It is pleasant to know that there are definite types of narratives that the world has always loved, and that there are new forms growing up as civilization becomes more complex. Some of the kinds of stories discussed in this book are older than the English language, older than Christianity, older even than the divisions of Aryan speech. They seem to be inherent forms of all literatures, to be as ancient as thought and as young as inspiration. They are in use to-day in every tongue.
This book attempts to set forth the distinguishing elements of the types that have persisted, those matters that a writer must take into account when producing or a critic when judging. Though its title emphasizes the fact that now-a-days most persons think of stories as being always in prose, the book discriminates but little in this respect. In reality a student of narrative cares hardly at all whether the vehicle be meter or not. He is concerned with something else. Language form is rather an accident of the time and the fashion than anything essential. It is not dependent on the author's personality even. Chaucer undoubtedly would write in prose to-day, whereas our modern idealists would certainly have lisped in numbers a hundred years ago. We study narrative types, therefore, with the idea that verse tales are but measured and rhythmical expression of the same forms--sometimes the best, sometimes merely the most popular expression--but that the development in presentation has been toward prose, especially for the more psychological and complex material.
On the basis of content, narratives fall naturally into two large divisions: those that recount imaginary happenings and those that recount actual happenings. These large divisions in turn fall into smaller and still smaller groups upon one basis or another--source, purpose, method, or what not.
Under the division of narratives of fictitious events we notice six groups, when we are thinking of source and purpose: (1) the primitive-religious; (2) the symbolic-didactic; (3) the ingenious-astonishing; (4) the merely entertaining; (5) the instructive; (6) the artistic. Within these groups come the following individual types: (1) myth, legend, fairy tale, nursery saga; (2) fable, parable, allegory; (3) the tale of mere wonder, the imaginary voyage with a satiric or expository purpose, the tale of scientific discovery and mechanical invention, the detective story; (4) the probable adventure, the society story, the humorous and picaresque story, the occasional story; (5) the moral tale, the pedagogical narrative, the realistic sketch; (6) the psychological weird tale; the story that emphasises place and character, the story that emphasizes events and character.