The prevailing belief at the present time is that a profound difference obtains between poetry and expository prose.
We are told that prose opens into the world while poetry is a closed circle.
Prose has designs on us, wishes to communicate or persuade; poetry does not.
Prose is univocal: it means one thing only. Poetry is ambiguous: it means as many things as it has readers.
One could go on. The above points seem quite enough, however, for it would take a great deal of ability to disprove them. Fortunately, there is another way. If we set aside these ideas momentarily and look elsewhere, behind us, perhaps, we will see something entirely different--viz, that works generated by poetics are very similar in their structure to works generated by rhetoric.
With structure in mind, I will bring up medieval narrative poetry at the outset of this discussion. The Middle Ages was a time which did not distinguish too nicely between rhetoric and poetics. One frequently reads that medieval poetics was in fact rhetoric-based. What this means in part is that poets consulted rhetoric texts to master scores of tropes, schemes, and figures. But they got their ideas about "arrangement" from these texts as well. Therefore, rhetoric was bound to influence the structure of medieval poetry.
How do you move the action along in a medieval text? You move it by a series of arguments. It is the speech which the poet really wants to write. The speech is built from the principles of rhetoric. Therefore, the poem becomes a structure which allows the poet to display his rhetorical ability. He more or less hangs examples of it on a clothesline, devising situations so that his characters always have to be persuaded to act. The narrative builds to a speech. Action follows. The narrative builds to another speech. That is the formula. The poet makes his mark by the quality of the speeches he writes, not by his narrative and descriptive links.
Troilus and Cressida is an example. Chaucer opens with narration. A Trojan named Chryses departs Troy to side with the Greeks and leaves behind his daughter, Cressida, who, fearing for her life, seeks and gains the protection of Hector. She is presented as an attractive widow who behaves herself. Troilus, meanwhile, a big hero on the battlefield, is a dud avocado in society because he is highly scornful of lovers. Unfortunately for him his principles take leave at an untimely moment. He sees Cressida at a party and falls hopelessly in love.
This completes preparation for the first argument. Troilus now has to convince himself that it is okay to love Cressida. Chaucer supplies the arguments, putting some of them in Troilus's head and others in Troilus's song, the gist of the latter being a Gershwinian refrain, if love is bad, why does it feel so good? The arguments convince Troilus to accept the love, but he ruefully expects it to be unrequited.
Chaucer now prepares for the next arguments. He narrates. He tells us that Troilus becomes even more of a tiger in battle, being inspired by his love for Cressida, but off-duty he mopes around the house and grows pale and wan. Afraid of being mocked, therefore telling no one of his love, the big guy becomes immobile. To move the action along, Chaucer brings in Pandarus, whose only function is to persuade Troilus to do something. He argues that Troilus should tell him the name of the lucky girl. Troilus says her name is Cressida. He argues that Troilus should give him his leave to act as his go-between. Troilus gives him leave. By the end of Book I Troilus has put management of his affair entirely in the hands of Pandarus and we await further developments (and a continuation of the same structural pattern) in Book II.
This is a clear example of how rhetoric affects the structure and even the concept of fiction. Moving on, I'd like to look at the structural line itself. Whether it be a clothesline upon which to hang speeches or the plotline of a modern short story, it contains the same elements. The line moves through a series of events which are related by cause and effect and form a continuous chain. The beginning is the first and the end the final event in the chain. Intervening events constitute the middle. The classical story opens in medias res, flashes back to the beginning, and moves forward to the end, passing through a reversal, recognition, and climax en route and moving on to a denouement beyond the end. The opening scene in this structure is important. Besides giving details of character, setting, and situation, it also reveals the opposition and the issue which the story will develop.
We might next look at the structural line of a classical speech or of modern expository prose, or listen to what is being taught by composition instructors throughout the land. The basic structure of the essay, they say, is introduction, body, conclusion. Introduction contains information relevant to the topic and a thesis statement, which is developed in the body of the essay to a reasonable conclusion in the last paragraph and perhaps a statement about the significance of the conclusion. Development means that we present convincing evidence or arguments and that we pay some attention to order, the classical arrangement being 4,1,2,3,5, where 4 equals the second strongest and 5 the strongest bit of evidence or argument. Development might also mean a succession of small arguments each one building upon the conclusion of the previous one until a strong chain is forged to support a final conclusion.
The parallels seem obvious to me. Opening parallels introduction. They both give relevant information and identify the issue that will be developed. Body and middle are parallel. They both form a chain in which the 4,1,2,3,5 arrangement parallels the in medias res opening and flashback, and evidence or arguments rise in strength just as events rise to a climax. Finally, end and denouement parallel conclusion.
