Here's a poser for all:

The recent discussion regarding comma splices reminds me of an interesting
literary reference. In Dickens's _A Tale of Two Cities_, the opening
paragraph is punctuated as a single sentence with each item in the list of
antitheses separated by a comma. I wonder how all we would explain this to
the students who would raise (and, in my experience, HAVE raised) the
comment that it's a "run-on sentence." Would you say that all these items
are elements in a list? Wouldn't you want to separate each antithesis group
with end punctuation: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness." and so forth?

How would you explain the dash (is it an em-dash?) that separates the list
from the main sentence? What would each of you identify as the main subject
and predicate (I would probably say, "The core sentence of the whole
paragraph is 'authorities insisted', which is also one of the main thematic
elements of the story."). How, finally, would you deal with the inevitable
complaint that the paragraph is not a paragraph, but rather a sentence?

And then ... which one of us would be so rash as to correct Dickens?

Here's a good example, I think, of an opportunity to teach grammar and
literature together.

Paul E. Doniger

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