possession of all that is best in life will still have to be interpreted for us by the artists who, with the wisdom of years, have not lost the direct vision of children.

Some years ago I heard Miss Shedlock tell stories in England. Her fine sense of literary and dramatic values, her power in sympathetic interpretation, always restrained within the limits of the art she was using, and her understanding of educational values, based on a wide experience of teaching, all marked her as an artist in story-telling.

She was equally at home in interpreting the subtle blending of wit and wisdom in Daudet, the folk lore philosophy of Grimm, or the deeper world philosophy and poignant human appeal of Hans Christian Andersen.

Then she came to America and for two or three years she taught us the difference between the nightingale that sings in the tree tops and the artificial bird that goes with a spring. Cities like New York, Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago listened and heard, if sometimes indistinctly, the notes of universal appeal, and children saw the Arabian Nights come true.

Yielding to the appeals of her friends in America and England, Miss Shedlock has put together in this little book such observations and suggestions on story-telling as can be put in words. Those who have the artist's spirit will find their sense of values quickened by her words, and they will be led to escape some of the errors into which even the greatest artists fall. And even those who tell stories with their minds will find in these papers wise generalizations and suggestions born of wide experience and extended study which well go far towards making even an artificial nightingale's song less mechanical. To those who know, the book is a revelation of the intimate relation between a child's instincts and the finished art of dramatic presentation. To those who do not know it will bring echoes of reality.

Earl Barnes.

INTRODUCTION.

Story-telling is almost the oldest art in the world--the first conscious form of literary 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 minstrels 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 cla.s.ses of the elementary and secondary schools. It is just at the time when the imagination is most keen, the mind being unhampered by acc.u.mulation of facts, that stories appeal most vividly and are retained for all time.

It is to be hoped that some day stories will be told to school groups only by experts who have devoted special time and preparation to the art of telling 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 one's self go" in the dramatic interest of the story.

By the expert story-teller I do not mean the professional elocutionist.

The name, wrongly enough, has become a.s.sociated in the mind of the public with persons who beat their breast, tear their hair, and declaim blood-curdling episodes. A decade or more ago, the drawing-room 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 ill.u.s.trated by an episode in Hans Christian Andersen's immortal "Story of the Nightingale." The real Nightingale and the artificial Nightingale 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 while 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 wood--a true artist, instinctively choosing his right atmosphere. But the bandmaster--symbol of the pompous pedagogue--in 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 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 tunes go"; the other is anxious to conceal the art.

Simplicity should be the keynote of story-telling, but (and her 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 presentation.

I do not mean that there are not born story-tellers who _could_ hold an audience without preparation, but they 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 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 children--that 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 the ordinary reciters are trained for their career.

Some years ago, when I was in America, I was asked to put into the form of lectures my views as to 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, the Congressional Library in Was.h.i.+ngton and the Public Library in Boston--and 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 patient researches what species of lullaby were crooned by Egyptian mothers to their babes, and what were the elementary dramatic poems in vogue among a.s.syrian nursemaids which were the prototypes of "Little Jack Horner," "d.i.c.kory, d.i.c.kory Dock"

and other nursery cla.s.sics. I intended to follow up the study of these ancient doc.u.ments by making an appendix of modern variants, showing what progress we had made--if any--among modern nations.

But there came to me suddenly one day the remembrance of a scene from Racine's "Plaideurs," in which the counsel for the defence, eager to show how fundamental his knowledge, begins his speech: "Before the Creation of the World"--And the Judge (with a touch of weariness tempered by humor) suggests:

"Let us pa.s.s on to the Deluge."

And thus I, too, have pa.s.sed on to the Deluge. I have abandoned an account of the origin and past of stories which at best would 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 infinitely better than myself, I realized how much wiser it would be--though the task is more humdrum--to deal with the present possibilities of story-telling for our generation of parents and teachers.

My objects in urging the use of stories in the education of children are at least fivefold:

First, to give them dramatic joy, for which they have a natural craving; to develop a sense of humor, which is really a sense of proportion; 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 should be no didactic emphasis]; to present by means of example, not precept, such ideals as will sooner or later be translated into action; and finally, to develop the imagination, which really includes all the other points.

But the art of story-telling appeals not only to the educational world and to parents as parents, but also to a wider public interested in the subject from a purely human point of view.

In contrast to the lofty scheme I had originally proposed to myself, I now simply place before all those who are interested in the art of story-telling in any form the practical experiences I have had in my travels in America and England.

I hope that my readers may profit by my errors, improve on my methods, and thus help to bring about the revival of an almost lost art.

In Sir Philip Sydney's "Defence of Poesie: 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 by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste."

