THE STUDY OF A NOVEL* BY SELDEN L. WHITCOMB, A.M. (COLUMBIA) ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY D. C. HEATH & Co. TO BRANDER MATTHEWS As CRITIC AND TEACHER OF THE NOVEL IN GRATITUDE AND RESPECT 33447S PREFACE THIS volume is the result of practical experience in teaching the novel, and its aim is primarily pedagogical. It is only within the last few decades that the novel has been given much separate attention in college courses, and it cannot be hoped that any detailed method of study, at so early a date, can be more than an experiment and a tempo- rary contribution. But it has been nearly a half-century since Senior conceived a " treatise on Fiction, illustrated by examples," and some ten years since Professor Newcomer wrote (in a Practical Course in English Composition) that fiction would " require a special treatise even for its tech- nical side." Such fulfilment as has been made of these prophecies has been mainly in the field of the short story. The present writer has ventured into the field of the novel, with a sense that the time had come for tillage, even though the crop might be partly of weeds. The references in the text and in the bibliography will indicate indebtedness to many works. Crawshaw, Henne- quin, Moulton, and Riemann, in particular, have had a large influence on the general method or the specific analyses of this volume. Professor Perry's valuable study appeared after the plan for this study was matured, and has been read for literary enjoyment rather than for critical con- tribution. vi PREFACE For personal encouragement and assistance, the writer is grateful to more friends than can be named here. The completion of the work is due, in no small measure, to the sympathetic attitude of colleagues and pupils at Iowa College ; and especially to the cooperative spirit of Pro- fessor Charles Noble, Dr. John S. Nollen, Dr. Martha Foote Crow, and Mr. DeWitt C. Sprague. Dr. Nollen has given much practical assistance in matters relating to French and German data. His generous service, in many ways, from the conception of the work until the final proof-reading, is acknowledged with pleasure. LAWRENCE, KANSAS, September 30, 1905. INTRODUCTION To THE TEACHER IT has required a long time for prose fiction to attain a dignified and independent position in the world of criticism. This has been due in part, no doubt, to the frailties of fiction, in part to the ungenerous conservatism of the critics. It is no longer deemed necessary to apologize for fiction itself, but a detailed study of its form is still quite generally pro- posed in an apologetic tone. It is frequently said that the novel is written to be read and enjoyed, not to be dissected. It might be replied that " dissection " is, in some cases, to some minds, a source of great enjoyment ; that there is no necessary antagonism between agreeable reading and ana- lytical study, and that if only the primary human values of things were examined, several of the sciences would dis- appear. Flowers are pleasant to see and smell, and may be associated in one's memory with the bridal day or the new-made grave ; yet the microscopic study of botany is not usually opposed on sentimental grounds. The same person may at one time enter the cathedral for personal worship, at another, for professional examination of its structure, without any sense of conflict between the two interests. There may be person^j^P^^^able.to cem- bine the aesthetic enjoyment of literature with systematic study of its nature, but it may be doubted whether they are the best examples of genuine and normal love of literature. Does not a somewhat systematic approach to fiction seem worth while so long as conflicting opinions like the follow- vii viii INTRODUCTION ing are not only possible but representative, in the columns of reputable journals? "This novel has that charm of blended romance and realism, that captivating verisimili- tude, and that nameless power to haunt one with its shame- tinged sorrow and happiness which testify unmistakably of genius." - - " The rankest rot, ethically and artistically, ever published." Teachers of literature are accustomed to the complaint that their subject is vague. The recent tendency towards detailed analysis of literature is, from one point of view, an effort to discover how far thife vagueness is due to methods of study, rather than to the nature of the subject. A little examination of the novel shows that it has, in spite of its amorphous quality, certain fixed values of material and of form, which may repay a systematic examination, and are independent of the personal impressions of the reader. The separate consideration of characters, plot, and settings, and the distinction between characters and characterization, are now fairly well established. Cooperative effort might result in greater uniformity of view, without violence to the nature of the novel, or danger to the liberty of the individual teacher. In this volume the aim has been to " keep the eye upon the object." In the matter of sequence and proportion in analysis, there is room for a wide differ- ence of opinion, and exact uniformity is not to be desired. The order of examination in these pages has been carefully considered, but it may prove satisfactory to few, and may be variously altered without destroying the general plan. Examples of other methods of analysis for the novel inde- pendent, yet not without some tendency towards agreement will be found on pages 265-268. If there is a science of the novel, this work does not attempt to embody it. It is interesting, however, to com- INTRODUCTION ix pare the problems of systematic literary study with similar problems in other fields. In Walker's Political Economy (Briefer Course, page 18), several sections are devoted to "the obstacles which Political Economy encounters." Some of these obstacles, such as the fact that most persons "feel themselves competent, irrespective of study ... to form opinions " on all phases of the subject, and the dif- ficulty of finding a clear, precise terminology, are very familiar to the teacher of literature. The question of the right relations of extensive and intensive study is often harassing. A fairly complete analysis of some single novel seems desirable ; but there is no work which represents adequately all the values of the type, and such a study, pursued in a spirit of real interest in details, would require almost an entire course. On the other hand, some of the richest cultural values of the novel are to be gained only by a liberal reading which brings before one a wide area of historical and social interests. The best general method is perhaps a combination of the two kinds of study in a single course. In an historical course, there are some novels which ought to be examined without complete reading, others which may be read entire, but scarcely repay detailed study. The present vol- ume is intended mainly as a guide to the consecutive and extended study of the individual novel, though the analysif could be distributed among several works, in accordance with their specific values. The experience of the writer has been that it is best, for mature students, to attain as great a general familiarity with a work as possible before a systematic study is attempted. This practise may help to dispel the conception that one who has simply read a work of literature has " had it." The study of the novel offers an opportunity for a X INTRODUCTION review of the formal rhetorical study of exposition, narra- tion, and description. It may give the mind elasticity and a sense of freedom in considering the relations of these rhetorical types, which are liable to become somewhat artificially viewed in prolonged separate study. Any pre- vious study of the short story ought to be advantageous in the examination of the closely allied, but more complicated, form of the novel. The short story has this advantage, that critical study and practical composition can go hand in hand ; but many detached exercises in novelistic com- position might be profitable, at least for advanced students. The intimate relations of the novel to the drama and the epic are obvious, and suggest a frequent reference to masterpieces already familiar, or to new material. In spite of considerable criticism, and even ridicule, the study of comparative literature seems to be making prog- ress in America and in Europe, as a well-defined spirit, aim, and method. In an ideal arrangement, a course in the history of the novel would probably be undertaken from this point of view. It is impossible to gain a satis- factory view of the development of any national fiction without constant reference to the general European devel- opment of fiction. No adequate work in the latter subject exists in English, but the revised editions of Dunlop, with the assistance of various monograph's, will furnish a valu- able background. In the matter of translations, while acquaintance with the originals is always desirable, there is probably less loss through a translation for the novel than for any other type of literature especially for lyric poetry. If a spirit of cooperation exists among the modern language teachers of a school, combined effort can offer some instruction in comparative literature, without offense to the dignity of scholarship. INTRODUCTION xi One reason why the study of the novel has made slow progress, until recent years, is that it could not follow the traditional methods of criticism for the classics. Some classical teachers seem scornful of the study of modern literature, at least in the mother-tongue of the student. These conditions are not entirely discouraging. They may prove a stimulus in the development of a study of literature for its own sake, and in relation to social, ethical, and psychological interests rather than to philology, in its narrower meaning. When the novel is considered as the modern epic, moreover, even Homer and Vergil have a legitimate place in the wide comparative view of fiction ; and Coleridge suggests a tempting study when he writes, " Upon my word, I think the OEdipus Tyrannus, The Alchemist, and Tom Jones the three most perfect plots ever planned" (Table-talk, July 5, 1834). An intensive study of any art ought to increase interest in other arts, and to prove a good introduction, episode, or epilogue in a course of general aesthetics. The novel is often considered the most characteristic art-form of the nineteenth century. It offers one an inviting field for the concrete study of many important principles and problems of aesthetics, some of which have been brought into recent prominence because of its large vogue. Like music, fiction has the advantage of offering its masterpieces to communi- ties remote from the great art centers. The willing, if feminine, assistance the novel may give to ethics, history, psychology, and sociology ought not to be despised. Such studies as are outlined in Chapters X and XI directly concern the last two subjects, which are also touched at many points in the analysis of the form and matter of the novel itself. The psychology of charac- terization, if it does not yield real scientific data, furnishes xii INTRODUCTION an interesting literary comment on the science of the mind. The writer has known an instructor to analyze some of Poe's tales in a course in logic. For such a purpose a technical examination of the methods of motivation would not have come amiss. President King, of Oberlin College, makes contact with the complexity of life one of the three or four essentials of a real educational process. If this judgment is accepted, the large educational value of the novel can scarcely be denied. Complex in its origin, development, form, subject, and appeal, it introduces the mind to a world which has to some degree the aspect of a chaos rather than a cosmos, and yet is not without its laws. Fiction, in its ethics and its aesthetics, its exhibition of the individual, of society, and of religion, challenges the student to review his opinions ; to distinguish truth from error, the significant from the insignificant; to search for the fundamental values of art and the essential meaning of experience. A study of the novel brings one face to face with strong and often restless minds, and invites one, by a slow and patient effort, to learn to know himself. Never perfect as a form of art, never presenting a per- fect individual or a perfect society, fiction represents the limitations, but also the living qualities, of romantic art, as conceived in a broad contrast to the classical ideal, by Browning : To-day's brief passion limits their range; It seethes with the morrow for us and more. They are perfect how else ? they shall never change : We are faulty why not ? we have time in store. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE v INTRODUCTION vii CHAPTER 1 EXTERNAL STRUCTURE SECTION 1. Meaning of External Structure I 2. Significance of External Structure 2 3. Characteristics of Novelistic Structure 2 4. The Whole Composition 3 5. The Title 5 6. Length of Composition 6 7. Principal Divisions of a Novel 7 8. Volume, Part, and Book 8 9. The Chapter 9 10. The Paragraph 10 11. Minor Divisions 12 12. Prose and Verse __ i^_ 13. Dramatic and Non-dramatic Form 15 14. Non-dramatic Form . 16 15. Dialogic Form in General 17 1 6. Soliloquy and Monologue 17 17. Duologue 18 1 8. Group Conversation (Conversation) 18 19. Concerted Speech 19 20. Documentary Form in General 20 21. Epistolary Form 20 22. Syntax 22 23. Vocabulary 25 24. Phonology 27 xiii xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER II CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE SECTION PAGE 25. Significance of Consecutive Structure 28 26. Sequence 29 27. The Principal Masses 30 28. Sequence of Dramatic and Non-dramatic Masses . . . .31 29. Beginning, Middle, and End 32 30. Movement and Situation . 33 31. Event and Incident . 34 32. The Scene 36 33. Episode 4 37 34. Lines of Interest .38 35. The Line of Emotion 39 36. Points .....40 37. Mass in Momentum ... 42 38. The Rate of Movement 43 39. Climax and Foiling 44 40. Reciprocity 45 41. Analysis of Simpler Narratives 46 CHAPTER III PLOT 42. Meaning of Plot 47 43. Necessity and Ideality of Narrative Plot 48 44. Action and Narration 49 45- Stoi 7 - 5 1 46. Story and Plot ..........51 47. The Plot Proper 52 48. The Single Action 53 49. Sequence of Simple Narratives 56 50. The Dramatic Line 57 51. The Climax 59 52. The Catastrophe 60 53. Motivation .....62 54. Motivating Forces 63 55. The Narrator. His Point of View 66 56. Temporal Point of View 67 57. Spatial Point of View 69 CONTENTS XV SECTION PAGE 58. Character Point of View ........ 7 1 59. Generalized Statement of Plot ....... 72 60. Unity of Plot ........... 73 61. Types of Plot ...... .... 74 62. The Judgment of Plot ......... 7 6 CHAPTER IV THE SETTINGS 63. Esthetic Function of Settings ....... 78 64. General Time Setting ......... 78 65. Detailed Time Settings ......... 79 66. General Place Setting ......... Si 67. Detailed Place Settings ......... 82 68. Circumstantial Settings ......... 83 69. Reality, Ideality, and Truth ........ 84 70. Vague and Exact Settings ........ 85 71. Natural, Social, and Socialized Settings ...... 86 72. Author and Dramatis Personse ....... 87 73. Distribution ........... 88 74. Further Economy ....... ... 89 CHAPTER V THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 75. Composition . ....... 91 76. Number ............ 92 77. Chapter Distribution ........ 93 78. Grouping in General ..... .... 93 79. Successive Groups .......... 94 80. Foreground, Middleground, and Background Characters * . .96 -* 81. Central Characters .......... 97 82. Association of Characters ........ 99 83. Relation to the Author ......... 101 84. Reality and Ideality ......... 102 85. Individuals and Types ......... 104 86. Social Groups .......... . 105 87. Psychological Groups ......... 107 xvi CONTENTS / CHAPTER VI ^ CHARACTERIZATION SECTION PAGE ~-^ 88. Character and Characterization . 109 ^ 89. Novelistic Characterization . . . . . . .no 90. Character Unfolding in 91. Appellation , . , .112 92. Physiognomy . . . .113 93. Costume and Physical Environment 114 94. Pantomime 116 95. Utterance 117 96. Physiological Psychology . . . . . . .118 97. Pure Psychology 120 98. Identity, Individuality, and Type 121 99. Character Change 124 ; 100. Direct and Indirect Characterization 125 101. General Methods 127 102. Group Characterization 128 CHAPTER VII SUBJECT-MATTER 103. Subject-Matter and Form . 130 104. Extensive and Intensive Subject 131 105. The Typical and the Individual 131 106. Exhibition and Interpretation 131 107. The Subject of the Novel 132 108. Sociology and History 132 109. Social Composition 133 no. Social Life 135 111. Historical Period 138 112. Historical Interpretation 139 113. Individuality 140 114 The Individual and Society 142 115. Human Nature 143 116. Nature in Man . . * 144 117. External Nature 144 1 1 8. The Supernatural 145 119. General Philosophy 147 120. The Main Theme 148 CONTENTS xvii CHAPTER VIII STYLE SECTION PACK 121. General Conception , .150 122. Objective and Subjective Aspects . . . . . . .151 123. Qualities of Style 151 124. Types of Style ... 152 125. Value of Style in the Novel .... 152 126. The Novelistic Type 154 127. Novelistic Qualities 154 128. Comprehensiveness 155 129. Objectivity 156 130. Concreteness 158 131. Complexity 160 132. Secularity 161 133. Humor 162. 134. Ideality 163 135. Force 164 136. Other Qualities 165 CHAPTER IX THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 137. Value of the Study 166 138. The Data for Study 166 139. The Germ of the Work 167 140. The Plan 169 141. The Sources 170 142. The Time Perspective 173 143. Technic of the Process 174 144. Psychology of the Process 176 145. Collaboration 180 146. Fragments 180 CHAPTER X THE SHAPING FORCES 147. General Conception 181 148. The Data 182 149. Individuality of the Author 183 xviii CONTENTS SECTION PACK 150. The Author's Age 184 151. Sex 185 152. Personal Episode 186 153. National and Racial Influences 187 154. Linguistic Influence 191 155. Literary Influence . 193 156. Historical Influence 195 157. Immediate Social Environment e 197 158. Human Nature . . 198 159. The Influence of Nature 199 CHAPTER XI THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 1 60. Popularity of Fiction 202 161. The Data , 203 162. Time Distribution 203 163. Place Distribution 204 164. Influence upon Literature 205 165. Social Groups in General . . . . . . . 207 1 66. Influence upon Individuals 208 167. Kind and Degree of Influence 209 1 68. Perceptual Effect 209 169. Sensational Effect . . 211 170. Emotional Effect 212 171. Conceptual Effect 213 172. Volitional Effect 214 173. The Influencing Elements 214 174. The Causes of Influence 216 CHAPTER XII COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 175. Nature of the Study 218 176. The Forms of Discourse 218 177. Prose and Poetry 219 178. Prose and Verse 220 179- The Short Story 221 180. The Epic 222 181. Biography .. 224 CONTENTS xix SECTION PACE 182. History * 225 183. The Essay 226 184. The Lyric 227 185. Journalism 229 186. Other Types of Literature 230 CHAPTER XIII COMPARATIVE ESTHETICS 187. Relation of the Separate Arts 232 1 88. Classification of the Arts 233 189. Method of Study 233 190. The Drama 234 191. Painting 237 192. Sculpture 239 193. Music ... 241 194. Architecture 243 195. Landscape Gardening ......... 245 CHAPTER XIV GENERAL ESTHETIC INTEREST 196. ^Esthetic Analysis and Esthetic Theory 247 197. Nature and Humanity in a Work of Art . 247 198. Language as External Material ..... 248 199. The Value of Form ......... 249 200. Individuality of a Work of Art . 249 201. Unity General Design . 250 202. Contrast 252 203. Proportion 253 204. The Comic and the Tragic ........ 254 205. The Beautiful and the Unbeautiful 256 206. Artistic Truth 257 207. Artistic Illusion . .258 208. Theories of Art 260 209. Theories of the Novel 262 210. Judgment of a Novel 263 XX CONTENTS AITENDIX PAGE I. Systematic Analysis of a Novel 265 II. Glossary and Topical References 269 III. Types of Prose Fiction 279 IV. Notes on the History of Novelistic Criticism . . . 286 V. Bibliography and References 309 INDEX . 319 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL CHAPTER I EXTERNAL STRUCTURE i. Meaning of External Structure. Like all other artists, the novelist communicates with us solely through a sensuous medium an external material. For the novel- ist this medium is language, considered as already pre- pared for him by nature and society, and significant in the study of an individual work only as an individual novelist has given it a particular structure. This medium itself, differing in no very important respects for all the forms of literature, is considered in the chapter on General Esthetic Interest. The form given to language in a novel, as observed by eye and ear, whether referring to small details or to the whole composition, may be called, for the sake of clear ness, the "external structure." Primarily, and especially from the aesthetic point of view, the appeal of this structure is to the ear. The complete evaluation of the structural interest of a novel can be given only when it is read aloud. Practically, in most cases, the values of the structure as an arrangement of sounds, reach us through the medium of the eye, and this visible structure comes to have a certain, though relatively slight, aesthetic value in itself. A sonnet is more readily appreciated when it is printed compactly on a single page. 2 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 2. Signiricance of External Structure. The larger units of external structure in a novel have comparatively little aesthetic significance in themselves, as compared with those of the spatial arts. There is no very obvious artistic dif- ference between a novel divided into " parts " and one divided into chapters only ; but these divisions are impor- tant when we interpret them in their relation to the " in- ternal structure." The smaller structural forms, those which the ear distinctly grasps as units the phrase, sentence, paragraph may have a definite aesthetic value in themselves. Elaborate attention to the sound-values of every detail of structure is more characteristic of verse than of prose, and some critics would probably consider it antagonistic to the nature of the novel as a prose form. On the whole, the tendency to develop these values per- sistently is more characteristic of the short story than of longer fictions, and more characteristic of the romance than of the novel. 3. Characteristics of Novelistic Structure. All the structural forms of the novel are found in other kinds of literature. The novel differs from its literary fellows only by a characteristic combination of structural units, and in some cases, by a special adaptation of them. No form of prose literature, in English at least, has a perfectly definite structure determining the type of the whole composition. In comparison with the sonnet, rondeau, ballade, etc., the novel, the essay, the oration, are all " amorphous." The history of the novel shows no very important development in this respect, though somewhat more careful attention to the treatment of structural units is naturally found in the more modern novelists. The novel, in a generic sense including the romance, EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 3 as written to-day, is fairly determinate in the following respects : 1. It is written almost entirely in prose. 2. It contains from fifty thousand to five hundred thou- sand words. 3. It is divided into paragraphs, and the paragraphs grouped into one, or usually more than one, kind of higher division. 4. It has a distinct, separate title or titles, sufficient to distinguish it from all other individual works. (Compare some lyrics, called simply "Lines," "A Song," etc. ; histories identified by the author's name, etc.) 5. It is composed of a significant combination, in alter- nation, of dramatic form (quoted speech) and of non-dramatic (unquoted speech). If the entire novel is supposed to be quoted speech, as in the epistolary and other documentary types, there is a secondary dramatic form within this. Specially characteristic of the novel, as distinct from the drama, is the " described dialogue," as contrasted with the "set" or pure dramatic dialogue. 4. The Whole Composition. The mere determination of the composition is not quite so simple a matter as it might seem. Ordinarily a single novel is taken as a unit for careful study. This frequently includes more than the " story " proper the con- tinuous illusion of the plot. It may be introduced by a " dramatic " preface, with an illusion of its own, as in Scott's Old Mortality, Bride of Lammermoor, etc. In the latter work, Chapter I is supposed to be written by Peter Pattieson, is quite separate from the story proper, and contains an interesting and fairly complete little story in itself. A novel 4 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL may end as well as begin with this dramatic addition to the story proper ; as does, for example, The Heart of Midlothian. The "single novel" may be a member of a group, which must be examined if one is fully to comprehend the isolated member. A familiar example of the grouping of a number of single compositions into a larger whole is found in the so-called "frame." This form has been most frequently used in the short story, notably in the famous examples of the Decameron, Heptameron, Canterbury Tales, etc., but it is occasionally found in the novel. Scott partially carries out the "frame" idea in his Tales of My Landlord. The " frame," in this case, includes several minor charac- ters, as well as the principal ones Jedediah Cleishbotham and Peter Pattieson and a number of interesting incidents and settings. An ex- ample of a long fiction belonging to a larger non-fictive whole is Paul and Virginia, composed as one of Saint-Pierre's u Studies of Nature." This famous idyl can, to say the least, be better understood if one has some acquaintance with the " whole composition," of which it is in a sense a part. One of the most interesting examples of a fictive compo- sition including an expanded part essentially non-fictive is Robinson Crusoe. To most readers, Robinson Crusoe means what Defoe finally considered only the first of three parts of that work. In some cases, to give variety and scope to the study, one may take as the unit of analysis, not a single novel, but a group of related novels. These are properly one com- position only when they were so intended by the author himself ; but this is not a rare case in the history of the novel. The degree of unity in such series, in characters, plot, settings, etc., is very various. In regular "duodrama," trilogy, or tetralogy, a very high degree of unity may be found, worthy of close examination. One form with less definitely planned unity is that of the simple con- tinuation, frequently suggested by another than the novelist, after the publication of the first part, as in Pamela, Don Quixote, etc. Some- EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 5 times such continuation has been forced upon the author by a spurious one. Continuation by another than the original author offers interest- ing material for study of the process of composition. Larger groups may be called series, or cycles. Their organization is sometimes quite complex, as in what is probably the supreme example, the Comedie Humaine of Balzac. For special purposes still looser groups may be studied together : as a novel and its imitations, for example, Robinson Crusoe and the " Robinsonades " of German fiction ; or a work and burlesques upon it, as Pamela and Joseph Andrews, the romances of chivalry and Don Quixote, Gothic romances and Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. EXAMPLES OF NOVELISTIC GROUPS. Dualogy: Valdes Riverita, Maximina; Goethe Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre and Wanderjahre. Trilogy: Scott Waverley, Guy Mannering, Antiquary (see advertise- ment to last, 1829); Zola Lourdes, Rome, Paris; Sienkiewicz With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, Pan Michael ; d'Annunzio Romances of the Lily ; in some sense the novels of Richardson. Series: Freytag DieAhnen; Zola The Rougon-Macquart novels ; Trollope Chron- icles of Barsetshire. Cycle: Balzac Come'die Humaine; Waverley Novels. (For grouping in Scott's mind, see his own introductions.) Even when the composition is a single novel, it may con- tain an intercalated story that is aesthetically quite inde- pendent (Don Quixote, Gil Bias, Tom Jones, Tale of Two Cities, etc.). A unique example of intercalation is the complete drama in Ziegler's Asiatische Banise. 5. The Title. In the introduction of 1829 to Rob Roy, Scott, speaking of the title, says, "A good name [is] very nearly of as much consequence in literature as in 4ife." (Compare Chapter I of Waverley.) In the intro- duction of 1830 to Ivanhoe, he states the theory that a title should conceal the nature of the composition ; yet 6 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL probably the most natural function of a title is to express in some manner the main theme of the novel. It may refer more particularly to characters, settings, or action ; it may be realistic, romantic, impressionistic, etc. A title often has some special significance not apparent on the surface. Note, for example, Joseph Andrews, Sense and Sensibility, Nouvelle HeloYse, TurgeniefF s On the Eve, Comdie Humaine. The titles of English sentimental fiction toward the close of the eighteenth century include : Sentimental Tales, The Tears of Sensibil- ity, The Man of Feeling, The Effusions of the Heart, and many others of like nature. Characteristic of nineteenth century realism are such titles as A Modern Instance (Howells), A Common Story (Gontcharoff), One of Life's Slaves (Lie), Life's Little Ironies (Thomas Hardy). In form, a title may be single or double ; thematic or analytical ; purely individual, or including a type word or phrase. Of such type words story, novel, romance, ad- ventures, history, life, etc., are common examples. Adventures is a common type word in the novel of action, occurring in Smollett frequently, in Robinson Crusoe, Joseph Andrews, Oliver Twist, Kidnapped, etc. History has been common since Painter wrote (preface to The Palace of Pleasure, 1565) of "histories, which, by another term, I call novels." It was specially frequent in the latter part of the eighteenth century ; " secret history " being a somewhat charac- teristic variation. An old-fashioned artificial device is the repetition of the title at the end of the novel, used some half-dozen times by Scott, and in Soil und Haben. Titles of the subdivisions of structure are often important. 6. Length of Composition. Recent criticism has em- phasized the idea that the difference between the modern short story and the novel is not primarily one of length. Still it is true that marked variation in length implies aesthetic difference in the fictions themselves, the process EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 7 of composition, and the effect on the reader. Silas Mar- ner and War and Peace may both be called novels; but the fact that the former contains about seventy-five thousand words and the latter about seven hundred thou- sand concerns every important aspect of the two works. The mere labor of writing and reading the heroic romances those fictions a tongue haleine is indicative of signifi- cant social conditions during the period of their popularity. Richardson was fully conscious of the great length of his novels, and offers apology or explanations therefor. The length of a novel may be given in pages, but the approximate length in words is more convenient for purposes of comparison, espe- cially with compositions in verse. A classification for practical pur- poses may follow some such outline as this : Minor Novel. From 50,000 to 125,000 words. Silas Marner, 75,000 ; Scarlet Letter, 70,000. Paradise Lost contains about 85,000 words; the Divine Comedy about 100,000. Medium Novel 1 25,000 to 250,000 words . Mrs. Radcliife's Romance of the Forest, 130,000; Adam Bede, 200,000. Major Novel. 250,000 to 500,000 words. David Copperfield, 340,000; Daniel Deronda, 320,000. Maximum Novel. More than 500,000 words. War and Peace, 700,000; Clarissa Harlowe, 800,000; Madelaine de Scude'ry's Grand Cyrus, 1,800,000. The entire Come'die Humaine contains something like 4,000,000 words : The Waverley Novels are about the same length. 7. Principal Divisions of a Novel. In a typical novel these are the chapter and paragraph : in longer fictions, the part, volume, and book are frequently added. The epistolary novel often has no further divisions than the letters themselves, frequently given with separate numbers or headings. The narrative quality of Defoe's novels is emphasized by his habitual limitation to the paragraph. Clara Reeve's Old English Baron and 8 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Brooke's Juliet Grenville are other examples of undivided eighteenth century novels. Scott invariably uses the chapter and rarely a higher division, though he is fond of dramatic prefaces, postscripts, etc. Dickens generally has only chapter divisions. In one fiction or another nearly every possible method of division is found. Verri's Notti Romane, nights, colloquies ; White's Earl Strong- bow, nights ; Leland's Longsword, sections ; Gogol's Dead Souls, epic cantos ; Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier's The Cry, scenes. 8. Volume, Part, and Book. When a mere accident of publication, the volume has no artistic significance, but it is often a genuine unit of structure, sometimes with separate title. When both part and book are used, the former is generally the major division. The book is found in the Greek romances, as one of the results of epic influence, and has since been associated with the theory of the novel as the modern epic. Fielding divided all his novels into books, establishing a temporary precedent so strong that the preface 1 to The Cry (1754) refers to "the common divisions of book and chapter/' Mrs. Radcliffe returned to a simple chapter division. There is sometimes a high degree of unity, in these larger divisions, in characters, theme, setting, or action. There may be a distinct dra- matic line. Sometimes there is a more external unity ; as of epistolary structure, Balzac's Deputy for Arcis, or of in- tercalated narrative, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Book VI. Balzac frequently uses parts (A Woman of Thirty, Lost Illusions, etc.), and in general a somewhat complicated division. Parts are found in Zola's Downfall and The Soil, Scarron's Roman Comique, Nouvelle He'loise, George Sand's Le*lia and Indiana, and many other well-known fictions. Books are used in Esmond, Corinne, Amadis of Gaul, Wilhelm Meister, Notre Dame de Paris, Hall Caine's The Manxman, Daniel Deronda, Tale of Two Cities, etc. The epic number twelve is found in Gil Bias, Amelia, and Grave's Spiritual Quixote. 1 Probably written by Miss Fielding. EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 9 9. The Chapter. While found in other forms of com- position, this is the structural unit most characteristic of the novel. It is used with great freedom, its value depend- ing on relation to the individual work rather than to abstract rhetorical principle. While the chapter bears a certain analogy to the dramatic scene, the number of chapters often greatly exceeds the number of scenes in a well- constructed drama. In length, also, the chapter shows great variation ; but for a given novel there is a certain norm below and above which a true aesthetic quality is lost. The realists, for example Trollope, Howells, Jane Austen, are comparatively regular. The romanticists and the pure humorists are much more capricious. Marked brevity is sometimes a source of humorous effect; occasion- ally a source of tragic effect. The unity of a chapter is generally quite distinct. Ex- ternally it may appear in title, motto, or dramatic form. A chapter frequently has a. definite introductory and con/ eluding paragraph, or begins and ends with marked single effects. Trollope occasionally opens a chapter with the same words that conclude the preceding chapter. (Can You Forgive Her? XII and XIII; Framley Parson- age, IX and X.) The first and last chapters of a novel often have some distinctive form. The first chapter in Trollope rarely contains dialogue ; the first chapters of Scott's Tales of My Landlord are first-person narra- tives by " Peter Pattieson." A chapter is naturally more distinctly unified in respect to the characters, settings, action, process of composition and effect than the larger divisions, and less so than the paragraph. In the novel of character the introduction of important new characters usually demands a new chapter; in the novel of action, important incident. 10 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL EXAMPLES Number of chapters: Peregrine Pickle, 106; Amelia, 115; Tom Jones, 208; War and Peace, 362. Chapter length: Notre Dame de Paris, i to 40 pages (romanticism) ; Gil Bias, I to 60 (humor). Humorous brevity: Tristram Shandy; Bulwer's Paul Clifford, 27. Tragic brevity: Bulwer's Kenelm Chillingly, VIII, 6; Gald6s' Dona Perfecta, last chapter. Mottos are characteristic of the romantic movement, and of ro- mance generally. Scott uses them habitually, perhaps following Mrs. RadclirFe in this respect as in others. See his comment on the practise; Rob Roy, advertisement, The Monastery, Chapter III, and elsewhere. Other famous fictions with chapter mottos are, Vigny's Cinq Mars, Last of the Mohicans, HaufTs Lichtenstein, Kingsiey's Westward Ho ! Definite introduction: Ivanhoe, I, 3, 4, 5, etc.; Last of the Mohi- cans, 3, 9, ii, etc. Definite conchision: Ivanhoe, 3, 6, 9, etc. ; Last of the Mohicans, I, 9, 10, etc. Epistolary form (common): Trollope's Can You Forgive Her ? II, 4 ; Bulwer's Kenelm Chillingly, four ex- amples. Semi-soliloquy: Tolstoi's Resurrection, III, 40. Monologue: Adam Bede, 2. Duologue: Last of the Mohicans, 5, 12, 19, 20, 21; Ivanhoe, 6, 15, 16, 20, 21, 28, 29. Conversation: Last of the Mohicans, 4; Ivanhoe, 5, 7; Silas Marner, 6. Set dramatic form: Fielding's Jonathan Wild, III, 8. Intercalated reverting narrative: The Resur- rection, I, 2, 37; Adam Bede, 45. Essay: Frequent in Fielding, especially in the first chapters of books ; Notre Dame de Paris, III, 2 ; V, 2. Chapter groups occur in nearly every novel, sometimes marked definitely in the external structure, as in Stevenson's Black Arrow, " The Good Hope," " The Good Hope Continued," " The Good Hope Concluded"; and in Trollope's Barchester Towers, 'Ullathorne Sports, Act I, Act II, Act III.' Other examples of chapter groups are found in The Virginians, II, 2 to 4, intercalated narrative] Adam Bede, 6 to 8, 21 to 26, 27 and 28, episodes ; Tolstoi's Resurrection, II, 12 to 18, reverting narrative reminiscence. 10. The Paragraph. The paragraph in the novel is more flexible than in most forms of prose, and is one of the elements in the complexity of novelistic structure. It EXTERNAL STRUCTURE II may be differentiated for narrative, descriptive, dramatic, and lyrical service, and these functions change often in the typical novel. The paragraph has undergone great devel- opment in the course of its history. 1 In the early romance it is frequently exceedingly long, and without artistic unity (Boyle's Parthenissa contains one of over fourteen thou- sand words), while in some of the recent short story writers there is an almost abnormal consciousness of paragraph value. In general, the shorter the composition, the more significant the paragraph division. There is great range of length in the typical novel. In Silas Marner the short- est paragraph is a dramatic speech of two words "That's ended," Chapter XX; the longest, a third-person narrative episode of five hundred words in Chapter IV. As in real life, careful attention to paragraph structure is not characteristic of conversation, but of artificial written speech, the realistic novel is not inclined to elaborate it in dialogic passages. Its chief technical use, in this par- ticular, is to set off the single speech, the connectives, and the author's comment. In the romance and romantic novel, however, it may be devoted to poetical purpose, even approaching the structure and value of the stanza. Other important functions of the paragraph are generali- zation ; transition from one action or character to another ; characterization ; setting ; motivation ; foreshadowing and preparation ; summary of situation, etc. The very short paragraph is often effective for striking dramatic or sensational emphasis. Such usage is characteristic of Hugo. It also aids rapidity and isolation of incident in narrative passages. Various effects of symmetry, monotony, climax, may be gained by the careful construction of a series of paragraphs. Occasionally in compositions 1 See E. H. Lewis's History of the English Paragraph, 1894. 12 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL d passages of a lyrical character a paragraph is repeated in substance or verbatim, as a sort of leit-motif or refrain. Examples are found in d'Annunzio's Triumph of Death and in Dombey and Son. ii. Minor Divisions. The main text of a novel is fre- quently accompanied by one or more of the following accessories : critical or fictitious preface ; dedication ; lists of dramatis personae; annotation; historical document; epilogue, etc. The fictitious preface may relate to the author, to the novel itself, or to almost independent incidents and characters. One of its special services is to introduce the illusion of the imaginary manuscript; another to explain the initial circumstances of a voyage imaginaire. A study of the fictitious prefaces of Scott will reveal most of the con- ventions, powers, and limitations of the form. Examples are found in Quentin Durward (9000 words), Rob Roy, Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, Tales of My Landlord, I Promessi Sposi, Henry Esmond, La Nouvelle Hdloi'se, Castle of Otranto, Holberg's Iter Subterraneum. Final divisions, like epilogue, etc., are usually brief. They may recur to the fiction of the preface, as in the " peroration " of Old Mortality, or outline the future of the characters and action of the novel, or gen- eralize on the picture of life that has been presented. A definitely stated moral, common in medieval fiction, is rare in modern fiction. One occurs at the close of the Heart of Midlothian, I Promessi Sposi, and the original form of Balzac's Peau de Chagrin. Lists of dramatis persona, with some slight characterization, are found in the novels of Richardson and in a few other fictions. Anno- tation of the main narrative by a fictitious character is not an uncom- mon device, and is often an effective means of increasing the illusion of reality. It is used in Old Mortality, Esmond, The Virginians, Stevenson's Master of Ballantrae. Historical document, occasionally found in earlier fiction, may be most conveniently studied in Scott and his school. The novel with a key was prominent in the seven- teenth century (heroic romance ; satire ; political fiction, as in Barclay's Argenis) ; and in the eighteenth century, with its fondness for the " secret history " and intrigues of the aristocracy (for example, Mrs. Hay wood's Memoirs of ... Utopia). EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 13 12. Prose and Verse. In realistic novels verse enters mainly as a subordinate element, either to aid in charac- terization, or to give color to a particular time or place setting, especially in historical fiction. Many lyrics are found in Scott's romances. Examples of more recent realistic use are found in Balzac's Letters of Two Brides, Sudermann's Frau Sorge, Valera's Comendador Mendoza. The logical connection of the verse with the action and the degree of fusion with the fictive illusion as a whole vary considerably. In the fictions of the romantic movement, at the beginning of the last century, the liberal use of verse is characteristic of the lyrical tendency of the period. The novelist himself was frequently a poet, and instinctively selected a character with poetic gifts for hero or heroine; or his desire to arouse poetic emotion in the reader led to the introduction of verse. Mrs. RadclifiVs titles sometimes include the phrase "interspersed with some pieces of poetry. 1 ' Gaston de Blondeville contains a poem of about five hundred lines ; the Mysteries of Udolpho and Romance of the Forest each has some fifteen poems. Other fictions with the romantic use of verse are Werther, Ivanhoe, Madame de StaeTs Corinne, Andersen's Improvisatore, Bulwer's Kenelm Chillingly. In the romance of the Middle Ages and the early Re- naissance we find a more distinctly structural value of verse; though there is no literary form in which the structural relations of prose and verse are definite. The nearest approach to such relation is in works like Dante's Vita Nuova, drama of the Shakespearian type, and the pas- toral romance. This last form originated in the classical metrical pastoral, and always retained more or less dis- tinctly a prosimetrical structure ; usually with definite pre- dominance of verse, as in Belleau's Journee de la Bergerie, or of prose, as in Sannazaro's Arcadia and Lodge's Rosa- 14 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL lind. The arrangement is always an alternation of prose and verse. In the romance of chivalry as a distinct type (it is often combined with the pastoral), the verse is in- herited from the metrical romances of chivalry, long or short. Akin to this type is the prosimetrical saga; for example, the Volsunga Saga. Some of the tales of William Morris revived this early structure. EXAMPLES OF PROSIMETRICAL STRUCTURE Per cent of Verse Per cent of Prose Boccaccio's Ameto 15 85 Sannazaro's Arcadia 28 72 Sidney's Arcadia 7. 93 Cervantes' Galatea 38 62 Morris' House of the Wolfings .15 85 Rhythmical prose, in sustained passages, is far more characteristic of the short story, the romance, and roman- tic novel, than of the realistic novel. It is usually in- troduced without definite structural distinction, but is occasionally found in more formal manner. Important examples are found in the Renaissance attempts to com- bine the values of poetry and prose, as in Euphuism ; and in the Ossianic movement of the eighteenth century. 1 In serious imitation of epic style it is found in Gogol's Taras Bulba; in burlesque imitation, in Swift's Battle of the Books, and in passages of Fielding and Smollett. Mere fragments of rhythmical prose may of course occur in any pas- sage of heightened lyrical expression. Bulwer's Rienzi, Book VII, Chapter 7: " Thrice blessed name ! Immortal Florentine " (perfect " iambic pentameter"). 1 See Riemann's Goethes Romantechnik, pp. 145 ff. EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 15 " I tell thee, Brettone, that this loose Italy has crowns on the hedge that a dexterous hand may carry off at the point of the lance ! " (" anapestic coloring ") . 13. Dramatic and Non-dramatic Form. All language that is supposed to belong to a character, historical or Ac- tive, other than the author, may be considered " dramatic." The author's own language when fictitious, as in imag- inary dialogue with a character, may also be included. Language supposed to be reproduced with only partial accuracy may be called " semi-dramatic." When dramatic language within dramatic language occurs, as in the dia- logue of epistolary novels, the including form may be distinguished as "primary," the included as "secondary." This arrangement is characteristic of the novel, and one of the elements of complexity in its structure. For convenience, all language presented as spoken may be called " dialogic ; " all presented as written, " document- ary." A conscious, sustained alternation of dramatic and non-dramatic form is characteristic of both epic and novel. The difference between the two types, in this particular, consists largely in the less frequent change from one form to the other in the epic, resulting in a much less compli- cated structure. The approximate number of transitions in Beowulf is 90 ; in Paradise Lost, 350 ; in so short a fiction as Tolstoi's Master and Man, 625. Different novels show very various proportion and dis- tribution between the two forms, indicative of great dif- ferences in the general nature of the compositions. The three tendencies toward emphasis on the dramatic, empha- sis on the non-dramatic, and equivalence of the two may be expressed by the simple formulas : Narrative-DRAMA ; Dramatic-NARRATivE ; Dramatic-Narrative. 16 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Per cent of Per cent of Narrative-DRAMA Dramatic Form Non-dramatic Theagenes and Chariclea .... 60 40 Book of Ruth 60 40 Paradise Lost 60 40 Dramatic-NARRATiVE Bride of Lammermoor 40 60 Tolstoi's Master and Man . . . 35 65 Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften . 35 65 Silas Marner 25 75 Defoe's Plague Year 5 95 (This exemplifies Defoe's strong tendency toward pure narrative. Of course the entire Plague Year is dramatic, as purporting to be written by a fictitious character.) Dramatic-Narrative Sense and Sensibility .O. . . . 45 55 14. Non-dramatic Form. In decided subordination to dramatic form, the non-dramatic may precede, accompany, or follow the former. An extended dialogue usually has a definite introduction and conclusion, as well as intercalated comment. In Silas Marner, Chapter VI is introduced by the first paragraph of that chapter and the last of Chapter V. In this chapter the longest comment is in paragraphs 17, 29, and 41 relatively short passages. The merely mechanical dialogic connec- tives are essential to clearness in complicated dialogue, but are some- times omitted in simple dialogue. Scott writes in Chapter I of the Bride of Lammermoor of the "everlasting 'said he's 'and 'said she's'" of his preceding novels. There are some fifty merely mechanical con- nectives in Chapter VI of Silas Marner ; over thirty of them following the monotonous form, said Mr. Macey," " said the landlord," etc. In more independent use, non-dramatic language appears with characteristic structural value, and often with approach to fc set form, for narration of action not directly repre- sented, intercalated narrative, transition from one character, * EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 17 setting, or action to another, statement of situation, exposi- tion, generalization, aside to reader, lyrical expression, de- scription of settings and characters, etc. 15. Dialogic Form in General. Dialogue in a generic sense includes soliloquy, monologue, duologue, group con- versation (which may for brevity be called simply conver- sation), and concerted speech. In the novel these forms shade off gradually from the non-dramatic. The speech of a character may be represented so as to give merely the substance of the thought; or in complete quotation, with accompanying comment, etc. Occasionally dialogue is found in "set dramatic form," the names of the speakers placed as in the text of drama. Set dramatic form has some special interest in connection with^the technical and theoretical relations of the novel, the drama, and literary dialogues like Ascham's Toxophilus, Walton's Complete Angler, etc. In shorter fictions it is sometimes the chief form, as in Bunyan's Mr. Badman; in the novel it rarely occurs except in brief passages. Examples are found in Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Defoe's Plague Year, Colonel Jacque, and Robinson Crusoe, Fielding's Jona- than Wild, Pamela, etc. Scott introduces it only in the dramatic pref- aces of The Fortunes of Nigel and Peveril of the Peak. 16. Soliloquy and Monologue. In soliloquy, in a strict sense, the speaker is alone, or supposes himself to be alone ; in monologue he may have any number of listeners. In the novel, extended, formal use of either (sometimes they are given distinct headings, as in Lodge's Rosalind, Sidney's Arcadia, and Lyly's Euphues) is rarely found except in earlier fiction, where it is probably imitative of dramatic and epic usage. Semi-dramatic soliloquy and monologue, on the other hand, are characteristic of the novel at any period. The most common monologue is that which develops in the course of a duologue or con- 1 8 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL versation ; especially in the form of intercalated narrative. Fictions in the /-form are technically monologic through- out, whether supposed to be spoken (dialogic) or written (documentary), but as a matter of convention they fre- quently include as much dialogue, in as distinct a form, as other types. 17. Duologue. This may be considered the standard dramatic form of the novel. Its predominance is due partly to its importance in actual life ; partly to the influ- ence of drama, epic and didactic dialogue; partly, per- haps, to the relative ease with which it may be written, as compared with conversation. In Silas Marner there are some twenty duologues and only some seven or eight dis- tinct conversations. When the single speeches and the author's comment are given in separate paragraphs, the structure of a duologue appears at a glance. It tends on the one hand to pass into monologue ; on the other to become isometric. The latter structure is sometimes found in early fiction in almost as formal manner as in the stichometric passages of epic, dramatic, and pastoral verse, but it is too artificial for realistic effect. The merely mechanical connectives are not so essential in duologue as in conversation. The novelist is free to interrupt the duologue at will by brief or extended comment, but as a member of a trio he may appear more prominent to the reader than as a member of a larger group of speakers. Comment between speeches is of course less emphatic than that which interrupts a speaker. The mechanical structure of Chapter III of Silas Marner is as follows: Dunstan Cass speaks 15 times, 66 lines ; Godfrey Cass, 14 times, 54 lines ; the author, 13 times (interrupting a speech 6 times), 64 lines. This duologue is therefore decidedly novelistic rather than dramatic. I 1 8. Group Conversation (Conversation). A sustained, realistic conversation of even three speakers is much more EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 19 difficult to compose than duologue, is a sign of true dra- matic imagination, and a distinguishing mark of great novelistic technic. The complexity of its structure is due chiefly to the great possible variety in sequence and length of speeches, and of connectives and comment. In the simplest form of purely dramatic conversation three speakers with two speeches each there are twenty-four possible sequences. In the chief conversational chapter of Silas Marner, Chapter VI, A speaks 10 times, D 10, C 11, D 12, E 4, F 4 a total of 51 speeches by the characters. The author, omitting purely mechanical connectives, speaks 38 times. Viewing the entire dramatic speech of a composition as a conversa- tional form, interesting comparison may be made between the epic, drama, and novel. Number of single speeches Beowulf 45 Paradise Lost 175 Master and Man 350 Silas Marner ....... 