Eric Bentley Contends Contemporary Critics Underemphasize Plots

Eric Bentley compared dramatic plots to peanuts in a speech Thursday night. "You may not like it, but you can't stop eating it," said the critic. "When I tell you incident A, you want incident B."

Criticizing modern writers who underestimate the importance of plot, Bentley pointed to "a decay of narrative sense" among critics and scholars.

In his second Charles Eliot Norton Lecture, Bentley attributed the popularity of good plots to man's wish to live dramatically. "We insist that every 24 hours be a drama in 24 acts," he said. As proof of his statement, Bentley pointed to the universality of dreaming. "Once we realize we dream most of the time," he said, "we will understand the importance of plot."

Discussing the relationship between life and drama, Bentley asserted that drama begins with an imitation of events, and "seldom forgets the animal part of human nature." Simple imitation of events, however, is a story, and will never yield a plot, for plot is the "arrangement of events."

"The king died and the queen died; that's a story," Bentley remarked. "The king died and the queen died of grief; that's a plot."

Emphasizing the complexity of Shakespeare's plots, he said, "you can read thousands of pages of literary criticisms about Shakespeare and not find certain questions dealt with, if those questions are problems of plot. It is the child in us that reacts to narrative," Bentley concluded.