Chapter 4 introduces the categories of speech and thought representation and traces their development in the history of English. Categories of speech representation can be identified in Old and Middle English, but thought representation existed only in the more narrator-controlled forms such as indirect thought and narrative representation of thought; mixed forms, such as “slippage” between direct and indirect speech, were common. The conventionalization of quotation marks in Early Modern English led to the clearer marking of direct speech. Overall, there is a general trend from more indirect (narrator-controlled, summarizing) forms to more direct (autonomous or non-narrator-controlled, verbatim) forms of representation. For all periods, (free) direct speech is the norm for speech representation. Internal narration takes over from narrative representation of thought in the modern period. Free indirect discourse did not exist in earlier English, arising perhaps in proto-form in the seventeenth century, but became fully conventionalized only in the course of the nineteenth century. Present-day English is characterized by the rise of new reporting verbs, especially go and be like.

This chapter tabulates the number of pieces of direct discourse in each book of Daphnis and Chloe, the number of sentences in each of these, and the number of words in each sentence. As well as some immediately obvious results – e.g. that the first case of direct discourse in surprisingly late in Book 1 (1.14.1), and is given to Chloe; that the number of speeches, and speakers, rises book by book – it explores some of the effects Longus’ artistry achieves: the quasi-stichomythia of Daphnis’ internal debate at 3.6 and the stichomythic exchange between him and Chloe at 3.10; the play with vocatives; the differences between emotional reflections expressed in mainly short, paratactic sentences, and the instructions of Philetas, Lycaenion and of the Nymphs, the arguments of Lamon, or the pleas of Gnathon, all articulated in more complex sentences. Unlike Morgan 2021 it does not bring indirect discourse into the discussion.