What does Forster (Aspects of the Novel, 1927, ch. VIII) mean by 'pattern' and by 'rhythm', how does pattern relate to story and plot, and what checks and costs follow for planning a work's overall shape?
1927 criticism. Forster calls the third aspect after story and plot 'pattern' (borrowed from painting) and, where beauty is not the shape of the whole, 'rhythm' (borrowed from music) (E1, E17). Story appeals to curiosity, plot to intelligence, pattern to the aesthetic sense, 'it causes us to see the book as a whole' (E3, E4); pattern springs mainly from the plot (E9). His two worked cases are hour-glass shapes (Thais, The Ambassadors) and a grand chain (Roman Pictures) (E5, E6, E8, E10). The price of rigid pattern, in his reading of Henry James, is that most of human life is pruned away (E12, E13, E15), and his own verdict is that most readers find it 'beautifully done, but not worth doing' (E16). Rhythm is his alternative: recurrence with variation, like Proust's little phrase, which may be forgotten for long stretches (E18-E22); done badly it hardens into a symbol (E23, E24), and he doubts it can be planned beforehand (E25). A second, whole-symphony rhythm he cannot illustrate fro...
Structured fields
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"url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70492/pg70492.txt",
"note": "Ch. VIII pattern and rhythm"
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}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] 1927 criticism. Forster calls the third aspect after story and plot 'pattern' (borrowed from painting) and, where beauty is not the shape of the whole, 'rhythm' (borrowed from music) (E1, E17). Story appeals to curiosity, plot to intelligence, pattern to the aesthetic sense, 'it causes us to see the book as a whole' (E3, E4); pattern springs mainly from the plot (E9). His two worked cases are hour-glass shapes (Thais, The Ambassadors) and a grand chain (Roman Pictures) (E5, E6, E8, E10). The price of rigid pattern, in his reading of Henry James, is that most of human life is pruned away (E12, E13, E15), and his own verdict is that most readers find it 'beautifully done, but not worth doing' (E16). Rhythm is his alternative: recurrence with variation, like Proust's little phrase, which may be forgotten for long stretches (E18-E22); done badly it hardens into a symbol (E23, E24), and he doubts it can be planned beforehand (E25). A second, whole-symphony rhythm he cannot illustrate from fiction (E26, E27), and he proposes 'expansion' as the aim (E28). · locator: Ch. VIII pattern and rhythm source
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