14 R. E. Morits 



The above list includes romance, drama, allegory, criticism, 

 biography, description, science, correspondence, but witn tne ex- 

 ception of Faust and Reinecke Fuchs the works are all in prose, 

 so that the fact of variation in sentence-length appears, even if 

 we consider prose literature alone. There can be but little doubt 

 that an examination of all of Goethe's writings would furnish 

 a chain of sentence-lengths varying by almost insensible grada- 

 tions from five to thirty-five or forty words per sentence. Other 

 authors may not yield such wide extremes, but it is the fact 

 rather than the extent of variation which is essential in this 

 discussion. 



It is hardly necessary to comment further on the above results. 

 They demonstrate absolutely the unreasonableness of applying 

 the Sherman principle indiscriminately to various types of com- 

 position. They demand that, before we compare the sentence- 

 constants of difierent authors, or the normal sentence-constants 

 of the writers of a given period, there shall be some agreement 

 or understanding regarding a standard type or standard types of 

 composition.^ Any conclusions concerning the stylistic evolu- 

 tion of literature, which are based upon the principle of con- 

 stancy and a disregard of the principle of variability of sentence- 

 length must be considered worthless, even if they lead to desired 

 or plausible results. As an illustration I will only cite the inves- 

 tigation by Miss C. Whiting- on The Descent of Sentence-length 

 in English Prose. Assuming the Sherman principle, it appears, 

 from an examination of single works by each of sixty authors, 

 ranging from Chaucer to Henry James, that there has been a 

 decided diminution in the sentence-length. Averaging her re- 



^Some of the specimens which I have examined, such as Schiller's 

 Rduber and Goethe's Goetz von Berlichins;en, may be objected to because of 

 the rather abnormal nature of the compositions. They abound in exclama- 

 tory and interrogatory dialogue. I admit that they are not normal types, 

 but it is the necessity of agreeing upon what shall constitute normal types 

 which I desire to point out. Shall we disregard all interrogatory and ex- 

 clamatory passages ? If not, what proportion shall be counted out ? Or 

 shall we omit all sentences less than four, five, or six words in le i.Lth ? Or 

 adopt Mr. Gerwig s rule and examine only passages three or more lines in 

 length ? The principle of variability could not be denied even though it 

 were claimed that all of Goethe's sentence-lengths, but one, are unnatural. 



^Master's Thesis, Univ. of Neb. (unpublished). 



242 



