CHAPTER XIII
REPRODUCTION, ABSTRACT, SUMMARY, ABRIDGMENT
Literal Reproduction.—The word reproduction is often used in Rhetoric in a somewhat general sense, to mean any version of another composition. As we shall use it, the term means literal reproduction; in other words, a version that follows the phrasing of the original as nearly as the time given for study will permit. Writing of reproductions trains the memory and adds immensely to one’s command of words.
Below are given lists of brief selections, most of them requiring not more than ten minutes to reproduce. It is suggested that a given paragraph or page be slowly read aloud to the class, two or three times, and that the class afterward write the piece as nearly as possible in the author’s words. Each student should then insert in his vocabulary book any new words or phrases that seem to him particularly serviceable. These memoranda will prove invaluable later on, when similar topics (not the same ones) are to be written about by the student himself. To illustrate: a student after reading two or three personal descriptions might jot down for future use such phrases as the following: Eyes.—Laughing, startled, heavy-lidded, hazel, vacant, protruding, lustrous, expressive, liquid, dreamy, speaking, glad. Nose.—Aquiline, Roman, beak-like, shapely, snub, sharp, insignificant. Hair.—Grizzled, frowsy, shaggy, glossy, dishevelled, unkempt, tumbled. Manner.—Alert, jaunty, affable, sprightly, haughty, pretentious, modest, diffident, reserved, ostentatious, demure, animated. Figure.—Gaunt, emaciated, lank, vigorous, robust, grotesque, massive, insignificant, thick-set, portly, sturdy, stalwart, erect, decrepit, fragile. Expression.—Rueful, crafty, frank, wistful, stolid.
Material for Literal Reproduction
Narration
Miles, One Thousand and One Anecdotes: p. 30, Garcia; 33, Handel; 36, Mozart; 43, Paganini; 74, A dull witness; 96, Mrs. Siddons; 105, 110, Wellington; 106, Coolness; 132, Bad handwriting; 142, Dickens and Thackeray; 218, Hill; 231, Newton; 231, Sidney Smith; 251, Scott; 253, Lessing; 254, Geological; 255, Blackie; 268, Béranger; 273, A toast; 304, A careful reader; 312, Webster; 316, Johnson; 318, Poetry and Pattypans; 322, Marryat; 323, Turner; 324, Dannecker; 328, Hugo and Coppée; 368, Heroism of a workman; 370, Rochejaquelin; 371, Washington; 374, Lefevre; 378, Virchow; 378, Cham and Gille.
Description
Persons.—Hawthorne: American Note Books. See Index, p. 448, for paragraphs on characters, mostly men.