530 The Tempest 650 19. Concerted Speech. By concerted speech is meant the utterance of the same words by several speakers at once. In the novel, simultaneous utterance of different words must of course be represented in sequence. In set form, this detail is far more characteristic of the drama than the novel, and is possibly a relic of the classical chorus. It occurs scores of times in Shakespeare, notably in Coriolanus, and its unnatural use is one of the minor blemishes of Browning's dramatic technic. It is, however, occasionally found in early fiction, probably in direct imitation of the drama. In less formal manner it is found in most novels ; for example, in Ivanhoe, Chapters XI, XIII, XXXIII, XLIV, and in the Last of the Mohicans, Chapter XXIX. 20 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 20. Documentary Form in General. Perhaps the most notable general effect of document is to increase verisimili- tude. The novel itself being an actual document, possibly the imagination more readily accepts fictitious document than fictitious dialogue. Documentary form is found in the earliest novels, the Greek romances, but has in- creased use, with special force and naturalness, since the invention of printing. As a fragment it may appear in very various forms letter, newspaper extract, inscription, legal document, map, musical score, etc., etc. The most important examples of sustained documentary form are the epistolary novel, the diary novel, and the imaginary manu- script. Each of these types has some conventional details of structure, as for example the illegible or missing portions of the imaginary manuscript ; the forged or missent letter, etc. In all of them the introduction of formal dialogue is a convention which the reader accepts on faith ; and in general, the documentary illusion is rarely continuous. In English fiction, the imaginary manuscript has special place in the latter part of the eighteenth century. See Walpole's Castle of Otranto, Beckford's Vathek, Clara Reeve's Old English Baron, Mrs. Radcliffe's Sicilian Romance and The Italian, etc. Scott is rather fond of it. 21. Epistolary Form. The significant origin of the " novel of letters " is usually traced to Samuel Richardson, though there was abundant literary use of epistolary form, in fiction and out of it, before Pamela. 1 Richardson him- self was quite conscious of the peculiarities of his method (see his comparison of epistolary and narrative method in the preface to Clarissa, his explanations of the letter- writing passion of Pamela, etc.), and considerable criti- cal discussion of the epistolary form followed his novels 1 See Jusserand, Roman Anglais, p. 49; and Cross, p. 23. EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 21 at once. Analysis of epistolary structure may follow the general method given for dialogic structure. The princi- pal structural points in outline are the number, length, and sequence of letters. The technical difficulties of the form are numerous. Neither Pamela nor Clarissa is ab- solutely epistolary in text, and Richardson gives lists of dramatis personae, with some characterization, arguments, etc., outside the text proper. An interesting example of the breakdown of epistolary form is found in Scott's Redgauntlet. The chief theoretical forms, often combined in the actual novel, may be formulated as follows : 1. Letters from A to B. (Compare the monologue.) 2. Correspondence between A and B. (Compare the duologue.) Examples are Dostoyevsky's Poor Folk, and Balzac's Letters of Two Brides. 3. Letters from A to B, C, etc. (Epistolary monologue in a sense, but clearly quite different from the oral monologue.) 4. Letters from B, C, etc., to A. 5. Correspondence between A and B, A and C, etc. 6. Real "group-correspondence," in which each member of the group exchanges letters with each of the others. The general epistolary structure may be partially represented by a graphic design. In Miss Burney's Evelina the scheme is as follows, A standing for Evelina, B for Mr. Villars, etc.; the figures, for the number of letters sent Other examples of epistolary novels are: Goethe's Werther, Foscolo's Jacopo Ortis, Madame de StaeTs Delphine, Valera's Pepita Jimenez. Novels " in a series of letters 11 are specially common in the English fiction of the latter half of the eighteenth cen- tury, owing mainly to the influence of Richardson. 22 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 22. Syntax. There is a more or less specialized syntax for descriptive, expository, narrative, argumentative, and lyrical expression. The novel is chiefly characterized by a complex combination of these variations, and specially by contrast between the dramatic and non-dramatic pas- sages, and differentiated syntax for individual characters and character groups. The non-dramatic syntax is partly determined by the type of fiction and the rhetorical nature of the passage, partly by the general influence of the period, the nationality and the individuality of the author. A few details are given here merely as examples of syn- tactical analysis. Variations of mood and tense are often significant. Direct inter- rogative and imperative to the reader may serve to enlist his sympathy, otherwise determine his point of view, or to increase the illusion of reality. The historical present is common in spirited narration, espe- cially in romance. A combination of perfect and present tenses is effective in this sentence from George Eliot's Janet's Repentance: " But Mr. Tryan has entered the room, and the strange light . . . makes," etc. The rare interrogative future easily becomes sensational. This sentence is found in Chapter XII of George Eliot's Mr. Gilfil's Love-story (emphasized by being made a paragraph): "Will she crush it under her feet . . . till every trace of those false, cruel features is gone? " There are several examples of imperative to a character in Dombey and Son. Somewhat characteristic of the novel are epithetical phrases or typi- cal names for characters, groups, and places : The Last of the Roman Tribunes, Dona Perfecta, The Weaver of Raveloe, Poor Silas, Pretty Nancy, The Mill on the Floss, Old Mortality, The Man of Feeling, The Female Quixote, The English Rogue. Here may be included the various names for the same character in disguise as in Amadis of Gaul, Sidney's Arcadia, Lodge's Rosalind. The syntactical qualities of irony, as in Jane Austen ; of satire, as in Rabelais ; of serious imitation, as in Gogol's Taras Bulba ; of burlesque imitation, as in the pseudo-epic EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 23 style of The Battle of the Books, may all be analyzed into characteristic details. Figurative language depends to a considerable extent upon syntax. Expanded figures, especially the more im- aginative figures of personification, apostrophe, and the continuous figurative language of allegory and symbolism, are more characteristic of both short story and romance than of the realistic novel. The romance of chivalry and the heroic romance are characterized by extended figures. When occurring in picaresque fiction and its allies, the figurative language is usually burlesque in spirit. In Silas Marner, as a representative realistic story, the figures, whether those in the dramatic or non-dramatic passages, rarely extend beyond a single sentence, and are most com- monly compressed into a single clause or phrase. They are generally simple similes or metaphors. Other details are the dialogic connectives, noticed in Section 14; catalogues and lists of articles like the romances in Don Quixote, the games in Gargantua (Rabelais) ; the argumentative or expository i, 2, 3 order in Bunyan and Defoe. A repeated word or phrase is sometimes found to give somewhat the effect of a leit-motif, as in the repetitions of " black remnant," " bright living thing," " flame," and "vision" in Chapter XII of Silas Marner. The dramatic syntax varies with the dialogic, epistolary and other documentary form. In the historical novel, the syntax of special periods is important; in the novel of manners, that of social groups ; in the novel of character, the syntax of the individual and his changing mental states. The control of syntactical details in all these cases is more difficult, and in general more significant, than the mere selection of vocabulary. Scott's theory of the shaping of language in historical fiction is given in the dedicatory epistle of Ivanhoe and 24 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL elsewhere. He combines the specialized language of a period and social class with language that " belongs to all ranks and all countries," and to give the general effect of remoteness, even for bygone centuries, finds the language of a few generations past to be sufficient. Thackeray, in Esmond and The Virginians, represents the more modern, more realistic fidelity to the speech of a past period. Dialect, while specially characteristic of the nineteenth century, has considerable place in much earlier fiction. In the picaresque and satirical novel of the Renaissance we have abundant reproduction of the "cant" phrases of the thief, the lawyer, doctor, priest, etc. A famous ex- ample of an original introduction of the terms of a special craft is found in the seaman's language of Smollett. Simple examples of the use of syntax to individualize characters are found in the third person plural with which Dolly Winthrop refers to the Deity (Silas Marner) ; the parenthetical sentences of Bulwer's Squire Brandon (Paul Clifford), and in Dickens, who frequently uses the "gag" with the effect of caricature. George Meredith is a promi- nent example of a novelist (as Browning is of a dramatist) whose own personal syntactical habits overshadow the utterances of his characters. 1 One may conveniently note here typographical 'variations for artistic effects. Italics are characteristic of sentimentalism, and are common in Richardson and his followers. They are used in early fiction to distinguish proper names. Bulwer is fond of italics, small capitals, dashes, and exclamation points. Sterne and other humorists use typo- graphical devices for comic effects. In the history of the English novel, the syntax of Eu- phuism has perhaps been given the most close analysis. A few examples of characteristic vocabulary and syntax of other well-marked historical types may be suggestive. 1 For examples of study of the syntactical peculiarities of individual novel- ists, see Brunetiere on Bourget (Roman Naturaliste), Cross on Stevenson, and Professor F. N. Scott's editorial introduction to'Rasselas. EXTERN KRUCTURE 2$ 1. Heroic Romance. Its formal phrasing is shown by these chance selections from Boyle's Parthenissa : " unintermitted obligations " ; " passionate conjurations of a meritorious servant " ; " accessional force in so ambitionecj a victory." Its complicated sentence structure may be indicated by the fact that Parthenissa contains sentences of over two hundred and fifty words. 2. Ossianic figure and Gothic phrasing may be exemplified from James White's Earl Strongbow (1789): "Like the thunder when it smites the stupendous head of Snowdon, or roars amidst the cliffs and woody pinnacles of Plinlimmon " ; "A range of reverend towers . . . enveloped in ivy " ; " It was a mansion sacred to silence and repose " ; " worm-eaten timbers and rusty hinges " ; " dim Gothic window." 3. The " sentimental school" of the later eighteenth century. From Brooke's Juliet Grenville ; or, the History of the Human Heart : " drowned in tears," "brimming tears"; "flood of tears"; "tears of grateful sensibility" (this same phrase occurs in Catherine Parry's Eden Vale ; compare Morley's introduction to the Man of Feeling, Cassell's National Library) ; " alarming transports " ; " transport of tender endearment " ; " paradisiacal delirium of infantile deliciousness." Compare Section 5. 23. Vocabulary. So far as the novelist creates words, or selects or modifies them for definite artistic 'purpose, they may be considered structural elements. Considered as narrative, the novel employs the power of words to accelerate, retard, produce suspense, surprise, climax, etc. ; as description, it has been prominent in the selection and determination of a specialized vocabulary for interiors, landscapes, physiognomy, the sensations and emotions of the individual, and the mental states of society. As a general type, it is characterized by range and variety of vocabulary ; contrast of dramatic and non-dramatic words ; combination and differentiation of the vocabularies of individuals and social groups. Creative vocabulary has been a special feature of the voyage imaginaire and of allegory. There are abundant 26 THE STUDY pF A NOVEL examples in Campanella's City of the Sun, Gulliver, Paltock's Peter Wilkins, Pilgrim's Progress, etc. Dialectic vocabulary has been prominent in picaresque fiction, satire, and the novel of manners. Glossarial explanation, not unknown in Renaissance fiction, expands till for the Waver- ley Novels a glossary of some two thousand words is neces- sary. In general, the novelist has been a radical in the use of words an iconoclast and a neologist. The aesthetic connotation of many such words as Gothic, sensibility, novel, romance, romantic, picturesque, picaresque, hero, soul, etc., has been largely determined by the usage of the novel. The mere names in a novel are often suggestive of the general type of the fiction. Compare the names of the characters of White's Earl Strongbow (Gothic historical romance), "Richard Fitzwalter," "Sir Reginald Fitzalan," "O'Carrol of Uriel," etc.; of Boyle's Parthenissa (heroic romance), "Artabanes," "Izadora," 4< Callimachus," etc.; of Ingelo's Bentivolio and Urania (didactic allegory}, "Alethion and Agape," " Theosebes and Urania," " Panaretes and Irene," with those of a picaresque novel, a modern novel of manners, etc. A study of special value and wide scope is suggested by the general theory of Stoddard's Evolution of the English Novel the development of interest from the physical to the spiritual. The modern novel shows even \ in its vocabulary a richer aesthetic result in the exploration | and combination of these two interests than any other form Aof prose literature. One may profitably analyze the vocab- 'ulary of form, color, movement (the power of visualization is often mentioned as a chief essential of the great fiction- ist), sound, touch, of vague inner sensation, as in swoon, dream, and delirium ; comparing it with the vocabulary of emotion, thought, and volition. In both cases the develop- ment of the exact, concrete word has been remarkable. EXTERNAL STRUCTURE 27 24. Phonology. Such structural details as alliteration, assonance, melody, pitch, time, etc., may be included under this term. Rhythm has been briefly noticed in Section 12. Phonetic effect for its own sake is not characteristic of the novel, as it is, to some extent, of the romance and certain types of short story. When the sound-value is emphasized, the values of characterization, action, setting, and thought are liable to become dim. But as a means to a less purely aesthetic end, the novelist explores every power of phonetic combination. In narration the clash of consonants or the swiftness of vowel sequences are important agencies ; in description onomatopoetic effects may be introduced, or general impressions of beauty, ugliness, simplicity, or com- plexity emphasized by an appropriate arrangement of sounds. It is in dramatic characterization, perhaps, that the most significant or characteristic use of phonetic resources is found in the novel. One has only to recall the wide variations in the reading aloud of the same dramatic passage by different persons to realize the importance of this point. Alliteration, consonantal friction, etc., may be important indications of the mental condition of a speaker, especially in highly emotional states. Compare the degrees and manner in which the novelist determines the details of utterance in these passages from Chapter XIV of George Eliot's Janet's Repentance : i. tlt Janet !' The loud jarring voice," etc. 2. ltt Perhaps he would kill her.'" 3. "Til cool your hot spirit for you. I'll teach you to brave me. 1 " 4. " ' Let him. Life was as hideous as death.' " CHAPTER II CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 25. Significance of Consecutive Structure. A novel may be simply and conveniently considered as a series of parts, each with its own identity, value, and relation to the whole series. The chief significance of this consecutive structure is threefold : it gives, in the main, the order in which the novelist composed, though the original concep- tion may be found in the catastrophe, and there are often other variations ; it is the natural order in which the reader becomes acquainted with the novel ; and it is a very impor- tant aesthetic aspect of the work itself, especially as a nar- rative. As a sequence of divisions shown to the eye, the series is in a sense spatial ; and, though much more definite, if a building is considered as a whole, may be compared with architectural series. As a sequence of sounds, it is essentially temporal; and, though in many respects less definite, may be compared with musical series. These two aspects are exactly those which have been examined under " external structure " ; but a novel also presents a series of images, emotions, and thoughts, belonging to what may be called, for contrast, the "internal structure." Except in the scientific and practical sense in which we grasp several elements at once, every detail of sound, imagery, and thought in the entire novel comes to us at some definite point in the series. Ordinarily one does not attempt to " realize " the minute details of either sound or meaning ; though for special purposes a passage may be CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 29 examined syllable by syllable. It is well to acquire the power to outline the entire structure in a well-proportioned manner, with any given scale to review the same novel, for example, in ten minutes or two hours. Thorough ex- amination of the structure consecutively gives, of course, every point in every topic of study based on the actual text of the novel ; but it is often convenient to have some special topic in mind, such as characters, settings, or sub- ject-matter. 26. Sequence. In any series we may notice the mere sequence, as in the numerical series i, 2, 3, etc.; or the deeper relative functions of the members of the series, as, that 2 is to 4 as 4 is to 8, etc. In the study of a novel, these two interests are certainly not entirely distinct ; but for purposes of analysis they may be noticed separately, to some extent. A novel may be considered as a series of masses com- posed of points. These two terms do not need absolute definition, if their relative values are kept in mind. When a considerable number of points referred to the same inter- est or "topic" are grouped together, the rhetorical term in mass may be used ; when points are scattered, the correlative term, in solution. Novels and novelists differ greatly in their use of these two methods, but in general it may be said : most of the chief matters of interest are found to some extent both in mass and in solution ; the most important, as characterization, dialogue, action, tend to be treated in mass ; the less important, as figures of speech, generalization, asides to the reader, etc., in solution. The " points " of any one interest taken consecutively throughout the composition or a portion of it may be called a line. 30 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL An analysis of paragraphs i and 7 of Chapter II, Silas Marner, not- ing some principal points of interest, without special attention to any one interest, may serve as an example. PARAGRAPH i. Plot. Generalized situation, social and psychological, of hero. Settings. Place contrast of new and old ; time detail of morning. Characterization. Generalization of hero as a type. Subject-matter. Exile, memory, religious and ecclesiastical life. Comparative Rhetoric. Essay and lyrical qualities. Genetic Criticism. Compare treatment of religious life in Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede. PARAGRAPH 7. Dramatic Form. " W<?-form " ; quotation of popular opinion. Plot. Situation-movement. Foreshadowing of the robbery. Settings. Place details of cottage ; time night. Characterization. Hero ; Raveloe rustics. Subject-matter. Formation of habit. 27. The Principal Masses. Masses may be classified or arranged according to their form and function somewhat as follows : i. Those determined by external structure (already noticed in Chapter I). The chapter, or in closer analysis, the paragraph, are the most convenient units for the examination of a novel from any point of view. The sequence of dramatic and non-dramatic form is of large significance. 2. Like any other literary composition, the novel should show a more or less distinct "beginning, middle, and end." 3. Rhetorical form determines masses of description, narration, lyricism, etc. 4. As fiction, the novel may show masses of primary and secondary illu- sion, and some masses in which the illusion is dropped. 5. What may be called by distinction " novelistic function " determines masses of characterization, setting, generaliza- tion, etc. 6. The specifically narrative masses include movements, episodes, events, incidents, scenes, and CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 31 situations. 7. Some masses may be distinct units of subject-matter. 28. Sequence of Dramatic and Non-dramatic Masses. For the typical novel the most important sequence of these forms is alternation of dialogic and non-dialogic masses. Its importance has been already suggested (Section 13), and the analysis may be made at that point in the study if desired. From its very nature, dialogue is usually found distinctly in mass; and in a well-constructed novel it is fairly evenly distributed. The greatest practical difficul- ties of the analysis are the distinction between primary and secondary dramatic form (see Sections 3 and 13), espe- cially in the epistolary novel ; and the frequent intricate mixture of dramatic and non-dramatic form. Some interesting points appear in this somewhat rough outline of the comparatively simple structure of Silas Marner. The numbers are for lines. i. Non-dramatic form (semi-dramatic, 40), 325; 2. Mixed form, 70; 3. Non-dramatic (semi-drainatic, 20, 30), 425; 4. Mainly DUO- LOGUE, 250 ; 5. Mainly non-dramatic, 600 ; 6. Mainly CONVERSATION, 600; 7. Non-dramatic, 75 ; 8. Dramatic, 50 ; 9. Non-dramatic, 100; 10. Mainly DUOLOGUE, 200 ; II. Non-dramatic, 150 ; 12. Mainly dra- matic, 125 ; 13. Non-dramatic (some semi-dramatic}, 275 ; 14. Mainly dramatic, 700; 15. Mixed, mainly non-dramatic (Conclusion), 100. In a novel of letters, the epistolary sequence and the dialogic may be analyzed separately, or in combination. Omitting a few details, the epistolary sequence of Evelina is as follows : (A = Evelina ; B = Mr. Villars ; C = Lady Howard ; D = Miss Mir- van ; E Sir John Belmont. The numbers are for letters.) i. Exchange, B and C, 7 ; 2. A to B (3, B to A}, 19; 3. Mixed exchange, A, B, C, D, E, 15 ; 4. A to B (2, B to A), 15 ; 5. A to D, 5 ; 6. A to B (3, B to A), 22. 32 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 29. Beginning, Middle, and End. In scarcely any anal- ysis in this chapter will more differences of opinion arise than just at this point. Even when the author marks an "introduction" or "introductory chapter," and a "conclu- sion," or " concluding chapter," these are not always satis- factory divisions. Prologues, dramatic prefaces, epilogues, must also be considered (see Section n). Ordinarily the first chapter or a small group of chapters may be con- sidered as the beginning; the last chapter, or last few chapters, as the end. The beginning usually includes definite masses of initial setting, characterization, situation, and action. Foreshortened narrative giving a summary of the preceding part of the story is specially common. There may be distinct introduction or foreshadowing of theme. Frequently there are masses of initial motivation ; of dialogue or specific incident followed by more general exposition or narrative, or vice versa. The "end" of a novel includes the catastrophe of the plot; frequently a presentation of the chief characters in a situation giving the effect of permanence and finality. In some novels there is considerable suggestion of future " movement." If there is an epilogue, a notable interval of time often precedes it. In Silas Marner, study the relative values, as a " beginning," . of Chapter I, Chapters I and II, and these with the first three paragraphs of Chapter III added ; in Pride and Prejudice, Chapter I and Chapters I to III. In the beginning of a novel there are two points of special importance : the introduction of the composition, at which point we leave life for literature, and the intro- duction of the illusion, at which point we leave actuality for fiction. These two points may of course coincide, but this is by no means an invariable rule. The entrance to CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 33 the illusion may be abrupt or by gradual transition. If there are distinct primary and secondary illusions, as in the imaginary manuscript type of fiction, the exact point of introduction to each may be noted. In the conclusion, the two corresponding points are to be examined. The novel is not so likely as the romance or the short story to begin or close with a distinct effect, producing an impres- sion which dominates the entire work. 1 EXAMPLES OF INITIAL POINTS BEFORE COMPLETE ILLUSION. Generalization: Anna Karenina; Pride and Prejudice. Place Setting (so far as we know entirely or largely real) : Pere Goriot ; Eugdnie Grandet ; House of the Seven Gables ; I Promessi Sposi. Place and Time Settings : La Debacle ; Silas Marner. INITIAL POINTS OF ILLUSION. For the imaginary manuscript, see Section 20. General situation, characterization, or early history of hero or heroine: Robinson Crusoe ; Don Quixote; Vathek ; Soil und Haben. Secondary Characters : Frankenstein ; Tom Jones ; Pendennis ; Sense and Sensibility. Specific Incident : Pendennis (slightly generalized) ; Doila Perfecta; Wilhelm Meister; Ivanhoe ; (the last three with quali- ties of "scene"). CONCLUDING POINTS. Closing with point distinctly in the illusion. (For conclusion with the title, see Section 5.) Return to imaginary manuscript: Scott's Tales of My Landlord. Specific Situation : Robin- son Crusoe ; Soil und Haben ; I Promessi Sposi ; Anna Karenina ; Silas Marner (dialogic point); Scarlet Letter (impressionistic effect) ; Ivanhoe. Closing with point not entirely in the illusion. Pepita Jime'nez (motto evidently selected by author in propria persona) ; Don Quixote (pur- pose of work). 30. Movement and Situation. A mass of event, large or small, may be considered a movement, though the term is somewhat more applicable to the larger masses. Move- ments in the direct line of general plot-development may 1 Poe writes of the " preconceived effect " of the entire composition : " If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then [the writer] has failed in his first step." (" Hawthorne's 'Tales.' ") 34 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL be called "centripetal"; others, "centrifugal." In a gen- eral way, the sentence or paragraph is the standard unit of incident; the chapter, of event and scene ; chapter groups, of episode. A situation, in a technical sense, is a summary of impor- tant circumstances at any stage of the plot, though items of situation may be given in solution. A situation is of course implied at every stage, which the reader may work out for himself if the novelist does not state it. In general, a novel is an alternation of movements and situations ; the sense of spirited progress depending on the predominance of the former ; the sense of reflective leisure, philosophical breadth, largely on the predominance of the latter. 31. Event and Incident. By event is here meant a unified mass of action of some scope and distinct signifi- cance in the plot, composed of distinct minor units of action the incidents. Occasionally important incidents are found isolated. Every event, in the complete meaning of the term, has a very marked identity, in sequence of incidents, and espe- cially in time and place settings. It is readily distinguished from all other events in the same novel or other novels ; but realism tends more than romance to give highly indi- vidualized details of incident and setting. Important events are likely to have definite introduction and conclusion and a definite time setting; to be preceded and followed by a time interval, and to be given specific motivation. In the sequence of incidents, however, an event may be so typical, whether this be intended by the author or not, as to lose in large part its individual quality. The single combat of knights in the romance of chivalry, for example, frequently has about this sequence of incidents : the knights perceive CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 35 one another, a challenge is given, the shock with spears and unhorsing, the attack with swords, etc. Compare this with the archery contest in Chapter XIII of Ivanhoe, ap event which in outline is still somewhat typical, but has detail enough to individualize it thoroughly : Preparation. Announcement, selection of archers, inspection, etc. First Target. Preparation, casting of lots, the shooting, dialogue of John and Robin Hood. Second Target. Change of target, Hubert's shot aim, shot, flight, Robin Hood's shot, dialogue of Hubert and John, Hubert's successful shot, dialogue, Robin's shot. The Wand. Preparation, dialogue, the shot. Finale. Congratulations, dispersion of crowd. This event is an excellent example in miniature of dramatic line, and of many details of narrative form. Events or incidents may also be generalized, though they are in that case usually given mainly in outline, for obvious reasons. The novelist makes liberal use of gen- eralized events to give the impression of solidity, of accumu- lation of happenings, in little space. Such passages are often introduced by formulas like " he was in the habit of," "every Sunday afternoon," etc. In the next to the last paragraph of Chapter II, Silas Marner, the generalized incident, " But at night," etc., offers striking contrast with the unique "little incident" of the preceding paragraph. An incident which, as given, cannot be analyzed, may be called an tiltimate point of incident. Modern realism is inclined to give these points in more detail than the ordi- nary consciousness would note to make them approach the elements of physical, physiological, and psychological reality. In this very manner, however, it may destroy the impression of reality. A more effective realism may be that which coincides as nearly as possible with the degree of detail the average, or at least the non-scientific, conscious- ness would note from a given point of view. Of this kind of realism the passage from Ivanhoe noticed above is a 36 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL fairly good example. If Scott had attempted to note every muscular change in Robin Hood as he shot, he would have been more realistic in one sense, but the effect of reality would probably have been blurred. Events may be classified in many ways. One of special significance, and of special value in preparation for study of subject-matter, is that which distinguishes personal experi- ences, domestic, social, professional, natural, supernatural events, etc. Important results depend on the number, distribution, type, and treatment of events. External events and incidents as such are of greatest value in the novel of action : in the novel of character they may sink to a rela- tively unimportant position. 32. The Scene. A scene may be considered a special- ized treatment of an event, and between the two no exact line need be drawn. Analogy with the drama suggests that essential unity of dramatis personas, unity and con- tinuity of time, elaboration and unity of circumstantial and place settings, and predominance of dialogue are char- acteristic of a completely developed scene. Though either scene or event may be composed of a soliloquy, with its objective environment, the terms apply with more force to masses in which there is obvious and even somewhat com- plicated external activity. Some critics, chiefly those who emphasize its descriptive quality, consider the novel as essentially a series of scenes. While this conception often gives a satisfactory analysis, there are many novels in which fully developed scenes are found only at consider- able intervals. In Silas Marner, taking the chapter as a unit, the best examples of developed scenes are in Chapters V, VI, VII, IX, XVIII, XIX, and XX. There are many other minor or fragmentary scenes ; but as a whole, CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 37 Silas Marner can hardly be considered as composed of a series of scenes, even allowing for the necessary transitions. It does not open with a scene, as the romances of Scott frequently do, or close with & very distinct one. 33. Episode. This term may be defined as a unified mass composed of a series of events or scenes, with their accompanying situations. In a novel of clear structure the episodes are well-relieved. They may be centripetal or centrifugal (episode in a common secondary sense); pro- gressive or reverting ; may belong to a single action or the whole plot, etc. Episode, being a larger mass, is not likely to be so closely unified in time, place, or characters as a scene, but it may have its own identity in each of these and other particulars. Incident, event, and episode are terms that may be taken relatively, in reference to the perspective of the whole composition. In a general history of the United States, the Civil War may be an episode, the battle of Gettysburg an event, Pickett's charge an incident, the death of a single general an ultimate point of incident. But in the analysis of a short story devoted entirely to Pickett's charge, the movement of the army across the plain might be an episode, the death of a single soldier an event, the dropping of his rifle an incident, and "the bayonet struck first " an ultimate point. OUTLINE OF THE EPISODES IN SILAS MARNER EPISODE I. Life of Silas Marner before the robbery. Chapters I and II. As a whole, in reference to the rest of the narrative, and as treated, a situation. 1. At Lantern Yard. I. A movement without well-developed scene. 2. At Raveloe. II. In the main a situation, with somewhat scat- tered incidents, rather than event or scene. 38 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL EPISODE II. The Robbery. Chapters III to X. As a whole a dis- tinct movement. 1. III-IV. Preparatory movement in two events. 2. V. Climax of episode. Incident expanded into event. 3. VI to IX. " Fall " of the episodic line. Chapter VI a centrifu- gal event with scene quality. 4. X. Transitional to next episode, with somewhat of situation quality. EPISODE III. The Coming of Eppie. Chapters XI to XV. Move- ment passing into situation. 1. XI and XII. Preparatory. XI somewhat centrifugal, and with scene quality ; XII much more distinctly a forward movement. 2. XIII. Climax of episode and of the Godfrey Cass action. 3. XIV and XV. " Fall " of the episode ; but with situation quality. EPISODE IV. Final relations of Marner, Eppie, and the Casscs. Chapter XVI to Conclusion. Mixed qualities of movement and situation. 1. XVI to XVIII. Preparatory movement. 2. XIX. Climax of episode. (Real catastrophe of plot.) 3. XX. " Fall " of episode. 4. XXI. Somewhat centrifugal, so far as this single episode is con- cerned. Event. 5. Conclusion. Catastrophic event, resolving into situation at the end. 34. Lines of Interest. " Thread of interest " is the more common phrase, but it is frequently used in reference to the narrative interest alone. The consecutive points of charac- terization, subject-matter, and all other important "topics" may also be traced as more or less distinct lines. Some of these perhaps need no further comment than is sug- gested by the analysis of masses and points in this chapter; the important lines of single action are considered in the next chapter. It is convenient to notice here, partly as a representative analysis, partly on account of its special significance in the novel, the " line of emotion." CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 39 35. The Line of Emotion. In examining this, one may have the author, characters, or reader specially in mind. The fact that the author presents a character moved by fear does not necessarily mean that the author or the reader experiences that emotion. Nor does a mere discussion of emotion, whether by the author or a character, such as one should notice in the study of subject-matter, belong to the line of emotion. For general purposes, this is best traced by observation of the diction showing emotion in the charac- ters or author or calculated to produce it in the reader. The intensity as well as kind of emotion may be noted. Critics who emphasize the emotional element as charac- teristic of the novel, have in mind an unusual degree of emotional stress. The line of intensity may be conceived as related to an imaginary base-line of normal unstressed emotion. Practise in minute analysis of emotional sequence is best found in the lyric or short story of emotional type, or in selected passages of a novel. The line of intensity in Silas Marner, Chapter XIII, in which strong feeling is specially predominant, may be diagrammed somewhat as follows. The references to the text also note the kind of emotion, to some extent. NORMAL EMOTION 1. If we drew separate lines for Godfrey and Silas, that for Silas would perhaps be somewhat higher. 2. Company in general: "Easy jol- lity," " enjoyment." 3. "Admired," "very pleasant." 4. "Startling," " trembling," " throb," " terror." 5. Half-breathlessly." 6. Ladies 40 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL in general: "Curious." 7. Eppie : "Half-alarmed." 8. "Terrible effort." 9. "Strong sudden impulse." 10. Mrs. Kimble : "Mild surprise." 11. Doctor Kimble : " Some bitterness." 12. Eppie : " Began to cry." 13. "Felt the cry." 14. Dolly Winthrop :" Much concerned," "compassion." 15. " Suspense," " passionate desire and dread," " sense of duty," "hope of freedom." 16. "Is she dead?" "What sort of woman is she?" 17. Eppie :" Soothed." 18. "Con- flict of regret and joy," etc. 19. " Sharply." 20. " Sense of relief and gladness." 21. Author, and semi-quotation of Godfrey. This analysis might be made more detailed or more simple ; but it may serve to indicate a method. The centre of emotional interest is clearly in Godfrey. " Clash of emotion " is to some extent represented in the relations of Godfrey and Silas ; more distinctly in the mind of Godfrey himself. The emotional pitch of the chapter as a whole is lowered by the comparatively mild beginning and conclusion, and by the presence and speech of characters not in very tense emotional state. 36. Points. A point, in a detailed analysis, will not generally occupy more than a sentence, sometimes only a phrase or word. Points may be noted with reference to every phase of the structure and substance of the novel. Among the more important points that may be called spe- cifically structural are : changes of tense, use of / or we form; asides to the reader; generalizations and typifica- tions ; details of action, settings, characterization and moti- vation ; details to increase illusion ; expectation (preparation, foreshadowing), reminiscence, repetition ; sudden relief of suspense ; surprise, etc. Points of subject-matter include any brief statement of theme or sub-theme, or any detail of the topics studied in Chapter VII. One may also notice points of " genetic criticism " signs of revision or fatigue, etc. ; of " dynamic criticism " - influence of another novel, of nationality, etc. ; and of " kinetic criticism " details which we like or dislike, which appear improbable, which might offend a certain class of readers, etc. CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 41 Points having peculiar distinctness or force, especially from the reader's point of view, may be called effects* A novel dominated by startling single effects tends to become sensational; a novel without any such effects is rare, and can hardly resemble actual life. The short story is more likely than the novel to affect us as composed of brilliant single points ; the mass quality being sometimes so obscured that we can scarcely see the wood for the trees. As an example of analysis some of the principal points in Chapter XII of Silas Marner may be noted. This chap- ter contains many notable effects, including "touches of fantasy," which give it something of the quality of a ro- mantic short story. It is entirely in non-dramatic form, except for the few details noted first. The numbers refer to the paragraphs. Dramatic Form. Semi-quotation of Molly and Marner; Eppie's "Mammy." Syntax. Repetition of " longing " ; " demon " ; " black remnant " ; "pleaded"; "moment"; "bright living thing"; "gleam"; "tod- dled " ; " flame " ; " vision " ; " Mammy," etc. Interrogative; (6) and (8). "To close it but he did not close it." Personification of "demon"; " white- winged messengers." Psycho- logical phrases e.g., " bewilderment of waking"; "supreme imme- diate longing," characteristic of author. Appeal in " pretty stagger " ; " primary mystery," etc. Vocabulary. Effects of mystery gained by " glimmer " ; " blurred " ; 'amazement " ; " marvel " ; " wonderment " ; " awe," etc. ; of fore- shadowing in "listening"; "gazing"; "yearning"; "unrest," etc. " Furze " and " catalepsy " are effects for many readers. Concreteness of " toddled " ; " dangling " ; " gurgling," etc. Phonology. Alliteration and vowel melody in " old quiverings . . . over his life." Rapid syllabification, aiding the sense, in " an inexplic- able " to end of sentence. Cadences at close of chapter. 1 See the analysis of effects in Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist. 42 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Dramatic Irony. " How and when had the child come in ? " Point of View. Implied in calling Mrs. Cass, "Molly"; Marner, " Silas." Child's point of view. Foreshadowing. Very many points. "Freezing wind"; "She walked always," etc.; (4) as a whole; and (8). Preparation. "As if there was gold" is a counterpoint of Chapter XIV, paragraphs 14 and 33, etc. Reminiscence* " Her husband would be smiling " (of preceding chap- ter) ; "had its father's hair; " Godfrey has previously been mentioned as a blond. "Opium" is reminiscent of Chapter III, paragraph 23. Surprise. Abrupt introduction of Eppie (i), made more emphatic by position at end of paragraph, after matter important and surprising in itself; "suddenly" (5) ; "but he did not see the child" (6). Suspense. The chapter abounds with effects. " She would go . . k and disclose herself" momentary anticipation unfulfilled. Consecu- tive suspense and relief in " In another moment ... it was an empty phial." The last clause comes as near being sensational as any in the entire novel. Suspense in (8) falls into distinct masses stages, closed by relief, and marked by " instead of the hard coin," " his little sister," etc. The mass of suspense in (10) is relieved suddenly by last sentence. It does not depend on the reader's ignorance of facts, but on his uncertainty as to how the author will give a new turn to the fact already known, and on the ignorance of Silas. Contrast. Of this chapter with the last ; of the time setting New Year's Eve with the tragedy; of tragedy for Molly and blessing for Silas ; in special depression of Silas at the moment when his life is to receive new impulse. Special effects of pathos are found throughout in vocabulary, syn- tax, point of view, etc. 37. Mass in Momentum. By momentum is meant the general effect of increasing value characteristic of any aesthetic series, but particularly distinct in narration. By a loose analogy with physical force, it may be analyzed into the two elements of " mass," considered as the accumu- lation of previous interest at any point; and "velocity," that is, the rapidity with which new interest is accumu- lating at this point. CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 43 Mass may include all that we consciously or uncon- sciously retain for ourselves, but it is more clearly struc- tural when the novelist summarizes or otherwise recalls the previous interest. The reminiscences of Chapters XVI and XXI in Silas Marner give increased momentum to the new events introduced, as in real life it is often mem- ory that gives peculiar force to present experience. In the third part of Robinson Crusoe, the essay on " Soli- tude " has back of it the whole lonely experience of the hero on the island, which to some extent Defoe recalls. Individual memory is of special value in psychological characterization ; as in Tolstoi's Resurrection. Expectation is a convenient term for all suggestion of coming events. The most general expectation of a nar- rative is implied in the simple fact that it is to be read. Preparation may be used for more definite announcement ; anticipation for an introduction of details to be repeated at a later stage ; foreshadowing for vague, impressionistic prophecy of future events. Suspense is a general term to denote that the interest in any of these forms of expecta- tion is raised to especially high pitch. Among special ways of producing suspense are announcement of an important meeting of characters, and introduction of characters with concealed identity, particularly when the identity is concealed from the reader or the character himself. Concealed identity, in various forms, plays a considerable part in Sidney's Arcadia, as in many romances of chivalry and pastoral romances ; in Les Mise'rables, Bulwer's Paul Clifford and Kenelm Chillingly. The technical treatment is prob- ably modelled after that of the drama; the "recognition" in catas- trophe, after the classical drama. An interesting example of double "recognition" false and true is found in Dolly Cowslip, in the catastrophe of Smollett's Sir Launcelot Greaves. 38. The Rate of Movement. The general rate of move- ment the thematic " tempo " may often be given with 44 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL some definiteness for the novel as a whole, but a large part of its aesthetic value depends on changes within the composi- tion. If the novel is " allegro," so to speak, as a whole, it will require a " presto " movement to give much acceleration ; and an "andante" movement will, by comparison, be a retardation. It might be possible to select individual novels or passages as standards of the principal rates of move- ments suggested by the analysis of music. Momentum has not been defined as referring merely to the purely narrative interest, a reader may perhaps be more concerned with the accumulation of philosophical ideas, etc., but this is the most common and most natural application. Viewing a novel as a narrative, description, exposition, and often dialogue are retarding elements ; the highest degree of acceleration occurs in narrative passages characterized by rapid sequence of well-relieved incidents. Richardson's novels are famous examples of retardation ; Smollett's, as novels of adventure, are marked by notable acceleration. The eleven pages of Chapter XXI of Sir Launcelot Greaves include a marriage, father's rejection of a daughter, persecution of a debtor, imprison- ment, birth and death of a child, formation of the drunkard's habit, development of semi-insanity, social and prison history of a "gay young widow," bankruptcy and imprisonment of another character, and several other distinct incidents. (But in this passage there is little mass in the momentum, for Sir Launcelot is hardly the important character, and the others are entirely episodic.) There is nothing resembling this in Silas Marner. That novel as a whole might perhaps be considered an andante movement. Acceleration is specially noticeable in Chapters XIII, XVIII, and the latter part of Chapter I ; retardation in Chapters VI and XI. 39. Climax and Foiling. Foiling is represented by the formula, a A, 1 in reference to any two consecutive items of 1 For a conception of the term and its application, see Moulton's Shake- speare as a Dramatic Artist. CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE 45 interest; though, like climax, more generally referred, in the novel, to characters and events. Climax is represented by the formula a A A. In the relations of character, an ex- ample of foiling is found when character A is presented as good, B as better, or the reverse; in the relations of action, when a mysterious event is compared with a more myste- rious, etc. Logically, it requires three points and no more to make a climactic effect, and this triple form is common in fiction, especially romantic fiction. Compare the triple testing of chastity, the three caskets of the Merchant of Venice, and Bedivere with Excalibur in the Idylls of the King. Of course there are many degrees of definiteness in foiling and cli- max. Special structural value is found only when the author is conscious of the effect, but the student may discover many examples for himself. In a certain way, Jem Rodney is a foil for Dunstan Cass, but it is doubt- ful if George Eliot thought of the two as so related. In Robinson Crusoe there is climax in the series of disasters to the hero in his early history ; in his gradual conquest of circumstances on the island, and in the later growth of the colony. Each of these series may be out- lined in distinct stages. A good example of romantic character foiling is found in the hero and the monster of Frankenstein great isola- tion and suffering ; greater isolation and suffering. Climax of plot, as a definite technical term, is noticed in Section 51. 40. Reciprocity. Any two points or masses with defi- nite structural interchange of value, so to speak, espe- cially when the values are considered about equal, may be called reciprocal. The terms counterpoint, counter- mass , may also be used. Contrast is the most familiar and perhaps the most significant type of reciprocity. It is naturally most emphatic when the two points are adjacent, and when it passes into detailed antithesis. Victor Hugo often carries his fondness for sharp contrast, observable in every element of the novel, into the details 46 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL of sentence and phrase. Contrast should not be limited to characters, though this is certainly one of its most impor- tant aspects in the novel. Contrast incorporated in the main theme of a novel is suggested by such titles as Master and Man, Cloister and Hearth, Sense and Sensi- bility. 1 Suspense and its " relief " are of course reciprocal. They are often somewhat massed at the beginning or climax of a novel, and at the catastrophe, respectively. A marked example of anticipation is found in Janet's Repentance, the closing paragraph of Chapter IX. This item of the narrative is elaborated in its proper place in the first paragraphs of Chapter XXVII, even with essential repetition of a few details " her eyes were worn with grief and watching " ; " in quiet submissive sorrow," etc. What seems to be definite anticipation is not always fulfilled. When Godfrey Cass sees his dead wife in Marner's cottage, " he remembered that last look at his unhappy hated wife so well, that at the end of sixteen years every line in the worn face was present to him when he told the full story of this night." This is so definite that we may naturally expect a corre- sponding passage later, but there is no further mention of this terrible memory of Godfrey. 41. Analysis of Simpler Narratives. The novel is too long and complex to permit an exhaustive analysis of all the elements of narrative form. For practise in such analysis the short story is more satisfactory. For the examination of mere mechanism, perhaps nothing is better than that barren type in which narrative interest is re- duced to its lowest terms, the genealogy. In the tenth chapter of Genesis, for example, it is easy to distin- guish the beginning, middle, and end ; the episodes ; the points of repetition, retardation, acceleration, etc. Most of the analyses of the present volume could be simply exemplified from Biblical narratives. 1 Other phases of contrast are noticed in the chapter on General ^Esthetic Interest. CHAPTER III PLOT 1 42. Meaning of Plot. Four somewhat different con- ceptions of plot are explained in the glossary. The root idea of them all is that of design of unity fashioned out of complexity of details. This root idea implies a certain subjectivity in all plot ; for design, though it may be given external form, is essentially a product of the mind. It follows that plot analysis is more or less flexible, depending on the particular way in which the artist and the critic see the relation of the details to a central plan. Even so simple a graphic design as this, , the imagination may choose to see primarily as a circle with an inscribed cross, the four quarters of a circle, etc. In more complicated designs it may require some time for an untrained eye to perceive the unity in a given way. This flexibility is very pronounced in the novelistic plot, because the details them- selves are invariably complicated and subjective. In a sense, the critic makes rather than merely discovers the plot. The closer the study, the more familiar any method of analysis, however, the more exact and uniform the results. The general conception of plot as unity of design is applicable to all the arts, and is noticed more at length in 1 The general indebtedness of this chapter to Moulton's method of plot analysis, and to Freytag and his followers, may he acknowledged once for all. Many details will be apparent to any one acquainted with the two critics. 47 48 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL the chapter on General ./Esthetic Interest. The present chapter considers plot mainly in the first sense of the glossary, as a design of strictly narrative details. 43. Necessity and Ideality of Narrative Plot In any well-constructed narration, one may affirm the necessity and ideality of plot. When Mr. Tuckerman writes of Morte d'Arthur, "of plot there is none," 1 if he is using the word in the sense just given, his statement is opposed by an analysis of the romance itself. Plot is necessary because of the inevitable tendency of the mind to unify any series of events it considers together ; it is ideal because the imagination, broadly interpreted, is the only mental faculty able to fashion this unity in a satisfactory manner. Though one may grant a certain objective unity in a series of natural events, as in the working of a machine or a process of crystallization, the narrative record of those events, unless a mere unmeaning jumble, is a product of imagination. The great unifying conception of evolution, even if all the facts were found in nature, is essentially imaginative, as science states it for our intel- lectual satisfaction and practical use. Especially in any series of social or individual human experiences, the reason demands and the imagination attempts the transformation of a chaos of details into a cosmos of significance, if not of beauty. Plot, in this restricted sense, is common to epic, drama, novel, history, and biography ; and the general method of analysis may be much the same for all. The student of the novel might profit by plot analysis of Carlyle's French Revolution, Hallam's Middle Ages, or Grant's Personal Memoirs. Most clearly is plot necessary and ideal in fictitious narrative. However real the main outline of events, or 1 English Prose Fiction, p. 40. PLOT 49 specific events, as in historical fiction ; however typical, as in the novel of manners ; the plot of every novel, as a fusion of details into unity, is a unique product of imagi- \ nation. The most commonplace and conventional novel ever written has at least this interest of distinct identity in imaginative process and result. The old-fashioned critical terms " invention" and " the fable" (see the glos- sary) emphasized this aspect of plot. The fact that plot is imaginative does not necessarily imply, however, that it is emotional or spontaneous. It is in the very process of conscious intellectual shaping of materials to an ideal result that some critics find the main dignity of plot. The novelist as well as the philosopher may call into action the "imaginative reason." Adverse criticism of plot rests largely upon a one-sided interpretation of its meaning. Zola's spirited attack has been abundantly answered, and particularly by the testimony of his own novels. 