To my mind, the most significant of these parallels is the first. The essayist reveals his thesis in the introduction. Does the writer of fiction really do the same? I think he does. He may not pose an abstract question. But he will pose a fictive issue. He does so in the following stories.
Faulkner's "Barn Burning" opens in a general store. Abner Snopes is on trial for burning Mr. Harris's barn. His young son Sarty faces a dilemma. He knows his father is guilty. He knows he is supposed to lie if called upon to testify. Because he has an innate sense of fairness, he wants to tell the truth. But he cannot testify against his father because of "the old fierce pull of blood." "He's my father," Sarty says to himself. Thus, the dilemma. He is almost forced to testify in the introduction, but Mr. Harris will not put the burden on him. Nonetheless, this event lets us know where the story is going. Eventually Sarty will have to testify. When the time comes, will he lie to save his fathe[r] or tell the truth to champion justice? And what will happen as a result? This issue is presented in the first page and a half and developed in the rest of the story.
The issue in Troilus and Cressida is also presented in the introduction. Troilus mocks lovers. He is warned by the narrator that this is a dangerous game. We are likely to forget the warning if we become involved in the courtship. But the story develops out of the warning. Chaucer goes on to "prove" that to mock love is dangerous by letting the God of Love get his revenge. The love affair between Troilus and Cressida can be read as a set-up (and, therefore, a variation of the Phaedra theme). Troilus is set up for tragedy by the God of Love, who makes him fall in love with a woman who will betray him.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" has a classic structure. It is modeled on the five-paragraph essay (or Horace's five-act play). Part I is introduction, parts II, III, and IV are body, and part V is conclusion. The introduction sets up in 4-plus pages the following issue, will Charlie get his daughter back or not. It gives a picture of the carelessness of his earlier life in Paris to demonstrate why he lost custody of her. It describes him as a "new" Charlie (reformed, mature, in control of his life) to show that he is now responsible and able to take care of Honoria. It shows that the love between himself and Honoria is genuine so that the reader wants them to be reunited. It shows the continued antipathy of Marion Peters so that we realize that she is a major obstacle to the reunion. Finally, it shows the snake in the Garden. There is really only one thing that can foil Charlie: should any friends from his dissolute past show up at the Peters household. And this is just what happens. But their arrival is not by accident. Charlie himself provides the opportunity. In the introduction he gives the bartender a message: "If you see Mr. Schaeffer, give him this. . . . It's my brother-in-law's address." Does this act suggest an unconscious desire to preserve some vestige of a past which he only consciously rejects, a desire even to fail in his quest to regain custody of his daughter? The whole complex issue is set up in the introduction and worked out in the body of the story.
Ray Bradbury works up a three-page introduction to introduce his issue in "The Veldt." The Hadleys buy an automated house that does literally everything for them. They add a "nursery" which is equipped to project people's thoughts onto its interior walls. The children, Peter and Wendy (from Peter Pan), first project fairy tales; lately, they have been obsessed with lions in an African veldt. The parents, George and Lydia, both feel their lives are now useless because the house and nursery have become the real parents of the children. They also sense danger. The lions, which first appear after George punishes the children, seem to be out of control. Lydia hears screams coming from the nursery. The lions are always eating something. When she and George have a look, the lions seem to chase them. Lydia fears the lions are real? Are they? This is the issue which Bradbury develops in the story proper.
Hemingway uses the introduction in a novel but pertinent manner in "Hills Like White Elephants." His story is 5% narration and 95% dialogue. It opens in a country depot where a man and woman argue about an abortion while waiting for a train to Madrid. The issue emerges from their conversation, will she go through with the abortion or not. When at the end the man moves their luggage to the other side of the depot, we realize that she will not. That's fairly easy to see. But the introduction gives us something more.
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun.
The two tracks set up the opposition. The track going west to Madrid is on the side where one can see white hills, no shade, and no trees. This is the "abortion" side (because they are catching a train to Madrid where the abortion will be performed). The track going east to Barcelona is on the side where one can see fields of grain, trees, the river, and mountains in the distance. This is the "family" side (because the girl says they can have "all of this" only if they keep the baby). Based on these associations, the theme of the story says that having the baby is the right decision. So this introduction presents both the issue and the means of evaluating the final decision.
Let us now reach a conclusion. Are the lions real? Will she get an abortion? Will he get his daughter back? Will he tell on his father? Will he get away with mocking love? These are the issues. They are presented in the introduction, developed in the body of the story, and resolved in the conclusion. They all remind us that a work of fiction is first and foremost a composition and only incidentally or metaphorically a slice of life, a little world in itself. Like a work of expository prose, the story is made to make a point.