The making of a masterpiece: Stephan Crane's the red badge of courage

Abstract

The following study considers the changes in Stephen Crane's grammatical style as he revised his draft of The Red Badge of Courage into the final manuscript. It is an offshoot of a more extensive examination of the role syntax plays in the development of Crane's stylistic artistry and its consequences for Crane as a writer. 1 The data for the larger study were narrative-descriptive passages (total words: 39 807), drawn from the entire spectrum of Crane's prose fiction, which received close grammatical analysis with computer assistance. 2 From the final manuscript of The Red Badge of Courage, passages totaling 6 780 words were included in this study. Although critics generally acclaim The Red Badge as Crane's major work and have thoroughly studied many of its aspects such as theme, characterization, and imagery, its process. of composition has been neglected. Until recently, indeed, analyzing that process was impossible. But now, with recent publication of the holograph facsimile of The Red Badge draft along with the final manuscript, 3 it seems both feasible and appropriate to compare these two documents to see what they can reveal in microcosm about Crane's evolving style. Chosen for analysis were draft passages corresponding to manuscript passages used in the larger study. The draft passages comprise 1 853 words in 142 sentences; the manuscript passages 4 400 words in 302 sentences. 4 The wide discrepancy in numbers is attributable partly to Crane's additions as he revised his draft but mostly to missing draft leaves.