1 44. Action and Narration. Action is a general term which includes all the real or fictitious incidents of the plot. It applies more particularly to external events, with definite time and place settings; but in a wider sense to emotions and thoughts, even without definite settings, which belong to the unity of illusion. Most novels contain many passages, especially the generalizations and descrip- tions by the author, which lie outside the action proper. The action includes all the incidents supposed to happen, whether distinctly given or merely implied ; the narra- tion gives some of these fully, some briefly, and omits all record of others. The relation of action to narration 1 For appreciation of plot, see, for example, Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, and Santayana's Sense of Beauty ; for adverse criticism, see Zola's Experimental Novel. 50 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL is in part analogous to that between the characters and characterization. The life of Napoleon, or the events of the American Civil War, considered as materials for the biographer and historian, are actions; the biography and the history are narrations. The action is clearly a larger and more complex whole than the narrative, to which it alone, in fiction or outside of fiction, gives reality and authority. This dis- tinction applies to many topics in Chapter II, as well as in the present chapter. There is, for example, a situation in the action, and a situation in the narration. In Silas Marner, the action-situation at the close of Chapter IV includes the important incident of Dunstan Cass' death ; but this incident enters the narrated situation only towards the close of the novel. In the fluctuating relations of action and narration lie many of the problems of narrative technic. To imagine a story is one thing, to tell it another. The main relations may be called divergence (" foreshortening " when the nar- ration distinctly condenses the action, and divergence in sequence, as in the example just given), convergence ', and coincidence. Parallelism, that is, uniform proportion be- tween action and narration, is practically impossible in a novel, and would at once destroy its artistic value. It is in the larger outlines of plot that divergence becomes most conspicuous and imperative. In details, the narration may approach the fulness of action, real or imagined, but from the scientific point of view there can never be actual coincidence. (Compare Section 31.) The process of selec- tion necessary to fashion an artistic narrative from an action has been emphasized in recent rhetorical study. Some critics find in imaginative selection the primary method and principle of narrative art ; and in a broader field, art in general has been defined as "the suppression of non-essentials." PLOT 51 45. Story. As a technical term, story may denote a larger whole of real action from which the plot is drawn. In clear form, story is rare except in historical fiction, but the plots of non-historical novels may always be viewed, by novelist or reader, as ideal episodes of a wider action historically real. The story of Ivanhoe is the history of the racial adjustment of Saxon and Celt in England ; of Quo Vadis, the history of the struggle of early Christianity with paganism. The plot of The Scarlet Letter may be interpreted as an ideal episode in the story of the redemption of the sinner through love, in which the lives of St. Paul, St. Augustine, and many other saints, are historical episodes. Various degrees of generalization by author or critic indicate proxi- mate, intermediate, and ultimate stories. The proximate story of Kingsley's Alton Locke is the Chartist movement, the wider story, the general struggle of the laboring classes; the proximate story of Galdds 1 Dona Perfecta is the struggle of medieval ecclesiasticism with modernism in nineteenth century Spain, the wider story, the general history of the clash of religious authority with the liberated intellect. In the introduction of 1831 to The Fortunes of Nigel, Scott suggests, by generalization, a far wider story than the history of the reign of James II : " The most picturesque period of history is that when the ancient rough and wild manners of a barbarous age are just becom- ing innovated upon, and contrasted, by the illumination of increased or revived learning, and the instructions of renewed or reformed religion." Unless there is a distinct and noteworthy narrative outline in the story itself, it is usually more satisfactory to consider it merely as background, or as general subject. 46. Story and Plot. When the story is distinctly con- ceived, it may have its own " dramatic line," with which the plot of the novel may coincide in beginning, climax, or catastrophe. The plot of The Plague Year is emphati- cally historical in that its beginning, rise, climax, fall, and 52 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL catastrophe coincide with those of the actual movement of the pestilence. (Compare Cross, pp. 143, 145, and passim.) Such coincidence is by no means an invariable rule in historical fiction. Both the climax and the catastro- phe of Ivanhoe are in the main purely imaginary, though typically historical. Great historical events, like great his- torical characters, if introduced at all, may sink into the background of the novel. Several plots may of course be drawn from the same story. These may be quite independent episodes ; as Galdos' Dona Perfecta, Reade's Cloister and the Hearth, Ebers' Homo Sum, for example, which may all be viewed as episodes in the story of the conflict of ascetic Christian- ity with the secular nature of man. When several plots from the same story have a considerable number of com- mon characters or incidents, they constitute what is tech- nically a " cycle" ; of which famous examples in romance are the Arthurian and Charlemagne cycles of the Middle Ages. Story often undergoes considerable modification in details or in general interpretation before the novelist moulds his plot from it. The freedom of Scott in this respect is partly recorded in his introductory matter, and has been abundantly noticed. In details, he transforms a Catholic into a Protestant, and changes the chronological sequence in order to gain increased dramatic effect; in general interpretation, his emphasis upon contrast in certain specific periods is probably due as much to his own imagination as to actual historical conditions. 47. The Plot Proper. The plot proper of a novel is the design which unifies all the incidents of the narration, in their relation to one another, and to the action. Novel- istic plot may generally be analyzed with profit by two methods, somewhat different, but so closely related that neither has much value without the other. The first PLOT 53 method considers plot as composed of single lines of interest, known in the action as " single actions," in the narration as " simple narratives." The second method subordinates these separate lines of interest to the general movement forward in chronological and causal series to a final goal the catastrophe. 48. The Single Action. A single action is a series of events having a unity and significance of its own if detached from the plot in which it is found. We may imagine it alone frequently as the material for a short story or transferred to another novelistic plot, without loss of essential meaning ; just as we may detach single characters from the network in which they are found, without loss of identity. Kipling's phrase, "but that's another story," technically stated, means, " a single action too independent to be woven into the present plot." Flexibility of plot analysis (Section 42) is particularly apparent in the perception of single actions. Some of these actions are dim, others quite distinct. They may have primarily a mere chronological unity, or may have their individual dramatic line, dramatis personae, settings, theme, tone, etc. It is not necessary that they have an inde- pendent origin, or were conceived as distinct by the novel- ist, though these conditions of course emphasize their individuality. The single action should not be understood as primarily the history of a single character, though the two may sometimes be identical. Often it is rather the related history of two or more characters ; sometimes a narrative movement in which the characters are merely the necessary agents of the action. The perception of single actions is often aided by a generalized statement of them. 54 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL In Silas Marner one can readily conceive the moral histories of Silas and Godfrey Cass separately, without violence to the actual plot. In typical form, the two actions are about as follows: A, a young rural aristocrat, contracts a degrading, clandestine mar- riage of passion. His wife dies, leaving a young child in the hands of people of the laboring class. A is too cowardly to take her himself, mainly on account of a woman of his own class, whom he loves and soon after marries. Later, when the child has developed into a young woman, he desires to adopt her, but she has become attached to her humble friends, and refuses to leave them. This, combined with the fact of their childlessness, is received by A and his wife as a just though painful punishment for his early folly and cowardice. This statement preserves the main outline of the story of Godfrey Cass, and leaves Silas Marner without even numerical identity. B, a sensitive laborer, suffers an injustice which isolates him from his own past and from his fellow-men. After years of loneliness, chance brings him a little waif child, and their mutual love softens his nature, reconciles him to his own life, and unites it again to that of his fellows, and to God. In this outline statement, Godfrey Cass, in his turn, becomes a dramatis persona merely implied. Of course this is not the actual plot of Silas Marner, but it is the two stories we might have had, and it throws light on the unifying process in the real plot. The history of Eppie cannot be well stated as an independent interest; she is necessary to both actions, and so becomes what Professor Moulton calls a " link personage." In Pride and Prejudice, it is impossible to make independent actions of the histories of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, without such violation of the actual plot as obscures rather than illuminates it. Theory as to the number of single actions in the typi- cal plot is not altogether lacking. Professor MacClintock 1 affirms that there is distinct tendency to fuse three actions together ; and practical analysis will show that this triple resolution is often satisfactory, though further resolution is always possible in a complex plot. As over-analysis results in more obscurity than no analysis at all, it seems best to avoid subtlety in the search for single actions. 1 Unpublished manuscript. PLOT 55 Single actions may be named or described according to their nature and structural value as tragic, comic ; adventure actions, love actions, supernatural actions, etc. ; episodic, persistent, thematic, main (principal), sub-actions, envelop- ing, motivating, etc. EXAMPLES OF ANALYSIS INTO SINGLE ACTIONS Pride and Prejudice. Enveloping Actions. 1. Social life in England, in the upper middle classes. 2. History of the Bennet family and their relatives. Main Actions. 3. Love story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. (Principal action.) 4. Love story of Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley. 5. Relations of Wickham to the Bennets and the Darcys. Sub-actions. 6. Professional and domestic history of Mr. Collins. 7. Relations of Colonel Fitzwilliam to Elizabeth Bennet. (Distinctly episodic.) Last of the Mohicans. 1 . Enveloping Action. Relations of the French, English, Ameri- cans, and Indians. 2. Main Action. Relations and experiences of Chingachgook, Hawkeye. Uncas, and Heyward. (The relation of the first two characters is an episodic action in reference to the Leather-Stocking series.) Sub-actions. 3. Relations of Magua to the other Indians and the whites. 4. Career of David Gamut. 5. Love story of Heyward and the Munro sisters. Quo Vadis. Enveloping Actions. 1. Struggle of early Christianity with Paganism (Greek, Roman, barbarian) . 2. International relations of the Roman Empire. 3. Events of the reign of Nero. 56 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Main Actions. 4. Love story of Vinicius and Lygia. (Principal action.) 5. Love story of Petronius and Eunice. Sub-actions. 6. Story of Chilo. 7. Attachment of Ursus to Lygia. 8. Rivalry of Petronius and Tigellinus. 49. Sequence of Simple Narratives. The divergence between action and narration is clearly seen whenever the continuity of the former is interrupted in the latter, as almost invariably happens in any plot at all complicated. The modern novelist generally omits the old-fashioned formulas, " we must now leave A and B for a time and follow the fortunes of C and D," etc., but the breaks are still in evidence. Simplicity or complexity of plot-struc- ture depends partly on the mere number of single actions, but more distinctly on their relations in the narrative, of which sequence is an important phase. Certain theoretical forms of sequence may be distinguished. While these are commonly combined in actual plot, one or another may be clearly predominant. 1. The episodic, J_ _*_ _!_ _1_, etc. 2. The alternating, J E_ _L J L _L, etc. 3. The dependent, 4. The interwoven, Of these, the episodic is the simplest, but results in a looseness of plot, usually avoided in part by the persistence of some one simple enveloping or main action. The third method is somewhat confusing, as it compels one to imagine two or more place and time settings and groups of dramatis personae at one time. In double form it is found in all PLOT 57 cases of intercalated narrative ; interesting examples of triple form occur in Euphues and Frankenstein. At one point in the latter romance, the primary place setting is a ship in the northern seas; the secondary, a remote island of Scotland ; the tertiary, the fair lakes of Switzer- land. The typical plot-structure of an artistic novel is based on a combination of the second and fourth formulas. Interweaving is most imperative at climax and catastrophe, ^especially the latter. In a well-constructed novel, the chapter is generally a satisfactory unit for examining the sequence of narratives. SEQUENCE OF SIMPLE NARRATIVES IN JANET S REPENTANCE CHAPTER I 2 3 i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 i? 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 - i, Spiritual history of Janet Dempster; 2, spiritual history of Edgar Tryan ; 3, ecclesiastical relations of Milby to the rest of England. SEQUENCE OF SIMPLE NARRATIVES IN SILAS MARNER CHAPTER i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ii 12 13 M 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 CON. I -- - -- 3 i, History of Silas Marner ; 2, history of Godfrey Cass ; 3, social life of Lantern Yard and Raveloe. 50. The Dramatic Line. The dramatic line is a name for the design of the whole plot-movement as determined by points of special importance called ''turning-points." In a more strict sense it applies only to a movement hav- ing a definite climax about halfway between the initial 58 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL point and the catastrophe. The term "climax" in this technical sense must be distinguished from its general rhetorical use, and specially from a common usage which identifies it with the catastrophe. The movement from the initial point to the climax is called the " rise " ; from the climax to catastrophe, the "fall." The dramatic line, while more characteristic of the drama than the novel, is very easily traced in many novels. Several other points, besides the three mentioned, have been discovered and named by critics of plot " tragic force," " final suspense," "further resolution," etc.; and some of these are often perfectly distinct in a well-constructed novel. The climax and catastrophe are the most significant points, determin- ing, for example, the tragic or comic nature of the plot as a whole. DRAMATIC LINE OF SILAS MARNER .2 i I. Initial point: the stolen knife, Chapter I. 2. Climax: the coming of Eppie, Chapter XII. 3. Catastrophe: Eppie's resolve to remain with Silas, Chapter XIX. DRAMATIC LINE OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE A' v V/ i. Initial point: the arrival of Bingley, Chapter I. 2. Climax? Darcy's proposal, Chapter XXXIV. 3. Tragic force: Darcy's letter, Chapter XXXV. 4. Final suspense: Lady dc Bourgh's interference, Chapter LVI. 5. Catastrophe: Elizabeth's engage- ment, Chapter LVI II. PLOT 59 51. The Climax. In a novel, the climax is generally somewhat diffused, and it may not always be possible to locate it in a single paragraph or sentence. In some cases it is quite central ; in others, nearer the catastrophe than the initial point the fall of the action being more rapid than the rise. 1 In all novels it is likely to be marked by some striking external event or incident historical often in historical fiction, social in the novel of manners, etc. In fiction in which character is supreme, this external climax is always accompanied by an intellectual or moral crisis in the important characters. In novels of philo- sophical quality, it is frequently emphasized by some gen- eralized reflection, as in Janet's Repentance: "There are moments when, by some strange impulse, we contra- dict our past selves fatal moments, when a fit of passion, like a lava stream, lays low the work of half our lives." (Chapter XIV.) While the entire plot before the climax is in a sense a preparation for it, the immediately preced- ing movement is usually more specifically preparatory, falls into well-marked stages, and is likely to be somewhat accelerated. The ideal climax is one which is definitely common to all the single actions ; but often the separate actions have somewhat divergent climaxes, in which case the closest approach to true " plot-climax " is found in the climax of the principal action. EXAMPLES In Silas Marner, the whole of Chapter XII is a climax. It includes one of the very few striking external events of the plot, but is even more distinctly an inward experience of the soul. In the immediate event it concerns primarily the Silas Marner action, but in a very clear manner it is a culminating point in both the main actions, and the chief 1 In the drama, Freytag and Moulton find it, usually, close to the center. 60 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL motivating force of both throughout the further development of the plot. A more specific location might find a climax at the point in which the " counter-play " (see glossary) becomes " play " ; the moment when Silas Marner ceases to be passive under his fate, and begins to mould his own fortunes " Marner stooped to lift it on his knees." In Pride and Prejudice, the exact point of climax is again found only in the principal action, but it is obviously a real turning-point for the other main actions. Especially does the tragic force, Darcy's letter, relate causally to the future of Jane and Bingley and Wickham, as well as Elizabeth and Darcy themselves. This climax is a definite external event, striking enough to the two characters immediately concerned, though not so exciting to the reader ; but its deeper quality is clearly psychological it is a distinct crisis in the moral development of both lovers. It may be noted that this climax is curiously near the center of the novel. The tragic force is emphasized by the epistolary form, and followed by one of the few significant soliloquies of the novel " How despicably have I acted," etc. 52. The Catastrophe. The climax is sometimes very faintly indicated, perhaps omitted altogether; the very nature of artistic narrative demands a more or less em- phatic catastrophe. While art must deviate somewhat from life at this point, and very often degenerates into artificiality, catastrophe has a foundation in actual experi- ence. The statement of certain realistic critics that noth- ing comes to an end outside of fiction, is true only in a limited sense. Scientifically, we may perceive the continu- ity of material and social forces, but our imaginative and moral interpretation of experience locates certain points which are, for our purposes, final. The Emancipation Proclamation may be considered almost the beginning of the " negro problem," in the current sense, but it is not therefore a mistake to consider it as the close of the history of slavery in America. Every death, and, in spite of its hackneyed treatment in the novel, every marriage, is a real catastrophe in the lives of a group of people it concludes PLOT 6 1 certain episodes conveniently if not logically viewed as detachable unities of experience. Artificiality in novelistic catastrophe takes many forms. Forced pessimism or optimism, whether due to the wilful- ness of the author or his slavery to the reading public, are unfortunately common. An artifice of less ethical signifi- cance is the forced ensemble, whether the characters actually meet, or are assembled merely in the imagination of the novelist. While life shows its own group catastro- phes, it is not so common in ordinary social experience as in fiction to find a single event distinctly final, introductory to a permanent situation, and equally significant for a con- siderable number of people. Frequently the artificiality lies not so much in the mere event of the catastrophe as in the motivation, or the speed with which it is approached. Representative types of catastrophic event are separa- tion or reunion of characters ; discovery of mistaken iden- tity; discovery and punishment of crime; marriage, and death. Perhaps the grandest catastrophe ever conceived by human imagination is the judgment day. This has found a place in the religious drama; but even in the broadest, most "epic," of historical romances, the final event rarely reaches such dimensions. The modern real- istic tendency is to find the most significant catastrophe as well as climax, in the moral experience of the individual. Modern imagination cannot unify the moral experiences of the whole human race so easily as did the medieval imagination. The novel is generally less hurried than the drama in conclusion as well as beginning. The technical catastrophe is often at some little distance from the final paragraph, as indicated in the diagrams of Section 50. In Silas Marner the author follows the -Shakespearian method of introducing a passage of comparative calm after the more 62 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL intense conclusion of the tragic movement; though in the dramatist such passages are always much more brief than the " Conclusion " of Silas Marner. EXAMPLES Ivanhoe. The catastrophe includes marriage, conversion (of Rebecca), reconciliation, discovery of identity. Last of the Mohicans. The catastrophe is mainly in the external history of the characters ; including death, freedom from captivity, separation of friends. Quo Vadis. The historical quality of the plot is emphasized by the epic breadth of events, and the death of Nero and Petronius ; the religious quality by the conversion of Chilo and the death of Peter. Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen has here varied the common formula by making the engagements instead of the marriages of the sisters the chief events. The engagement of Elizabeth comes last, emphasizing her predominance in the whole plot. After the real catastrophe, there follow two leisurely chapters giving the final situa- tion with comparatively little movement. 53. Motivation. This is a technical term to denote the causation of the plot-movement, especially in reference to its conscious artistic management. It is to be distinguished from " motif " and " motive,"- the purpose of a character ; an important but by no means the only type of motivating force. Some critics have attempted to distinguish between the dramatic and epic narrative in respect to motivation. Zim- merman writes : 1 " The dramatic imagination falls under the category of causality, the epic only under the presentation form of time " ; including the novel under the epic. This statement does not agree with the practise of the greater novelists or with representative modern theory of novel- istic plot. Walter Scott gives a higher and more accept- PLOT 63 able view, though without any statement of aesthetic principle, in this passage : " The most marked distinction between a real and a fictitious narrative [is] that the former, in reference to the remote causes of the events it relates, is obscure, doubtful, and mysterious ; whereas in the latter case, it is a part of the author's duty to afford satisfactory details upon the causes of the separate events he has recorded, and, in a word, to account for everything." Scott's last phrase, however, is too strong, as he himself points out elsewhere in reference to Mrs. Radcliffe's catastrophic explanation of her mysteries of plot. yEsthetically considered, the main function of *; motivation is to increase the z^^^iofjjgality, which might be destroyed if every incident were given definite and clear causal explanation ; for life itself is not so simple. When Eppie comes to Silas Marrrer, we know why her mother died, why the baby crept to the cottage, why Silas did not see her at first, etc. ; but in the novel, as it might have been in life, it seems purely a chance coincidence that the mother's death occurs just at that particular furze bush near the weaver's home. Again, there is no special explanation given to account for Eppie and Aaron falling in love so conveniently. Structurally, motivation may be given in mass, or in solution ; before, with, or after the effects ; by one contin- uous force, or many, changing forces ; through the plot itself or the characters, or from the outside, as it were. It naturally receives special attention at the main points of the dramatic line. The catastrophe is often an occasion for a general massing of motive forces, either by way of review, or of explanation not previously given. In relation to their results, motive forces may be adequate, insufficient, or excessive. Many effects of tragedy, irony, and carica- ture are obtained by subtle treatment of these relations. 54. Motivating Forces. The most important influences shaping the plot-movement of a novel are nature, society, 64 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL individual character, the supernatural or superhuman, chance, fate, providence, etc., and, in a sense, the decree of the novelist himself. As in real life, thorough under- standing of events may imply some separate notice of proximate and remote causes. Defoe, for example, characteristically combines practical, common- place causes with the more ultimate influence of Providence. In The Plague Year he accepts the view that the pestilence was " a stroke from heaven a messenger of [God's] vengeance"; but adds, "When I am speaking of the Plague as a distemper arising from natural causes, we must consider it as if it was really propagated by natural means," etc. ; distinguishing the relation of the two causes at some length. Naturalism, in the full sense of the word, traces all causes back to the one primary cause Nature. Character is de- termined by heredity, animal instinct, natural environ- ment, etc. ; external events war, pestilence, individual birth and death, rise and decline of racial supremacy are links in a continuous causal series governed by Nature. In the novel of manners and allied types of fiction, society is the chief motivating force ; in the psychological novel, the conscious and unconscious forces of the individual predominate; in the religious novel and many types of romance, the supernatural influences are prominent. Mrs. Radcliffe's special method was to introduce apparently supernatural causes, and afterwards explain them as natu- ral, though unusual. When a single character of the novel is a primary influ- ence in shaping the events, he is called technically a " motivating character " ; in the traditional phrase, a deus ex machina. If his influence is for the good, he be- comes a " dramatic providence " ; if for the evil, he corre- sponds more or less closely to the typical " villain." The PLOT 65 power given to such characters is often so large that the imagination refuses to accept the illusion of reality. Often: the novelist himself appears as a striking dcus or dia- bolus ex macJiina. Reserve, sincerity, dramatic imagi- 1 nation, or their opposites, are as distinctly marked in motivation as in any function of the novelist. Arbitrary optimism or pessimism gives a one-sided ethical inter- pretation of the government of human destiny ; pro- nounced realism often traces all results to such petty causes that the beauty, if not the verisimilitude, of the plot is destroyed ; exaggerated romanticism is satisfied only with grand, remote causes which do not correspond with those observed in our own experience. Any one who has written a single short story realizes the persistent and diffi- cult problem of artistic motivation. It is a matter that requires great natural gift or long practise in order that art may conceal art. EXAMPLES OF MOTIVATION The Plague Year. Another example of the mingling of human with providential causes occurs in explaining why the narrator remained in the plague-stricken city his business demands it ; his servant has abandoned him; but there is, also, specific supernatural guidance by means of the Biblical passage. The cessation of the plague is traced entirely to Providence: "Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but Omnipotent Power, could have done it ! " Pride and Prejudice. While the general motivation is largely social, it is distinctly psychological in Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy. They shape their own destinies, and have much influence over others. There is rational, psychological motivation for their love, in contrast with love at first sight in Rosalind and Orlando, Romeo and Juliet, and the unexplained development of love in Eppie and Aaron. Wickham approaches the structural function of a villain. Relatively accidental or trivial causes bring Mr. Bingley to Netherfield House and Elizabeth 66 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL to Pemberley Park. Nature has comparatively small place in the moti- vation of Jane Austen. The rain-storm of Chapter VII is of some importance, and is naturally introduced. Silas Marner. The novel is predominantly psychological, and self-motivation has large place in Silas and Godfrey, especially the latter. In both it is distinctly ethical. The novelist approaches the villain in William Dane and Dunstan Cass. Social motivation is specially prominent in the casting of lots and in the influence of public ppinion in Raveloe. A striking substitution of moral, human motiva- tion for natural is found in the character of Eppie. Her development into a sweet, frank nature could hardly be explained by inheritance perhaps is a violation of the scientific law of heredity but is traced to the human environment, the loving interest of Silas and the com- munity. Above all human causes is the dim First Cause ; mysterious, but bringing just punishment for sin, and salvation for the righteous soul that has suffered man's inhumanity to man. 55. The Narrator. His Point of View. It is clear that there can be no narration without a central narrator who is the real plot-maker. In the novel he may be very much in evidence or remain behind the scenes, but it is never strictly true that "the characters tell their own story." In Pamela, Richardson arranges the letters, not imagined as even collected by any one else, and determines the plot-movement as truly as does Smollett in Roderick Random. The primary narrator is always the author, in propria persona i as a writer, though he may assume to be merely editor or listener, or in other ways introduce sec- ondary (dramatic) narrators between himself and the reader. Even when he enters the action as an important dramatis persona, he is perfectly distinct from all the other characters, in his narrative function. Except in fiction of the I-form, the author is the only one acquainted with all the incidents of the plot. The narrator takes some general point of view for the entire action, and specific points of view for every part of PLOT 67 it, in reference to time, place, characters, social and ethical philosophy, etc. The unity of a passage or a plot depends largely on the clearness and stability of his position. The novelistic narrator, however, is given great freedom in this respect, which one has only to examine to discover how different the novel is from life. He may hold himself aloof from his characters and action, observing them as a mere spectator or student of life, with miraculous power td move at will through time, space, and the thoughts and feelings of men ; or partially identify himself with his own creation, as an imminent divinity. or alternate between the two positions. Taking " the reader's point of view " is often attempted, but is in a strict sense impossible. 56. Temporal Point of View. When is the narration recorded in reference to the time bf action ? The modern third-person novel may avoid the appearance of being a document at all, entirely subordinating .the reality of the narrative to the illusion of the action. It is curious to note Jane Austen lapsing for a moment from her famous dramatic objectivity in Pride and Prejudice: "It is not the object of this work to give descriptions of Derby- shire," etc. (Chapter XLII.) In autobiographical fiction (for example, Robinson Crusoe), or in other forms of im- aginary manuscript (for example,' The Castle of Otranto), the fictitious time of writing may be treated artistically as part of the illusion. Autobiographical fiction often has a peculiar warmth of the present, because of the influence of vivifying memory. Ordinarily, when we notice the necessary inferences, we see that the narration could not have been begun until the action was complete. All direct anticipation (see Sec- tion 40) interrupts the illusion of an immediate present action. The journal form, and sometimes the epistolary, 68 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL as noted by Richardson in reference to his own works, are technically distinguished as narratives immediately follow- ing or accompanying the action. The action supposed to occur in the future, as in some Utopian fictions, belongs to the impossibilities of romance, and serious effort at illusion of futurity is rarely maintained. It is not uncom- mon to bring the narrative to a present tense coincidence With the action at the catastrophe, perhaps with a peep into the possible future. The historical present is an aid to illusion in brief passages, but if employed too much would be intolerably artificial, and destructive of veri- similitude. The events of the stage drama are given in chronological order, though the dramatist freely condenses or omits portions of the action ; but in the novel inversion of chronological order, and a narrative sequence for synchronous actions, are constantly found. An example of such inversion is found at the opening of Silas Marner the in medias res formula ; and' of the narrative sequence in the same novel, Chapters XI and XII. A special form of temporal point of view is occasionally found in TCIXOCTKOTTIO, in which the narrator usually episodic reports action while it is occurring. This device is more characteristic of the drama than the novel, and of romance than realism. It is found in Suder- mann's Magda, Ibsen's Pretenders, Hedda Gabler, Tennyson's Harold, etc. A noted example in the romance is Rebecca's report of the fight before the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. EXAMPLES OF COMPLEX TEMPORAL POINT OF VIEW At the opening of Chapter XVI of Silas Marner, the time point of view is threefold: (i) The novelist is in general considering a period some forty years before her narration, and contrasts the two times by the phrase, "of that time " ; (2) she uses the present tense to increase the illusion of immediacy " is not much changed ; " (3) she recalls the action of sixteen years before, by narrative reminiscence. (There is no sign that the characters are in a mood of memory at this point, or ever fully realize all the changes the author points out.) PLOT 69 In James White's Earl Strongbow, the real time of the narrative is 1789 (date of publication) ; the date of the fictitious discovery of the manuscript is 1740 ; of the writing of the manuscript, about 1660 ; of the main action, the period of Henry II, the hero dying in 1177. The last three time points belong to the illusion, and there is definite artistic con- trast between the last two, as in the spirited passage (close of Night Four), " such were the days of chivalry," etc. The hero of this fiction has had an unusually long experience as a ghost about five hundred years. 57. Spatial Point of View. This is most frequently considered with reference to description of places, objects, and persons, isolated or in scenes ; but it is also significant in pure narrative. It may help to determine whether a given occurrence shall be regarded mainly as of descrip- tive or narrative interest. A battle a mile or two distant from the spectator may naturally be considered as a picture ; but if he is at the battle center (theoretically out of danger), he will be compelled to attend to the neighboring movement, with its complicated and changing incidents. In the plot as a whole, the spatial point of view concerns the range, distance, and scale of the visual field, and its general relation to the author's mind. This field may be purely imaginary, typical, or concretely real long-remem- bered, freshly observed, or actually before the author as he writes. Great range is found in the "international novel," and all forms of the novel of travel ; the greatest in romance which leaves the earth itself for more remote regions. The scale of measurement is usually that of ordinary conscious- ness, which permits a wide variety ; but in romance it may undergo transformation, as in Gulliver's Travels, many fairy stories, and some fictions with an animal or object as autobiographer. The spatial range of Pride and Prejudice is limited to certain por- tions of England. The scale of measurement is partly indicated by the 70 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL remark of Elizabeth Bennet in Chapter XXXII : " An easy distance you call it? It is nearly fifty miles." In Silas Marner, the hero comes to Raveloe from "distant parts" possibly a hundred miles away from the " unknown region called North'ard." (Among other effects, the railroad has lengthened the everyday measuring rod of the novelist.) In Robinson Crusoe, Defoe's imagination passes over much of the habitable globe ; yet is singularly alert in the topography of the island-home and its immediate environment. The spatial point of view necessarily changes frequently for the individual incidents of a novel. It is not a mere matter of setting for an event, but modifies the actual con- tent of incident, consequently its emphasis and its value in the unity of plot. To persons of little imaginative or experiential space range, events which occur at a remote distance are as dim as those of a dream. Scott could not have given the details of Robin Hood's bow-shooting (Section 31) unless he placed himself within a hundred yards or so of the bowman. If the novelist leaves an inci- dent without specific time or place relation, we know that he was not closely identified with it, or does not desire to emphasize it. Most of the interior incidents of Silas Marner are located in specific rooms ; but many of those in Pride and Prejudice are not, and some of them have neither specific time nor place setting. In Chapter VI, we do not know when or where [Elizabeth] " mentioned this to Miss Lucas." On the other hand, at least six times in this novel we are looking either at or out of some definite window. Whenever characters approach one another or objects, the novelist usually takes some definite position in relation to the line of approach. In Pride and Prejudice, the author approaches Hunsford, Rosings, the Bcnnet home, the Gardiners' London residence, Pemberley House, with Kli/abrth Bennet. In the "Conclusion 11 of Silas Marner, the novelist sees Eppie at a " little distance " ; later sees her approach from the Rainbow group, and finally moves towards the Stone Pits with her. A fully developed and compact "scene" is generally characterized by a greater fixity of spatial position than is here found. PLOT 71 58. Character Point of View. In fiction in which the I-form is sustained, unity of plot is greatly aided by the single central narrator ; but often such fiction introduces several other secondary narrators. In genuinely autobio- graphical form, the author is inevitably identified to some extent with the dramatic narrator, if for no other reason than that he is so closely and continuously associated with him. In other forms of fiction, the author often increases the unity by some degree of general identification with a single character, or by identification with different charac- ters in the separate incidents. If a single central character represents, in general outline, the actual or ideal experience of the author as a real individual, as in Pilgrim's Progress, and, to a less extent, Robinson Crusoe, there is a high degree of unity ; but when this identification is much inter- rupted or episodic, as in The Mill on the Floss, David Copperfield, and Anna Kar^nina, the unity may be in- jured rather than aided. The identification of the author with a character may be quite external, as in a coincident temporal and spatial point of view ; or much more profound, in coincidence of tem- perament, habits, principles, and ideals. Except in auto- biographical form, such identification is never complete, for no one character knows all that the author knows of the movement of the plot. In Pride and Prejudice the author seems to be very closely identi- fied with Elizabeth Bennet, in temperament and principle, if not in experience ; but Elizabeth never knows the details of Miss Bingley's criticism of her, or the personal opinion Miss Austen gives : " If grati- tude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable or faulty. But if otherwise . . . nothing can be said in her defence." (Chapter XLV1.) This is probably the only passage in which the author actually appears with her heroine, 72 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL as a distinctly different person. In general, Elizabeth knows as much about herself as the novelist knows of her. Many effects of dramatic irony depend on this condition, that the author (and the reader) is more omniscient than any single character. In Silas Marner, the hero never knows the whole story of Godfrey's first marriage; Godfrey knows nothing of Marner's Lantern Yard ex- periences. 59. Generalized Statement of Plot. Study of an indi- vidual plot according to the foregoing analysis may be fol- lowed by a condensed statement of its typical outline, as a basis for classification, judgment, and comparison with other plots. As one moves from more concrete to more abstract statement, the oft-repeated truth that literature contains only a very few typical plot-movements becomes more apparent. Even the most abstract formula, however, should include all that is essential in the outline of the individual plot. A plot correctly analyzed into several actions cannot be adequately stated in the terms of any one action. EXAMPLES OF GENERALIZED STATEMENT OF PLOT Silas Marner. A statement may easily be made by combining the two main actions as given in Section 48. More abstract statement. Converging interests of A and B through the agency of C, which brings merited happiness to A, merited but salutary unhappiness to B. Pride and Prejudice. Very abstract statement. Emotional conver- gence of (A, B), (C, D). Divergence through misunderstanding, character weakness of A and B, and deceit of E. Reconvergence of couples and group through discovery of E's villainy, and character reform of A and B. Pamela. A young, unprincipled aristocrat attempts to seduce a peas- ant girl in his household employment. Her long-continued virtuous resistance leads to his reform and happy marriage with her. More abstract statement. Moral divergence of A and B through A's selfish attempt to ruin B's character. Convergence to happy situation through B's persistent virtue, which reforms A. PLOT 73 Dofia Perfecta. Selfishness and mistaken religious zeal in A cause permanent tragic suffering in B (most beloved friend of A) and C (most beloved friend of B). 60. Unity of Plot. The unity of plot may be discussed in various ways, but it depends mainly on persistent point of view, clear and unbroken motivation, and constant con- vergence of all action toward the catastrophe, which im- plies the omission of all non-essential incidents, and proper emphasis upon those recorded. Unified motivation and convergence are strikingly repre- sented, if in a somewhat barren form, by such cumulative actions as " for want of a J3g.il the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse wasijyt," etc. All the essentials of unified plot may be illustrated by a genealogy showing the ancestry of a character A. The point of view might be that of scientific interest in heredity, or of personal interest in A ; the motivation is through the law of heredity ; the main convergence is between the maternal and paternal lines of descent. All intercalation, reversion, independent episode, digres- sion, emphasis upon situation, tend to weaken the conver- gence. " Scenes " are less economic than pure events in the technical unity of plot. In Silas Marner the scenes in Chapter VI and Chapter XXI, considering the space given them, may be judged somewhat centrifugal. If a plot has been analyzed into single actions, the study of conver- gence may rest mainly upon these, though there may be a convergent movement in a single action. In Janet's Repentance, the interests of Janet and Mr. Tryan approach by these steps: I. Janet is interested in her husband's attack upon Mr. Tryan, and helps prepare the mock program ; 2. The chance meeting ; 3. The confession ; 4. The min- ister's change of residence and sickness ; 5. The avowal of love. In the introductions to The Monastery and The Fortunes of Nigel, Scott distinguishes the loose plot-structure of Lesage and 74 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Smollett from the closely unified plot of Fielding. Fielding constructed the novel with a keen dramatic sense, and ample experience in dramatic composition. His important characters are all on the stage at the con- clusion of the action. The autobiographical plot, in general, is prone to frequent introduction of new characters, and abandonment of old ones. An autobiographical novel of a psychological type, however, is strongly unified by persistent point of view the purpose, character, or development of the hero but is often weak in motivation and conver- gence. In Robinson Crusoe there is considerable unity in the social and religious philosophy of the hero, his idealization of contented middle-class position, and his belief in personal providence ; but the unity of both motivation and convergence to catastrophe is rather faint. 61. Types of Plot. In relation to their characters, plots are either superior, fairly cq^A| or subordinate in value. " Plot-novel " is a name whiS^may be used to indicate the first relation. Stevenson, in the course of his critical defence of romance, emphasized the fact that it is plot rather than characters that allows a free, spontaneous play to the reader's imaginative longings. A rapid and various movement of external incident permits one tem- porarily to lose sight of his own character and problems ; whereas the presence of other well-developed individuals, with their insistent problems, emotions, ideals, and mode of speech, may seem an intrusion and arouse friction. Sometimes in fiction, as in life, one wishes to be alone with his spontaneous dreams and desires. In reference to technical structure, plots may be clas- sified as : loose (episodic), closely unified ; simple, complex ; catastrophic, climactic ; plots of movement, of situation, etc. These terms, like most of those used in literary classification, are somewhat theoretical, and not altogether mutually exclusive. The distinction between a loose and closely unified plot is suggested in Section 60. In a plot properly called episodic the principal interest PLOT 75 must lie in the episodes themselves, considered as independent actions, though there is usually some persistent action connecting them. Many novels in the I-form are episodic, but in a true autobiographical fiction the development of the hero's own character may be more important than his external experience or the people whom he meets. Robinson Crusoe, as a whole, is a good example of an episodic plot ; Gulliver's Travels a still better one, because the central character is less significant. A simple plot, in the full sense, is one that can be best stated as a single action. Its abstract scheme is represented in the genealogy giving a single line of descent, and its concrete nature in an autobiographical fiction in which all the incidents are unified l^Mthe life-history of the hero. A complex plot is one best ^plyzed into several persistent single actions of unequal importance. An episodic plot may be complex enough in its several portions, but is always simple in general outline. The complex plot is the usual type in the novel, and the normal one, if complexity is considered an essential quality of novelistic style. Of course there are countless degrees of com- plexity involved in the varying number, relative impor- tance, and arrangement of the single actions. The actions are often naturally grouped into a " main-plot " and a '.' sub-plot." All plots have some sort of catastrophe, but the term "catastrophic" maybe specifically applied to those, whether simple or complex, in which this point is of special impor- tance in unifying the whole movement. An episodic plot can never in a true sense be catastrophic. The nature of climactic plot has been indicated in Section 50. From the meaning of the terms, all climactic plots are also cata- strophic. In a plot characterized by movement, the catastro- phe is distinctly remote from the initial point, owing to multiplicity of incident, and often to duration of time. A 76 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL plot of situation devotes itself to studying present condi- tions rather than to changing them. As to their dominant type of incident, plots may be classified as : comic, tragic ; historical, ideal ; social, individ- ual ; objective, subjective (psychological), etc. In the novel, as in the drama, a tragic main-plot with a comic sub-plot is much more common than the inverse relation, for reasons of deep aesthetic and moral significance. EXAMPLES OF PLOT-TYPES Master and Man. Reveals character through plot ; is well unified ; simple; catastrophic; emphasizes movement; tragic; ideal; social- individual ; objective-subjective. The Plague Year. A plot-novel; somewhat loose; simple; cli- mactic ; emphasizing situation ; historical ; tragic ; social ; objective. Silas Marner. A novel of character; well unified; technically complex ; climactic ; emphasizing situation ; tragic-(comic) ; subjec- tive; psychological- (social). Dona Perfecta. Well unified; complex; climactic; emphasizing movement ; tragic ; fair equivalence of character and action, objective and subjective, social and individual qualities. Pride and Prejudice. Well unified ; complex ; climactic ; empha- sizing movement ; in broad sense, comic ; with essential balance of objective and subjective, social and individual interest. Gulliver's Travels. Subject really predominates over both action and characters; loose; episodic; chiefly situation; ideal; satirical; social ; objective. 62. The Judgment of Plot. Without a distinct unity of form or of meaning, no judgment upon a plot as a whole could be given. Further than this, no single absolute standard of judgment can be stated. The differences of critical opinion rest upon profound differences of aesthetic and ethical Weltanschauung^ which cannot be forced into agreement. The critics who consider the plot of Tom Jones to be the best in English fiction have a philosophy PLOT 77 of life incompatible with that of critics who give first place to Silas Marner or Pride and Prejudice. Neverthe- less, certain representative standards may be distinguished, and it may be affirmed that a good plot must satisfy at least one of these ; that a supremely excellent plot must satisfy several. Some of these standards are primarily technical ; others more immediately and broadly aesthetic or ethical. Among the technical standards of frequent application are well-developed dramatic line, rapidity of movement, intensity of interest, simplicity or complexity. The simple plot has a beauty of its own, but seems more characteristic of the short story than the novel. The origin and history of the novel as a species is associated with Gothic art rathei than with Greek. Complexity may be considered advan tageous, if not necessary, for the most complete expres^ sion of design. Less technical standards demand : that the movement of the plot be determined by the individuality of the characters ; be representative of a great ethical law, or otherwise of broad and deep human significance ; be characterized throughout by repose, or pass from great moral passion to a logical moral calm ; be optimistic in general tendency ; etc. A final judgment of a great plot must rest on a familiar acquaintance with all its materials and form. Probably the main outline should appear at a first reading, and be capable of very condensed state- ment, but the complete significance of details should be practically inexhaustible. CHAPTER IV THE SETTINGS 63. Esthetic Function of Settings. Every action as a whole, and the incidents which compose it, must occur in some definite environment of time, place, and circumstances; but these accessories may be very variously developed in a narrative. The imagination, in general, takes relatively little delight in the mere outline of an action, and a primary value of the settings is to increase interest to give warmth, concreteness, and individuality to events. The settings of a novel are often of special service in aiding the illusion, as well as in deepening the unity, beauty, and human significance of the fictitious action. It may not always be possible to draw a sharp line between an incident and its accessories, but the term " settings" implies subordination to be tested not by mere number of words, but by relative artistic significance. Development of settings beyond this point is a violation of artistic economy. In practical criticism, a close study of the environment of an inci- dent aids one to realize and remember the full value of the author's imaginative conception. If Sidney Lanier had ever noted carefully the time setting of the climax in Silas Marner, he could not have written of 'a ray of sunshine striking through the window and illuminating the little one's head. 1 1 64. General Time Setting. In pure romance, an action may be placed in the future, or in an indeterminate past, 1 The English Novel, p. 28. 