MARIE L. SHEDLOCK, LONDON.

PART I. THE ART OF THE STORY-TELLER.

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 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 ill.u.s.trate by concrete examples, thereby serving a twofold purpose: one to fix the subject more clearly in the mind of the student, the 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 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 sound a note of warning.

1. There is _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 which must be left for a longer and less dramatic story. If the interest turns on some dramatic moment, the action must be quick and uninterrupted, or it will lose half its effect.

I had been telling a cla.s.s of young children the story of Polyphemus and Ulysses, and just at the most dramatic moment in the story some impulse for which I cannot account 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 listened to my elaborate description of the hero. If I had given them an actual description from Homer, I believe that the strength of the language would have appealed to their imagination (all the more strongly because the might not have understood the individual words) and have lessened their disappointment at the dramatic issue being postponed; but I trusted to my own lame verbal efforts, and signally failed. Attention flagged, fidgeting began, the atmosphere was rapidly becoming spoiled in spit of the patience and toleration still shown by the children. At last, however, one little girl in the front row, as spokeswoman for the cla.s.s, suddenly said: "If you please, before you go on any further, do you mind telling us whether, after all, that Poly . . . [slight pause] . . . that . . . [final attempt]

. . . _Polyanthus_ died?"

Now, the remembrance of this question has been of extreme use to me in my career as a story-teller. I have realized that in a short dramatic story the mind of the listeners must be set at ease with regard to the ultimate fate of the special Polyanthus who takes the center of the stage.

I remember, too, the despair of a little boy at a dramatic representation of "Little Red Riding-Hood," when that little person delayed the thrilling catastrophe with the Wolf, by singing a pleasant song on her way through the wood. "Oh, why," said the little boy, "does she not get on?" And I quite shared his impatience.

This warning is necessary only in connection with the short dramatic narrative. There are occasions when we can well afford to offer short descriptions for the sake of literary style, and for the purpose of enlarging the vocabulary of the child. I have found, however, in these cases, it is well to take the children into your confidence, warning them that they are to expect nothing particularly exciting in the way of dramatic event. They will then settle down with a freer mind (though the mood may include a touch of resignation) to the description you are about to offer them.

2. _Altering the story to suit special occasions_ is done sometimes from extreme conscientiousness, sometimes from sheer ignorance of the ways of children. It is the desire to protect them from knowledge which they already possess and with which they, equally conscientious, are apt to "turn and rend" the narrator. I remember once when I was telling the story of the Siege of Troy to very young children, I suddenly felt anxious lest there should be anything in the story of the rape of Helen not altogether suitable for the average age of the cla.s.s, namely, nine years. I threw, therefore, a domestic coloring over the whole subject and presented an imaginary conversation between Paris and Helen, in which Paris tried to persuade Helen that she was strong-minded woman thrown away on a limited society in Sparta, and that she should come away and visit some of the inst.i.tutions of the world with him, which would doubtless prove a mutually instructive journey.[1] I then gave the children the view taken by Herodotus that Helen never went to Troy, but was detained in Egypt. The children were much thrilled by the story, and responded most eagerly when, in my inexperience, I invited them to reproduce in writing for the next day the story I had just told them. A small child presented _me_, as you will see, with the ethical problem from which I had so laboriously protected _her_. The essay ran:

Once upon a time the King of Troy's son was called Paris. And he went over to _Greace_ to see what it was like. And here he saw the beautiful Helen_er,_ and likewise her husband Menela_yus_. And one day, Menelayus went out hunting, and left Paris and Helener alone, and Paris said: "Do you not feel _dul_ in this _palis_?"_[2] And Helener said: "I feel very dull in this _pallice_," and Paris said: "Come away and see the world with me." So they _sliped_ off together, and they came to the King of Egypt, and _he_ said: "Who _is_ the young lady"? So Paris told him. "But," said the King, "it is not _propper_ for you to go off with other people's _wifes_. So Helener shall stop here." Paris stamped his foot. When Menelayus got home, _he_ stamped his foot. And he called round him all his soldiers, and they stood round Troy for eleven years. At last they thought it was no use _standing_ any longer, so they built a wooden horse in memory of Helener and the Trojans and it was taken into the town.

Now, the mistake I made in my presentation was to lay any particular stress on the reason for elopement by my careful readjustment, which really called more attention to the episode than was necessary for the age of my audience; and evidently caused confusion in the minds of some of the children who knew the story in its more accurate original form.

While traveling in America, I was provided with a delightful appendix to this story. I had been telling Miss Longfellow and her sister the little girl's version of the Siege of Troy, and Mrs. Thorpe made the following comment, with the American humor the dryness of which adds so much to its value: