Scrutiny of a Paragraph from "Hard Times"

 

 

          The following six sentences are from “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens…

 

“The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve.

The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall.

 The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set.

The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial.

The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside.

The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,—nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was,—all helped the emphasis.”

Those six sentences, italics mine, form one paragraph. I have separated the sentences here so as to help identify the usage of the words “emphasized” and “emphasis”, within those sentences.

In sentence one we see the word used as a verb applying to “observations”.

In subsequent sentences we read how the emphasis was aided by some opprobrium of personal trait of “the speaker”.

I am convinced that Dickens, a master of opprobrium, did not, in these sentences, exhaustively apply opprobrium, but did so sparingly so as to avoid reaching the point of intolerance of the reader.

I hope, in my scrutiny of this paragraph, to have helped the reader grasp an appreciation of Dicken’s style of over-emphasis of garrulous detail.

Envious of his writing style since first reading “Hard Times” in 1969, I have tried to emulate to some degree his expertise of adjuring words and imagery such that my reader would respond with either chuckle, chortle, or well-chosen opprobrium.

In Which I Celebrate Herman Melville's "Burglariously"

 

  

artist:Joseph Oriel Eaton

  Being an appreciant of the complex sentence structure, labyrinthine grammar, and plenteous punctuation, adjective, and adverb, of 19^th century literature, I decided to read some short stories by the acclaimed Herman Melville so as to humor my pining for such literary device.

    While reading “Temple First” (of “The Two Temples”), I adventured upon the word “burglariously”.

I have noticed other 19^th century wordsmiths of grandiose application take nouns and adverbalize them for the effect of eccentricity.

I particularly enjoy this particular term for its unwieldy enunciation. “Burglariously” just doesn’t roll off the tongue in ease. One must decidedly take a moment of tongue-taming to coax it forth from the lips.

But, indeed, once practiced twice or thrice, the word does respond in obedience and thereby arouse attention from unexpectant hearers and, invariably, critics of creative, albeit, somewhat nugatory prose.