78 THE SETTINGS 79 represented in extreme form by the "once upon a time" of fairy tales. The general time setting of a realistic novel is always in a true sense historical, though historical time may be viewed against a background of biological time, as in many naturalistic novels ; or of eternity, as in some philo- sophical and religious novels. The historical period usually has some special imaginative value for the reader, before he is acquainted with the individual novel ; as in Quatre- Vingt-Treize, The Talisman, and Romola. Certain theories of the novel suggest some definite con- ception of the duration of the action, especially as compared with that of the short story and the drama. One impor- tant theory considers the novel as primarily concerned with a single individual life, in its complete development. As the German critic Spielhagen expresses it, the short story normally requires only a " Lebensausschnitt " ; the novel, 'den ganzen Strom des Lebens.' Again, the novel is a description or interpretation of a unified social group, the novel of manners being the typical form. Both these theories indicate an action covering approximately a generation, and many representative novels show their influence clearly. Probably the Renaissance idea that one year was the proper time for an epic action has also had some influence upon the "modern epic." Various as is the duration of action in the novel, the average is distinctly longer than in the drama and short story. Probably there are no important novels limited to the traditional dramatic unity of twenty-four hours found, for example, in The Tempest and Master and Man. 65. Detailed Time Settings. A general idea of the narrative distribution of time the time perspective in an individual novel may be gained by an examination of the principal terms in the time analysis. Occasionally the 80 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL external divisions are based on uniform periods of time. If comprehensiveness is a characteristic of the novel, one may expect some special consideration of day and night, of each of the four seasons, etc. The single day is the most natural and the most frequent setting for individual scenes or well-unified events. There are distinct traditional back- ground values for the early morning, noon, evening, and night. The action of Silas Marner covers about a generation ; but chapter- groups XI to XIII and XVI to XX record the events of single days. Jane Austen uses the single day with more regularity in Pride and Prejudice ; " the next morning " being a frequent formula. Romanticism, for obvious reasons, has taken special de- light in the background effects of evening and night. The " sentimental school" associated the evening with reflection, " sensibility " and melancholy of a gentle type ; Gothic romance developed the mystery, the tragic solemnity, and the supernatural atmosphere of the deeper night. Both of these romantic settings are often found in the works of Mrs. Radcliffe and Scott. In Mrs. Radcliffe's Italian, for example, many of the important incidents are given a very artistic evening or night setting. The special values given to these and other portions of the natural day may some- times be treated conventionally, but a little thought shows that they have some real basis in social, psychological, and physiological fact. Distinct effects may be gained by sudden changes contraction or expansion in the time perspective. Such effects may be in the service of romantic weirdness, or of realistic humor or pathos. The death of Paul Dombey is in pathetic contrast with the bright Sunday afternoon in summer on which it occurs, but Dickens increases the solemnity by association of this particular tragedy with " the old. THE SETTINGS 8 1 old fashion ! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll." 66. General Place Setting. So far as it follows the traditions of the epic, the novel is characterized by a broad spatial background. This is conspicuous in the romance of chivalry, the picaresque novel, and in the more modern types of " international " fiction. The influence of the drama and of dramatic criticism has probably been in the other direction, but the novel has never submitted to the dramatic unity of place, strictly interpreted, as in the single room settings of Hedda Gabler and Magda. While in the novel devoted to an intensive study of the individual or society spatial range is less significant than in the novel of action, the weight of criticism and of practise indicates the short story as the normal type for purely local fiction. Romance inclines to escape the limitations of locality, either by imaginative transformation of real place, or by selection of purely ideal place. It finds a congenial back- ground in Arcadia, Utopia, the stars, the center of the earth, and nameless islands of remote seas. The new world attracted the writers of the Romantic Movement, as the home of the ' natural, elemental man,' or the golden hope of the social dreamer. Modern realism prefers in general the great centers of social complexity the Lon- don of Dickens, the Paris of Balzac, the Madrid of ValdeY La Espuma, etc. Often, however, the intricate life of the capital is emphasized by contrast with the simpler manners and ideas of the provinces ; and in this respect as in others the law of imaginative reaction can be traced. Many countries and regions have a more or less determinate value for the imagination. Italy is a conspicuous example. The Italy of 82 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Roman and Catholic tradition, of Renaissance influence, of art, of land- scape, of rich political experience, and of cosmopolitan life, has in one way or another made a special appeal to both romancer and realist. Compare Corinne, Andersen's Improvisatore, Romola, The Last Days of Pompeii, Paul Heyse's stories, Bourgefs Cosmopolis, Quo Vadis, etc. 67. Detailed Place Settings. These may be conve- niently classified as exteriors (in the main, natural) and interiors (in the main, social). The typical novel com- bines the two, though certain varieties incline to emphasize one or the other. Pastoral romance has its retired valleys, with conventional accessories ; the romance of chivalry its princely palace, its cell of hermit or monk ; Gothic romance its castle, with haunted chamber, gloomy dungeon, and secret passages. Romanticism in general has explored the ideal values of forest, sea, and mountain solitude. Pica- resque fiction has made special use of such settings as the prison, the thieves' den, and the tavern. The novel of manners leads the reader to places of routine domestic and social life, such as homes, offices, theatres, legislative halls, court-rooms, ball-rooms, parks and streets. It is mainly within doors that modern society eats, sleeps, marries, visits, worships, and dies. Many fictions include the name of a build- ing in their title, though this is never the most general setting House of the Seven Gables, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Old Curiosity Shop, Castle Rackrent, The Small House at Allington, etc. Such realists as Balzac and Dickens are prolific in detailed description of city quarters, streets, houses, and individualized rooms. In the eighteenth century novels there are frequent scenes in the stagecoach ; nineteenth cen- tury realism finds the railroad train quite as useful, as in Dombey and Son, and Anna Kardnina. In detailed landscape settings, Mrs. Radcliffe had a wide influence, through Scott and his school. The landscape of the realists is gener- ally more accurate, if not more artistic, and is more completely human- ized by association with individual or social experience, or by scientific and philosophical interpretation. THE SETTINGS 83 68. Circumstantial Settings. The most general circum- stances environing the action of a novel are the permanent conditions of society, nature, and the supernatural. In novels of a philosophical quality, the broader aspects of these conditions are often of great value as background. Novelists of various schools show a tendency towards mysticism, and touch with more or less emphasis such vast conceptions as the struggle for existence, the Ever- lasting No, lacrymce rerum> das ewig Wcibliche, the things that are eternal are unseen, etc. Zola and his school often make the deepest human experiences seem trivial against the majestic background of natural processes. They ring the changes, not always orthodox or hopeful, upon the old question: "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? " Ethical thinkers like George Eliot find apparently insig- nificant human actions intimately related to sublime moral laws. Bunyan, in his fiction as in his life, almost loses sight of the concrete material facts in the sense of the enveloping spiritual universe. In all novels, but notably in historical fiction and in the novel of manners and allied types, the detailed back- ground includes the temporary conditions of a social group, with various emphasis upon political, religious, industrial, and other circumstances. In social realists like Jane Austen and Trollope the elaborated settings rarely extend beyond such data. If one chooses to give so subjective a meaning to the term " circumstantial settings," it may include something of the psychological condition of the characters. A mood of memory may serve as background for the present expe- rience ; the emotions of secondary characters may intensify those of the principal characters, or lessen the tension, as in Chapters VI and XIII of Silas Marner. (See Section 35.) 84 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL This last effect, gained through the comic or semi-comic characters of a tragic incident, is common in the novel as well as the drama. In details of natural setting, 'weather has a prominent function. Its changing moods may be in ironical contrast with the human expe- riences they accompany, as in the bright sunlight at the death of Paul Dombey ; or in harmony therewith, as in the wild storm that surrounds the death of Molly Cass. The love of nature developed by the modern romantic spirit appears in the frequent moonlight scenes of the senti- mental school, and the fierce Byronic tempests of the Gothic romance of terror. Detailed circumstantial settings may include all inanimate objects which have definite artistic relation to the incident. In the catastro- phe of Silas Marner, the furniture given to Silas by Godfrey and the recovered gold upon the table have an important relation to the pur- pose and result of the visit itself. Animals are often significant items of background. The contrast between the domesticated and the wild animals of Robinson Crusoe is interesting. 69. Reality, Ideality, and Truth. As already implied, the most general settings of all novels are necessarily real. Realism, in theory and in practise, has made much of fidel- ity to fact in details also. This realistic element may be largely for the sake of the subject-matter, or for the sake of verisimilitude; the first purpose often being scientific rather than artistic in spirit. Idealization takes many forms selection, recombination, typification, symbolism, etc. Probably no novel exists without a great deal of idealization in the specific settings. Ideality is found in the description of the settings them- selves, and in their relation to the action, as in the familiar pathetic fallacy. ^Esthetic criticism, partly in consequence of the pressure of realism, has endeavored to distinguish carefully between fact and truth. Some critics find the highest degree of THE SETTINGS 85 truth in fidelity to the typical. Scott objected to the idea that he slavishly copied the individual buildings and land- scapes which served him as models ; there is scarcely any question that he is faithful to the essential qualities of their types. Another conception of artistic truth, even less obedient to the decree of the realist, is that of consistency. Critics have pointed out the remarkable consistency with which Swift uses both the gigantic and the pigmy scale in Gulliver, though the application belongs to the impossi- bilities of romance. The novelist is unable to give all the data of any social, historical, or natural environment ; but those he does give may correspond with the facts. In a description of the battle of Gettysburg, it may not be possible to follow the historical weather hour by hour, but it is possible to make the details given consistent with a Pennsylvania July. Omission of essential data though it may sometimes be difficult to agree on what is essential will destroy the truth of the description, if not the impression of reality. If it was Booth Tarkington's purpose to give a general view of the life of a Hoosier village in The Gentleman from Indiana, the result is marred by the omission of the ecclesiastical life. Representation of the political life of the city of St. Paul would not be faithful if it omitted the Scandinavian element. 70. Vague and Exact Settings. There are few novels with a perfectly clear and continuous time perspective, and there is frequently dimness in the spatial perspective. Romance gains many characteristic effects from vagueness of setting. Realism inclines towards exact details ; for the sake of illusion, for purposes of characterization, or as a result of the general habit of close observation and analy- sis. Too much detail in description as in narration (Sec- tion 31) may destroy the impression of reality. Phrases such as ' one day,' ' a few weeks afterwards,' etc., are common In most novels. The reader knows neither the day of the week nor of the month on which Eppie is married, in Silas Marner; and the 86 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL dates of both proposals of Darcy, in Pride and Prejudice, though these are respectively climactic and catastrophic events, are left without identification in the calendar. The architectural settings of Balzac and the landscapes of Scott are not infrequently so detailed that it is difficult to form a general picture. Great spatial exactness without confusion is found in The Gold-bug, and is characteristic of Poe's general method. The spot where the treasure is found is located with mathematical precision, by the aid of compass, quadrant, exact dimensions, three circles, and two triangles. In the time analysis of Master and Man, such details as u moments," " an instant," " several seconds," are characteristic of the psychological intensity of the author, and of the experiences he is relating. 71. Natural, Social, and Socialized Settings. In paint- ing, there are scenes in which both foreground and back- ground are entirely lacking in human figures. All the natural backgrounds of the novel are necessarily socialized to some extent, by association with human characters and actions. The tendency of the novel is to extend the human significance of environment far beyond this point of mere necessity. Landscape is interpreted in relation to social labor, art, history, or individual experience. Objects large, or small are often partially personified, as are the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, the wooden midshipman and the railroad train in Dombey and Son. Animals and super- natural beings are given a more immediate human interest than is characteristic of painting and sculpture. The same tendency appears in the treatment of supernatural places and objects. The inferno of Quevedo's Suefios is even more human than that of the Divine Comedy ; the Holy Grail of Morte d'Arthur is the goal of a human, not an angelic search. Psychological use of the time-sense has just been noted. Its social significance in the novel is indicated by the frequent reference to the tcclesiastical and secular calendars. It is not an accident, from the THE SETTINGS 87 artistic standpoint, that Paul Dombey dies on Sunday, Kielland's poor waif Elsie on Christmas Eve ; or that Eppie comes to Silas on New Year's Eve. In Pride and Prejudice the sense of time is distinctly social rather than individual. The endeavor of Robinson Crusoe to keep the world's calendar during his exile is one of the many effects of a strong social sense in Defoe and his period. 72. Author and Dramatis Personae. In the third-person novel the more elaborate settings are commonly given by the author. The generalized views of social environment in Silas Marner belong entirely to George Eliot no char- acter in the novel could originate them. In the novel of dramatic form such descriptions are either eliminated ; or become artificial, unless justified by the situation of the characters. Robinson Crusoe's itemized account of his island environment is perhaps justified by the nature and situation of the man. Jane Austen shows her keen dramatic sense by omitting description of the surround- ings in which Darcy becomes engaged to Elizabeth " There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to other objects." The pathetic fallacy may have a dramatic value and truth. It is probable that a Carker (Dombey and Son) fleeing from human ven- geance may feel that nature also is his enemy ; that a youthful lover, like the hero of Pepita Jime'nez, may feel that Nature in her springtide mood sympathizes with his own erotic passion. But when Thomas Hardy gives his personal impression that nature is ironically hostile to man's moral ideals, he lyricizes. One learns something about Thomas Hardy, but, very possibly, not much of nature or even of the charac- ters of the novel. Except in pure romance, the allegorical, symbolical, and supernatural interpretation of environment is usually more or less dramatized, as in Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Hawthorne, and Turgenieff. Often such interpre- tation is a sign of partially morbid condition in the character. The river and boat of Paul Dombey's imagination, and Silas Marner's asso- ciation of Eppie's hair with his lost gold are fragmentary examples. The allegorical element in Robinson Crusoe, whether an afterthought or not, is explained only in the Third Part. 88 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 73. Distribution. In completely developed scenes, the settings usually appear in distinct masses, in part; but their full value is generally realized only by bringing to- gether the points scattered through many chapters. Many important points in the setting of Paul Dombey's death (Chap- ter XVI) are given before and after the event itself. From Chapter XV one learns that it occurred on a bright Sunday; from Chapter XIV that it was after the iyth of June : one must get the general picture of the neighborhood, the house, and the room, from several chapters. The settings at the principal turning-points of the plot are naturally of special interest. At the beginning, in particular, time and place are often given separate para- graphs. This method of opening a novel may indicate the general realistic emphasis on milieu, as in Balzac. Several points regarding the initial, climactic, and catastrophic set- tings of Silas Marner and Pride and Prejudice have already been given. A few others may be added, to show the contrast between the two works. SILAS MARNER. Initial. The first two chapters are devoted largely to settings ; the development being from the more general to the more specific. The particular place setting which is to be used in climax and catastrophe the weaver's cottage is introduced very early. Lantern Yard and the Red House are also to appear in later scenes. The emphasis on general social circumstances is greater than in Pride and Prejudice, and is characteristic of the wider social philosophy of George Eliot. The very slight mention of the state of war is probably dramatic the international struggle being less significant to the people of Raveloe than their own local affairs. Climactic. This New Year's Eve is highly individualized in the minds of Silas, Godfrey, and Molly, even apart from the specific inci- dent of the climax. The treatment of landscape and the weather is almost symbolical. The interior of the cottage is not only described in considerable detail, but it has permanent meaning in the lives of Silas, Eppie, Godfrey, Dunstan, Mrs. Winthrop, Aaron, Macey it is a unifying setting. THE SETTINGS 89 Catastrophic. The Sunday evening is well individualized. In tem- poral, spatial, and circumstantial settings there are definite reminiscences of the climax. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Initial. The action begins at once, with a fairly rapid movement. The omission of detailed settings is charac- teristic of the entire novel. The reader does not know directly the year or season or part of England in which the story opens. Climactic. The time is a late hour of an April evening. The state of the weather is only implied. The day has no significance apart from the specific incident. The place setting is the parlor at Hunsford, which has no particular meaning for the reader or the characters. Catastrophic. Darcy^s successful proposal occurs on a September morning, in the neighborhood of the Bennet home. That is about all one knows of time and place. The circumstantial setting must be gathered largely from preceding and following chapters. 74. Further Economy. In general, settings with special artistic quality are either in definite contrast or agreement with their incidents. Sharp contrast is a favorite method with both the romancer and the humorist. Hawthorne uses the cheerful morning as a background for tragic death, with striking effect, in The House of the Seven Gables and in Ethan Brand. Humorous contrast between the real setting and its interpretation by a character is well exemplified in Don Quixote, Sir Launcelot Greaves, and in the Roman camp of the Antiquary^ imagi- nation. Effects are often gained by a conscious inversion of con- ventional settings. " The morning of Friday was as serene and beautiful as if no pleas- ure party had been intended, and that is a rare event, whether in novel- writing or real life." (The Antiquary, Chapter XVII.) The action and reaction between settings and characters is a complex matter, and has already been noticed more than once. The character may not only interpret his envi-^ ronment ; he may to no small extent make it, as notably in Robinson Crusoe. Pessimistic realism, however, prefers \ 90 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL to portray human nature as the 'slave of circumstances.' In novels of any school, the same details often serve as setting and as motivation. The storm in the Antiquary, Chapter VII, is not only a fine background for the tragic incident, but is the direct cause of it. Repetition of specific place settings, with contrasted or similar incidents, is often used with more definite single effects than in the examples given above from Silas Marner. The effect is one of tragic pathos in the "let him remember it in that room, years to come ! " of Dombey and Son. (Chapters XVIII and LIX.) Trollope, in Barchester Towers, and Hardy, in A Pair of Blue Eyes, describe, with ironical effect, a heroine wooed by two lovers, at different times, but in exactly the same spot. CHAPTER V THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 75. Composition. A list of the dramatis personae, for a drama, epic, or novel, will vary according to the interpreta- tion of the term and the degree of analysis desired. If in the drama, appearance on the stage is the basis of inclu- sion, some persons of considerable importance in the plot will generally be omitted. Claribel and Sycorax, for exam- ple, are both of definite value in the plot-development of The Tempest. In the novel, the frequent use of secondary narrative, as distinct from presented action, introduces many characters who would not appear on the stage in a dramatization. In addition to truly individualized characters, a novel al- ways includes many persons with little more than numeri- cal identity whether speaking, present without speech, or given a mere reference. In the remote background are persons merely implied, though some of them may have been clearly conceived by the novelist. In an inten- sive imaginative study, one could scarcely fail to raise some question concerning the mother of Wickham, in Pride and Prejudice; or the father of the hero and the parents of Molly Cass, in Silas Marner. The author himself is a dramatis persona if he has an organic^part in the action as a whole, either in propria per- sona, or in a fictitious disguise which preserves his reaJ identity. 91 Q2 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL In fictions of the type of Smollett's Adventures of an Atom, a per- sonified object is technically the central figure of the action. In Notre Dame de Paris, the cathedral itself has been called, imaginatively, the real hero. In many medieval and some modern stories, an animal plays a similar r61e. Supernatural beings and personified abstractions be- come true dramatis persona?, in romance, whenever they have a genuine function as individuals in the unity of the illusion. " Anxiety," in Silas Marner, serves merely in a figure of speech ; but " Despair " is one of the real characters in Pilgrim's Progress. 76. Number. The absolute number of dramatis per- sonae is of great importance in determining the social area of the novel, and the degree of complexity in its action. The number relative to length of composition affects par- ticularly the rapidity of action, the degree of individualiza- tion, and the reader's sense of sustained intimacy with the characters. In a way, there is decided contrast between the sociological ideal of the novel, demanding an extensive " exhibition " of varied types, and the psychological ideal, intent on profound study of the individual. The epic breadth resulting from a large dramatis personae with little individualization is exemplified in The Plague Year and I Promessi Sposi. The former fiction contains about 165 persons with numerical identity, of whom only 16 are given individual names. In the latter work the corresponding numbers are 150 and 33. EXAMPLES. (Individualized ch; Speaking The Gold-bug ....-* iracters.) Present 2 6 I 4 10 25 Reference Total 3 8 3 '5 6 18 12 28 40 78 30 81 30 ^3 The Ambitious Guest . Master and Man .... Paul and Virginia . . . Silas Marner .... Pride and Prejudice Ivanhoe . 6 . II . 12 . 28 . 26 . 52 For the Waverley Novels, 1 some 1700 characters are enumerated. 1 Library edition; Edinburgh, 1853. THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 93 The above data, with some others, give roughly a proportion of 30 to 40 individuals present in the action, whether speaking or not, to 100,000 words. 77. Chapter Distribution. A table showing the distri- bution of the principal characters according to chapters, if made early in the examination of the novel, is often helpful as a basis for further study of individuals and groups. Such a scheme gives a condensed list of dramatis personae ; the structural iiistory of individuals, in outline ; indicates the consecutive grouping, and serves to recall the general significance of each chapter. In the following example only the most important characters are noted. " S " indicates speech ; " P," presence ; " R," reference. SILAS MARKER CHAPTER i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 13 14 15 16 *7 18 iQ 20 21 Con. Silas . S P R P S S P S S S R R S R S P Godfrey S R R S S S S R S P P S S S S R Eppie . S S S R S R R S R S S Dun stan S S R R R R R R R Nancy . R R R S S R P S S S S P Macey . (S) S S S S S R R R S Mrs. Winthrop S S S S S S Wm. Dane . S R 78. Grouping in General. The method of grouping and the emphasis on the different groups will depend on the individual novel and the particular purpose with which it is studied. Certain groups, of special importance in techni- cal analysis, are determined by the structure itself ; others are defined or suggested by the author's comment; still others may be perceived or fashioned by the critic. A group may be a real ensemble, composed of persons assembled in some definite, limited space and time, as in 94 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Chapter VI of Silas Marner. While these conditions do not necessarily imply group-consciousness, they are likely to arouse and intensify it. Such a group may be treated as a spatial picture, with a descriptive interest in its phys- ical form ; or as a moral unity, with the emphasis on social psychology. There is sometimes an imaginative, even symbolical tendency to consider the entire group as one person, as in the treatment of city mobs or armies by such modern novelists as Hugo, Balzac, and Zola. Other groups, such as all the whites or all the Indians in The Last of the Mohicans, are based on common qualities rather than common time and place ; and in many cases a clear sense of group-unity may exist only in the mind of author or reader. A group may be composed of a definite number of persons (symbolized by G-4, G-5, etc.) or of an indefinite number (G-). Indefinite groups of a large number of persons masses are characteristic of epic quality, and are almost necessary to give a large social background in historical fiction. In The Plague Year there are masses of servants, surgeons, aldermen, nurses, refugees, etc. In 1 Promessi Sposi there are more objective, ensemble groups of soldiers, worshippers, the plague-stricken, etc. In very many of the Waverley Novels, indeterminate groups, such as archers, knights, Highlanders, gypsies, crusaders, more significant as masses than as composed of individuals, increase the epic breadth and dignity of the social picture. 79. Successive Groups. The scheme suggested in Sec- tion 77 will furnish starting-points for a more careful study of the groups in individual episodes, scenes, events, and incidents. On this basis, characters may be described as episodic (semi-episodic) and persistent; the episodic being more accurately noted as initial, central (climactic), THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 95 final (catastrophic), etc. Even in the loosest types of plot there are nearly always one or more persistent characters. Aside from such unifying persons, in the episodic plot, in autobiographical fictions, and adventure and picaresque forms in general, the group at any stage of the action may be almost independent of the others. In all types of novel, well-marked episodic groups are common. Such groups are especially clear in intercalated narrative; a frequent structural form in most early romance, in Cervantes, Le Sage, Fielding, Smollett and their disciples. The narrator of these intercalations himself is sometimes an episodic character; in closer economy, persistent. In Robinson Crusoe, even Friday is only an episodic (central) char- acter. There are quite independent groups in Brazil, Madagascar, Asia, as well as on the island. In Silas Marner, the most important independent groups are found in the initial Lantern Yard episode, and in Chapters VI-VII. None of the characters in these two groups have an important appearance elsewhere, except Macey, a semi-persistent character, and the hero himself. Eppie is a central-final character. In Pride and Prejudice, Colonel Fitzwilliam is one of the few distinctly episodic persons of any importance. He partly determines the general complexion of the group at Hunsford. The initial, climactic, and catastrophic groups are obvi- ously of great value in the study of the plot, and they are frequently very clearly defined. They are rarely of exact identity, even in economic plots. In general tendency, climactic groups are psychological, concentrating the atten- tion on a relatively small number of individuals and their inner life ; catastrophic groups are often broader, gather- ing together all the principal characters of the plot, and leaving a general impression of social atmosphere. These tendencies are fairly well exemplified in Silas Marner and Pride and Prejudice. There are many exceptions; some notable tragic effects being gained by leaving the reader 96 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL in the presence of isolated individuality at the close of the plot. A somewhat artificial catastrophic ensemble of an old-fashioned type is found in the Sir Roger de Coverley papers. The introduction of new characters near the conclusion may often have a specific aesthetic effect. In the Shakespearian tragedy, this method gives a sense of relief, and suggests the continuous vigor of social life in the face of many indi- vidual calamities. In the last twenty-five pages of The Plague Year, Defoe introduces nine new individuals, but they are not important as individuals the populace of the city of London is the real catastrophic hero. 80. Foreground, Middleground, and Background Charac- ters. The terms "foreground," "middleground," and " background," borrowed from the spatial art of painting, apply to plot-literature only by way of a somewhat loose an- alogy. A foreground character is one that has relatively a great intensity, complexity, or variety of meaning, and as a result seems most immediately before the reader. There is perhaps no single technical test to determine the position of a character in the general perspective of values. All foreground characters are usually given considerable speech, in the novel; but in Pride and Prejudice, Miss Darcy, without recorded utterance, is far more important than " a young Lucas," or Mrs. Hill, who are incidentally quoted. In a sense, the catastrophe is the foreground of a novel, so far as a single reading is concerned. The con- clusion is the emphatic position, the one with the most warmth, immediacy, as the reader leaves the composition. According to the theory of Poe, the author's conception of a plot should originate with the catastrophe, which should then determine the whole perspective. In a painting, the human figures may be concentrated in any one of the three positions, the other two being occu- THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 97 pied by works of nature or of art. In certain types of so- called short stories, nature, or an abstract idea, or a lyrical mood, rather than a character, may in effect dominate the foreground. In the romance of action, it may be events rather than persons that come nearest to the reader. In the representative novel, the foreground is given to highly individualized characters, the background to groups or to individuals whose significance lies in their group relations. In the distinctively social novel, including some historical fictions, novels of manners, and novels of social psychology, the artist may devote even the foreground to the portrayal of groups. In The Plague Year, though written in a per- sistent first-person form, probably to most readers the mass of London inhabitants is more immediate, complex, and intense than the fictitious writer. In all plot-literature, the richness and stability of the illusion depend to a considerable extent on a gradual shad- ing in the value of the characters on a complex variety in the degrees of intimacy established between them and the reader. In our actual experience, of the extended scope which the novel imitates, there are persons of every grade of actuality, from the friend more real than self to the mere nominis umbra. In Silas Marner, the hero himself is clearly the chief foreground character ; Godfrey and Eppie being others, though the last is not even suggested until the climactic chapter. Mrs. Winthrop and Nancy are among the middleground figures, while in the remote background are the boys and girls of Raveloe, the factory hands of Lantern Yard, Jinny Gates, the pedler, and many other individuals. 81. Central Characters. A character or characters may be central mainly as a matter of plot-function, their service being to unify all the incidents of the action ; or central in a deeper psychological or sociological manner, their value 98 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL determining that of all other individuals and groups. Of course the two functions may be combined ; and in either, the degrees of centrality are various. Clear examples of a single central character are often found in auto- biographical fictions ; as in Robinson Crusoe, The Vicar of Wakefield, and David Copperfield. In Paul and Virginia, the first-person form serves mainly as an enveloping frame ; in The Plague Year the first- person narrator aids in unifying the rather diffuse incidents of the action, and gives greater force to the individuality of the other characters. The title often suggests a single central character with sufficient accuracy, as in The Man of Feeling, Tom Jones, Euge'nie Grandet; but in other cases, the "hero" in a traditional sense does not appear in the title r61e. In The Antiquary, while Oldenbuck is near the focus of interest, Lovell corresponds more nearly to the conventional hero. A central character may be so conceived and presented that his significance lies rather in typical than in individual qualities. Lermon- toff writes of his Contemporary Hero, ' My hero is the portrait of a generation, not of an individual.' This statement is almost equally true of some of the chief characters of Turgenieff. Two central characters may be given approximately the same degree of value by the method of contrast, as in Master and Man or Sense and Sensibility. In the love- story of novelistic or dramatic form, the hero and hero- ine are sometimes of equal value ; sometimes one or the other definitely predominates. In Jane Austen the heroine is always more central than the hero ; and this is clearly the case in As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet. In not a few notable fictions, as suggested in the pre- ceding section, a group rather than individuals as such, is in all but a technical sense, the real center of value. All in all, the lovers of I Promessi Sposi are less significant in the mind of author and reader than the masses of ecclesiastical, martial, and municipal figures. Bulwer Lytton's son says THE DRAMATIS PERSON/E 99 with much truth, the real hero of The Parisians is "the Parisian Society of Imperial and Democratic France." 82. Association of Characters. Except in autobiographi- cal fiction, the dramatis personae are rarely all acquainted with the chief central character ; still more rarely are they all mutually acquainted. In any case, the various degrees of intimacy are distinct enough to serve as bases for impor- tant groupings. Even prominent characters may be igno- rant of their mutual existence. Silas Marner must always remember William Dane and Dunstan Cass as the two individuals who have most grievously injured him, but these two men pass through life, each absolutely unknown to the other. In Pride and Prejudice there is in general a fine interweaving of char- acters, but there are several interesting exceptions. Miss Darcy, for ex- ample, meets none of the Bennets except Elizabeth ; nor in the course of the directly presented action does she meet Wickham, though their relations offer material for a very dramatic interview. In this respect the drama is characteristically more compact than the loose epic-like struc- ture of the novel. Hamlet is on the stage, alive, with all of the indi- vidually named characters except Reynaldo, Francisco, and Fortinbras. Rosalind, however, so far as recorded, never hears of the old servant who is so faithful to her lover. The grouping of the dramatis personae as to mutual acquaintance may be tabulated in various ways. In the following arrangement for the chief characters of Silas Marner, each person of any group is at least once pre- sented with each other person of that group. I II III IV V Silas Silas Silas Godfrey Godfrey Godfrey Eppie Eppie Eppie William Dane The Squire Mrs. Winthrop Dunstan Molly (living) Nancy Aaron Macey 100 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL One of the most objective, dramatic, and distinctly struo, tural groupings of the novel is the dialogic. Except in duos and trios exact repetition of any group is uncommon. As in real life, the omission or addition of a single character, even in groups of some size, may essentially change the form and substance of the conversation. Duos and trios predominate in The Last of the Mohicans. The following are four of the most important conversational groups. Heyward is present in all; the Indian element colors three of them. Chingachgook, Hawkeye, Heyward, Alice Munro (Chapter XIII) ; Chingachgook, Hawkeye, Heyward, Munro, Uncas (Chapter XVIII) ; David Gamut, Hawkeye, Heyward, Munro (Chapter XXII) ; Heyward, Magua, Cora Munro, Tamemund, Uncas (Chapter XXX). In Ivanhoe the dialogic groups are in general larger and at the same time more compact in their structure than in Cooper. Good examples are found in Chapter XXVII Ambrose, Athelstane, Bois-Guilbert, De Bracy, Front-de-Bceuf, Giles, Wamba ; and Chapter XXXIII Friar Tuck, Isaac, The Prior, Robin Hood, his " lieutenant," " one of the outlaws, 1 ' the band (in concerted speech) . Groups of great importance in the study of characteriza- tion and of subject-matter are based on personal influence. Many characters are decidedly either active or passive in the general perspective of the plot. According to Goethe's theory, the hero of a drama is primarily active, the hero of a novel primarily passive. In fiction as in life, great depth and great breadth of influence are rarely combined. The more profound character forces of any individual are limited to a comparatively small circle of dramatis personae, or become more shallow as they reach the outer circles. A character may exist, in fiction, mainly to influence other characters, directly or indirectly, as in the conventional plot- functions of the deus ex mac/iina and dramatic providence. William Dane has no life of his own, apart from his relation to Silas Marner, as the novelist presents him. A father or mother may exist, THE DRAMATIS PEl^GN/E IOI artistically, for the sake of influencing 'a/eni'd, (Sec Riemann's treat- ment of the motif 'of " Der Tod des Vaters " ; and compare the opening of Soil und Haben.) In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy are far more influen- tial than the other pair of lovers. In Silas Marner, so far as mutual influence is concerned, Macey, the Squire, Dunstan, and others are quite outside the compact circle composed of Silas, Godfrey, Nancy, Eppie, and Mrs. Winthrop. On the whole, Silas himself exemplifies quite clearly the theory of Goethe given above, Uj.iK*t Ki ro 83. Relation to the Author. Modern realistic theory has frequently insisted that the novelist should be abso- lutely impartial, objective, in reference to his characters ; but this is a doctrine very rarely represented in practise. A mind sufficiently interested in individuals to write a novel does not sincerely value all individuals alike ; and the pre- tence to impartiality often produces the impression of a general hostility rather than artistic objectivity. Brune- tiere l distinguishes the realism of French fiction, as repre- sented by Flaubert, with its scorn for the humble lives it portrays, from English realism, as represented by George Eliot, with its profoundly sympathetic attitude toward the same type of character. Even Jane Austen reveals clearly her personal preferences for certain characters of her crea- tion, and personal dislike for others. Smollett and other eighteenth century writers found in the novel an opportunity to display personal spite or per- sonal approval of real contemporaries, slightly disguised in the fiction. Newman personally sympathizes with the early Christian converts, in Callista. Literary, national, or racial prejudice often leaves a clear stamp on charac- terization, even in novels of a general realistic quality. The novelist may indicate that he opposes certain literary or 1 Roman Naturaliste, 1893, P- 2 3 102 "f'HE -STtJDY OF A NOVEL social conventions by : presenting characters in a spirit of burlesque or caricature. Examples of types so treated are some of the pastoral figures of Sidney's Arcadia, the knight of chivalry in Don Quixote, the prude in Joseph Andrews, the Euphuist in The Monastery. In Soil und Haben, the author shows German prejudice against the Pole and the Jew ; in Westward Ho!, Kingsley reveals English Protestant dislike for the Spanish Jesuit. The partial identification of the author with a character has been noticed in Section 58. Sometimes it is the prin- cipal character, as in The Vicar of Wakefield, David Cop- perfield, Pride and Prejudice ; sometimes a less central personality, as in Anna Karenina. A single character may embody not merely the general Weltanschauung of the author, but his more specific temporary problems or epi- sodes of experience ; as in Oroonoko, Werther, The Pirate, Corinne, Newman's Loss and Gain, War and Peace. A certain character may intermediate, as expositor or as one of kindred temperament or experience, between the author and the reader. In fictions of specially difficult illusion, particularly in the realm of the supernatural, a character is often found whose chief function is to " rationalize " the improbable. The management of such functions is one of the excellencies in Defoe's technic. Examples are also found in Peter Wilkins, Gulliver's Travels, Frankenstein, and Utopia. In much the same way, the intensity of tragedy may be mediated through a comparatively commonplace and unemotional character. Frequently, all the principal characters may be clearly grouped with reference to the main purpose or theme of the novel. 84. Reality and Ideality. As all artistic characterization is an imaginative process, all the characters of a novel are more or less ideal ; but the degrees of ideality may often be distinct enough to serve as a basis for important group- THE DRAMATIS PERSONA IO3 ings. "Real" characters, for the present purpose, are those that represent, essentially, specific individuals or groups from actual life, historical or contemporaneous. In the case of contemporary models the reader may not be able to discover the real situation from the internal evidence of the novel. In giving his own method, Scott states a gen- eral practise in modeling from real life : " I have always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should still seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though pos- sessing some resemblance to real individuals." 1 Many novelists have vigorously affirmed that characters supposed by captious readers to be " copied " from existing indi- viduals, were either purely imaginary, or composites studied from several models. In historical fiction, in the narrow sense, the grouping of the dramatis personae into historical, semi-historical, (typically historical), and non-historical individuals is always possible and usually illuminative. The nature of historical romance, in one way, and the nature of historical real- ism, in another, determine that the majority of historical individuals elaborately presented should be persons of prominent external activity soldiers, statesmen, and reformers, rather than men of a predominant inner life. Purely imaginary individuals may be historical in type, or may be given an historical quality in the illusion by inti- mate association with well-known real characters. Raphael Hythloday, in Utopia, is a follower of Amerigo Vespucci : among the dramatis personse of Westward Ho ! are a com- panion of Pizarro and a grandson of De Soto. Indeterminate groups, except in general outline, must always be largely idealized, for history preserves no record of their individual members, or of their actions in minute detail. 1 Introduction of 1*27 to Chronicles of the Canfngate. 104 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Different types of historical fiction, with corresponding theories, depend on the distribution of historical, semi-his- torical, and non-historical characters as to foreground, middleground, and background. Compare, for example, the theories and practise of Scott, Vigny, Manzoni, Dumas, and Tolstoi. In Ivanhoe, the chief foreground figures are at most only typically historical; King John and King Richard, with the semi-legendary Robin Hood, may perhaps be considered as middleground characters. In Kenilworth, Leicester and Queen Elizabeth; in The Talisman, King Richard, approach the advanced foreground position. In Cinq- Mars, both the Cardinal and the young hero are among the most prom- inent persons. Among the historical characters of I Promessi Sposi are Cardinal Borromeo, Charles II, Richelieu, Philip II, and Wallenstein, but none of these are foreground figures, from a structural point of view. This romance, like many other historical fictions, presents a large num- ber of indeterminate, semi-historical groups in the middleground or background. In Quo Vadis, though Nero, Petronius, Saint Peter, and other historical individuals are prominent, the hero and heroine are both imaginary. 85. Individuals and Types. Every character, in fic- tion as elsewhere, may be primarily considered as an in- dividual, as representative of larger or smaller groups of human beings, or as an embodiment of an abstract idea. In some novels an initial grouping of dramatis personae on this basis may be of advantage. A deeper study of the matter belongs more properly under characterization. Any character dominated by a single quality, habit, or passion tends to become typical. Typification in the direction of caricature is fpund in many novels of a general realistic stamp. Even so sturdy a realist as Trollope introduces characters typically named for example, Mr. Popular Sentiment and Dr. Persistent Anti-Cant following the fashion especially prominent in the Jonsonian comedy of humors, and the eighteenth century English comedy of manners. Such characters, whether named in this manner or not, are notably frequent in Dickens, and in the grea"t humorists' and saftiristS generally.* THE DRAMATIS PERSON/E 10$ Allegorical and symbolical characters are appropriate in certain species of romance. They sometimes appear even in the heart of a realistic novel, but tend to weaken or destroy the unity of realistic illusion. The presence of Mignon, the religious teachers, and other allegorical figures in Wilhelm Meister makes it difficult for the average reader to accept the reality of the plot as a whole. The same confusion may result from a combination of realistic char- acters with caricatures, as in Sidney's Arcadia. In The Midsummer Night's Dream there is such intricate inter- weaving of realism, caricature, and symbolism, that the whole effect can be unified only in the realm of the fantastic. 86. Social Groups. Important in most novels, social grouping of the dramatis personse has a specialized value in many types of fiction the picaresque romance, the pastoral romance, the novel of manners, and the novel of social psychology, for example. The analysis is closely connected with the study of "human life," under subject- matter, but it also has its relations to aesthetic form. In many novels, the guiding principle in social grouping is artistic contrast ; in others there is more delicate shading from group to group. Sharp contrast is characteristic of romanticism ; an intricate interweaving, ceteris paribus, is more realistic. The canon of " epic totality " demands that every generic group of human society be represented. For an elaborate technical classification, one must go to the scientific sociologist; but a simple conception of the classes of society is a matter of general culture, and a necessity for any thorough study of plot-literature. Groups may be based upon sex, family relation, social rank, occu- pation, religion, etc. The novel which fully embodies the epic tradition includes characters of several races or nation- alities, with some conscious study of the qualities of these 106 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL massive groups. Balzac as, in some sense, a scientific student of social psychology, arranges the Comedie Hu- maine in such manner as to indicate clearly a rational analysis of society. His modern, secular classification offers an interesting contrast to the groupings of Dante's dramatis personae, made largely on the basis of medieval theology. The groups according to sex, like several others, might be considered as either sociological or psychological. In certain types of fiction, the number of individualized men naturally far exceeds that of women. This is true of historical romance, and of novels of action, especially of a martial quality. In novels in which love is a primary matter, and in the novel of manners, the relation may be inverted, or a numerical equality approached. Certain theories of the novel, those which emphasize its function in portraying modern social complexity, and in studying the inner life of the emotions, for instance, have a specific bearing on the matter. Again, the historical relations of men and women as novelists and as novel-readers, might be discussed in this connection. In Ivanhoe there are 47 speaking men ; 5 speaking women. (The concerted speeches also are mainly masculine.) In Silas Marner, the corresponding numbers are 20 and 8. Pride and Prejudice, with its ii speaking men and 15 speaking women, illustrates the feminine quality of Miss Austen's experience, her realistic fidelity to that experi- ence, and the tendency of the typical novel of manners. In many novels the family relations of the dramatis personae are intricate enough to demand special examination. This may be true of the family saga, or of historical romances, as it is of Shakespeare's English historical plays. Even in Silas Marner, Pride and Prejudice, Anna Kardnina, and other modern fictions of local societies, the reader is not likely to have a complete and clear conception of these relations without careful attention. In extensive studies of Family traits, as in the Rougon Macquart series, the matter is of deeper importance. THE DRAMATIS PERSONS IO? A good example of aesthetic social grouping is found in pastoral fiction. This generally contains well-marked groups of permanent, genuine pastoral characters, contrasted with groups of courtly aristo- crats, pastoral to some degree, for the nonce. Inhere may also be non- pastoral groups ; or a number of pastoral figures in burlesque, as in Sidney's Arcadia and As You Like It. 87. Psychological Groups. The critic may easily dis- cover in any novel fairly definite groups of dramatis personae based on salient common mental and moral qualities. A conscious elaboration of this analysis on the part of the author belongs mainly to modern fiction, and particularly to the "psychological novel" of the realistic and naturalistic schools. Such groups may be considered in their social aspects, or as psychological, in a more exact sense. In some naturalistic works, in which the psychology rests on physiology, the real interest is biological rather than social, in the ordinary meaning of the word. Characters may be grouped according to age, tempera- ment, normal or abnormal condition, types of mentality, etc. Senior gave some very interesting and illuminative discussion of this matter. His classification into 'simple, mixed, and inconsistent ' characters, 1 is worthy of careful study. Another method of analysis might distinguish sensational, emotional, intellectual, moral, and religious natures. Further technical classification may be adapted from sociological or psychological treatises. Professor Giddings (Inductive Sociology) gives as " types of dis- position," " aggressive, instigative, domineering, creative " ; as " types of character," " forceful, convivial, austere, rationally conscientious " ; "types of mind," "ideo-motor, ideo-emotional, dogmatic-emotional, critical-intellectual." While this nomenclature has been ridiculed by the layman, it is not without practical suggestive value in the close analysis of the psychological novel. 