[2]
Now there are three forms of narrative, without
counting the type used in actual legal cases. First
there is the fictitious narrative as we get it in
tragedies and poems, which is not merely not true
but has little resemblance to truth.1 Secondly, there
is the realistic narrative as presented by comedies,
which, though not true, has yet a certain verisimilitude. Thirdly there is the historical narrative, which
is an exposition of actual fact. Poetic narratives
are the property of the teacher of literature. The
rhetorician therefore should begin with the historical narrative, whose force is in proportion to its
truth.
1 With special reference to the element of the miraculous. Ovid's Metamorphoses would give a good example.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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