figure-grouping

Updated: May 24, 2025

Scott, undoubtedly, was the author who had most affected his mental habit, and with this exception, notwithstanding what some critics have alleged of his so-called "American predecessors," Charles Brockden Brown and the author of "Peter Rugg," there is no trace of any other literary influence upon him either in this preparatory time or later in life; but something of Scott is to be found permanently in his creative work, in the figure-grouping, the high speeches, the oddities of character humorously treated, and especially in the use of set scenes individually elaborated to give the high lights and to advance the story.

George Edward Woodberry - Nathaniel Hawthorne