1 Essays on Fiction, p. 358 ff. IOS THE STUDY OF A NOVEL A most important distinction, in respect to novelistic form as well as subject-matter, is that between static and develop- ing characters. One very significant theory makes the novel preeminently a study of the development of individual character. This idea might serve as a basis for a valuable grouping of all the dramatis personae. In most novels there are many persons who undergo no essential change of nature in the course of the action. Characters of very pronounced mental or moral abnormality are usually treated as individuals rather than in groups; but the latter method is not unknown in novels of social psychology. Superstition, fanaticism, the delirium of panic, mob-spirit, the fever of battle, the selfishness or death-like lassitude of populations stricken by pestilence or famine, these are among the most intense forms of social conscious- ness the novelist is called upon to portray. In the domain of individual psychology, Scott made an original study of " double-consciousness " (his own term) in Norna, of The Pirate ; giving medical authority for his conception, long before Zola applied the doctrines of Claude Bernard to the novel. 1 1 See The Experimental Novel CHAPTER VI CHARACTERIZATION 88. Character and Characterization. In a careful an- alysis, one may distinguish the character itself, the reader's conception of it, the author's conception, and his presen- tation. In a broad sense, the last three items belong to characterization ; but in strictly technical meaning, the term applies only to the presentation. Unless they represent actual persons, the characters of a novel exist, as individuals, only in the minds of author and reader; though in a figurative sense we call a char- acter " real " when it produces a distinct illusion of reality. Human beings are fashioned by nature, society, their own wills, and, according to orthodox thought, the supernatural : the characters of fiction are fashioned by the artistic imagi- nation. Association with some fictitious beings may cause a more vital experience than association with some real persons ; but a sane mind will not confuse the two forms of experience. Such common statements as that of Ruskin, "To my father ... the characters of Shake- spearian comedy were all familiar personal friends," 1 have great interest, but we recognize their figurative quality at once. The question whether fictitious individuals really exist as types may be suggestive for aesthetics, but seems to belong more properly to metaphysics. Even if the novelist reproduces the appearance, speech, 1 Praeterita : Macugnaga. 109 1 10 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL or action of historical individuals in accurate detail, the total effect is imaginary, because of the large fictitious element in the environment. Some novelists have affirmed that a character once intensely conceived by the imagina- tion, seems to assume a volitional life of its own. This fact is important in the study of the aesthetic and psycho- logical aspects of the creative process, but it does not alter the scientific truth that the novelist is really the sole creator of his character. The novelist cannot evade the responsi- bility implied in Lanier's question : " What the artist doeth, The Lord knoweth ; Knoweth the artist not ? " l 89. Novelistic Characterization. Characterization is a process common to ordinary experience, several arts, biog- raphy, history, the lyric, and all forms of plot-literature. It has a fairly distinct mode for the novel, in a peculiar combination of points, if not in any one point. No other literary type shows, as a matter of history, a presentation of character in such " Detaildarstcllung"* of environment, physical and social. Yet, in contrast with the stage drama, the novel can at will describe the inner elements of character without any accompanying physical imagery. In no other form of art are the relations of direct and indirect characterization so intricate. The combination of intensive and extensive study of individual character is most striking in the novel. Psycho- logical analysis, in a strict sense, is more elaborate than in any other type of art. In the lyric, it may possibly be as intense and direct, but it cannot be as prolonged. The 1 Individuality. 2 Baumgart : Handbuch der Poetik. CHARACTERIZATION 1 1 1 gradual development of character, according to many; critics, is the special function of the novel. These characteristics are partially explained by the great length of the novel, its facile interweaving of dramatic and non-dramatic form, and its use of prose. Other characteristics may be readily noted. In sculpture and painting there is the medium of a visible image of character ; in the stage drama, the medium of a visible and audible real person. In all forms of literature these sensuous values can only be suggested. 90. Character Unfolding. The scheme given in Section 77 will indicate the first, intermediate, and final appear- ances of important characters, and the general environ- ment of each appearance. The main method of unfolding may be in mass or in solution ; usually there is a distinct combination of both methods. Tendency to mass the chief characterization at the principal turning-points of the plot may be designated as initial, climactic, and catastrophic unfolding. The prevailing method of modern realism is probably cumulative a discovery of character by the gradually increasing momentum of items often trivial enough if taken separately. The first and last appearances have a certain inevitable emphasis. Some conventional methods of introducing characters are apparently modeled after the drama and epic. Initial soliloquy in the drama combines the physi- ognomy, pantomime, and speech. This formula is impos- sible in the novel, and the substitution of an initial physical description followed by speech often seems artificial and ineffective. A preliminary introduction may be given in the title, preface, or prologue. Abrupt introduction often produces the effect of romantic, even sensational, surprise, as to some degree in George Eliot's first mention of Eppie. 112 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Riemann l has made a very interesting analysis of Goethe's methods of introducing characters. A study of the last appearance the "dismissal" may naturally be connected with the general study of catas- trophe (Section 52). Some characters slip out of the nar- rative so quietly one is scarcely aware of their absence. In general, in the modern novel, important characters are given a definite dismissal, though it may not be quite so formal as in early fiction. The hero and heroine are fre- quently last mentioned as still alive, and perhaps their future is sketched. The novelist often seems as reluctant to leave his favorite characters as the political orator is to close his argument. 91. Appellation. The names and other designations of a character may be realistic or romantic ; individualizing, or typical of nationality, historical period, occupation, tem- perament, etc. Occasionally usually with romantic con- notation an important character is designated as "the unknown" or "the unnamed." Minor characters are often indicated only by type, after the models of the herald of Greek drama, or the clown, servant, citizen of Shakespearian drama. The title of a novel frequently gives a suggestive appellation for the chief character, as in the Man of Feeling, Last of the Barons, the Wan- dering Jew. In early types of romance there may be repeated epithetical formulas, similar to those in epic poetry. Different aspects of the same character may be indicated by different designation. In Jack Wilton, the hero is variously known as "my young lad," " wise young Wilton," " King of the Drunkards," " King of the Pages," etc. A radical change of name, especially in romance, may denote pronounced change in the external or inner history of a 1 Goethes Romantechnik : Die Einfiihrung der Personen. CHARACTERIZATION 1 1 3 character. The career of Amadis of Gaul is so marked in part : in Euphues, the conversion of a character is emphasized by changing his name from Atheos to Theophilus. When these different names are distributed between the author and the dramatis personae, they may have considerable importance in dra- matic characterization. To George Eliot, her hero is generally " Silas " or "poor Silas," even when he is imagined as much older than herself; among the dramatis personre, he is "dad," "old Marner," "the miser," etc. The heroine of Pride and Prejudice is almost invariably " Eliza- beth " to her creator ; but to the other characters she is known as Eli/a, Lizzie, Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and so on. 92. Physiognomy. The physical appearance may have a pictorial interest for its own sake, or it may be of great service in revealing the mental and moral nature. It is almost entirely through bodily phenomena that we become acquainted with character in real life, and the novelist often makes detailed and effective application of this truth. The physiognomy of an individual combines a nearly constant element, including stature, moulding of the fea- tures, color of eyes and hair, etc., with an element always changing according to physical and mental condition. Both elements are frequently given close attention in the novel ; the latter is of particular value in all genuine study of the dynamic relations of soul and body. It is comparatively easy to image and remember striking individual details of physiognomy, or general types of figure and face ; the middle ground is much less impres- sive. It is difficult for the average mind to retain a dis- tinct image, even of an intimate friend, for any considerable period, without the aid of actual presence or photographic suggestion. Again, the effect of a given bodily appearance depends much on the state of the observer himself. Strong moral idealism may dwell so intently on beauty of character that 114 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL the physical defects which happen to accompany it disap- pear from consciousness. In Pippa Passes, the shoulders of Ottima are at one time fascinatingly beautiful to Sebald ; at another, terribly repulsive. In this sense, the Spense- rian conception that " soul is form and doth the body make " may be a truth of real experience. The spatial point of view also greatly modifies the impression of physical appearance. The first close observation of a face long familiar at a greater distance, is a revelation. Complexion, in particular, has a marvelous increase or decrease of value as the point of view changes. In the novel, these and similar "kinetic" aspects of physiognomy affect the author, the reader, and the dramatis personae. They may suggest the great difficulty, and hint at some of the better methods in artistic description of physical personality. In general, it seems better to leave much to the imagination and habit of observation in the reader. A fully itemized description is, in fact, usually one of the least success- ful methods of reaching realistic result. Defoe (in Colonel Jacque) thus defends a brief conventional summary : " It is a subject too surfeiting to entertain people with the beauty of a person they will never see." The novel rarely portrays the unclothed human body. This may be a serious limitation, so far as pictorial interest is concerned, but the loss to higher characterization seems trifling. The conventional nude portraits of the Elizabethan sonneteers and Herrick add little to our sense of mental and moral individuality. (Cf. Laokoon, V.) 93. Costume and Physical Environment. When one sees a friend for the first time in academic or ecclesiastical garb or in military uniform, the effect on one's general conception of the character is often surprisingly strong. Costume has its special values in the novel of manners, the romance of chivalry, historical romance, and other types of fiction. Disdainful criticism of Scott's attention to costume has perhaps underrated the significance of dress in historical and social characterization. But Scott is by no means the CHARACTERIZATION 1 1 5 first to note its value. For familiar reasons, description of costume is very common in Elizabethan literature. In Jack Wilton there are several passages of striking and concrete description, in various connotation, like the following : " I had my feather in my cap as big as a flag in the foretop; my French doublet . . . my long stock ... my rapier pendant . . . my cape cloak of black cloth," etc. Defoe perhaps paid little attention to dress in general, but the island costume of Robinson Crusoe is given in significant detail. Change of costume sometimes indicates important change of situation or character, though Thoreau's suggestion that new garments should always mean moral renovation is not strictly observed. A familiar detail is the donning of masculine garments by a woman romantic in Lodge's Rosalind; realistic in Defoe's Moll Flanders and Mrs. Chris- tian Davies. The photographer and portrait painter recognize the value of physical background in characterization. Such background has an increased value when selected or fash- ioned by the character himself. This and other vital rela- tions of the dramatis personae and the material environment are noticed in Sections 72 and 74. Certain traditional relations are found in some special types of fiction. Pastoral figures appear against a background of typical landscape ; the heroine of the novel of manners is painted as the queen of the ballroom or the promenade ; the conventional European appears in a new light sur- rounded by pygmies, giants, or other semi-human figures, in the voyage tmagmaire ; the knight of the romance of chivalry is the shining center of the tournament. Of special importance in dramatic characterization is the relation of the single figure to the group. The imaging of Silas Marner among the village boors at the Rainbow, and among the village aristocrats at the Red House, adds greatly to the impression of his character. The fact that he never appears in any considerable group except in Il6 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL physical as well as mental contrast to his fellows, until the end of the story, symbolizes his moral isolation and is due to the author's instinctive genius or conscious art. 94. Pantomime. Human beings express their individu- ality as well as typical qualities by weeping, laughter, swoon, blush, gesture, and pose. It is a matter of common note that these means of expression often have a more ele- mental and universal value than speech itself. In many situations absence of customary pantomime is also a reve- lation of character. In artificial society, gesture as well as speech may be used to conceal the real attitude of the spirit. Criticism 1 points out that Sterne was one of the first novelists to give extensive and specialized treatment of pantomime; but it had its definite if subordinate place before the great schools of the eighteenth century. Nash gives us such concrete touches as these, in Jack Wilton : " One pecked like a crane with his forefinger at every half syllable he brought forth, and nodded with his nose like an old singing man. . . . Another would be sure to wipe his mouth with his handkercher at the end of every full point. And ever when he thought he had cast a figure so curiously, as he dived over head and ears into his auditors' admiration, he would take occasion to stroke up his hair, and twine up his mus- tachios twice or thrice over, while they might have leisure to applaud him." The " sentimental school " of the late eighteenth century was fond of sighs, tears, swoonings, and the attitudes of languorous and mysterious melancholy. Professor Mor- ley enumerates the weepings in the Man of Feeling. 2 The pages of the famous Clarissa and the representative 1 Jusserand, Roman Anglais, p. 64; Masson, p. 153; etc. See the ex- tended study of " Physiognomik und Mimik " in Kiemann. 2 Introduction to Cassell's National Library edition. CHARACTERIZATION I r 7 Juliet Grenville (by Brooke) offer quite as rich opportunity for such statistics. Pantomime has a particular human value in the novel of manners ; in modern naturalism, it inclines to the opposite tendency of animalism. 95. Utterance. Careful analysis of the speech of a char- acter might note general habits of loquacity or silence, carelessness or accuracy ; the quality and intonation of the voice ; vocabulary and syntax, etc. In the novel, the modulation of the voice can be only slightly indicated by direct means, and the indirect often seem ineffective or unreal. (Compare Sections 22-24.) This is especially true of the singing voice. No refinement of literary de- scription can rival the histrionic art in interpreting the tragic pathos of the songs of Ophelia and Desdemona. It is interesting to speculate just what imagery of sound and just what interpretation of character underlie Jane Austen's frequent state- ment that Elizabeth Bennet "cried" her words. Detailed attention to enunciation, in the service of romantic sentimentalism, is found in some of the short stories of Hendrik Conscience. He repeatedly uses such descriptive terms as " unintelligible," " almost inaudible," " mur- mured," " whispered," " scarcely articulate," etc. In several cases he follows the development of the voice from a very low utterance to loud- ness in a single speech. In vocabulary and syntax, the limitation of the character by the author himself is often very noticeable. Unreality or falseness is liable to appear in attempts at highly specialized technical, professional, or historical language. Extended and coherent speeches by characters suffering from great pain or great weakness are often improbable to the imagination, even if they are scientifically possible. The speech of children is an interesting detail. William and Anne in Browning's Strafford are curiously mature in vocabulary and syntax. Contrast the extended and lifelike talk of Tom and Maggie Tulliver. Il8 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL The children in Sense and Sensibility are " full of monkey tricks," and express themselves by screams, sobs, pinches, and kicks instead of words. (See Chapter XXI.) Propriety, in an untechnical sense, frequently forbids a complete record of the imagined utterance of a character. Profanity and vulgarity have been defended on the princi- ple of dramatic " decorum " since the days of Chaucer, at least ; but the novelist has often hesitated to carry out his theoretical right. The expression of very intense passion, secular or religious, is often perceptibly toned down. Sid- ney records the beautiful prayer of Pamela, and Richard- son displays the most personal and profound religious emotion of Clarissa ; but such frank exhibition of the sacred privacy of passion, though still common, is not in complete accord with the cultural taste of our own time. 96. Physiological Psychology. In few novels, even of recent date, is the human soul considered as merely the temporary result of chemical and physical forces. Modern materialism, in its complete formula, has not yet proved attractive or feasible for many literary artists. Average criticism of the day rebukes both the tendency of the naturalist to reduce all psychic experiences to physiologi- cal terms; and the tendency of the pure psychologist to study the soul as though it were independent of the body. Physiological psychology, broadly interpreted, is not a new element in the novel. The physical and mental characteristics of sexual love are causally related in Daphnis and Chloe and other Greek romances, as they are in corresponding Elizabethan descriptions. In Jack Wilton there are some vigorous strokes to indicate the physical effects of a long-continued spirit of revenge : " My tongue with vain threats is swolen, and waxen too big for my mouth. My eyes have broken their strings with staring and looking ghastly, as I stood devising how to frame or set my countenance when I met thee," etc. CHARACTERIZATION 1 19 A fundamental conception of the sentimental school, in its analysis of "sensibility," was the rapid response of the body to the easily agitated soul. Many of the heroes as well as heroines of the period might have said, with a character of Karamzin, " I am a mere mortal, the slave of sensibil- ity ; " or quoted sympathetically this longer exposition from Brooke's Juliet Grenville: " O madam, what kind of a frame is this frame of our mortality ? We die with pain ; we die with pleasure ; we can bear nothing in excess. We turn away from things indifferent . . . and yet, when our sensations rise to a certain pitch, the degree becomes quite insufferable, whatever its nature may be. Imagination, like an executioner of the pitiless In- quisition, keeps his rack ever in readiness ; he stretches us thereon at pleasure, and strains the cords, and we lie panting and expiring beneath the tension." In the same novel, the heroine is one day discovered, at the age of five, with her doll undressed : u The moment that we en- tered, you started, as greatly alarmed ; and your face, neck, and bosom were instantly covered with scarlet, in your dread that the men should see the nakedness of your baby." When such heroines arrive at matur- ity, they prefer drowning to a rescue which demands disrobing. Recent naturalism has often become biological or even " animalistic " in its view of the relations of body and soul. It has analyzed the physiological elements of all kinds of sensation, the muscular and nervous aspects of thirst, starvation, mutilation, and the death agony. It has elabo- rated the physiological psychology of " love," degeneracy, religious frenzy, insanity, and many other forms of abnor- mal consciousness., It has described with gusto, also, the merely animal joy of robust, " red-blooded " vitality. Nat- uralism of this type is characteristic of Zola, d'Annunzio, the Goncourt brothers, Dostoyevsky ; in somewhat less degree of Tolstoi, Bjornson, in his later work, and Hardy. It has relatively little place in American fiction. 120 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL In George Eliot there are many touches of this kind, but she is never primarily a physiologist. The physical effects of grief are shown in Adam Bede, and the approaching motherhood of Hetty Sorrel is described partly in the spirit of physiological psychology, but with the emphasis clearly on the moral experience. In Silas Marner, the cata- lepsy of the hero is rather obscurely treated, on its physical side ; and the love relations of Eppie and Aaron, Godfrey and Nancy, Godfrey and Molly even, are given a very slight basis in the flesh. 97. Pure Psychology. The types of character given in Section 87 may suggest deeper study of the individual soul. The consciousness of a character may be considered under such forms as imagination, memory, observation, generaliza- tion, sensation, emotion, volition, etc. Its subject, so to speak, may be the individual himself, sex, age, occupation, nationality, race ; or the wider conceptions suggested by such phrases as "cosmic emotion" and Weltschmerz. The consciousness of nationality is very strong in the characters of Westward Ho ! and Soil und Haben ; it is hardly recognizable in the villagers of Silas Marner. Balzac analyzes the specialized conscious- ness of the Parisian in many characters. If by religious consciousness one means the sense of the existence of God, it is distinct in Dolly Winthrop, dim and uncertain in Silas Marner ; practically latent in Elizabeth Bennet, and not even suggested in Queen Esther. In the direct portrayal of self-consciousness proper, the novel departs widely from life. In actual experience, one can acquire only a vague and fragmentary acquaintance with the inner life of any other being. The novelist may of course transfer his own experience to his character, with such modification as imagination permits ; or he may content himself with the typical. Inference, analogy, generalization, dramatic power, and human sympathy may vastly enlarge his insight into individuality ; but no author CHARACTERIZATION 1 2 1 can solve the mystery of the individual. In the case of historical characters, the novelist may to some extent utilize their own records of experience; but these are imperfect and liable to misinterpretation. He is scien- tific, in a true sense, only when he presents the typical. The novelist may explore the region of the " sub-con- scious " ; or the mysteries of child, animal, and supernat- ural consciousness ; but these belong, for the most part, to the odds and ends of characterization. In describing the mental life of supernatural beings, anthropomorphism is inevitable. One may perhaps conceive other forms of thought and feeling than the human, in the abstract ; but if the attempt is made to embody them in the concrete, they tend to be transformed into the familiar shapes of our present " type of consciousness." In general, the novel has been occupied with the more intense experiences of the soul ; though realism has given attention to the more ordinary mental history of domestic, professional, and political life. Abnormal psychology may be approached with the romantic craving for the strange and mysterious; or in an ethical spirit, as in Hawthorne ; or in a somewhat scientific spirit, interested in the light thrown on more universal experience, as to some degree in Poe and Balzac. The tendency of such characterization is toward physiological psychology, for obvious reasons. 98. Identity, Individuality, and Type. The Bertillon and similar methods of identifying criminals emphasize the unique form of every human body. The early novelists made frequent use of such distinguishing details as birth- marks, scars, moles, etc. In fictitious literature, confused physical identity sometimes due to bodily resemblance, as in the Comedy of Errors ; more commonly to disguise by costume may be a rich source of comic or tragic 122 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL effect. Confused moral identity is capable of large ethical and psychological value, as in the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew. Double consciousness has been mentioned in Section 87. Compare Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Poe's William Wilson, Aldrich's Queen of Sheba, etc. Triple consciousness, studied at some length in James' Principles of Psychology, has received little or no attention in the novel as yet. In physical and moral history each individual is easily identified, if the details are noted. No two individuals can occupy the same place at the same time ; nor do they ever have the same sequence of emotions or thoughts. Every character in all fiction is perfectly distinct from every other, though the distinction may not always merit study. Moral individuality, in any important artistic sense, is of course a much deeper matter. Its problem, stated philo- sophically, but in a form applicable to the art of the novel- ist, is given thus in Royce's Conception of Immortality : " Individuality is something that we demand of our world, but that, in this present realm of experience, we never find. It is the object of our purposes, but not now of our attainment ; of our intentions, but not of their present fulfilment ; of our will, but not of our sense nor yet of our abstract thought ; of our rational appreciation, but not of our de- scription ; of our love, but not of our verbal confession. We pursue it with the instruments of a thought and of an art that can define only types, and of a form of experience that can show us only instances and generalities. The unique eludes us, yet we remain faithful to the ideal of it, and in spite of sense and of our merely abstract thinking, it be- comes for us the most real thing in the actual world, although for us it is the elusive goal of an infinite quest/ 1 Many of the methods of characterization noted in the preceding sections may be used either for individualizing or typifying. Certain social and psychological types will CHARACTERIZATION 1 23 be suggested by the previous grouping of the dramatis personae. Excellent examples of fairly pure types are found in the " characters " of Overbury and La Bruyere. Recent study of the development of fiction has given some attention to their influence on the novel. Burlesque often throws light on character types. In this and other forms of imitation or conscious contrast, acquaintance with the original conceptions is essential. Don Quixote must be compared with the knights in serious romance of chivalry ; Joseph Andrews with Pamela ; Jacopo Ortis with Werther; Marianne Dashwood with such heroines as the one noted in Section 96. Occasionally serious and burlesque treatment of the same type occur in a single composition ; for example, the pastoral type in As You Like It, and Sidney's Arcadia. A character at first quite original for fiction often tends to pass rapidly into conven- tional type, like the fierce hero of Jane Eyre, or the sceptical sufferer in Robert Elsmere. Specific knowledge of history is of course necessary to understand fully many of the character types in fiction. It is impossible to interpret Turgenieff and other modern Russian novelists rightly without some acquaintance with Russian social movements. Carlyle's Chartism may be of value in the study of Kingsley's Yeast and Alton Locke. Single characters often represent quite distinctly several minor and major types. Silas Marner is a type of the English weavers of his period ; of all human beings morally exiled by the treachery of their fellows ; of all souls experi- encing a tragic separation between their present and their past. The general value of allegorical and symbolical charac- ters was suggested in Section 85. The allegorical interest may be very vague, as in Robinson Crusoe ; more definite, as in Wilhelm Meister; or approaching " isomorphic " value, as in Pilgrim's Progress. Double allegory, after 124 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL the fashion of the Faery Queen, seems quite rare in prose fiction. 99. Character Change. Lotze's clear and simple state- ment that " the slow shaping of character is the problem of the novel," l suggests a vast field of historical, technical, and theoretical interest. Character change, in some form, is found in nearly all extended fictions, but in early works it is often too rapid, or too crude in motivation to be a genuine study of the " problem." The sudden transforma- tions in the characters of Romeo, Proteus, Bertram, and Ferdinand are due in part, no doubt, to the limitations of the drama ; but the novel prior to Richardson offers many analogous examples. There is some study of gradual devel- opment of character, however, in Euphues, Rosalind, and Jack Wilton. That Defoe takes no low rank in this respect is proved by reference to Colonel Jacque and Moll Flanders, as well as Robinson Crusoe. Character development may be conceived as mainly an unfolding of original tendency, often with distinct emphasis upon heredity ; or as the result of natural or social envi- ronment, the influence of the supernatural, or the will of the character himself. The last process is given the general term " characterization " by Giddings, 2 and its prin- cipal methods are designated as " persistence, accommo- dation, self-denial, and self-control." The development of a character is generally greatly modified not only by reac- tion upon the traditions, habits, and will of social groups, but by relations to other individuals. The influence of individual upon individual can be more extensively and more intensively studied in the novel than in any other form of art ; and more concretely than in sociology. 1 Outlines of /Esthetics ; translated by Ladd. 2 Inductive Sociology. CHARACTERIZATION 1 25 Character development may follow many lines that of general culture, as in Wilhelm Meister and the educational novel; of emotional power; of artistic genius; of public influence, theological belief, etc. The study which appeals most strongly to many novelists is that of moral develop- ment, upward or downward. Bunyan's Mr. Badman gives, in the limited space of a short novel, a very original por- trayal of downward movement. Defoe studied both dete- rioration and improvement. It has often been noted that novelists seem to prefer the development of the bad rather than the good as a subject for careful analysis. It is not difficult to give some reasons for this, based on the nature of art ; and perhaps some based on ethical and psychologi- cal interests. For one thing, progress downward more often shows a symmetrical movement than progress upward. 100. Direct and Indirect Characterization. The most direct manner in which a character appears before the reader is in his speech, actions, and thoughts. His physi- cal presence can be suggested only by the author's descrip- tion, or the effect on other dramatis personae. Soliloquy, in the set form found in early fiction, is now practically obsolete ; but in modified form it is often perfectly natural to the character, and it serves a unique and valuable func- tion in characterization. Self-characterization, whether in soliloquy or elsewhere, is in a sense less direct than uncon- scious revelation of character. The analyses and opinions of the author introduce a third party between the character and the reader, though with very various degrees of intrusion. " Dramatic objec- tivity " may be violated even in the description of physiog- nomy. The novelist's approval, hostility, or apology in reference to moral qualities are more important offences against that critical canon. 126 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL In John Brent, the author, Theodore Winthrop, gives two paragraphs to his heroine's nose, expressing the opinion that the other facial fea- tures are "only tributary to the nose, standing royally in the midst, and with dignity presiding over its wayward realm." He is an anarchist, however, in respect to a certain type of nasal sovereign : " Positive aquiline noses should be cut off. They are ugly ; they are immoral ; they are sensual." George Eliot is quite a sinner in the matter of apology, and seems to fear that the reader may identify author with characters. In Adam Bede, for example, she reminds us that Adam "had the blood of the peasant," and gives a satirical analysis of Hetty's character for the " philosophical reader." On this matter in general compare Sections 58 and 83. In a strictly dramatic novel, the most important indirect characterization is by means of the dramatis personae. Theoretically complete survey of any character would include the opinions or unconscious attitude of friend and foe, child and adult, animal and God. In practise, com- pleteness yields to artistic selection, but each point of view has its own peculiar value. A man often has a new con- ception of his own character in the presence of children or animals not always pleasing to self-conceit. In real life, the supposed opinion of God is often an important element in self-characterization, and in a man's judgment of his fellows. Except in a limited way, the novelist usually gives this opinion only as it appears in the minds of the dramatis personae. The fact that any characterization of B by A may clearly reveal the nature of A as well as B is often utilized with much dramatic effect in the novel. The children of Jane Austen are introduced largely to indicate the character of adults; those of George Eliot frequently have a more independent value, but Eppie, as a child, exists mainly to enrich the characterization of Silas and Godfrey, and focus it. CHARACTERIZATION 127 101. General Methods. Some methods of characteriza- tion are based on literary conventions; others on the inherent nature of character study. Such formulas as "indescribable," "not to be analyzed," "a paradox," etc., may be the sincere expression of genius ; or may result from incapacity or slovenly talent. The character cast mainly into the mould of a " dominant passion," largely an eighteenth century conception, but imitated in such studies as Pere Goriot and Quasimodo, is frequently of literary rather than vital quality. Vague or light impression of character may be quite legitimate in romance aiming to liberate rather than discipline the reader's imagination, or to place the aesthetic emphasis upon plot. In real life, a satisfactory view of individual character is usually a combination of analysis and synthesis. Speaking of over-analysis in artistic characterization, Veron 1 says : " We want a mental stimulus, not a treatise on anatomy." Right relations between analysis and synthesis can be attained only by dramatic power, psychological instinct, and human sympathy. " Hedging," " foil," climax, contrast, and similar methods are effective and based on reality, though often used with much artificiality. Contrast in particular, whether studied in the individual or in a wider area, is an almost indispen- sable resource ; but when realistic, is rarely complete or carried out into antithetical detail. The economic treat- ment is suggested by Royce : 2 "The consciousness of likeness and of difference help each other; and theiefore in a measure it is true that the more we get of one of them, before our knowledge, the more we get of the other. So they decline altogether to be known separately." 1 Esthetics. 2 Conception of Immortality, 128 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL The principle of inference is of wide application, and one constantly employed in the finer effects of characteri- zation. In the relations of soul and body, it is comparatively immaterial to the novelist whether one trembles because he is afraid, according to the old psychology, or is afraid because he trembles, according to Professor James' hypothesis. In either case the traditional inferences from the physical phenomena are correct for practical purposes of character study. Many important differences between the presentation of character in the novel and in real life are apparent. In the novel the entire history of a character unfolds before us in a few hours. Our later intimacy may extend over many years, and our conception may undergo great trans- formation, but the character itself presents no new data. In real life association with human beings involves our influence upon them. The characters of a novel have influenced real persons in countless ways, one famous example is found in the suicides that followed Werther, but there is no possible influence in the opposite direction. In the novel, again, every character is interpreted in rela- tion to a certain fixed number of persons, events, places, times, emotions, and ideas, and no others; that is, it appears in a plot a type of unity which has no exact model in life itself. These and similar facts have important effects on the problem of characterization in the novel. Among other results is possibly that of a necessary exaggeration, if the character is to appear in a perspective resembling that of our experience. 102. Group Characterization. In the group, there is always a possible interest in the group itself, and in the individuals composing it. In some ways these two in- CHARACTERIZATION 129 terests are antagonistic ; in some ways complementary. Without some distinction of individuals, a group which we can neither actually see nor hear, tends to become a mere abstraction. Partial individualization, not obscuring the group, is found in the Shakespearian formula, " first citi- zen," etc. Concerted speech, mentioned in Section 19, is an artificial method of unifying the mental and moral characteristics of the group. Considered as a unit, a group may be characterized in many respects like an individual ; but it tends to become typical, it rarely appears more than a few times with ab- solute identity, and it does not often embody any elaborate study of mental or moral development. CHAPTER VII SUBJECT-MATTER 103. Subject-Matter and Form. In the entire novel, and in its separate passages, the main interest of the author or the critic may be concentrated upon either of these elements, or it may be concerned with their intimate, complex relations. In every type of literature, all the subject-matter is given linguistic form. ' In the novel, if a subject is considered for its service to the plot, its relation to the illusion, one is concerned with novelistic form ; when the emphasis is laid on thought for its own sake, one studies thematic values which are essentially the same in all forms of art. The ideal relation, for most critics, is found only when a significant subject is "bodied forth" in an appropriate and significant form. The subject landscape, when introduced simply as a background for incident, has primarily a formal value ; when made a topic of conversa- tion by the characters, its value may be partly formal, partly thematic ; when discussed for its own sake, in the author's comment, the value may be almost purely thematic. In the novel of pure dramatic structure, every subject is, in the first instance, formal subordinate to the char- acters and the situation. In the short story and the romance, the interest in form is often more complete and continuous than in the novel. The terms " tale " and " story " suggest the predominance of form ; the terms " study, 11 " pur- pose-novel, 11 etc., imply a larger attention to subject-matter for its own sake. Allegory and symbolism, at their best, attain a rich harmony of the two interests. Examine the relations of subject and form in semi- novelistic works, such as the philosophical dialogue of Plato and his imitators, the " letter-essay, 11 Toxophilus, The Complete Angler, etc. 130 SUBJECT-MATTER 1 3 1 104. Extensive and Intensive Subject. The novelist, to some extent, must choose between the consideration of a large variety of subjects, and the detailed study of a more limited field. He may choose gladly, instinctively, or with a sense of artistic renunciation. He may attempt to combine an extensive survey in general with an intensive treatment of specific subjects ; but a novel is not often of equal value as a "large diffused picture" of life (Smollett) and as a profound study of a concentrated theme. This distinction may be kept in mind throughout the present chapter. 105. The Typical and the Individual. Typification is an important method of enlarging the scope of a novel without losing the force of an intensive treatment. Any " section of life " may be interpreted in such manner as to bring out the values of an historical period, of the general organization of society, or of human experience as a whole ; as a robin may be studied as representative of the thrushes, of all bird-life, or of the vertebrates. This typical quality may be clearly expressed by the novelist, or it may be merely suggested to the reader. It may be found in all the elements of the novel in setting, conversation, motiva- tion, as well as in incident and character. 1 06. Exhibition and Interpretation. The selection of certain data rather than others, the proportion of emphasis upon those chosen, and the moulding of them into the unity of a plot, give a real interpretation of life in every novel. Beyond this inevitable " criticism of life " the novelist may be as silent as possible, or he may consider his direct interpretation as equally important with the pic- ture itself. The various " isms " of the schools may be compared from this point of view. A frank statement of impressionism, as offering an array of human phenomena without any attempt to explain their real meaning, 132 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL is quoted from Thomas Hardy, on page 303. The chief value of the philosophical novel is in its effort to give some unified explanation of all the material it brings together. Note the opinions of Masson and Scherer quoted in Section 119, and Lotze's definition of art, in Section 208. 107. The Subject of the Novel. Probably few critics would oppose the idea that the principal subject of every true novel is humanity, in one or more of its infinite aspects ; and this in a sense which really distinguishes the novel from most if not all other forms of art. All art is an expression of the humanity of the artist himself, but the novelist always, in large measure, discovers his humanity by observation of the life of other men. The question, just what aspect of this vast subject is the true field of the novel, cannot be so easily answered. Two theories which can be clearly distinguished consider, re- spectively, the life of society and the life of the individual to be the essential theme of the novel. These two views are not necessarily antagonistic, and in every great novel there is matter enough on both themes to repay separate study. The following outline of analysis must be treated flexibly, and adapted to the needs of a concrete study. For more systematic analy- sis of specific phases of subject-matter, reference must be made to the underlying sciences of sociology, psychology, history, and ethics. 1 08. Sociology and History. The novel does not con- sider humanity in the abstract, as a scientific Genus Homo, or a dramatic Everyman ; but as it appears in some limited social and historical relations. The sociological interest concerns those forms of social organization and life that are comparatively permanent ; the historical interest takes account of the conditions belonging to a particular period and locality. 1 Both of these interests are important in 1 See Giddings, p. 8. SUBJECT-MATTER 133 every representative novel, but now one predominates, now the other. It might be said that the artistic imagination inclines toward the transitory phases of human experience, toward the contrasts and shadings which history continu- ally affords ; and that the scientific mind finds a deeper sat- isfaction in examining the permanent elements in social life. In the Comddie Humaine, the inclusive scheme is historical the primary aim being to picture the French society of a limited epoch ; but there is a very rich exhibition of general social relations. In Anna Kardnina, the sociological study seems more significant than the purely historical ; while in the novels of Turgenieff, the temporary conditions of Russian life are brought more decidedly into the foreground, ficott's interest is often historical in the main ; While George Eliot is always deeply interested in the permanent aspects of society, even when she studies historical variations in some detail. 109. Social Composition. The importance of social composition in the novel is partly indicated by the list of types given in the appendix. In the representative social novel there is much interpretation as well as exhibition of the organization of social groups. While comprehensive- ness requires some attention to all the chief types of social groups, many of the characteristics of man as a " socius " may be studied in any one group ; the family, for in- stance, may be viewed as a kind of social microcosm. Many of the great European novels, however, are interna- tional in scope of subject. The Family. The root idea of the family may be found in the relations of man and wife, or of parents and children. A comprehensive survey of family organization is found in Anna Kardnina. This novel exhibits the relation of master and servants, husband and wife, man and mistress, sister and brother, parents and children, etc. Its principal limitation, in this theme, is that most of the family life shown is in the aristocratic circles of society. 134 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Other novels with important exhibition or interpretation of the family group are Utopia, Amelia, The Vicar of Wakefield, Pride and Prejudice, and The Mill on the Floss. The Community. Aside from the common types of rural village and city quarter, the novel may picture the social groups of the prison, hospital, barracks, camp, factory, business house, etc. Compare the studies of a great business house its esprit de corps, discipline, ranking of members, etc. in Soil und Haben and Dombey and Son. Contrast the romantic view of a cathedral community in Notre Dame de Paris with the realistic view in Barchester Towers. Hospital life appears in La Debacle, under military conditions, in time of war ; and in I Promessi Sposi, under municipal conditions, in time of pestilence. Social Caste. The very term caste denotes a group that is defined by its relations to other groups. In the processes by which a class emerges from the general social composition, or is reabsorbed in it, in the comedy or tragedy of class rivalry, and in the movements of an individual from class to class, the novel of manners, and the novel of social psychology find a rich field. Fielding warns the novelist that " a true knowledge of the world is gained only by conversation, and the manners of every rank must be seen in order to be known." (Tom Jones, XIV, I.) He finds that many English writers fail in describing the upper classes, because of ignorance of the subject a criticism frequently made of Dickens. In recent realism, a similar failure is often apparent in the picture of the lower classes. To one who is an actual member of a given trade or profession, familiar in daily life with its labor, traditions, language, and ideals, the descriptions of it in the novel often seem curiously unreal. Nationality and Race. The unity of a national group may be considered in its physical, linguistic, industrial, or religious aspects, as well as in the purely political. A comprehensive view of any great nation must include some SUBJECT-MATTER 1 3 5 picture of different races. One of the largest social sub- jects in the novel is the composition of empire, whether conceived in a semi-scientific spirit, or exhibited as a moral unity, its elements fused together, perhaps in a period of special stress, by " The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime. 1 ' Note the types of fiction listed in the appendix, for examples of dif- ferent treatment of this subject. Among series of novels in which nationality is an important theme, are the Waverley Novels, the Come'die Humaine, and Gald6s' Episodios Nacionales the ' epic of modern Spain. 1 Cycle of Civilization. Common interests in religion, commerce, diplomacy, science, or general cultural con- ditions, may fashion a considerable number of separate political units into a larger whole, full of dramatic interest and problematic quality. In all such extensive groups there are discordant elements, and abundant material for artistic contrast and shading. In modern European civilization, Russia and Turkey are not com- pletely assimilated to the dominant tone of society ; and the entrance of the Orient into the sisterhood of western nations offers an inter- esting spectacle. The gypsy, the Jew, the negro, and the Indian have given picturesque material to many novels. no. Social Life. The relation of the mere organiza- tion of society to its rich variety of mental and moral life, might be compared with the relation of artistic structure to style, or the relation of anatomy to the personality of the body. Domestic Life. A study of this subject may include the ideals of privacy and hospitality, the emotional har- mony of the family, the attachment to home for its own sake, etc. Interpretation often takes the form of a con- trast of the domestic ideal with the ideal of other types 136 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL of social life, as in The Cloister and The Hearth, and ~ Middleman: h ; or with the ideal of individual life, as in Pilgrim's Progress. In both Silas Marner and Robinson Crusoe there is a detailed picture of domestic life without marriage. Industrial Life. Agricultural labor has been a subject in the novel from the beginning, though the early treat- ment was usually idealized in a high degree. The differ- ence between the rural industry in Daphnis and Chloe and in La Terre is conspicuous, whether viewed from the social or the artistic point of view. Early romance gives a picture of life in which labor in general has a very subordinate place. Modern realism has explored the world of humble labor, has sympathized with its weariness and suffering, and not rarely has found in it the most essential elements of human experience. Deloney's Jack of Newbury may be mentioned as an Elizabethan fiction which gives both an extensive and an intensive study of a special industrial class the weavers of England. In the eighteenth century there was a sturdy revolt against the artificiality of pastoral imagination, and an increasing sense of the value of real labor as an artistic subject. It is interesting to note, in the field of epic poetry, that the hero of Thomson's Castle of Indolence is no romantic representative of chivalry, but a modern Knight of Arts and Industry. Political Life. Satire on contemporary political con- ditions, and plans for an ideal political life, are common in the fiction of the Renaissance. In the main, the novelist has been a liberal in politics, in both his dream and his practical attitude. Recent realism has given attention to the routine of political life, to its corruption, its relations to religion, and to general society. Often the descriptions of the novelist are based on considerable personal experience. SUBJECT-MATTER 1 37 The romanticists were allied with the political reforms of their time, and Victor Hugo's famous statement is a representative one: "Le romantisme, tant de fois mal ddfini, n ? est. . . . que le libe'ralisme en lit- tdrature. ... La libertd dans Part, la libertd dans la socie'te', voila le double but auquel doivent tendre d'un meme pas tous les esprits con- sdquents et logiques." (Preface to Hernani, 1830.) Hugo himself, and several Russian novelists of the last century, suffered some form of polit- ical punishment for the expression of a liberal political creed. Religious Life. This subject may be considered from an ecclesiastical, historical, ethical, or artistic point of view. In its deeper aspects, it is often associated with the individual rather than with social groups. The novelist has usually been a champion of human nature, of a secular ideal, as contrasted with any narrow type of religious ideal. (Compare Section 132.) Since the Renaissance, the novelist has had constantly before him the spectacle of a divided Christendom, a sub- divided protestantism, an academic or aesthetic classical paganism, and, environing all, the superstition or irreligion of untutored human nature, whether in the Indian or the diplomat. In the last century, the development of a new type of scientific agnosticism, and the conscious separation of the ethical element in religion from its historical and supernatural associations, have offered comparatively new themes to the novel. Hawthorne's interest in Puritanism is ethical rather than purely religious. Mrs. RadclifiVs Italian, and The Castle of Otranto, represent the artistic introduction of Catholic life, characteristic of the romantic movement. In Rob Roy, it is the historical and dramatic interest that mainly appeals to Scott. Compare the attitude toward Catholic faith in Manzoni, Newman, and Fogazzaro. The struggle of medieval religion with the modern secular spirit, in a country where the former is particu- larly strong, is studied in La Espuma, Dona Perfecta, Pepita Jimdnez, and La Fe\ 138 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Cultural Life in General. The novel gives one a more extensive picture of social culture than any other form of art. Its medium of expression, language, and its chief structural form, dialogue, must always suggest some special type of cultural life. Art, travel, and education are among the social phenomena which distinguish one state of culture from another. Each of these subjects is a major theme in one or another kind of fiction. The interpreta- tion of culture by the novelist often has a touch of irony, for the imagination sees manners in their relative values, in which there is always a suggestion of comedy. in. Historical Period. Every novel is historical, in so far as it pictures the life characteristic of a particular period. In a narrower sense, a novel is historical when the author lays conscious stress upon such life, even if it belongs to his own time. Spielhagen defines the historical novel in a third and more common sense, as one portraying a time "auf welche dieses Licht [der Erinnerung der jetzigen Generation] nicht mehr vollkraftig fallt." 1 A given period may be selected for genuine historical purposes, or for the sake of its ethical, sociological, or artistic value. If it is chosen simply as an artistic back- ground, the novel cannot be considered truly historical. In Gothic romance, the middle ages are often selected because of their picturesque quality and their remoteness from the prose of contemporary life. The first centuries of the Christian church made a definite religious appeal to Newman ; in Ebers' Homo Sum, their interest is partly historical, partly artistic. Even in the true historical novel, the material is not all equally characteristic of the period. Some of the details are usually fully historical ; others are typically historical ; 1 Technik des Romans; Das Gebiet des Romans. SUBJECT-MATTER 1 39 and others are not characteristic of any special period, or are even out of keeping with the particular period in ques- tion. The main historical value may be found in the char- acters, incidents, settings, language; or in the dominant mental and moral tone. Thackeray's eighteenth century novels are wonderful successes in this last respect. The exact period is not always easily stated, for a small section of history may be viewed as representative of a much larger area. Of about 1500 novels mentioned in Baker's Guide, the historical distribu- tion is as follows : Ante-Christian period ... 40 1500 to 1600 185 A.D., i to 700 85 1600 to 1700 315 700 to 1400 130 1700 to 1800 420 1400 to 1500 80 1800 to 1850 235 The distribution of Scott's historical survey as given in the Library Edition of the Waverley Novels, may be summarized as follows : 1000 to 1400 5 1600 to 1700 8 1400 to 1500 3 1700 to 1750 7 1500 to 1600 4 1750 to 1800 8 112. Historical Interpretation. The reader's sense of the particular nature of a period may be gained through an extensive array of characteristic details, by an intensive study of striking features, or by some general formula. To over-emphasize the peculiarities of an epoch, however, is to destroy a true historical quality ; for underneath all the transformations of society lie a common human nature, and practically uniform types of social organization. The author's interpretation will depend on the degree to which historical imagination has been developed in his generation, as well as on his personal power to re-create the past. It will vary according to the nearness and the familiarity of the historical field he selects. The backward 140 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL glance of George Eliot at the catastrophe of Silas Marner covered only some thirty years; but for the present-day reader, nearly a half century more intervenes, and George Eliot herself is an historical figure. An interesting pamphlet might be made of the views of history by different novelists. Discussion of the relation of history to fiction is almost as old as fiction itself. Several of Scott's ideas have already been noticed. Vigny's preface to Cinq-Mars is an important contribu- tion. Mdrimee wrote, in the preface to the Chronique du Regne de Charles IX, " I don't care for anything in history except anecdotes." (Gilbert.) Dumas declared that Lamartine had " elevated history almost to the dignity of the novel." (Ibid.) See also the quotations from Hugo and Brunetiere, in the history of novelistic criticism, in the appendix. 113. Individuality. In one aspect, the life of the indi- vidual is a series of external phenomena, which the novelist may observe as he observes the manners of society. Some of the phases of that external life are sex, age, health and disease, social success and failure, repose and activity, isolation and companionship. In the matter of age, the novel has laid stress upon the central portions of life. Infancy and early childhood have received more attention in recent educational psychol- ogy than in the novel ; and old age has rarely been a major subject in extended fiction. Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy gives this tribute to the study of adolescence in the novel : " The storm and stress periods of Goethe and John Stuart Mill, of Tolstoi and Marie Bashkirtseff, no less than the masterly delineations of George Eliot's Gwendolen Harleth and Maggie Tulliver, form a valuable and suggestive contribution to the psychology of adolescence." (Article on Adolescence.) The maturing of the individual is not a new subject of the last century. It is forcibly presented in Daphnis and Chloe, and in Paul and Virginia, in connec- tion with first love. SUBJECT-MATTER 141 In the inner life of the individual the novel finds a field particularly adapted to its own powers. Lyric poetry may be a strong rival in some respects, but in elaborate and varied study of the development and experiences of moral individuality, the novel has no successful competitor, unless it be such poetry as Browning's Inn Album, Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, Sordello, etc., which is itself novelistic. Browning's formula in the dedication of Sordello, "my stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul : little else is worth study," does not cover the entire scope of the novel, but it is applicable to very many of the great- est novels. Brunetiere says that " the novel is nothing if not psychological." The inner life may be viewed as simple or complex, as a chaos or a cosmos, as temporary or eternal, as a revelation or an unintelligible mystery, as having value in itself or only in its relations to society. Elements in its composition are memory, sensation, emotion, thought, and volition ; among its episodes are those of special activity and of languor, of the domination of single passions, of faith and doubt, of self-reliance and humble submission. Some lives, especially in the short story, are interpreted through some single moral experience. This is the conception of many love-stories ; but modern realism often considers experi- ence as a continuous " stream of consciousness," in which no quiet pool or wild cataract can be viewed as final. The episodes of mental and moral life may be less easily examined than those of the outer history. In inter- pretation of other individuals the novelist is liable to the " psychologist's fallacy " of transferring his own experience to his character. A clear image of the physical person- ality and its activities helps to overcome this tendency. 142 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL The life of the sensations is exhibited with marked emphasis in Frankenstein, in a semi-scientific spirit. The word sensation itself occurs some thirty times ; and the experiences of hunger, thirst, bodily fatigue and pain, and consciousness of organic disturbance, are all impressed upon the reader. The conception that the emotional life is the true field of the novel has not disappeared, but it is no longer held with the old dogmatism ; and the emotion of love, in par- ticular, is now viewed as only one of many aspects of spiritual history the novelist is free to study. Compare the quotations from Novalis and Madame de Stael, in the history of novelistic criticism, in the appendix. In Silas Marner, love, as a sexual passion, is less important than other phases of love and other emotions. In many recent novels, the emotional struggle between faith and doubt is a central theme. There are notable studies of this subject in Anna Kardnina, Children of the Soil, and ValdeY La Fd. Memory often has a large place in romantic psychology, especially in the sentimental school. The reflective side of life is best exhibited in the philosophical novel, as in Rasselas and Wilhelm Meister. 114. The Individual and Society. The relation of these two forces may be interpreted as a natural harmony, an unceasing conflict, or a necessary compromise. Not a few novelists have been strong advocates for the rights of the individual, not only against social conventions, but even against moral law, as society has conceived it. The moral isolation of the individual who rebels against the social will is a frequent tragic theme, and the comedy of petty resist- ance to social demand has been largely exhibited in fiction. The moral isolation of all deep individual life, even when it craves sympathy from its fellows, is a less common theme. The lovers in a novel usually arrive at a fairly complete understanding, as compared with those described in Browning's Two in The Campagna : SUBJECT-MATTER 143 "Just when I seemed about to learn ! Where is the thread now ? Off again I The old trick ! Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn." The profound religious solitude of Levin, in Anna Kardnina, in refer- ence to his wife, recalls the autobiographical confessions of the author. Such a theme belongs mainly to nineteenth century fiction, but The Princess of Cleves describes the emotional isolation of a husband and wife, who are in complete mutual confidence and respect. In Robinson Crusoe, it is interesting to note the large measure of social quality in the mental life of the hero during his long period of physical solitude. Yet in its way, this novel is a real and deep study of the " solitude of the soul." 115. Human Nature. Humanity in its totality never appears as a subject in art, unless in symbolical treatment, which is alien to the spirit of the novel. Through the imagery of limited social and historical conditions, all the great novels exhibit and interpret the enduring elements of human nature. In the first chapter of Tom Jones, Field- ing tells the reader that the sole dish of the feast is to be Human Nature ; but he adds that there is little danger that an author will " be able to exhaust so extensive a subject." Comprehensiveness requires that the good and the bad, the dignified and the trivial, the pleasant and the repulsive qualities of our common nature be exhibited ; but usually there is some central conception which serves as a guide in interpretation. In most cases, such a conception is ethical rather than purely artistic or scientific. Man may be viewed as inherently bad, or warped from his natural goodness by the force of unkind circumstances. Many novelists delight to show human nature throwing off the disguises under which society has endeavored to hide it. 144 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL \J Often such broad qualities as restlessness, lack of self- knowledge, or ironical divergence between ideal and practise, are dominant notes in the conception. 116. Nature in Man. By nature, in this connection, is meant a combination of qualities found in man, but asso- ciated with his animal life, rather than with his humanity proper, or with his supposed divinity. Nature, so inter- preted, may appear in heredity, instinct, health or disease, buoyancy or depression of spirits, and in the lower passions. It may be exhibited in the individual or in social groups. It is not identical with ferocity, for there is an animal repose, temporary gentleness, which is often in striking contrast to the restlessness of the intellectual life, and the agonies of the saint's aspiration. The interpretation of man as a child of nature may be optimistic or pessimistic. Nature may be viewed as a force to be gladly accepted, as the normal guide of life, or as the arch-enemy of the rational and the religious ideal. From Daphnis and Chloe to Pepita Jimenez, natural instinct has often been approved by the novelist, as more authoritative than any prin- ciple of self-denial. Since the Renaissance, the naturalism of Greek culture, or even the uncultivated naturalism of the savage, has often been considered more attractive than any form of asceticism. Within the church itself, such conceptions as that of " muscular Christianity * have offered a protest against the medieval praise of bodily morti- fication. Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften is one of the famous novels in which naturalistic philosophy is applied to the passion of love. On the other hand, in George Eliot, a principal cause of moral mistake and crime is the weak indulgence of natural instinct. Pater's Marius the Epicurean is a notable exposition of the refined animalism of ancient philosophy. 117. External Nature. Some exhibition of natural environment is essential to the illusion of an expanded novel, for there is no representative individual or social SUBJECT-MATTER 145 group whose life history is not partially determined by such environment The human body itself is an object in nature, and to a large extent the human mind is occupied in observing, utilizing, and interpreting natural phenomena. Language is constantly referring the reader, directly or indirectly, to external nature. In relation to man's moral life, nature may be considered as helpful, hostile, or ironically indifferent. In one of Matthew Arnold's sonnets, the idea of a moral companion- ship with nature is treated with scorn : " Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends ; Nature and man can never be fast friends. Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave." To the novelist, as to the lyric poet, and to the essayist Emerson, nature has often appeared as something illusive, unresponsive, hindering rather than helping man's search for reality and truth. Important specific subjects in the novel are climate, animal life, and landscape. The early forms of romance had their own types of land- scape, in the main artificial and without basis in careful observation. Artificial also, to a large degree, was the eighteenth century interest in landscape gardening ; represented in the Spectator, though this journal gave some foretaste of the romantic return to nature. The Gothic and the sentimental schools developed new phases of the subject. In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne says " admiration of landscape scenery is become a mere jargon," and Edward adds, "I like a fine prospect, but not on picturesque principles. I do not like crooked, twisted, blasted trees. I admire them much more if they are tall, straight, and flourish- ing," etc. (Chapter XVIII). This is presumably the sentiment of the author. Mrs. Radcliffe was one of the early novelists to develop a treat- ment of landscape in detail ; and since Scott prose fiction has elaborated every phase of the subject, often beyond the point of plot-economy. 118. The Supernatural. In the novel, the supernatural may be introduced in the structural values of character, 146 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL background, motivation, or subject of conversation. It is never a main theme in the realistic novel. The lighter phases of mythology may be viewed as quite remote from the serious consideration of theology. Fairies, demons, ghosts, are usually treated in a fanciful rather than deeply imaginative manner, in late fiction. The Supreme Being, whether conceived as a personal God, or as fate, force, or chance, cannot be considered by a true artistic spirit, except in a reverent manner. The life of man after death is a conception of deep human interest, at least in so far as it affects the activities and the thought of this life, and is therefore not alien to the spirit of the novel. The European novelist ought not to complain of lack of variety in this subject of the supernatural. He is familiar with the mythology of classical antiquity ; he finds ample treatment of Gothic mythology in art ; he inherits the ideas of Christian supernaturalism, and he may easily explore the kindred ideas of uncivilized races. Classical and Gothic mythology have appeared in prose fiction in both a serious and a fanciful treatment, as they did in Shakespeare. The modern novel has rarely if ever reembodied the primitive Germanic religious ideas with the majesty or dramatic power of the Wagnerian opera. A curious tribute to the occasional practical atheism of the novel is quoted from a Comtist, in reference to The Princess of Cleves, in an introduction to that fiction by Anatole France. The treatment of the supernatural is often entirely dramatic, the views belonging to the dramatis personae and not to the author; the virtual subject being therefore man. In Silas Marner, the theology of the characters is essentially different, even in terms, from that of the novelist. It is only the characters who refer to the Supreme Being as God, or Providence ; to George Eliot, the SUBJECT-MATTER 147 idea is better expressed by such phrases as The Invisible, The Unseen Love, etc. For a discussion of the theology of modern English novelists, see the volume by S. Law Wilson. 119. General Philosophy. The interpretation in a novel may give a philosophy of separate subjects of society, his- tory, nature, etc. or it may give a more general view of the meaning underlying all these aspects of experience. Such interpretation may be the real purpose of a novel, or it may be incidental, perhaps unconscious. It may be in solution, completely embodied in the warp and woof of the illusion, or appear as outside exposition, in occasional com- ment or in extended generalization. Consistency may per- haps be expected from the author, but disagreement among the dramatis personae may be a sign of true dramatic power in the writer. Masson writes : " In short, the measure of the value of any fiction, ultimately and on the whole, is the worth of the speculation, the philosophy, on which it rests, and which has entered into the conception of it.' 7 (Page 33.) This may seem to be a characteristic English emphasis ; but it is in harmony with the view of at least one great French critic. Edmond Scherer says that " philosophy is the real final desideratum in a novel." In practical analysis, the philosophy of a novel may be examined by a comparison of all the stated or implied minor generalizations ; or by finding the largest generalizations and following them out into details. EXAMPLES AND STUDIES In Voltaire 1 s Candide, compare the presentation of pessimism by persiflage and by serious argument; by concrete example and by .speculative idea ; negatively and positively. Compare the philosophy in general with that of Rasselas. 148 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL In Wilhelm Meister, unify into a general philosophy the interpretations of art, travel, culture, education, love, and religion. Sense and Sensibility. The philosophy is mainly social. It is found in solution, no single paragraph being entirely given to generalization. Compare and unify the following views, and relate them to similar utter- ances in the other works of the author : " Unlike people in general, she proportioned [her words] to the number of her ideas " ; " an apparent composure of mind, which in being the result ... of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and cheerfulness " ; " almost all labored under one or other of these disqualifications for being agree- able want of sense, either natural or improved want of elegance want of spirits or want of temper ; " " Lucy does not want sense, and that is the foundation on which everything good may be built." In Robinson Crusoe, there is considerable social and religious philos- ophy, in solution, in the first two parts. Note the interpretation of middle-class social position, of Providence, reason, industry, religious toleration, etc. Compare this with the more expanded and direct exposition of the third part. In Ivanhoe, the philosophy is mainly historical. Compare the gen- eralizations in the first five paragraphs ; in the first paragraphs of Chap- ter VII ; in Chapter XIV, on the character of King John ; in Chapter XXIII, on the manners and morals of the period. In Silas Marner, the ethical and psychological facts of life are looked at in a large way. The longest direct generalization is on religious trust. Note also paragraphs in Chapters I, II, III, IX, and XVII. N / 120. The Main Theme. Some rhetoricians have said that the central theme was more obscure in narration than in any other type of literary structure. It is often difficult to give it a clear statement in the novel^ because it is so thoroughly wrought into the general fiber of the action and characterization. It is frequently obscure in romance, but generally more clear in the short story. Sometimes it is found in a motto, preface, moral, or epilogue. The main theme may be more closely identified with the plot or with the characters, with a single character or a group. It is likely to be apparent at the principal turning-points of the SUBJECT-MATTER 149 plot, especially at the climax and catastrophe. In some works of art, the central idea is virtually technical in spirit, but in the novel it is usually on a broader basis, being ethical, social, historical, or psychological in spirit. It may be identical with the original germ, or define itself as the process of composition proceeds. A theme, like a plot, may be stated in various degrees of abstraction ; and it is usually helpful to consider it in direct relation to the individual work, and in comparison with other works in which it is of similar value. In Robinson Crusoe, the main theme may perhaps be stated as the conquest of the individual over circumstances, through the power of reason, patience, and reliance on Providence. In Soil und Haben, the theme, stated concretely, is the moral excel- lence of the German commercial character ; more abstractly, the moral excellence of German national character ; still more abstractly (perhaps beyond the conscious purpose of the author), the superiority of sane, well-regulated life over the life of passion and capricious emotion. In Wilhelm Meister, the education and self-culture of the individual, through social experience and reflection, is one conception of the main theme. In Romola, the contrast between self-indulgence and self- renunciation, as moral habits, is at least a very important theme. CHAPTER VIII STYLE 121. General Conception. For present purposes, three of the numerous shades in the meaning of style may be noted : (1) The whole causal relation of the qualities in an artistic structure to the mind of the artist the objective- subjective bond. It is clear that in this sense every work of art has style. (2) Adequacy of expression. This is substantially the idea in Spencer's principle of " economy," and is one com- mon conception of a " good style." It does not necessarily imply beauty or rarity of expression, for the mind expressed may lack these qualities. In this sense, style is of high excellence in Boccaccio, Cervantes, Rabelais, Defoe, and Jane Austen ; less successful in Scott, Balzac, Tolstoi, and Zola. It is often unattained in George Meredith, because he fails to convey his ideas to the average reader, or to distinguish the language of his characters from his own, as he apparently attempts to do. (3) Conscious adaptation of means to purpose. This conscious control of the medium of expression may be highly intellectual, critical, associated with the labor limes, or more spontaneous. It is most naturally and most severely tested in details, as commonly implied in the phrase, "a great stylist." In this sense, Goethe, Manzoni, Hugo, Flaubert, and Stevenson are eminent stylists. 150 STYLE 151 122. Objective and Subjective Aspects. The fully objec- tive aspects of style appear directly in the external struc- ture, and are readily distinguished from the author's intention and the reader's interpretation. The differences between vowel melody and consonantal friction, the interrogative and the imperative sentence, or iambic and anapestic rhythm, are external, and may be examined without reference to their shade of meaning. (Compare the structural details noticed in Sections 8, 9, 19, 23-24, 2,^ passim in Chapter I.) Only when this meaning is considered, does one pass into the study of style, properly speaking. The frequency of such words as " fortune," " good-breeding," " gen- tleman, 1 ' " manners," etc., in Jane Austen, suggests elegance as a quality of her own mind. Defoe's itemized lists of articles, and his numerical division of expository passages indicate concreteness in his observation and thought. The elaborate divisions of the Come'die Humaine paragraph, set dramatic speech, all kinds of document, part and book are evidences of complexity in Balzac's own nature. (See the footnote, page 24.) But language is the most subjective of all artistic medi- ums, except possibly musical sound, and it is convenient to give a wider meaning to objectivity. Whatever values are determined by a general social consent, as distinguished from the individual interpretation of writer or reader, may be considered as at least semi-objective. In the sentence, " She's a very pretty, nice girl, isn't she, Nancy?" the simplicity is fully objective clearly marked in vocabulary and syntax ; the degree of pathos depends on the reader's power of memory and imaginative association, with reference to the whole plot. In the sentence, " All I say is, it's a lovely carkiss," the humor in the mispro- nounced word and the unusual phrase appeals to the majority of readers, as it did to the author. (Examples from Silas Marner, Chapters XX and VI.) 123. Qualities of Style. The above analysis suggests that the qualities most clearly stylistic are such as have both objective and subjective significance. Ductility can 152 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL be predicated only of matter, timidity, only of the mind ; complexity and concreteness may appear both in the mate- rial structure and in the mental attitude. This distinction is blurred by the common application to the mind, in a figurative sense, of qualities such as weight, color, and smoothness, which refer in a literal sense only to matter. The analysis here in question is a practical one, without attention to psychological subtlety. For ordinary purposes, any quality of mind may be called stylistic when it is revealed by the objective structure. Introspection is dis- covered in George Eliot by such words as " memory," " consciousness," " self-questioning," and " rumination " ; though language itself, viewed as audible sound, is not introspective. 124. Types of Style. A fairly determinate combination of qualities, characteristic of a certain source, kind, or medium of expression, may be called a type. Types may be based on forms of art e.g. architectural, literary; on kinds of literature e.g. novelistic, epic; on rhetorical form e.g. descriptive, narrative ; on schools or periods in artistic history e.g. pseudo-classical ; on nationality, race, or individuality. Style is the immediate expression of an individual mind, but the individual is always modified by the thought and feeling of social groups, and is representative of human nature in general. Some critics incline to limit the study of style to the first of these values, but the wider view appeals to those interested in the social meaning of art. Some types of style having particular association, in various degrees, with the history of fiction, are the Euphuistic, picaresque, Rabelaisian, heroic, and naturalistic. Such broad types as the last, and the senti- mental, pastoral, romantic, and realistic, may be studied with sole reference to the novel, but they are really general aesthetic types, and are often more profitably examined as such. 125. Value of Style in the Novel. Style in the first sense given in Section 121 is worth careful study in any STYLE 153 great or widely representative novel; in the other and narrower meanings, style is a very variable value in fic- tion. On the whole, the novel has not been characterized by such adequacy or conscious control in the details of expression, as the drama, epic, or short story. The length of the novel and its amorphous nature are somewhat antagonistic to perfect, sustained correspondence of lan- guage with delicate shades of thought and feeling. Such intensive ideals of style, aesthetic or psychological, as those of Poe or Professor Raleigh, 1 require the short story rather than the novel for satisfactory embodiment. The frequent mention of the laborious apprenticeship of Maupassant and the strenuous efforts of Stevenson, possibly indicates the rarity of such stylistic conscience in the field of fiction. The value of style varies greatly in different national literatures, as well as in individuals. In the main, French and Italian fiction are of more eminent excellence, in this respect, than English or German. The numerous inconsistences in Cervantes, Rabelais, and Scott are well-known. If Robinson Crusoe was really intended to be allegorical, Defoe has not clearly impressed this idea upon the reader of the first and second parts. Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola do not adequately carry out in practise their ideals of realism. In longer works, a frequent cause of imperfect style is radical change of plan or extended interval during the course of composition. Com- pare Don Quixote, Gil Bias, Joseph Andrews, Waverley, and Wilhelm Meister. Spielhagen traces the tangled structure of Middlemarch largely to the change of conception after the novel was begun, and emphasizes the necessity and difficulty of keeping a single point of view throughout a work. 2 Among novels in which style is of exceptional importance are Atala, .Taras Bulba, La Peau de Chagrin, II Trionfo della Morte. Perhaps d' Annunzio is the greatest living stylist in the domain of the novel. 1 See his monograph on Style. * Technik des Romans ; Der Held im Roman. 154 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 126. The Novelistic Type. The novel has always had aesthetic enemies who have denied it any distinctive style ; and its friends have not always offered a spirited defense. For something like a century, however, serious criticism has given the novel its own peculiar and respectable place among literary types. According to Lanson, it became a grand genre 1 in the early part of the last century. The novel is sometimes considered as essentially de- scriptive, sometimes as mainly narrative, and again as a characteristic combination of descriptive and narrative styles. Some of the best German and French critics approach it as a species of the generic " epic " type. Artand calls Ivanhoe " la veritable e'pope'e du moyen age," 2 and an anonymous romanticist adds that "since Homer, the epic has been given only three new forms, one by Dante, one by Ariosto, one by Scott." 8 Compare Spielhagen : " Der historische und der moderne Romane sind die beiden Erben des alten Epos ; " 4 other passages in the same work, and in German aesthetics and poetics generally. Many critics have defined the novel by comparison and contrast with the drama ; and others note the frequent inclusion of the lyrical spirit. (See the glossary, under "lyrical.") In a liberal interpretation of style, Clarissa might be analyzed as an example of the dramatic type ; I Promessi Sposi, of the descriptive ; Robinson Crusoe, of the narrative ; and Atala, of the lyrical. 127. Novelistic Qualities. Each important kind of novel has some fairly determinate qualities of its own ; as for example, elegance in the heroic romance, simplesse in pastoral romance, weirdness in Gothic romance, and democracy in the picaresque novel. 1 See the glossary. 2 Maigron, p. 150. 8 Ibid., p. 152. 4 Technik des Romans; Finder oder Erfinder. STYLE 155 In the following sections, no attention can be paid to these distinc- tions, or to the fascinating study of style in the individual novel. The aim is to examine such qualities as are historically found in the novel as a generic type, or are emphasized in important theories of the novel. The analysis may perhaps be suggestive of further study and more satisfactory statement of results. 128. Comprehensiveness. According to Spielhagen, "ist der epische Stoff unendlich," 1 and the novelist should give the reader the " moglichst vollkommene Ueber- sicht der Breite und Weite des Menschenlebens. " 2 Breadth of view is to be found in the plot, characters, settings, and generalizations. The Shakespearian drama is in some respects not so all-inclusive as many of the great novels of Europe. Balzac includes almost every variety of document in the Come'die Humaine ; Shakespeare is in the main limited to the epistolary form. The dramatist gives a very restricted view of Christian thought, of democratic ideals, and of the daily life of the common people. In the last point, compare Fielding, or any picaresque novel ; in the matter of religion, compare Wilhelm Meister, Robinson Crusoe, ValdeV La Fd, Quo Vadis, or Callista. The opposite quality of concentration is characteristic of the lyric, and, to a great extent, of the short story. One might turn to the latter as Wordsworth turned to the sonnet, weary of the " weight of too much liberty ; " but the amorphous freedom of the novel, though sometimes offensive to creative or critical ideals, has, for centuries, proved attractive to many minds desiring an expansive mental outlook. The novelist himself is usually extremely broad in interests, ideals, and experience. As a class, novelists have been men of the world, travelers, wide readers and 1 Technik des Romans; Das Gebiet des Romans. 2 Ibid. ; Novelle oder Roman. Compare his frequent use of " Totalitat." 156 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL students, philosophers in spirit if not in accomplishment. To no small extent the novel has resisted the modern tendency toward specialization in science, art, and life itself. The pure specialist would not and could not write a great representative novel. Balzac was interested in law, medicine, theology, music, journalism, and politics. Examine the outer and inner history of Cervantes, Rabe- lais, Fielding, Thackeray, and Tolstoi. Goethe is one of the most com- prehensive minds of his century, and his novels are a logical part of his self-expression. The women novelists of eminence Maria Edge- worth, Madame de Stae'l, George Sand, George Eliot have been among the most advanced minds of their time. In breadth of knowledge and speculation, the philoso- pher doubtless bears away the palm from the novelist. Bacon, Humboldt, Lotze, Spencer, have no rivals in fiction, so measured. Large knowledge of mathematics or of natural science is rare in the novelists. On the other hand, the novelist may often claim a wider experience in personal emotion and passion, a broader domain of natural and social imagery; and his world is always a combination of observed and created data. 129. Objectivity. All style has a certain objectivity, as noted in Section 122, but in a special sense this quality is characteristic of the " epic " imagination, and of an ideal of the novel which influences much theory and practise. The social sense in the novelist and the social element in the novel itself, are related to this quality. Compara- tively few great novels were written from purely lyrical impulse from the mere craving for self-expression. The sense of an audience has been strong in the history of fiction, whether directly expressed, as in the phrase " gen- tle reader" (centuries old), or implied in choice of subject STYLE 157 and treatment. In all novels the influence of the social consciousness, in respect to time, place, character, man- ners, and ideas, is incalculable. In personal life, the representative novelist has been a considerable figure in society. Observation is another phase of the objective quality, as it appears in the novel. Realism is concerned, for re- ality is distinguished from unreality largely by the test of objective value. A sketch of the history of this quality in English fiction might be interesting. The following are fragmentary data. Impersonality is the dominant note from Morte d' Arthur, with its epic tradition, to the middle of the eighteenth century. In neither Euphues, Rosalind, nor Jack Wilton does the author appear in propria persona. Defoe has a remarkable power of close observation and description, and of " self -estrangement " in narrative. Few of the experiences recorded in Colonel Jacque, The Plague Year, or Robinson Crusoe were part of his personal his- tory. Richardson chose a form which naturally required dramatic objectivity. Jane Austen is in many ways more impersonal than Shakespeare, with whom she has been compared. (As interesting exceptions, compare the transi- tional sentence, "/ come now," etc., in Chapter XXXVI of Sense and Sensibility, with the example noted in Section 56.) The influence of Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne was largely in the opposite direction. The romanticists are habitually lyrical, coloring their whole view of life by personal experience, and the moods of their individual temperaments. The realistic reaction has produced a new phase of objectivity, more determined and conscious than any that preceded. 158 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Spielhagen lays frequent stress upon objectivity as an ideal. Com- pare the essay on Objektivitat im Roman (Vermischte Schriften), and numerous passages in the Technik des Romans. " Das Gesetz der Objektivitat. Sie ist fur ihn [the novelist] das strikteste Gesetz." It is not so important for the novelist, " dass die Welt ihn begreift, als dass er die Welt begreift." A consistent objectivity is not easily at- tained, in our introspective age, but the artist " strebt durchaus nach Totalitat des Weltbildes." It is an insult to the reader to explain the characters to him. (Compare Section 100.) Verga is perhaps the greatest recent representative of realistic theory and practise in Italy. Note the remarkable third paragraph of L 'Amante di Gramigna: "Intanto io credo che il trionfo del romanzo ... si raggiungera allorche I 1 affinita e la coesione di ogni sua parte sara cosi completa che il processo della creazione rimarra un mistero, come lo svolgersi delle passioni umane ; e che 1' armonia delle sue forme sara cosi perfetta, la sincerita della sua realta cosi evidente, il suo modo e la sua ragione di essere cosi necessarie, che la mano dell' artista rimarra assolutamente invisible, e il romanzo avra Timpronta delP avvenimento reale, e I 1 opera d' arte sembrera essersi fatta da s2, aver maturate ed esser s6rta spontanea come un fatto naturale, senza serbare alcun punto di contatto col suo autore," etc. The above doctrine comes into apparent conflict with impressionistic theory, represented in Henry James' defini- tion of the novel as " a personal impression of life ; " 1 but even in this conception it is an impression of life that is desired, not an introspective view of the world within the artist's mind. 130. Concreteness The novelist aims to produce an illusion of life by means of "solidity of specification" 2 in vocabulary, characters, dialogue, settings, events, and ideas. When he explores the territory of modern sociol- ogy, psychology, or history, he finds himself in a region of almost oppressive detail. It is partly this attention to minute detail that suggests the satirical view of the novel 1 Art of Fiction. 2 Ibid. STYLE 159 as essentially feminine, or, as one critic states it, " gossip ethcrealized." 1 The opposite quality of vagueness may be studied in the ballad and the lyric. Classicism, with its preference for type over individual, has never aided much in the develop- ment of the novel. A mind primarily interested in the abstract values of experience would not enter the field of the novel with zest, or much probability of success. Emer- son moves habitually from the concrete toward the abstract. Bacon, in the Wisdom of the Ancients, changes semi- novelistic material into anti-novelistic. Balzac "bodies forth " his general ideas of life in what is perhaps the greatest exhibition of individualized detail in the history of art. (The detail of a great cathedral is immeasurable, but much of it is typical.) In vocabulary, an interesting comparison may be made between Bacon's essay on Youth and Age, and the treatment of the same theme in Silas Marner. Bacon has many such expressions as settled business ; conduct and manage of actions; consideration of means and degrees; powers of understanding; virtues of the will and affections, etc. In Silas Marner there are more than a score of expressions referring to Eppie in which the adjectives "little," "small," or " tiny" are used little one; like a small mouse; little naked foot; deep little puss; etc. Note also the concreteness of many other phrases : a small boy without shoes or stockings ; blond dimpled girl of eighteen ; face now bordered by gray hairs ; a voice that quavered a good deal ; feeble old man of fourscore and six ; simple old fellow, etc. In characterization, compare the heroine of an Elizabethan sonnet sequence with any novelistic heroine. In Astrophel and Stella, Stella is not directly quoted at all, is described almost entirely in conven- tional manner, and appears in only some half-dozen specific incidents or settings. Spielhagen expresses the relation between comprehensiveness and 1 Dallas : The Gay Science. 160 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL concreteness as a " Widerspruch zwischen dem epischen Mittel der konkreten Darstellung und dem unausrottbaren Zuge der epischen Phantasie in das ... Grenzenlose." 1 131. Complexity. The novelist cannot lose himself entirely in the outer world, like the scientist, or in the realm of personal feeling, like the lyric poet. He must combine these two regions of experience as best he may. In novelistic form, the problem of synchronization, the frequent changes from dramatic to non-dramatic structure, and from the specific to the general, are among the com- plicating elements. The hero of a representative novel is more complex in character and experience than the average hero of ballad or epic. In historical fiction, the twofold consciousness of the present and the past is often highly complex. Other aspects of this quality have been suggested in the preceding chapters. The great novelists have generally been individuals of pronounced complexity, in nature or experience. This seems particularly true of some of the Russian novelists Gogol, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoi among them. The man of entirely "simple life" may possibly be a reader of novels, but it is difficult to imagine him as an habitual novel-writer. The novel has flourished most in periods of complex social life, when antagonistic currents of thought were meeting, giving rise to social, ethical, and aesthetic prob- lems. The origin of the form was in the sophism of Greek decadence ; its second birth coincides with the conflict of Renaissance and medieval spirit; its develop- ment in the eighteenth century is related to the battles of pseudo-classicism with romanticism, scepticism with a 1 Technik des Romans; Der Held im Roman. STYLE l6l revival of faith, and monarchism with democracy; its full fruition is associated with the complicated mental and social life of our own era. In fact, the specific function of the novel, according to many critics, is the portrayal, possibly to some extent the solution, of the complexity of modern experience, material and moral. g* has been characteristic of more than one school of novelists, but rarely if ever a true simplicity Pastoralism, as before suggested, offers a good example of this distinction. 132. Secularity. If one considers the religious ten- dency in its extreme form of asceticism, the secularity of the novel is readily perceived. The priest is an important character in fictions as various as Robinson Crusoe, Mrs. Radcliffe's Italian, Romola, Barchester Towers, and Quo Vadis, but the authors' interest in him is not mainly religious, and he appears in a secular environment. The language of intensely religious life may be introduced, but it does not give dominant tone to any great novel. Even in the "religious novel," the secularity becomes clearly defined if comparison is made with such works as the Apocalypse, Saint Augustine's Confessions, or the Imita- tion of Christ. The Biblical fictions of Ruth and Esther are surprisingly non-religious in tone ; the latter, so far as direct evidence is given, being practically atheistic. Both the cosmopolitanism and the nationalism of the novel are quite independent of ecclesiastical interest. The catholicity of fiction is that of general culture, or of modern democracy; its patriotism is political, historical, social, or aesthetic, rarely religious in any definite sense. When the novelist has given an extended consideration to the church, he has usually expressed little satisfaction in 1 See Matthew Arnold: On Translating Homer; Last Words. 162 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL its concrete conditions, and has often been antagonistic to its fundamental principles and purposes. This statement does not imply that the novel is anti-religious, though this is of course true in isolated cases. The general secularity of the great novelists as individuals and of the chief periods of novelistic activity requires no discussion. Spiel- hagen gives a vigorous summary of the whole matter: the novelist occupies a position "auf dieser unserer Erde, der festgegrlindeten, dauernden, die nicht eine Vorstufe des Himmels odcr der Holle ist, sondern der Grund und Urgrund, aus dem unsere Leiden und Freuden quellen, das Rhodus, auf dem wir tanzen miissen, es tanze sich gut oder schlecht." * 133. Humor. This quality is perhaps logically de- duced from objectivity plus comprehensiveness. The tragic depends largely on concentrated intensity, and subjective attitude toward life. It is hardly possible for a normal mind to conceive the general course of society as entirely tragicparicl personal tragedy becomes less em- phatic by contact with broad impersonal interests. The existence of morbidly tragic fiction may be explained by temporary social or individual conditions, rather than the essential nature of the novel. Many of the great novelists have been masters of humor, and few of them have lacked a decided alloy of the quality. In the novelistic structure, the looseness of form, the trivial details in dialogue, settings, and incident, the great variety of interests and of aesthetic values, are causes or results of humor. A sharp separation of the tragic and comic is less frequent than in eighteenth century drama, and the interweaving of the two is generally less formal than in Shakespearian drama. Humor is often essential to the production of realistic illusion, and an important 1 Technik des Romans; DasGebiet des Romans. STYLE 163 agent in unifying the entire plan of a novel. It may appear in the characters themselves ; or, as in Fielding and Thackeray, largely in the author's personal attitude. The modes of humor, in a generic sense, may vary from caricature, through wit, satire, and irony, to a general sanity of view. Its relations to pathos have been fre- quently studied in criticism. Caricature is common in Smollett and his disciple Dickens ; wit is characteristic of Lyly and George Meredith ; satire, of a savage type at times, may be studied in Swift and Gogol; irony is characteristic of Fielding, Jane Austen, and Thackeray; sanity of view is well repre- sented in Trollope and Howells, among the realists, and in Scott, among the romanticists. The humor that is akin to pathos is familiar in Cer- vantes, Sterne, and Goldsmith. vi34. Ideality. All artistic narrative must be imagina- tive to an appreciable degree, but the novel is ideal primarily because it is fictitious narrative. 'Pure observa- tion or logical induction from observation could never produce any novel : there must be strong persistent momentum toward the creation of character and incident in order to fashion a worthy novel. Genius is the first divinity in Fielding's invocation. (Tom Jones ; XIII, i.) ,On the other hand, even in the wildest romance, the foundations are in reality, and the relations of the imagi- native to the real offer a fascinating study in every fiction. Idealization assumes many forms selection or re-combi- nation of real data ; creation of ideal individuals modeled upon real types ; allegory, symbolism, etc. Ideality may be studied in every element of the novel, from the single effect to the plan as a whole. Perhaps the plot is the most satisfactory basis for a single general test of the imaginative power. (Compare Section 43.) 1 64 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL In Silas Marner, the coming of Eppie is a more imaginative type of incident than the conversation at the Rainbow. Probably nowhere else in fiction, and so far as the author knew, never in real experience, had a waif child come from its dead mother to a lonely workman. A group of country laborers conversing at the village inn, on the contrary, is a common scene in life and in art. Of course this episode is highly imaginative in details of individual character and speech. In Robinson Crusoe, the footprint on the sand is probably a unique single eifect ; and the detailed picture of Robinson's homemaking is remote from anything Defoe had observed or read. The general con- ception of a man left alone for years on an island far from civilization was given to Defoe by another writer. In Ivanhoe, the tournament, the castle siege, and the life of Robin Hood's band, in their general idea, are not proof of great imagination in the author. Of the visit of Richard to Friar Tuck, Scott himself says, " The general tone of the story belongs to all ranks and all coun- tries " ; * and he refers to his own particular model. The distinction between imagination and fancy was elaborated by Coleridge and his contemporaries. 2 Of the two, imagination is the main expressive quality in all great novels, but the fanciful may serve as a decorative element, and add much to the total interest. In Silas Marner, the description of Eppie's wedding dress, the picture of Nancy on horseback, and the dialogic form of Godfrey's argument with Anxiety might be called fanciful. There is comparatively little fancy in Jane Austen, but much in The Castle of Otranto. The charac- ters of The Gold-bug are mainly imaginative, but some of the incidents are fanciful. To many readers, much of the figurative language of George Meredith shows the caprice of pure fancy. 135. Force. Objectively, this quality may appear in nature, man, or the supernatural ; revealing itself either in activity or in endurance. Respecting rhetorical form, it is apparent in rapidity of narration, vigor of description, and 1 Introduction of 1830. a See Professor Cook's edition of Leigh Hunt's What is Poetry ? STYLE 165 intensity of lyrical feeling. In spite of Goethe's theory of a passive hero for the novel (see Section 82), there are many examples of notable activity. The actions of a dramatic hero may reveal a greater intensity, but range and duration of achievement are other elements to be examined. Hamlet breaks a woman's heart, awes his mother, escapes from pirates, and kills his enemies. Robinson Crusoe makes a fortune, destroys wild beasts, domesticates others, forms many new acquaint- ances, travels in three continents, founds a miniature state, converts savages, and saves his own soul. He is in most respects much more a master of circumstances than Hamlet, Macbeth, or Othello. In the novelist himself, force is necessary for the large plan of a work, and still more for the laborious execution. A weak or impatient mind could not complete a long and complicated novel ; much less such extended series as the Waverley Novels or the Comddie Humaine. In many novelists moral force appears also in antagonism to social evils and in ideals of social reform, or in earnest devotion to high conceptions of art. 136. Other Qualities. Many other qualities may be desirable in the novel for example, elegance and clear- ness without being essential to its type. Figures of speech may be studied, as in other forms of literature, but they seem to have less characteristic significance for the novel than for the epic and lyric. In all dramatic structure, propriety is obviously an essen- tial quality. Comment on its violation, in both epistolary and dialogic form, has been previously given. CHAPTER IX THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 137. Value of the Study. Some critics give little atten- tion to the process by which a work of art comes into existence ; others consider this one of the most important matters in the study of an art, even for those who do not practise it. As a typical process, the composition of novels throws light on the general nature of artistic creation, and is a fascinating phase of the imaginative effort of the mind, in its entirety. In an individual novel, many struc- tural details cannot be understood fully, and the examina tion of style cannot be satisfactory, without some knowledge of the evolution of that particular novel. Critics who are also novelists Scott, Spielhagen, 1 an<i Zola, for example and all critics with deep psychologi- cal interest naturally incline to emphasize the creative process. 138. The Data for Study. External data are to be found in prefaces, letters, and other biographical and auto- biographical records. The internal data are often less tangible, and close scrutiny may be required before a true interpretation can be given. Evidences of alteration of plan, rapid or labored writing, inspiration or fatigue, and detailed revision, however, are sometimes quite apparent. 1 See his essay, Finder oder Erfinder, in the Technik des Romans. This essay suggests that aesthetics has not given sufficient attention to the process of composition; and it discusses several of the topics noticed in the present chapter. 1 66 THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 167 For a thorough study, one would naturally select a novel that represents an extended process, of which a fairly full history is accessible. For practical method, the student may examine the internal evidence, and then compare it with the external, or vice versa. He may follow, so far as possible, the actual process of the author, or endeavor to trace the evolution of the novel backward from the com- pleted form to the original starting-point. Many novelists, especially in recent years, have given the student confidential knowledge of their methods. Much valuable material is to be found in the autobiographical writings of Goethe, Scott, George Eliot, Trollope, and Stevenson. See also the bibliography, under Besant, Cody, Henry James, Frank Norris, and W. E. Norris. 139. The Germ of the Work. The original conception of a novel may be small or large, vague or definite, subjec- tive or objective. It may be still dominant in the com- pleted work ; but the process of composition is so complex that the first idea is often greatly transformed, and scarcely discoverable by internal evidence. It may be possible to state clearly whether the novel began with character, set- ting, incident, or theme. The " plot-germ," in a technical sense, is not necessarily the original point in the design as a whole. Again, the first impulse may be awakened by literature, personal experience, present or past, or by observation. In the novel, as contrasted with the short story and particularly with the lyric, the typical origin would seem to be in some real sense, objective. A pure lyric often originates in a vague subjective mood, emotional or even sensational according to Wordsworthian formula, in the " spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." The ideal origin of a song is perhaps a mood of purely rhythmical 1 68 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL impulse, without definite content of any kind. Some weight of intellectual substance and some outline of con- scious design generally accompany the first conception of a novel. The romance may often resemble the lyric. Theory and practise do not always agree, but both should be studied. Brunetiere 1 believes that a novel should begin from an insistent internal idea, and the materials in which to embody the idea should be found later. In more detail, he gives three desirable origins for a novel a story to tell ; a character seen ; a psychologi- cal analysis. 2 Poe's idea that a composition should origi- nate in the catastrophe may doubtless be exemplified from the novel, but seems more generally applicable to the short story. (Compare Section 80.) The germinal idea of a sonnet is often found in the last lines. The origin of Waverley is given by Scott, in the preface of 1829: "My early recollections of the Highland scenery and customs made so favorable an impression in the . . . i Lady of the Lake,' that I was in- duced to attempt something of the same kind in prose. I was acquainted with many of the old warriors of 1745 and it occurred to me that the ancient traditions and high spirit of a people, who, living in a civilized age and country, retained so strong a tincture of manners belonging to an early period of society, would afford a subject favorable for romance." The origin of many of the other Waverley Novels is given in Scott's various introductory comments. George Eliot gives the origin of Silas Marner in a letter to Black- wood, February 24, 1861 : "It came to me quite suddenly as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his back." This seems like a lyrical germ, and it is interesting to note the author's tendency toward a metrical version of the story. The germ of Adam Bede is given in the journal entry for November 16, 1858. Romola originated in the visit to Florence, in 1860. (For the history of these and other novels see Cross' Life.) 1 Roman Naturaliste, p. 122. x Ibid., p. 115. THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 169 Fielding began Joseph Andrews as a parody on Pamela. Serious or satirical imitation of other fictions is a typical origin for the novel. Pepita Jimenez was suggested by a reading of the Spanish mystics of the seventeenth century. The Castle of Otranto originated in a dream. Frankenstein was a deliberately planned ghost story, due to a social " group-impulse. 11 Werthermzy be considered as originally a kind of lyrical confession. D'Azeglio's Ettorre Fieramosca was suggested from a painting by the author. Compare some of the poems of D. G. Ros- setti. The practical impulse which produced Rasselas was Johnson's purpose to pay his mother's debts and funeral expenses. 140. The Plan. The completed plan of a novel in- cludes all the relations of dramatis persona?, plot, settings, and subject-matter, the shaping of the language, and the method of external division. For a lyric, the entire plan may spring into being almost instantaneously. After some practise in sonnet-writing, the outline of a whole sonnet, and a distinct thought, image, or shade of feeling for each structural division, may appear together. In the novel, this is practically impossible. While a general plan for the whole work may often be coincident with the germinal idea, many of the details must wait until the actual process of execution has determined them. Nor is it probable that many novelists have made out even a complete general plan before beginning to write, as Rossetti is said to have done, in prose, for the House of Life. 1 Often the first general design undergoes great changes after the novel is partly written. Scott's introductory matter furnishes many examples of general design. He seems to have had a fairly definite plan for most of the single novels, and for small groups, but never a completely unifying plan for the Waverley Novels as a series. The general design of The Monastery was " to conjoin two characters in that bustling and con- tentious age, who, thrown into situations which gave them different 1 Spielhagen notices this matter ; Technik des Romans, p. 30. 170 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL views on the subject of the Reformation, should, with tihe same sincer- ity and purity of intention, dedicate.dhemselves, the one to the support of the sinking fabric of the Catholic Church, the other to the establish- ment of the Reformed doctrines." |(Introduction of 1830.) This ele- ment of conscious contrast is conspicuous in Scott's original plans. (For alteration of first designs, see Introductions to Guy Mannering, 1829, and Redgauntlet, 1832.) George Eliot first thought of making Adam Bede one of the Scenes of Clerical Life. She afterwards "began to think of blending this [story of the executed woman] and some other recollections of my aunt in one story, with some points in my father's early life and character. The problem of construction that remained was to make the unhappy girl one of the chief dramatis personae, and ;connect her with the hero . . . the scene in the prison being, of course, the climax towards which I worked." Dorothy Brooke was the original heroine of Middlemarch, which was first called " Miss Brooke." The Mill on the Floss began publication as " Sister Maggie." One of the largest designs in the history of fiction is found in the Comedie Humaine. An extended exposition of it is given in the preface to the Peau de Chagrin, 1842. The general plan of Pepita Jimenez was a " representation of this divine ardor [religious mysticism] brought face to face with an earthly love and worsted by it." (See Gosse's introduction to English trans- lation.) So stated, the design is not an uncommon one. The original plan which resulted in Taras Bulba was to write histories of Little Russia and the Middle Ages. (Waliszewski.) Silas Marner was begun without definite plan for its length, and Ettorre Fieramosca, without idea how it would end. 141. The Sources. The materials for a novel maybe mainly in the mind of the novelist when the original plan is made, or they may be sought for afterwards. The im- mediate sources are always closely related to the personal- ity of the author; the ultimate sources are social, and may be very difficult to trace. In most novels there is an intricate mingling of the more subjective and the more objective materials. Romance may be largely subjective, but for the novel proper, the THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 171 canon of objectivity (see Section 129) demands extended observation of the outer world. Subjective material may belong to recent experience, or to remote memory ; but memory allowed to dominate could not produce a repre- sentative novel Few great novels could be adequately described as "emotion recollected in tranquillity." The creative element is always essential, and may be con- sidered as belonging to the subjective material. Observation takes many forms. The source of much material for the novel is in literature itself in biography, history, essay, novel, and drama. George Eliot gained a part of the Jewish material for Daniel Deronda, and some of her knowledge of inundations for The Mill on the Floss, by vigorous search of libraries. While Scott's theory of his- torical composition was that a period already familiar to the novelist should be chosen, he apologizes for the errors in Anne of Geierstein on the ground that he was away from his library. (Introduction of 1831.) The fcource of the main theme of Ivanhoe the contrast of Celt and Saxon was in an obscure drama, Logan's Runnimede. The novel- ization of dramas has been much less common than the opposite process. 1 Consultation with other persons has been a source of material in many novels. Scott observed and questioned many representatives of an earlier generation, for legendary matter and local manners. Gogol consulted his mother for peasant material, and Pushkin was indebted to his old serf nurse for national songs and traditions. George Eliot sought pro- fessional advice regarding the legal element in Felix Holt. Travel, whether for general purposes or for the sake of an individual novel, has long been a common method of obtaining materials. 1 Professor C. F. McClumpha gives an extended comparison of Greene's Alcida and Lyly's Love's Metamorphosis, on which it was founded, in The Minnesota Magazine for October, 1899. 172 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Browning's life of George Eliot mentions her visits to Cambridge, Oxford, and Florence as yielding new fabric for novelistic weaving. Scott records that his trip around the coast of Scotland, in 1814, was for the purpose of gathering data for the Lord of the Isles, with a view to prose fiction also. (Introduction to The Pirate, 1832.) That method of observation which takes the form of very exact intellectual attention to details reportage is condemned by more than one critic. Brunetiere writes : l " L'observation devient moins large a mesure qu'elle devient plus exacte, plus precise, plus microscopique et, par con- sequent, a mesure, s'e'loigne da vantage de la nature meme et de la ve'riteV' Lanson comments on the note-taking habits of the Goncourt brothers and Daudet. Scott in general followed an older method the method which produced the Duddon River sonnets of Wordsworth "It was not the purpose of the author to present a landscape copied from nature, but a piece of composition, in which a real scene, with which he is already familiar, had afforded him some leading outlines." (Introduction to The Monastery, 1830. Compare Section 84.) Many writers agree that the principal characters of a novel are often modeled after real persons, but many also insist that the ultimate portrait should bear slight resem- blance to the original. Novelists have frequently com- plained of the too curious attempt of readers to trace back the artistic result to the real source. As early as 1754, Sarah Fielding vigorously objected to this habit, and, a century later, Spielhagen criticized the same false tendency. Scott and Hawthorne received rebukes from persons connected with the real models for certain idealized characters or places. Probably the novelist is sometimes at fault, especially in the eighteenth century, when " secret histories " and caricature of contemporaries were so common. Among famous characters based to some degree on real models, out- side of historical fiction, are Robinson Crusoe, Pamela, Amelia, The Vicar of Wakefield, Meg Merrilies, Jeanie Deans, and Dinah Morris. 1 Roman Naturaliste, p. 129. THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 173 142. The Time Perspective. Poe's theory for the ideal short story, based on his general lyrical conception of art, was that it should be written at a single sitting. The novel more often has the contrasted interest of a prolonged process. Probably few of the world's greatest novels have occupied less than a year, from original plan to publica- tion. Literature does not demand a difficult physical execution, and it cannot rival the dignity of dramaturgy, painting, or sculpture in this respect. Even the time given to the Come'die Humaine sinks into insignificance, compared with that required for the construction of great cathedrals. The rate of composition varies not only for individual novelists, but for individual novels and passages. George Eliot wrote the eighth chapter of Amos Barton at a sitting, but at Dresden she produced little more than eight hun- dred words a day on Adam Bede. There may possibly be danger that too much time spent on a single work may destroy the subtle unity of emotional tone ; but on the other hand, a long process of thought may strengthen the intellectual unity of structure. Scott defends rapid com- position : " The best authors in all countries have been the most voluminous. . . . The works and passages in which I have succeeded, have uni- formly been written with the greatest rapidity ; . . . the parts in which I have come feebly off, were by much the more labored." (Introductory Epistle, Fortunes of Nigel.) The testimony of the author himself is not always final authority. Beckford records of Vathek : " It took me three days and two nights of hard labor. I never took my clothes off the whole time." But Gar- nett, in the introduction to his edition of Vathek, shows that the actual time, including the revisions, was a matter of years instead of days. 174 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL EXAMPLES Adam Bede: story told by author's aunt, about 1840; retold to Lewes, and he suggests it is good material for fiction, December, 1856 ; writing begun, October 22, 1857 ; Chapter XIII finished, February 28, 1858 ; Vol. I finished in March ; Vol. II begun about the middle of April ; Chapter XVIII completed, May 15 ; Chapter XX, May 26 ; the fight " came to me as a necessity," May 30 ; Chapter XXI, June 10 ; Chapter XXV, July 7 ; Vol. II finished, September 7 ; Chapter LII finished, October 29 ; work finished, November 16 ; published (de- layed on account of Bulwer's What will He do with It ?), February, 1859. Silas Marner : original conception, November, 1860; sixty pages, November 28 ; 230 pages, February 15, 1861 ; finished March 10. Wilhelm Meister Lehrjahre : planned in 1775; begun and Book I finished, 1777 ; Books II and III, 1782 ; Book IV, 1783 ; Book V, 1784 ; Book VI, 1785; some work done, 1786; finished and published, after interval of no work, 1796. Wanderjahre: short stories written or collected, 1794; work finished and published, after some years of labor, 1829. Rasselas : the evenings and nights of a single week. Castle of Otranto: about two months. Pamela : three months. Robinson Cru- soe: April, 1719 to August, 1720 (planned long before). Gulliver: "probable that the composition extended over a good many years" (Gosse). Don Quixote : many years. Waverley : begun and a third of first volume written, 1805; laid aside; last two volumes written in three weeks, 1814. Gil Bias : 1715 to 1735. 143. Technic of the Process. Many of the great novel- ists from early times have had a lively interest in the technic of their art, but recently there has been unusual emphasis laid on the necessity of technical mastery. Such statements as the following are not exceptional : 1 Walter Besant : " For every art there is the corresponding science which may be taught." Cody : " This foolish dictum . . . that < the best writers believe that the art of fiction cannot be taught or analyzed.' " Frank Norris : " Even a defective system is at any rate, in fiction better than none." 1 These quotations arc from works listed in the bibliography. THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 175 With the idea of technic is associated the idea of labor. Many novelists and critics would agree in the main with Sir Joshua Reynolds, that the " dignity of a work of art depends on the amount and quality of mental labor em- ployed in its production," 1 etc. Balzac, Trollope, Spielhagen, and Howells are all exponents of the doctrine of labor, both in their theory and their practise. Trollope affirms, " there is no way of writing well, and also of writing easily." a Spielhagen says the germinal idea of a composition may be the gift of the gods, but after that, the rule is " diligence, diligence, diligence." 3 The labor of the novelist, roughly stated, consists in planning, executing, and revising. The relations of these three processes, in sequence and in amount, vary of course with every novel. In general, it is probable that the execution consumes more time than the other two tasks. The fact that there is no artistic physical process may be considered either an advantage or a disadvantage. Spielhagen traces four steps in the composition of a novel. 4 The attention to technical details is often larger than the average reader might suppose. Richardson was fully conscious of the problems of epistolary form. Scott gave thoughtful consideration to such matters as titles, mottos, an$ dialogic connectives.) George Eliot was well aware of the " two plots " in Middlemarch. The treatment of the chapter as a perfectly distinct unit is carefully analyzed by Frank Norris. This last critic agrees substantially with Poe, in a general formula for the technical process " in a phrase one could resume the whole system of fiction-mechanics preparation of effect." The search for the mot propre on the part of certain French realistic " artists " is an exacting one. Manzoni spent considerable time in im- proving the dialect of I Promessi Sposi. The extensive revisions of 1 Opening of Fourth Discourse. 2 Barchester Towers, Vol I, Chapter XXX. 8 Technik des Romans, pp. 25, 33. * Ibid., p. 29. 176 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Balzac after "copy" was sent in, were a terror to the printers. Scott gave relatively little labor to revision. (See his general introduction to the Waverley Novels, 1829.) The method of publication may be worthy of note in many cases. For some interesting details, see Cross 1 Life of George Eliot. Among long and notable fictions first appearing as periodical serials, are Anna Kardnina and War and Peace. Other literary undertakings are frequently on hand while a novel is being written. George Eliot writes of Silas Marner as " thrusting itself between me and the other book [Romola] I was meditating." The practical phases of mechanical method the time chosen for writing, the physical environment preferred, the use of stimulants, the preparation of copy, etc. have their interest, and may at times be worth examination, in connection with the psychology of composition. 144. Psychology of the Process. The writing of a novel may always be viewed as an artificial process, to some degree, and it may involve considerable change of con- sciousness in the author. Robiati 1 distinguishes the " artistic personality " from the " human." It is said that professional humorists are often sedate or even melan- choly persons when free from literary pressure; and Mackenzie, the author of one of the most lacrimose of English fictions, was known as a cheerfully social being in private life. Some critics find in this transformation of the writer's mind a tendency toward the abnormal, or even the patho- logical. Nordau, in Degeneration, includes several novel- ists among his studies of literary degenerates. Rousseau had a theory that the novel in general was the product of degenerate conditions, and Carlyle at times held with more or less seriousness the idea that silence was an eminent characteristic of perfect sanity. In such authors as Swift, Gogol, Maupassant, and Nietzsche, the question merges into the larger one of the general relations of genius 1 II Romanzo Contemporaneo in Italia. THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 177 and insanity. There are many less tragic examples of abnormal con- dition associated with literary labor. Scott was seriously affected by the excitement and fatigue of composition. Beckford states that the labor on Vathek made him " very sick." Cross, in his Life of George Eliot, speaks of Romola as " ploughing into " the author, and her own summary is, " I began it a young woman I finished it an old woman." In spirit if not in letter, some of the greater novelists might describe their masterpiece as " . . . il poema sacro, Al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra, Si che m' ha fatto per piu anni macro." l Even the " cielo," broadly interpreted, is not always inappropriate to the novelist. Flaubert's "art was his religion." (Lanson; Gilbert.) Of the failure to combine the secular duty with the religious aspiration, George Eliot speaks bitterly, in Silly Novels by Lady Novelists : " as a general rule, the ability of a lady novelist to describe actual life and her fellow-men is in inverse proportion to her confident eloquence about God and the other world, and the means by which she usually chooses to conduct you to true ideas of the invisible is a totally false picture of the visible." During composition, a novelist may be conscious of his material, form, or purpose ; of the reader or of himself. He may concentrate his mind on one of these interests as a central point, or wander unsteadily from one to another. Completely developed realistic theory allows the author scarcely a standing-place, in his private personality. He must either lose himself in his characters and plot, or hold aloof from them, as impartial philosopher or pure " artist." These views of the relation of a novelist to his work sug- gest an interesting comparison with theories of histrionic art. The following notes may indicate the vast variety of data which could easily be collected on the matter of the author's center of consciousness (compare Section 129): 1 Paradise, XXV, opening lines. 178 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Compare the use of the word " puppet " for the dramatis personae, with the statement that to Balzac his characters were " more real than persons of flesh and blood." Scherer gives as the essence of George Eliot's method, "artistic inspiration, rapid work, and sense of compulsion." The last element is often mentioned as an essential in true artistic creation. Novelists also note that the unexpected is to be expected. Zola's theory of plot-composition as a kind of scientific experiment. According to Spielhagen, the novelist should work in an atmosphere of "ruhige Objektivitat." Scott testified that he "repeatedly laid down . . . future work to scale, divided it into volumes and chapters," etc., but that when the creative fever developed, he abandoned conscious plan for spontaneous imagination. Gilbert: 1 " Le grand dogme du rdalisme c'est Pimpersonnalitd " (p. 161). "L'art pour Tart" is discussed in Gilbert (pp. 122, 162), and Lanson 1 (p. 998). George Eliot is severe on those novelists who embody personal experience in their work, without great transformation. (Lady Nov- elists.) Cody: 1 " Self-consciousness during writing is most dangerous. No better way of escaping it than by a rigorous course of self-conscious preparation " (p. 40) . Frank Norris : r " The moment, however, that the writer becomes really and vitally interested in his purpose, his novel fails." But if the purpose is part of the general philosophy of the novelist, it is not easily escaped. Gilbert notes that the theme of Madame Bovary is almost an idee fixe " toujours la disproportion entre le reve et Pexistence." Trollope criticizes the Radcliflfian habit of mystification, and gives his own doctrine, " that the author and the reader should move along together in full confidence with each other." (Barchester Towers, Vol. I, Chapter 15.) The preceding paragraphs consider composition mainly from a statical point of view. It is much more complex when viewed as a continual though irregular development. It is doubtless impossible for any one not a novelist to 1 Reference is to works listed in the bibliography. THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION 179 realize this aspect of composition adequately. Theoreti- cally, some important phases of development are new con- ception or observation, selection, contraction, expansion, verification, movement from the concrete to the general and vice versa, analysis and synthesis. The largest func- tion of synthesis is to unify the entire plan of the novel. The introduction of every new element modifies the value of all that precedes, and partially determines all that fol- lows. Rejection of much material is imperative. Only a small part of what is conceived or imagined is embodied in the novel. In the words of Walter Besant, " thousands of scenes which belong to the story never get outside the writer's brain." (Compare Section 44.) Expansion may appear in simple enlargement of plan, or in increased seriousness of purpose. In writing Joseph Andrews, Fielding largely outgrew his original idea of parody. In Don Quixote, " Cervantes set out to write a comic short story, and the design grew under his hand until at length it included a whole Human Comedy." (Fitzmaurice- Kelly.) In genuine artistic composition, there is probably marked development of illusion. Yet the process may be compli- cated throughout by changes from imaginative warmth to cold-blooded critical scrutiny and verification. In histori- cal fiction, there is the special problem of subordinating the contemporaneous sense to the historical imagination. To the layman, illusion seems more imperative in some elements than in others. It is difficult to conceive success- ful conversation written without a lively sense of its reality, but a fairly good description of character or landscape might be achieved simply by force of will. The psychology of composition is so closely connected with style that it may often be advisable to combine the two into one topic of study. 180 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 145. Collaboration. 1 In the usual sense of the word, collaboration is less common in the novel than in the drama. Any form of plot-literature, however, is better adapted for cooperation than the lyric, in which the unity is so personal and emotional. Literature does not offer the spectacle of a combination of artists, one producing the mental plan, others undertaking the physical execution, as in dramaturgy, architecture, and orchestral music. Examples of novelistic collaboration occur in some works of Steven- son, in the Erckmann-Chatrian partnership, and in the frequent prac- tise of Dumas pere. Collaboration in the form of consultation, or in the unin- vited assistance of individuals or the public, is not uncom- mon. (Compare Section 141.) The publisher often has some influence on the composition of a novel. Occasion- ally the reading public has influenced alteration of titles or catastrophes. Pushkin suggested subjects and titles to Gogol. Of Dead Souls the author says : " Pushkin was its inspiration ; and to him I owe the idea and plan." All the copy was submitted to him. 2 Goethe undertook the Wanderjahre upon the advice of Schiller. Oroonoko is said to have been suggested by Charles the Second. George Eliot records the influence of Lewes' advice, sometimes in considerable detail. 146. Fragments. The study of a fragment, whether it is a continuous part of the text, or composed of discon- nected portions, or mere notes, has special interest in rela- tion to the process of composition. Stevenson left some interesting fragments, and Hawthorne's Dolliver Romance and Septimius Felton make valuable studies of this kind. Note also, Dead Souls, Edwin Drood, and Pausanias. 1 See the essay by Brander Matthews, The Art and Mystery of Collaboration, in The Historical Novel ; and Walter Besant's article in The New Review. 2 Turner, p. 162 ff. CHAPTER X THE SHAPING FORCES 147. General Conception. Purely aesthetic criticism may perhaps neglect the causes that produce a novel, ex- cept the individuality of the author, but to historical and sociological criticism these are very important interests. While it is impossible to attain complete scientific analysis, it is always possible to reach some definite results, and speculation as to probable influences at least develops an intimacy with the novel and the environment in which it appeared. In many cases specific lines of influence may be traced, as in the imitation of incident, character, or style in one novel from another ; but often one must rest satisfied with more vague conception of large moral and social forces, moulding the general spirit of a work. The influences most readily perceived are not always the most significant. The immediate cause of every novel is the author as an individual, through whom all other forces operate, modified by his character and art. The more remote causes include national and racial spirit, the Zeitgeist, and human nature in general. The author is not necessarily conscious of the chief influences shaping his novel, whether they belong within his own individuality or outside it. Often, however, he is fully aware of them, either allowing them complete sway, or vainly striving^to escape them. A reaction against a force is one form of the effect of that force, and examina- 181 1 82 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL tion of literary revolt affords good opportunity for a study of this principle. Few of the early realists, for example, escaped a considerable influence, in this manner, from the romantic movement. The modern Russian novelists seem at times to have an almost morbid sense of nationality and race. American novelists are aware of the national quality in certain types of humor, and in materialistic tendency. It is possible that the moral hate of injustice, the vvilfulness, and the temperamental melancholy in Thomas Hardy are more racial than he himself recognizes. Probably the critics of the present day see more clearly than the authors saw, the influence of early evangelical belief on George Eliot, and of Puritan inheritance on Hawthorne. 148. The Data. The present study involves a com- parison of the content and form of a novel with the nature of the forces known or supposed to influence it. The greater the intimacy with the novel, the greater probability of correct tracing of influences, provided that too minute analysis does not destroy general impressions of moral and mental tone. On the other hand, the deeper the acquaint- ance with the shaping forces, as they operate in all do- mains, the greater the probability of discovering their effect on an individual novel. Familiarity with the process of composition, and with the author's outer and inner history is clearly requisite. Often the author's own testimony yields direct evidence of influences not otherwise easily detected. The histories of fiction record innumerable ex- amples of the specific influence of one novel or school of novelists on another. Criticism often points out the exact source of details in character, incident, motivation, syntax, rhythm, and vocabulary. Some definite formulas of inheritance have long been established for the greater novels of Europe, but in few cases has the study been exhaustive. There may be a fresher interest, at times, THE SHAPING FORCES 183 in the examination of a novel whose lineage is still prob- lematic. As suggested in the preceding section, one outside the immediate field of a given influence may sometimes note its working more clearly than one within that field. The student may do well to consult Eng- lish criticism for the French quality in Balzac, French criticism for the Russian element in Gogol, etc. But there is also a particular interest in tracing the effect on the novel, of forces which are daily moulding one's own ideas and emotions. 149. Individuality of the Author. In comparison with a lyric, a novel usually embodies the general, persistent temperament, character, and philosophy of the author. These influences are perhaps seen most clearly in generic type of subject and in major modes of treatment the specific themes and the details of form may change with the passing years. Capacity for large generalization, im- aginative power, optimistic or pessimistic tendency, sanity or morbidity, misanthropy or warm human sympathy, in- tellectual or emotional emphasis, and similar characteristics, if not innate, are generally well determined by the time a great novel is produced. These qualities of character have intimate relation to temperament, and temperament under- goes no radical change during a lifetime. A great novel is rarely written before an accumulation of experience so large that little less than a catastrophe can essentially alter its complexion ; or before the method of reaction upon experience is well established. Sterne was personally melancholy, abstracted, nervous, "indulging in tears as a habitual luxury 1 ' (Masson). The essential unity of Tol- stoi's character can be traced throughout his writings. Great as are the differences between Werther and Wilhelm Meister, both reveal the artistic temperament, the apostle of culture, and the devotee of intel- lectual calm. Newman became a Catholic in middle life, and his novels were written after that change of position ; but throughout life he was 1 84 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL deeply religious, conservative, speculative, and gifted with unusual his- torical imagination, reverence, and analytical power. The sensitive, impressionable nature of George Eliot, her profound ethical quality, her pessimism, are far deeper than any difference between orthodox belief and positivism. The following are examples of individuality in formal details whether permanent or episodic in the author: Fogazzaro, use of the leit-motif (Robiati) ; Hugo, use of the rhetorical short paragraph (see also Hennequin) ; George Eliot, semi-quotation ; Bunyan, numeri- cal division of expository passages (in Defoe also, perhaps from Bun- yan's influence) ; Fielding, interruption of long episodic narrative by exciting incident in main narrative. See also the footnote, p. 24. 150. The Author's Age. A great lyric may be written at an advanced age, but the lyric-writing habit has rarely been formed, with successful result, after youthful years. Few of the great novels have been the work of men or women under twenty-five, and in not a few cases successful novel-writing began in middle life. If the recent advice of an American medical expert had been fore- seen and adopted, the world would have lost some of the masterpieces of fiction. Goethe wrote fiction from 25 to 79; Hugo, from 21 to 75 ; Dickens, from 22 to his death at 58. George Eliot began at 38 ; Rich- ardson at 51 ; Balzac began at about 20, achieved success at 30, and continued till his death at 51. The development of technical mastery in the course of a long career is to be distinguished from the general maturing of character ; with which, however, it is associ- ated. The changes produced by age can be studied in Werther and Wilhelm Meister. Some types of romance, as well as the short story, are more akin to the lyric than to the novel, and offer abundant opportunity to examine the influence of youth in prose fiction. The following arrangement of data is suggestive : Pickwick was written at 24 ; Castle Rackrent, 35 ; Eugenie Grandet, 35 ; Vanity THE SHAPING FORCES 185 Fair, 36 ; David Copperfield, 37 ; Vicar of Wakefield, 38 ; Soil und Haben, 39 ; I Promessi Sposi, 40 ; Tom Jones, 42 ; Waverley, 43 ; Tristram Shandy, 46-54 ; La Nouvelle Hdloise, 44-48 ; Cloister and Hearth, 46 ; Anna Kardnina, 47 ; Pilgrim's Progress, 50 ; Middlemarch, 51; Robinson Crusoe, 58; Don Quixote, 58-68; Clarissa, 60; Les Mise'rables, 60 ; Wilhelm Meister, 28-79. 151. Sex. It has been said that true genius partakes somewhat of the qualities of both sexes, or in a man- ner transcends sex. The novel, however, is hardly the best form of expression to exemplify these tendencies. Its intense humanity, its complex exhibition of emotion, thought, manners, relations of the individual to society and to nature, are continually inviting the author to reveal the sex point of view. Perhaps the greater novelists are less conscious of sex than of nationality and humanity ; while a conscious attempt to escape the emphasis of sex is characteristic of talent rather than genius, and cannot be entirely successful. Richardson is an eminent example of feminine quality in man ; while his critical enemy Fielding seems anxious to fortify the masculine posi- tion. Fielding's disciple, Thackeray, is also consciously hostile toward the effeminate. In the ideal of " muscular Christianity, 1 ' partly a reac- tion from the asceticism of the Oxford Movement, the masculine note is prominent. Some of George Eliot's early reviewers conceived her as a man, but more penetrating criticism discovered the characteristics of the woman. It is often said that woman is especially fitted for the novelist's function, by her power of minute observation, strong sense of satire, her interest in love, and tendency toward a personal and emotional view of life. Whether these are considered as advantageous, or truly novelistic, will depend on one's theory of the novel. Some of the qualities of novelistic style given in Chapter VIII belong, in the layman's psychology, to the masculine mind. In 1 86 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL the general history of the novel, the main lines of develop- ment, both in subject and form, have been initiated by men ; though later modifications of importance have been made by women. Certain types of fiction are more natural to woman than others. She has attained great success in the novel of manners, " domestic satire," and in some kinds of psychological analysis. In historical romance, her tendency is to modernize and subjectify individual character and social tone. Few of the greater Utopian, political, or allegorical fictions have been written by woman, and she has probably produced no masterpiece in the recent symbolistic movement. The romance of chivalry, pastoral romance, and the picaresque novel were organized and mainly developed by men. Their era, however, was before a general entrance of woman into prose literature. The initiative value of The Princess of Cleves, Jane Austen's novels, and Jane Eyre is large. In English fiction, Walpole is credited with the creation of Gothic romance, though Mrs. Radcliffe and Mrs. Shelley produced more perfect specimens. Historical romance, of the general type of Scott, is traced back to Leland, though Miss Reeve's Old English Baron came long before Waverley. On the other hand, the origin of the "humanitarian novel" is attributed to Mrs. Behn, of the "society novel" to Miss Burney, and of the "international novel" to Miss Edgeworth. (Cross.) Women novelists have often exerted strong influence upon their brothers, a familiar example being found in Scott's indebtedness to Mrs. Radcliffe and Miss Edgeworth. 152. Personal Episode. The author's temporary con- dition, as related to the concrete process of composition, has been noticed in Chapter IX. Looked at in a larger way, the lives of most novelists show distinct psychological episodes, based on physical, artistic, or ethical conditions, which have appreciable influence on their works. An im- portant change in mental attitude may be unconscious, or it may be due to deliberate purpose. It may coincide with outward changes in domestic and social environment, or be more purely an inward experience. There are episodes THE SHAPING FORCES 187 of health, disease, convalescence, of faith and doubt, of expansion and contraction, for the individual as well as for social groups. In some cases one can discover a kind of irregular rhythm in the moral life, akin to the alternation of romantic and realistic impulse. The major episodes may often be identified with the " manners " of an author. These may be distinguished by choice of subject, dominant interest, or stylistic and structural method. Lanson l distinguishes the four manners of George Sand as follows : (i) lyrical and rebellious spirit, interest in love; (2) more objective quality, socialistic, the religion of humanity ; (3) rustic painting, pro- duction of the masterpieces of the genre idyllique in French fiction ; (4) period of the grandmother tales, the public treated like a child. Brander Matthews gives a clear summary of the development of manners in Scott. Scott himself notes the deliberate change of manner in St. Ronan's Well ; a change which was severely criticized, and brought forth the judgment that the great wizard had "written himself out." In the central part of the nineteenth century, a common phenomenon in fiction is decided change from romantic to realistic faith at times an almost violent reaction, and frequently accompanied by critical attack on the old prin- ciples, and defense of the new. This transfer of allegiance is marked in Gogol, Galdos, and Bjornson. In the later years of the century, somewhat similar changes are ad- vance from realism to naturalism ; or reaction from realism to idealism, in the form of historical romance, contem- porary character studies, or symbolism. Occasional epi- sodic return to romanticism on the part of the habitual realist is the rule rather than the exception. 153. National and Racial Influences. Criticism recog- nizes the difference between the racial and the national ^.982. 1 88 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL epic, and this distinction may be applied to the novel. In general tendency, however, the epic is more racial, the novel more national. The era of the true epic was before the modern nation and the modern sense of nationality were fully developed. Racial influence in literature may be considered deeper than national influence more emo- tional, physical, lying nearer the "elemental man" but for that reason, generally less conscious. The history of the novel shows no national " schools " comparable in compactness and uniformity with the schools of painting. Yet there have been groups of writers approaching the unity of a national school; for example, the Italian novelists of the Renaissance, the eighteenth century English realists, and the Russian socio- logical novelists of the last century. In the individual novelist, national consciousness has often been pronounced ; appearing in enthusiastic patriotism, antagonism to other nations, or the spirit of reform. Comparison of critical estimates of national character furnishes a natural basis for the study of national influence. A few examples may be given, with suggestions of appli- cation to individual novels : English: "Energy with honesty" (Matthew Arnold) ; "void of the sentiment of the beautiful . . . more apt for the sentiment of the true " (Taine) ; practical efficiency (Emerson). Robinson Crusoe, Middle- march, or Barchester Towers. French: Lucidity and strong social sense (Brunetiere) ; < the English novel lives by character, the French by situation' (Garnett). La Princesse de Cleves, Cinq-Mars, Candide. German : " Steadiness with honesty . . . the idea of science govern- ing all departments of human activity" (Matthew Arnold) ; 'the material, awkward, rather coarse Germanic point of view German exactness' (John Van Dyke) ; "a breed absorbed in detail and minute observation" (Fitzmaurice-Kelly). Soil und Haben. THE SHAPING FORCES 189 Italian : ' What is not refined is not Italian . . . love of perfect form and artistic finish ' (Garnett) ; " preferring . . . the sensuous to the ideal " (Symonds) ; " la spontaneita del genio greco-latino si rebella ad un lavoro minuzioso di analisi, esigenti profondi studii e larghe cogni- zioni. . . . Uno dei caratteri piu generali e piu salienti del mondo latino odierno e la smania di vivere, di godere" (Robiati). II Trionfo della Morte. Russian : " Tolstoi is essentially a Russian writer, sharing the gen- eral mental quality of his country, of which one characteristic feature consists in the inability to bring its beliefs and feelings into harmony " (Waliszewski) ; "the heroes of our most remarkable poems and romances one and all suffer from the same malady, the incapacity of recognizing any aim in life, any worthy motive for activity " (Dobro- louboff, quoted in Turner). Anna Karenina, Smoke, Dead Souls. Spanish : " On the one hand empty honor, careless cruelty, be- sotted superstition, administrative corruption, and on the other sobriety, uncomplaining industry and cheerful courage" (Matthews) ; "no lit- erature has so completely a national character " (F. Schlegel) ; " essen- tially chivalric " (Sismondi) ; " complete synthesis of gravity of matter and gayety of manner " (Coventry Patmore) . Don Quixote, Pepita Jimenez. There are few great novels which do not show the in- fluence of more than one nationality. The history of fiction is largely a study of international relations. For European fiction in general, there have been periods of Italian, Spanish, French, and English supremacy. The spirit of the novel could say with Browne, in the Religio Medici, " all places, all airs, make unto me one country." Some degree of cosmopolitan influence belongs to the essential nature of certain types of fiction pastoral and Utopian romance, the romance of chivalry, and the mod- ern "international novel" being examples. A kind of pseudo-cosmopolitan spirit has been criticized in recent years, and contrasted with the truth of fidelity to national ideals, and with the picturesque reality of local color. 190 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL A study of great historical and political interest is found in the na- tional modification of general European aesthetic movements. Pseudo- classicism was essentially French, but it underwent local variation in England, Russia, and Scandinavia. Romanticism was an essentially Germanic movement, and while it exerted great influence in Russia and Italy, it was not fully at home in those countries. Karamzin was a disciple or imitator of Richardson, Sterne, and Rousseau, but "the romantic element in [Russian] literature was of necessity borrowed, and could not be self-created " (Turner). Foscolo imitated Werther, and Manzoni imitated Scott, but " the romantic school is at variance with all [Italian] literary traditions and . . . canons of taste" (Garnett). Garnett suggests that the lack of Gothic architecture in Italy may be a cause of anti-romantic quality in the literature. The influence of race, like that of nationality, varies with industrial, political, and religious conditions. Race consciousness is probably deeper in some races than in others. In modern fiction it seems particularly strong in the Slav, the Jew, and the Scandinavian. Recent politi- cal and commercial movements have developed a new type of Anglo-Saxon race spirit, which has its record in fiction. In these large social fields, as well as in the indi- vidual life, " consciousness of kind " is often aroused or intensified by antagonism to another kind. Race consciousness is clearly defined in Gogol, Tolstoi, Sienkiewicz, Bjornson, and Zangwill. In Balzac it seems almost entirely obscured by the national. Complex intermingling of the two forms of influence is abundantly exemplified in fiction. In America there is a general sense of the triumph of political unity over racial diversity. Continuity of race under very differ- ent political conditions may be studied by comparing the early Greek romances with the modern, the sagas with the Weird Tales of Jonas Lie, the novels of " Old Spain " with those of Spanish-American countries. THE SHAPING FORCES 191 Many novelists have been influenced by foreign residence. Compare the native and the Parisian influences in Kielland, Turgenieff, and Henry James. The mixture of European and African blood in Dumas and in Pushkin invites the curious scientific student to investigate the twofold influence in their fiction. 154. Linguistic Influence. The general nature of lan- guage modifies the expression of the novelist, limiting it in some directions and expanding it in others. As a thinker, the novelist meets the same difficulty as essayist or phi- losopher in finding language forms for complete and exact embodiment of general ideas ; as an artist, his descriptive imagery, his narration, his dialogue are inevitably moulded by the linguistic medium. The imperfect plastic quality of language calls for great labor or great genius in the representation of delicate shades of emotional experience, individual or social, contemporaneous or historical. This influence is more marked in connection with spe- cialized forms of language. Some scholars find the lan- guage to be the essential bond of national unity ; dialect is an inviting but at the same time a resisting medium ; the distinctions between literary and colloquial language, academic and uncultured, courtly and plebeian, are readily traced in the fiction of Europe. Theoretically, the ideal language for the novel proper may be characterized as modern, without too much tradi- tional influence, complex in its sources, flexible in adapting new elements, possessed of a prose form free from melodic and rhythmical emphasis, highly specialized for different social groups and mental tones, and already tempered for the novel by master hands. The qualities adapted to the short story and the romance are somewhat different These conditions are not met with equal success by the present languages of Europe. Greek is perhaps too reminiscent of the classical 192 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL period, and has not yet known the transforming power of a great novelist : Italian is too traditional, too conscious of Latin inheritance and of Dante, too desirous of formal perfection ; 1 Spanish and French proba- bly show too much influence from academic authority. German and English possibly " American English " in particular seem, in theory, to be among the most novelistic of the great living tongues of the Occident. In any form of plot-literature, more values can be pre- served in translation than is possible in lyric poetry. The large objective picture of manners, the external relations of the dramatis personae, the outline of plot-structure, etc., may be transferred from one language to another without great loss ; but lyric grace, the atmosphere of mental moods, the connotation of dramatic speech, and the harmonies of language are entirely altered in translation. From the reader's point of view, that language is most novelistic which is most familiar and most habitually associated with his daily experience. It is said that English translations of French translations of Russian novels are very remote from the linguistic atmosphere of the original. It would be difficult to conceive d' Annunzio writing in English, or Fielding in Italian. Criticism has suggested that George Eliot would have found German a better medium than English for her philo- sophical ideas. Latin, historically if not inherently, is one of the least novelistic of languages. If northern Europe had rested satisfied with Utopia, the Iter Subterraneum, and Argenis, there would have been little hope for Robinson Crusoe, Wilhelm Meister, or Dead Souls. Even the influence of Latin on other languages may injure realistic illusion, as in the heroic romance, and in Rasselas. 1 D' Annunzio, in the preface to II Trionfo della Morte, while recognizing the inadequate expressive power of the modern Italian novelist, defends the language itself: "dico che la lingua italiana non ha nulla da invidiare e nulla da chiedere in prestito ad alcun' altra lingua europea non pur nella rappre- sentazione di tutto il moderno mondo esteriore ma in quella degli ' stati d' ammo ' piu complicati e piu rari in cui analista si sia mai compiaciuto da che la scienza della psiche umana e in onore." THE SHAPING FORCES 193 155. Literary Influence. Though the novel, in its best examples, is modeled in large measure directly from life, its general development has been influenced by most of the other types of literature, and there are few individual masterpieces in which both remote and immediate literary influence may not be profitably studied. A grouping of these types arranged approximately according to increas- ing degree of influence upon the Stoffgeschichte and Formgcschichte of the novel, might appear somewhat as follows : (1) The lyric, the ballad, satirical, descriptive, and pas- toral poetry. The medieval ballad literature is causally related to the romance of chivalry and the prose saga ; the revival of ballad spirit, and the development of a school of landscape poetry in the eighteenth century are intimately associated with the romantic movement in prose fiction ; the relations of verse pastoral to pastoral romance are readily traced. (2) Philosophy, science, criticism, the essay. The scien- tific spirit is not only influential on the realism and natural- ism of the nineteenth century, but is clearly represented in the voyage imaginaire of the Renaissance, as in The New Atlantis and Cyrano de Bergerac's Etats et Empire de la Lune, and in the reactionary views in Gulliver. The politi- cal philosophy of Plato had direct influence on Utopian fiction, and that of Rousseau on the " revolutionary novel," as in Caleb Williams. Positivism guided the ethical spirit of George Eliot, and materialism of a later date, with evo- lutionary doctrine, have almost created as well as controlled the school of Zola. By way of reaction, idealism, even mysticism, are now having their turn. ^Esthetic criticism in general, and criticism of the epic, drama, and novel in particular, have always exerted considerable influence. 194 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL The Renaissance theories of epic poetry were partially followed in heroic romance, and had a definite place in the conception of the novel held by Fielding and his contemporaries. ./Esthetic theory largely shaped the pastoral romance, and all later embodiments of the " art for art's sake " doctrine. See also the prefaces of Bulwer Lytton for appli- cation of broad aesthetic principle to the novel. (3) The spirit and method of journalism have had a general influ- ence on much modern fiction, and are the immediate ancestors of the roman feuilleton and the novel of "reportage" (4) The relations of the drama and the novel are noticed in the chapter on Comparative Esthetics. The Sir Roger de Coverley papers may be considered as transitional from the " character " to the complete novel. (5) The short story of the Renaissance type has fur- nished the novel with many situations and germs of plot ; the short story of the last century has probably aided the development of unity, clear structure, and finished style in the novel. Romance has influenced the novel by way of reaction, and every type of novel has had its dynamic rela- tions to all its contemporaries and successors. Religious literature, including the Bible, has been a shaping force in early " spiritual romance," and in didactic allegory. The reading of the early church fathers probably suggested Callista to Newman. D 1 Annunzio urges that in order to improve their style the Italian psychologists " debbono ricercare gli asceti, i casuisti, i volgariz- zatori di sermoni, di omelie e di soliloquii." x See also the note on Pepita Jimenez in Section 139. Particularly concrete study of the relation of cause and effect is possible in the case of direct imitation, as in parody and burlesque. Compare the romance of chivalry with Don Quixote; the heroic romance with the pseudo-heroic Female Quixote ; and the parodies of Thackeray with their original models. 1 Preface to II Trionfo della Morte. THE SHAPING FORCES 195 An important influence is often exerted after a long period, either directly or through a series of intermediary works. Tristram Shandy is greatly indebted to the Anatomy of Melancholy. Fielding was a master of Thackeray. Greek romance is one ances- tor of heroic romance. Don Quixote was a general model for Dead Souls. The following long line of inheritance is given in Matthews's Historical Novel : Lazarillo and Guzman, Lesage, Smollett. Dickens, Bret Harte, Kipling. Another interesting chain given in the same work, though not long in time, is, Turgenieff, Henry James, Bourget, d' Annunzio. A sequence little suspected by the casual reader is the Adelphi of Terence, Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia, The Fortunes of Nigel. 156. Historical Influence. While all forms of human expression are influenced by the Zeitgeist, Robiati calls the novel "the form of art which most resembles the time in which it is produced." An earlier and more cautious writer l considers it as " perhaps the most complete expres- sion of the moral and social state of an epoch and a coun- try." Every great movement in the history of fiction, though modified by race and nationality, is one phase of a general cultural episode in modern civilization. The rationalism and pseudo-classicism of the eighteenth century ap- pear in essentially the same manner in the fiction of Russia, Scandina- via, and Holland, as in the major literatures of the period. Royce, in The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, associates the idealistic philosophy of Germany with its literature of the romantic movement ; and Gates, in his editorial essay on Newman, discusses the relations of the Oxford Move- ment to the spirit of romanticism. (Compare Section 1 66.) Realism, democracy, and the scientific spirit are characteristic of the nineteenth century from Iceland to Greece, and from Japan to Chili. There are common elements, due to historical conditions, in the Catholicism of Manzoni, Newman, Fogazzaro, and Sienkiewicz. 1 De Lomenie : Revue des Deux Mondes, December, 1857. (Maigron.) 196 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL The general method of conceiving an historical episode belongs to social psychology, the identification of particular periods belongs to history ; but a few points may be noted here, as having a direct bearing on the study of fiction. An epoch may be characterized by a single condensed formula. Carlyle summarized the age of Hume and Vol- taire as "the century of scepticism." Garnett affirms that in all countries the present time is "an age of literary anarchy." Such brilliant critical formulas are often ex- tremely helpful, but in mature study they are associated with more extensive criticism, and with patient inductive analysis of the literature itself. It may be confusing at first to attempt to unify the various critical conceptions of the romantic movement, and its various artistic expressions in fiction, but such a process has finally a rich reward. Some periods are more easily unified than others ; but all may be viewed as transitional, in all appear the phenomena of current and undercurrent, of reminiscence and fore- shadowing. In poetical language, "... each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth." l The simplest studies of historical influence are found in fiction representative of the complete, unvexed mastery of clearly defined ideas ; but there is deeper human inter- est in works revealing a movement in faint process of formation or of unconscious decline, or works in which two distinct forces rise into conflict or agree on cooperation. The rationalism of the eighteenth century is found, in comparatively pure form, in Defoe; its cynical scepticism in Swift. The Castle of Otranto, while considered the original Gothic romance in English fiction, b still plainly under the influence of pseudo-classicism. Fielding is 1 O'Shaughnessy. THE SHAPING FORCES 197 a pronounced realist, but he is influenced by reaction from Richardson. In Smollett there are traces of Gothic imagination, interpreted in both serious and burlesque spirit. The realism of Jane Austen is consciously hostile to the sentimental novel. Scott is not free from the eighteenth century manner. In historical fiction, it is interesting to compare the influence of the period in which the novelist imagines with that of the time in which he lives. Some transformation of the historical into the contemporary is inevitable, though not always as clear and conscious as it is in the Idylls of the King. The foliage and blossoms of the historical growth may be political, religious, or artistic ; but the psychological roots are deeper than all such distinctions, and are often difficult to discover. The general philosophical attitude of a period, and its dominant form of social organization always influence its fiction, but not always in simple and direct manner. The Zeitgeist may mould the outline of plot, the grouping of characters, and other obvious elements of structure ; or it may be traced only in the emotional tone and the stylistic quality of the work as a whole. The identification of very limited periods is usually a task for the specialist. As one's acquaintance with general history and with the history of fiction deepens, it may be possible to discern the special note of a single generation or even a single decade. The climactic vogue of English sentimentalism probably endured for little more than a genera- tion. In another field, Professor Felix Schelling marks the last decade of the sixteenth century as the " time of the sonnet." l 157. Immediate Social Environment. A novelist is probably always influenced during composition by the social environment in which he has lived or is living. This fact may be most apparent when such environment is directly studied in a novel, or is consciously selected for the sake of artistic stimulus. Individual novels show the special influences of domestic, industrial, or professional 1 Elizabethan Lyrics. 198 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL conditions, of city or country residence, of the court or the frontier, of social prestige or exile. The influence of immediate social environment is particularly clear in Jane Austen. Note also the effect of domestic life on George Eliot ; of political ostracism on Bunyan, Defoe, Pushkin, and Hugo ; of court life on The Princess of Cleves ; of country residence on Hardy ; of intimate acquaintance with both the aristocracy and the peasantry on Tolstoi ; of Abbotsford and Edinburgh on Scott ; of London on Fielding and Dickens ; of Madrid society on La Espuma ; of club-life on Sir Roger de Coverley ; of legal environment on Fielding and Scott ; of medical environment on Smollett ; of ecclesiastical environment on Charles Kingsley, Newman, and Trollope; of the free social life of the West on Hamlin Garland. 158. Human Nature. Every artist is a unique indi- vidual, and at the same time representative of limited areas of national, racial, and historical conditions; he is never an " Everyman " or a " Humanum Genus." Yet, in the belief of many critics, the more deeply he is influenced by human nature in general, the greater is his artistic sig- nificance. The idea of a direct supernatural influence upon the artist has little weight at present. In subject and in form, most novels embody some of the familiar conceptions of human nature found in poetry, sociology, or ethics. Among the creative forces in fiction, are love of story ; craving for emotion, for self-expression, and for sympathy ; practical or speculative interest in the relations of body and soul, and in man's destiny ; rebellion against the irrational element in life, sense of illusion, and eager search for reality. In some novels of social reform, one could imagine the Lancelot reader exclaiming, "... What name hast thou That ridest here so blindly and so hard ?" and the Pelleas author crying in answer, THE SHAPING FORCES 199 " I have no name ... a scourge am I, To lash the treasons of the Table Round." Trace in the novel the conceptions of humanity in Matthew Arnold's poem, " A wanderer is man from his birth " ; in Pope's Essay on Man ; in Hamlet's " what a piece of work is man," etc. ; in Amphibian, aud many other poems of Browning. There is scarcely a great novel that does not illustrate the concep- tion, "man is the political animal." Biological ideas of man's place in the universe of life are influential upon the naturalists. The scope of a novel is great enough to represent a great variety of persistent human impulses. The single lyric often records a transitory and exceptional exultation of soul or depression of physical vitality ; a painting may express a passion for nature, a dream of the supernatural, or an aesthetic delight in human beauty, of a quality not to be called universal. Contrast the lyrical, pictorial feeling, characteristic of Elizabethan poetry, in Lodge's lines, " Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud That beautifies Aurora's face, . . . Her lips are like two budded roses Whom ranks of lilies neighbor nigh," with George Eliot's novelistic appeal to "all who love human faces best for what they tell of human experience." The medium of expression in literature language is more inherently and profoundly human than that of any other art ; and in some respects the special language of the novel is more human than that of other forms of literature. 159. The Influence of Nature. In a real if somewhat vague sense, the novel may be viewed as ultimately a prod- uct of natural forces ; as one phase of the general mani- 200 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL festation of life. One important critical application of this view is found in the idea of the Evolution des genres. This idea partly guided Taine in his History of English Literature, and has since been clarified and developed. 1 A few points respecting the comparison of the novel with a biological species may be noted : (i) The biological phenomena of struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, hybrid forms, individual variation, etc., find easy analogies in the history of fiction. (2) At- tempts at a scientific classification of fiction seem arbi- trary, compared with the classifications of botany and zoology. In the novel there are few if any types with characteristics fixed and organic enough to determine a sat- isfactory classification of individual works. The difference between a hermit-thrush and a meadow-lark is stable, objective, and determines at once the systematic position of individual birds. The difference between a pastoral romance and a picaresque novel is distinct enough in theory, but there is no law forbidding a combination of both types in a single work. (3) The novel itself is not a form of life, and has reproductive power only through agencies totally unlike itself. (4) The processes of nature which fashion, modify, perpetuate, or destroy species are mainly unconscious. This law has a certain analogy in fiction, if one considers society ; but the will of the indi- vidual artist is a most significant factor. Human agency may of course considerably modify natural species, within a limited area. (5) The entire evolution of the novel covers an insignificant period, compared with the duration of biological evolution. (6) The phenomena of local habitat have partial, but only partial, analogies in the field of fiction. 1 Its specific application to the novel is briefly discussed in Stoddard's introduction. THE SHAPING FORCES 2OI In national literatures and in single novels, the influence of external nature is often apparent. Individual languages are modified by climatic and topographical environment. Russian fiction seems influenced by the vastness of the plains ; Scandinavian fiction by majesty of mountains and beauty of fiords ; American fiction by primitive landscape and nerve-stimulating climate. Mrs. Shelley was clearly moved by the scenery of Switzerland while composing Frankenstein. Oscar Browning notes that the climate of England depressed George Eliot, and thinks she would have been happier if she had lived more abroad. In the preface to Dombey and Son, Dickens gives this evidence of the intimate association of natural environment with the creative imagination: "at this day ... I yet confusedly imagine Captain Cuttle as secluding himself from Mrs. MacStinger among the mountains of Switzerland. Similarly, when I am reminded ... of what it was that the waves were always saying, I wander in my fancy for a whole winter night about the streets of Paris ... as I really did, with a heavy heart, on the night when my little friend and I parted company forever." CHAPTER XI THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 1 60. Popularity of Fiction. Few extended discussions of fiction fail to emphasize the importance, from either the aesthetic or the ethical point of view, of its wide popularity. This popularity has been variously developed in different regions, has shifted from type to type, and has known pe- riods of critical hostility ; but on the whole, its endurance for centuries is a notable fact of literary history. The conditions of the later nineteenth century need no illustration. The following are representative testimonies of an earlier period. Defoe wrote in the preface of Moll Flanders, " The world is so taken up of late with Novels and Romances, that it will be hard for a private history to be taken for genuine." In 1773, a writer in the Gentle- man's Magazine speaks of " this novel-writing age." That magazine lists about 140 novels for the decade 1770-1780, 40 being noted for the single year 1771. Miss Reeve wrote in 1785 of 'the press groaning be- neath the weight of Novels,' so numerous that they had become a "pub- lic evil." In 1810, an editor of Richardson declared, "those who are most important in the ranks of civilized life, read scarcely anything else" but novels. Popularity does not necessarily mean a real and deep influence. Some critics believe that the novel reveals the existing mental condition of its readers, rather than alters it. Even if this were the complete truth, a study of the vogue of a novel would throw light on social attitude ; but in many cases it seems that a novel is, for practical pur- poses, a new influence in society. 202 THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 203 Coleridge declares that u all the evil achieved by Hobbes, and the whole School of Materialists will appear inconsiderable, if it be com- pared with the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental Philosophy of Sterne and his numerous imitators." i 161. The Data. Bibliographical facts furnish a practi cal basis for the examination of the vogue of a novel. Comparison of critical opinions, imitations, parodies, dram- atizations, etc., serves to indicate the effect upon different historical periods and social groups. Biographical docu- ments record the reception of a novel by famous individ- uals. The private opinions of the common reader and his circle of acquaintance may be reviewed in a critical spirit, with allowance for the personal equation. These are all external data. After they are collected and ex- amined, one may return to the novel itself, for a more care- ful study of the probable causes of influence. For a merely statistical basis of comparison, it might be well to estab- lish certain norms of circulation. The following data of editions and sales are illustrative. Editions: Silas Marner (1861), seventh, 1861 ; Adam Bede (1859), seventh, 1859, tenth, 1862 ; Sidney's Arcadia (1590), ten in fifty years; Soil und Haben (1855), fifty-fourth, 1901; Frau Sorge (1887), fifty-fourth. 1900 ; Ekkehard (1862), one-hundred and seventy- seventh, 1900. Sales: Adam Bede, 16,000 in 1859 ; Soil und Haben, 100,000 by 1887; in 1892, La Ddbacle, 110,000; L'Assommoir, 124.000; Nana, 166,000; Uncle Tom's Cabin (in book form, 1852), 1,000,000 in England, 150,000 in America, first year. " The sale of Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most marvelous literary phenomenon that the world has witnessed." (Senior.) 162. Time Distribution. The essential elements of appeal in a novel may be as old as human nature. Some of the elements of novelistic form plot, fictitious dia- logue, character grouping, etc. are perhaps older than 1 Aids to Reflection; On Sensibility. 204 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL written language. Specific situations, plot-outlines and character-types are often of great antiquity. If separate types of fiction are narrowly defined, there are several which have all the historical interest of extinct species. The romance of chivalry, roughly speaking, had a vogue of some two centuries. Pastoral romance arose in the decadent period of Greek literature, was revived in the Renaissance, and practically disappeared as a type in the seventeenth century. The heroic romance became a well-defined form in the seventeenth century : its death-throes, in the next century, are described in an interesting manner in Miss Reeve's Progress of Romance. By the " lifetime " of an individual work, one may mean general popularity, vital significance, as distinguished from mere historical interest, for the select few, or enduring rep- utation. In the careful study of a famous novel, it might be worth while to trace its history somewhat systemati- cally; noting, for example, the circulation or influence for the first year, the first decade, then for each succeeding generation. A temporary revival of interest is a com- mon phenomenon, in the history of both species and indi- vidual works. 163. Place Distribution. All the great novels have been international, not only in reputation, but in literary influ- ence. Spielhagen considers that the exposition of a na- tional life to the people of other nations is one of the distinguishing functions of the modern novel. 1 It is not to be expected that the reception of a novel abroad will coincide with that at home. When the differ- ences are striking, a study of their social and political causes makes an interesting part of the critical task. Compare the treatment of Cooper, Julian Hawthorne, and Theodore Winthrop in Nicholas American Literature, with that by American 1 Technik des Romans; Das Gebiet des Romans. THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 205 critics. " The popular literature of America is English, and the popu- lar literature of England is American." (Senior.) Edmond Scherer wrote of George Eliot, in 1885, "the very name of this writer ... is hardly known among ourselves, and arouses neither memory nor inter- est." Reich names Kemeny as probably a greater Hungarian novelist than Jokai. The data of translation give a convenient if imperfect basis for judging of the foreign popularity of a novel. Of Robinson Crusoe, there were 60 known imitations and parodies in Germany before 1770. Werther was honored by 14 English transla- tions, to 1854; 19 French, to 1865; 8 Italian, to 185755 Spanish, to 1876; and has been rendered into Danish, Dutch, Hungarian, Polish, Swedish, etc. In 1877, I Promessi Sposi had known 116 Italian edi- tions; and had been translated 17 times into German, 19 into French, 10 into English, 3 into Spanish, and at least once into Dutch, Hunga- rian, Russian, Swedish, etc. 164. Influence upon Literature. No single novel has attained the position of an Iliad or a Hamlet in the world of literature, or been accepted by the literary academies as a standard of excellence perhaps Don Quixote ap- proaches such position as closely as any prose fiction ; but innumerable novels have exerted an important in- fluence upon literature, either directly or indirectly. The novelist has often had an effective hand in the establish- ment or destruction of literary fashions. He has often found strong disciples, or weak imitators; or has met a spirited reactionary movement, of which burlesque is one easily perceived phase. The effect of a novel upon other works of prose fiction is one of the most important and readily traced lines of influence. There are certain great European novels, rela- tively few in number, which are recognized as the ances- tors of the vast majority of lesser novels. Intimate acquaintance with these parent fictions is a long step 206 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL toward a real understanding of the history of European fiction. Of course all these novels are themselves de- scendants as well as ancestors, but they may be considered as founding new branches of the family. Among such works are The Decameron, Amadis of Gaul, Monte- mayor's Diana, Don Quixote, Lazarillo de Tormes, Clarissa, Werther, Waverley, and Poe's short stories. For a single national literature, Russian fiction, on account of its comparative compactness and unity, is a good field in which to study the influence of novelist upon novelist. See, for example, Turner and Merejkowski for the dynamic relations of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Turgenieff, and Tolstoi. The development of the novel has had a large influence upon literary criticism. Many of the problems of technical analysis, of the relations of art to science and morals, etc., in current criticism, have been modified if not introduced by the vogue of prose fiction. In fact, one occasionally hears the complaint that some recent writers seem to mean, by the criticism of literature, the criticism of fiction. Wilhelm Meister influenced the critical theory of Friedrich Schlegel. George Eliot seems to have been an important factor in determining the general critical position of Edmond Scherer. Zola's works have shaped the discussion of realism to an almost abnormal degree. One is sometimes in danger of forgetting that realism is as old as literature, and that it is found in other arts than literature. Many eminent novelists have themselves been critics of some note among them, Goethe, Thackeray, Hugo, Spielhagen, Poe, and Tolstoi. The novelists, as a class, have been liberal readers of works of fiction. The novel has not only affected popular conceptions of history, but, as represented by the Scott school, has had an appreciable influence upon historical writing. Carlyle gave some severe criticism of the Waverley Novels, but he praised their general effect upon the interpretation of history. THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 2O? 165. Social Groups in General. Under ordinary condi- tions, a novel reaches one individual at a time, and the phenomenon of a compact social group won to a " social consent " by its influence is less common than in the case of architecture, music, oratory, or the drama. So far as it is possible to arrive at a " determination des categories d admiral eurs " (Hennequin), the data may throw light upon an individual novel, and upon certain social groups. Preferences in the reading of fiction may show the unconscious nature of the reader, his real emo- tional and aesthetic self, which lies below the social being the world knows. Of Giddings' " types of mind " (see Section 87), the fourth is doubtless less easily influenced by fiction than the others; but when it does respond to the appeal of a novel, the response is deserving of careful study. Many persons of critical intellect, however, still take the novel with little seriousness as compared with other forms of art. The real students of the novel make a small class in any reading community. The novel has probably had a very slight influence upon general philosophy ; but now and then fragments of the interpretation of life by the novelist may have penetrated the sanctum sanctorum of the philosophers. Coleridge notes the manner in which the conception of " love " passed from the sentimental novelists to Buffon, other French natural- ists, and into Swedish and English philosophy. 1 The influence of fiction upon the young and upon women has often been discussed. In early days, many novels and romances were written mainly for these social classes ; but the modern realist has claimed the right to win an audi- ence of mature men. Aids to Reflection ; On Sensibility. 208 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL The relation of fiction to the young was a frequent topic in late eighteenth century criticism. At the same time, there was a movement aiming to produce a better class of fictions for youthful readers. Note the references to women readers in Euphues, The Spectator, The Rape of the Lock, Pamela, the dramas of Sheridan, etc. Rightly or wrongly, it is affirmed that woman is more likely than man to be in- fluenced by fiction ; more ready to be moved by her likes and dislikes. Nordau traces the worship of the military officer, among the women of Germany, to fiction ; and declares that 'the Parisienne is completely the work of the French journalists and novelists.' l 1 66. Influence upon Individuals. A novel is likely to interest the individual reader, to please or offend him in a marked degree, because it brings him face to face with other strong individuals, with social groups to which his imagination must adjust itself, and with a more or less positive interpretation of the life he himself knows, in outline if not in detail. While the novel is not characteristically written for the "fit audience, though few," most of the great minds of Europe, at all interested in art, have left some record of their impressions of this or that famous novel. Ben Jon- son requests every man in his audience to "exercise his own judgment, and not censure by contagion." 2 The fear of a critical " contagion " may sometimes drive an inde- pendent mind into fantastic revolt against the popular judgment ; but the candid opinion of a single honest thinker is worth weighing, even in the criticism of a novel. It is part of that entire body of mental experiences in which the individual novel is a real element. Gray's comments upon The Castle of Otranto and upon Ossian make interesting reading. Samuel Johnson was a passionate lover of romance, in spite of his didactic criticism of it ; and he attributed his 1 Paradoxes : The Natural History of Love ; The Import of Fiction. 2 Induction to Bartholomew Fair. THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 209 failure to settle in a regular profession to its influence. (Quoted in Boswell, from Bishop Percy.) Burns' fondness for The Man of Feel- ing throws some light upon that novel, upon Burns, and upon the social psychology of his time. Wesley thought that The Fool of Quality was " one of the most beautiful pictures that ever was drawn in the world." Examine the comment on fiction by St. Augustine, Coleridge, Goethe, Cardinal Newman, Ruskin, and Tolstoi. 167. Kind and Degree of Influence. These will depend, in part, upon the reader's intimacy with the individual work. There seems to be no valid reason why a truly great novel should not be studied as carefully as a great drama or epic ; but such study is rare, and the full effect of the novel is not often realized. For complete criticism, a work of fiction should be accepted as a part of real personal experience, emotional and imaginative ; and also examined intellectually, as a part of the world outside of one's personality. To the ordinary mind, the evidences of labor and of technical mastery are more noticeable in painting or archi- tecture than in literature. Again, some alertness of the senses is required before one can comprehend the real meaning of a spatial work of art. The physical sense of weariness may be related to the impression of architectural sublimity ; the crescendos and diminuendos of the or- chestra challenge the mental activity of the listener. In the novel, one may gain a certain comprehension of the work in a comparatively passive attitude of mind. There is nothing objective to stir and stimulate attention. Yet the full evaluation of a novel is to be reached only by a genuine and persistent effort. Like all other real values, this also must be purchased by an expenditure of life itself. 1 68. Perceptual Effect. No two readers ever receive exactly the same impressions from the sensuous imagery 210 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL of a novel. In this respect, as in others, Julian Haw thorne's statement that it takes two to make a novel, the author and the reader, can be readily understood. Just how far the reader should attempt to reexperience the sensuous values the author has observed or imagined, is a matter for general aesthetic theory, or for private opinion. It will task the average reader to follow the author closely into details ; on the other hand, there is no law forbidding one to see and hear with more acute senses than those of the novelist. While there may at times be danger of the trees obscuring the forest, it is sometimes the single tree, even the single branch, twig, leaf, that one wishes to see. The senses to which most immediate and persistent appeal is made in the novel are those of sight and sound. The visual imagery includes the appearance of the charac- ters, singly and in groups, and the masses and details of the spatial background. Riemann gives a definition of the " pantomimischer Roman " i.e., one in which more is seen than heard. l Resolving the descriptions in the Conclusion of Silas Marner into "ultimate points" of visual imagery, one will find some thirty details. These vary in scope from the pink sprigs on Eppie's dress and the " dash of gold on a lilv," to the vision of the wedding procession and the Rainbow group, as wholes. A study rather common at the present time is that of the color imagery of poetry. The contrasts, in this respect, between pseudo- classicism, romanticism, and realism, could be traced in prose fiction also. In the domain of sound, the essential appeal of the novel is in the utterance of the dramatis personae ; though there is often a great variety of sounds in nature, and in 1 p. 232. THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 211 the occupations of social life. The voice of a character can be more completely realized by reading his speeches aloud. Frankenstein has a well-defined imagery of sound. Note the use of such terms as crack, roar, shriek, gurgling, groan, howling, thunder of the ground sea. Compare the last sections of Chapter I, and Section 95. The imagery, if it may so be called, of touch and smell, can be studied to advantage in modern naturalism and symbolism in Zola, Tolstoi, d'Annunzio, and van Eeden, for example. Vathek, with its rich Orientalism, also makes a noteworthy appeal to these senses, con- sidering its early date. 169. Sensational Effect. In the present connection, sensation may be denned as emotion associated with con- sciousness of related physical condition. The novel may arouse sensations by direct description, or by subtle sugges- tion to the imagination or memory of the reader. It cannot picture their visible effects, as can painting or the stage drama; but it can go into very minute analysis of their nature, and their relations to the individual and his envi- ronment it can make them appear in the "warmth" of concrete experience. Sensation would seem to be not only a legitimate but a necessary effect, if the canon of comprehensiveness is applied to the influence as well as the subject of a novel. The " sensational novel," in the usual meaning, is one in which this phase of experience is emphasized be- yond its true proportion, inadequately motived, or given a morbid tendency. Sensational effect is common in both romantic and naturalistic schools. It is often of a languor- ous and melancholy type in the sentimental novel, and of a more active and intense type in Gothic romance. Many realists inherit the romantic craving for sensation, 212 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL and some are even inclined to find it the essence of per- sonal experience. In the preface of Frankenstein, Mrs. Shelley gives this frank testi- mony of the Gothic romancer : " Oh if I could only . . . frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night ! . . . I have found it ! What terrified me will terrify others ; and I need only describe the specter which had haunted my midnight pillow." 170. Emotional Effect. Probably no other form of art can compete with the novel in the sum total of emotional appeal. The short story, the lyric, the drama, and music, may each excel in this or that particular ; but for a com- bination of variety, intensity, concreteness, reality, of ex- hibition and interpretation, of sustained rhythms of excite- ment and repose, the novel is the best medium. It is perhaps this fact of opportunity that has suggested the theory that the study of emotion is the true function of the novel. The reader may enter by mere imagination into the emo- tions of the dramatis personae or the author ; or he may be moved more directly by situations and sentiments which touch his own emotional experience, present or past. It is doubtful if the novel ever arouses strong emotions entirely unknown to the reader before. One may follow the "line of emotion" for the reader, as for the dramatis personae ; and also study the general result at the conclusion. Strong dominant emotions may be aroused, or a sequence of minor ones ; the effect may be one of stability or of rapid transition, of harmony or dis- cord, of sympathy or antagonism toward a character, the author, or life in general. The Aristotelian doctrine of catharsis may be discussed with reference to the novel as well as the drama. The ethical question whether the emotional energy the reader THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 213 spends upon fictitious characters weakens his emotional power in real life is relevant in this connection. Some critics affirm that the novel performs a special service to the present age, in that it allows the reader a free, natural, healthful flow of feeling, which, according to current standards of social taste, must be repressed in real life. Criticism attempts to distinguish between emotional effects which are truly aesthetic, and those which are not. To the first class belong delight in the technical mastery of the artist, the sense of ' difficulty overcome,' imaginative pleasure in the picture of life, whether it be joyful or sad, etc. ; to the second class, all emotions associated with the personal experiences, antipathies and sympathies of the individual reader. The properly aesthetic emotions do not lead to any external activity ; they never become real pas- sions. This distinction may aid one in the analysis of effects, but in many cases it seems a rather arbitrary and sterile antithesis. 171. Conceptual Effect. The reader who is concerned only with the story element of a novel will not give much attention to the facts and ideas it contains, as independent values. Compare, however, the opinions quoted in Section 119. In a well-unified novel, even the most abstract ideas are part of the general artistic plan, and the story itself cannot be completely realized without an understanding of their relation to characters and events. Most novels give a certain amount of information new to the reader, and a certain number of ideas, either new in themselves or their relations, or calling for a fresh effort at clear conception. The analysis given in the chapter on Subject-matter may serve as a guide to an intensive study of conceptual effects. 214 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 172. Volitional Effect. Whether considered important for its artistic value or not, the novel has often influenced the will and the active life of individuals and social groups. It has fostered the " will to believe," and the will to doubt ; the spirit of submission to social law, and the spirit of rebel- lion ; the resolution to live more deeply, and the purpose to escape the problematic experiences of life so far as pos- sible. One may readily admit that it is not always, perhaps not usually, the fictions that are greatest as works of art which have had the most emphatic effect upon the actions of men ; but such effect could hardly be omitted in a gen- eral study of the novel. Again, such effect may or may not have been intended by the author ; and criticism does not necessarily lay the full burden of responsibility for evil result upon him, or grant to him the undivided laurel wreath for noble result. Werther was the immediate occasion, at least, of many suicides. Religious restlessness and scepticism have doubtless been increased by many modern realistic novels. On the other hand, the novelists have had a share in bringing about a revival of religious reverence in the last few decades. Scott thought that many " hitherto indifferent upon the subject, have been induced to read Scottish history, from the allusions to it" in the Waverley Novels. (Introduction to The Bride of Lam- mermoor, 1829.) The influence of Turgenieff and Mrs. Stowe upon the emancipation movement of the last century is a matter of general knowledge ; as is the effect of Dickens' fiction upon certain social re- forms. Occasionally a definite institution is partially the result of a novel. All Sorts and Conditions of Men was a strong influence in the establishment of The People's Palace in London. 173. The Influencing Elements. To appreciate a novel correctly, it is doubtless necessary to feel its total effect as a unified work ; but in many cases, separate elements have very separate effects. That which appeals to one reader may offend another ; that which moves us at one time may THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 21$ prove cold and ineffective at another. According to Bru- netiere, it is as important that one should know why one likes or dislikes, in literature, as that one should like or dislike correctly. The professional critic, or the professional novelist, may be too much inclined to emphasize the technical excellence or defect of a work ; but no adequate judgment of a novel can be made without some knowledge of technic. At the present time, the layman can easily acquire a reasonable equipment for this purpose. If the American reader is still likely to neglect the values of form in a novel, it is not too late to quote Lanier's opinion, given some twenty years ago: "How strange, then, the furtive apprehension of danger lying behind too much knowledge of form, too much technic, which one is amazed to find prevailing in our own country." 1 Every judgment on the higher values of a novel, on its human experiences and philosophy of life, is a self-judg- ment of the critic. Absolute refusal to receive an influence may indicate as marked a weakness as too great readiness of assent to the novelist's appeal. Publishers give testimony that the title exerts a strong influence over the average reader ; at least before he knows a work. Robin- son Crusoe, Gulliver, and Don Quixote are familiar examples of fictions which have a very different effect upon the juvenile and upon the mature reader. Robinson Crusoe appeals to the boy as a stirring tale of adventure ; to the critic, a primary interest lies in the marvelous verisimilitude, and the method of attaining it ; to the reflective mind, the philosophical views of society, industry, and religion are of great historical value. In Gulliver, the political and social satire, the bitter misanthropy, escape the young reader. In Don Quixote, the humor reaches the majority of readers ; the depth of pathos is fully felt only by a minority. 1 The English Novel, p. 30. 216 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Scott's comment on the reception of the Waverley Novels gives many examples of the effect of separate elements. He defends, on ethical grounds, the catastrophe of Ivanhoe, which was attacked by the critics. He recognized the failure of Sir Piercie Shafton, in The Monastery, and repeatedly refers to the poor effect of the White Lady in the same romance. The success of Mary, in The Abbott, led him to attempt Elizabeth, in Kenilworth. 174. The Causes of Influence. A study of causes may easily lead one into difficulties, in literary criticism, as in history, ethics, or biology. As plant-growth may be said to depend upon the seed, the soil, and atmospheric condi- tions; the influence of a novel depends upon the novel, the reader, and the social conditions. Perhaps the analogy is not exact, but it may be suggestive. In the case of con- temporaneous effect, the author and reader are often under the same general social influences, for which the novel is simply a distributing point. The novel has this advantage over legal documents and perhaps over religious creeds, as a test of real character, that it often reaches the sub-conscious self, catches the reader unawares, so to speak. The unconscious optimism of a man who believes himself a pessimist may be shown by his choice of fiction. A reader who nominally accepts a creed of renunciation of the fleshly appetites may crave the sensationalism of debased passions, and find it in the novel. In the individual or in social groups this uncon- scious or covert self may later show itself in a more public manner. The taste for sentimental literature in the middle of the eighteenth century might have foreshadowed, to the acute critic, the upheavals of the French Revolution period. Often a mental craving, revealed in literary taste, is at first semi-humorous, but later deepens into very serious aspects. It is a long way from The Castle of Otranto to Frank- THE INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL 2 1/ enstein, but a careful analysis of the social causes which made the former a literary success will aid the critic in understanding the latter. In the spontaneous likes and dislikes of literary taste, the critic finds a good field in which to study what the sociologist calls " organic sympathy and antipathy." Methods of publication and reviewing are among the atmospheric conditions of the novel-plant. Even in the eighteenth century the reviewers were recognized as a powerful, and often a malign, influence upon popular opinion. Scott explains the relative failure of The Monastery by reference to social conditions ; and traces the success of Quentin Dunvard in France to French acquaintance with its histori- cal allusions. Senior gives an itemized explanation of the popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin, for England and New England separately; the causes he notes varying from the " moral coloring " of the novel to the lack of international copyright. To the private reader, the circumstances under which a given novel first became familiar may be forever associated with the novel itself, as the circumstances of composition may remain in the memory of the author (see Section 1 59). To many individuals, certain novels, not necessarily very important in themselves, will always be clearly remem- bered, because they entered into episodes of deep personal joy or sorrow. CHAPTER XII COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 175. Nature of the Study. After the study of an indi vidual novel, in itself, and in relation to the forces which shape it and the effects produced by it, the field of interest may be broadened by a comparison of the novel with other kinds of literature. Many points of this kind have already been given, but in an isolated and incidental manner. By comparative rhetoric is here understood the com- parative study of the " forms of discourse," and of the recognized types of literature. Such a study might be considered specially appropriate with reference to the novel, because of the complex, composite nature of that type. In a detailed analysis, separate examination might be made of the historical, technical, and theoretical relations of the novel to each of the other literary types. It may be sufficient for the present purpose to indicate some of the principal features of the study, in outline. 176. The Forms of Discourse. Professor Gummere defines the drama as ' an epic whole composed of lyric parts.' A novel might often be characterized as a narra- tive frame with descriptive filling ; but some novels could be better viewed as descriptive wholes with narrative parts. No single formula of this kind will correspond accurately to all the variations actually found in fiction. Exposition, in the general rhetorical sense, is an essential 218 COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 2 19 element in every novel ; and it may be the dominant type of structure, as in the philosophical novel, and in some his- torical novels the real aim being to explain some idea or some state of society. In the purpose novel, the inclusive scheme may be argumentative. A distinction between the forms of discourse which serve respectively as a means and as an end may sometimes be helpful. Narration, for example, in the novel as in the sermon, may be merely the agent of an expository purpose or of a lyrical impulse. 177. Prose and Poetry. In systematic German criticism, the novel is usually considered as belonging to poetics, and it is discussed in close connection with the drama, the epic, and the lyric. English rhetoric has more commonly associated it with the other forms of prose literature. The typical novel is neither entirely prosaic nor entirely poetic, but is perhaps the best existing example of a literary form which combines these two qualities. The criticism of the romantic movement suggested the phrase " science and poetry " as denoting a more accurate contrast than "prose and poetry." Some students have seen in the novel an unusual opportunity to harmonize the modern interest in science with the permanent human in- terest in poetry. Purely scientific value must remain sub- ordinate in the novel, as now understood; for science yearns for the abstract formulas of metaphysics and math- ematics, while concreteness has been named as one of the stylistic qualities of the novel. It would offend the laws of mental economy to call a novel into existence for the sake of a scientific exposition. A cathedral may illustrate certain laws of physics, chemistry, and geology, but it would not be reasonable to build cathedrals mainly for the sake of such illustration. 220 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL In an individual novel, study the application of the conceptions of poetry found in the Defenses of Sidney and Shelley, and in the preface of the Lyrical Ballads. Compare the statement of the relations of poetry and science in the last, with that of Lanier : "And now if we pass one step farther and consider what would happen if the true scientific activity and the true poetic activity should engage themselves upon one and the same set of facts ? We arrive at the novel." l 178. Prose and Verse. The elementary relations of prose, poetry, and verse may be simply arranged thus : SUBSTANCE. FORM. (1) Prose Prose (2) Prose Verse (3) Poetry Prose (4) Poetry Verse Examples of these four relations can easily be recalled by the student of literature. The only one that may be considered, in most cases, to be abnormal, is the second. It is chiefly because the novel carries so great a weight of prose substance that prose form seems to be its natural medium. In more detail, these are among the character- istics of the novel which point to the necessity or pro- priety of prose structure: (i) its great length; (2) the variety and frequency of its structural transitions, as from dialogic to non-dialogic form ; (3) its desire to use docu- ment or speech actually historical, or seemingly so, in form as well as in substance ; (4) its historical and aesthetic as- sociation with other types of prose ; in this connection it might be said that just because the novel is so closely allied with the epic, a different external medium is desirable, to give it greater individuality ; (5) its modern quality, and its appeal to an audience for which prose is in general more attractive than verse. Most of the stylistic qualities 1 The English Novel, p. 10. COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 221 of the novel given in Chapter VIII have at least a decided tincture of prosaic value. Compare the prose short story with such realistic verse as the tales of Crabbe, and many of the dramatic monologues of Browning. The " novel in verse " has never shown a very rich development, but it has a field of its own, and is valuable for purposes of comparison. Many of the long narrative poems of Browning are very closely akin to the real- istic novel in spirit, and to a large extent in method. Study also the novelistic elements in Lalla Rookh, Aurora Leigh, The Princess, Amours de Voyage, and The Angel in the House. Pushkin's Eugene Onegin is a famous example of this type in Russian fiction. For a brief discussion of prosimetrical structure, see Section 12. 179. The Short Story. The novelist has often served an apprenticeship as a short story writer, or has carried on the two branches of the art together. If he confines himself to the longer form, his work may yet show the influence of the masters in the sister type. In very many early novels and romances, short stories are included, inde- pendent in artistic value, and sometimes independent in origin. Except in this manner, the great English novel- ists of the mid-eighteenth century Richardson, Fielding, Smollett produced very little in the field of the short story. In some respects the relation of the short story to the novel is similar to that of the ballad to the epic, and an interesting study might be made by tracing out the analogy in detail. Kindred analogies between a lesser and a greater type might perhaps be discovered in architecture, painting, and music. Among the single clues to the nature of the short story, as compared with the novel, criticism suggests its artifi- ciality its greater isolation in relation to the total experi- 222 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL ence of life ; and its more pronounced unity. The unity may be found not only in the subject and structure of the fiction itself, but in the process of composition, the shap- ing forces, and particularly in the impression upon the reader. Because it is less like life than the novel, the short story may approach more nearly the perfection of art, and may be judged somewhat more severely. The de- velopment of the prose poem, and of all very short, highly finished fictions, has created a standard of excellence in detail quite alien to the history of the novel. Sharp, sus- tained antithesis, extreme repression, and dominant sym- bolism, are among the methods better adapted to the briefer form. A review of the qualities of style given in Chapter VIII will show that several of them are not char- acteristic of the short story, and that one or two of them are even opposed to its normal tendency. Study the technic and spirit of Adam Bede, with reference to the Scenes of Clerical Life. Compare the same types of incident, charac- ter, and settings, as they appear in the two forms of fiction. Write in outline or in full text, short stories based on well-marked episodes of a novel, such as the Lantern Yard history, the coming of Eppie, and the visit of Godfrey and Nancy to the cottage, in Silas Marner. Compare the results, in artistic meaning, with the original passages. Condense an entire novel into a short story, and note the aesthetic gain and loss. Give a critical explanation of the reasons why such genuine short stories as The Gold-bug, The Ambitious Guest, and Ethan Brand, can- not be transformed into novels. 180. The Epic. The better histories of prose fiction give extended discussion of its historical relations to epic poetry. Every individual novel is in one way or another an example of these relations. Up to the nineteenth cen- tury, the novel was very frequently modeled after the epic, as a matter of conscious artistic method. This is notably COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 223 true in respect to the Greek romances, the romances of chivalry, and the heroic romances. Fielding's conception of the novel was based largely upon its correspondence with the epic, though he also noted the contrasts. During the nineteenth century, a conscious critical distinction be- tween the epic and the novel has aided in defining the exact position of the latter. In extreme form, such dis- tinction marks what is almost an antagonism between the two types, if by epic is understood the original, primitive heroic poem. Few writers have produced both great epic poems and great novels, of pure types. The epic poet since the Renaissance has usually been academic and traditional; while the representative novelist has often been exactly the opposite. Scott is probably one of the best examples, in later times, of a high degree of power in both types of literature ; though his narrative poems are not epic in the fullest sense. In technic, many of the differences between the two forms are due to the fact that one uses prose, the other verse. A comparison of dialogue, settings, characteriza- tion, motivation, etc., in a representative epic and a repre- sentative novel, will throw light upon the kind of technical mastery demanded of the novelist. The difference in sub- ject-matter in the themes of love, the supernatural, and the martial, for example leads also to differences in form. Many such epic motifs as the invocation of the muses, the catalogue of forces, the monologue of a martial leader, and the combat with a monster, have no direct anal- ogies in the novel. In many novels, however, these and similar motifs, as well as epic similes and other stylistic de- tails, are imitated, either seriously or in a spirit of burlesque. The theoretical comparison of the two types includes 224 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL such topics as individual and social authorship ; simplicity and complexity in the treatment of social life ; the inter- mingling of the tragic and the comic, of the fictitious and the historical; familiarity and novelty of subject; rela- tive values of plot and characters ; the appeal to cultured and to popular audiences, etc. In some of these matters, the resemblance of the two types is clear; in others, their separate nature and function are more apparent. Compare the burlesque of epic formulas in Don Quixote, The Rape of the Lock, The Battle of the Books, and in Fielding and Smollett. Trace the possible influences from the modern novel upon the Idylls of the King. Distinguish the epic and the novelistic elements in Sordello, The Ring and the Book, and other long narrative poems of Browning. Compare Taras Bulba and Dead Souls, both of which are supposed to be particularly epic in spirit. Compare the treatment of the crusades in The Talisman, and in Jerusalem Delivered. Outline an epic poem based upon Ivanhoe, The Last of the Mohicans, or War and Peace. 181. Biography. The general development of modern biographical writing in not a few particulars resembles that of the modern novel. The attitudes of romanticism and of realism towards the individual life appear in essentially the same manner in the real and in the fictitious biog- raphy. Froude's life of Carlyle shows the nature of nineteenth century realism, interpreting the life of a strong man, as clearly as any novel of the ethical school. Many novelists have been authors of biography or auto- biography, and their methods in these types can be com- pared in some detail with their novelistic methods. Bunyan, Rousseau, Goethe, Newman, Tolstoi, and many other famous men have left some interpretation of their own lives in both the autobiography and the novel. In technic, it is obvious that the biography offers many problems similar to those of the novel ; and one can imagine COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 22$ a novelist learning much from a diligent study of the masters of the other type of literature. In theory, the novel has often been considered as essentially a fictitious biography. The word "life," as applied to the hero, has been common in the titles of novels for a long period. Goethe announced a certain theory of biographical interpretation in his Dichtung und Wahrheit, and Defoe stated much the same idea in the preface of Colonel Jacque : " neither is it of the least moment to inquire whether the Colonel hath told his own story true or not ; if he has made it a History or Parable, it will be equally useful," etc. From the reader's point of view the fictitious hero of a novel may appear more real, more vitally connected with the reader's experience, than 'the hero of a biography, however important in the world of actual history. As to ethical effects, the resolution against prejudice, the enlarge- ment of sympathy, the sense of human isolation or fellow- ship, may be aroused quite as deeply by contact with a character existing only in the imagination as with one that actually sinned and repented. Compare the treatment of famous historical characters in biography and in fiction. In many cases, the popular conception, which is some- times the true one also, has been created largely by the interpretation of the novelist. Assuming that Silas Marner was a real individual, recast the novel into the form of a biography. 182. History. At the present time, there is an effort to construct history in the spirit of exact science. So far as this effort succeeds, history passes altogether from the domain of literature proper ; but in the past, and to a large extent in the present, history belongs among the types of artistic narrative. The development of the historical sense, and the trans- fer of emphasis from the ecclesiastical to the secular, are 226 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL among the interesting points in which history may be com- pared with the novel. Many novelists have done good work in the other field ; and Karamzin, recognized as one of the founders of historical writing in Russia, adapted to history the general method of interpretation of human experience which he first used in fiction. Much of the preceding analysis of this volume may be applied to any history which is at the same time an artistic narrative. In a comparison with the novel, one may note as items of more than technical significance, the problems of relative emphasis upon events and persons, upon indi- viduals and social groups ; the continuous, pressing demand for selective process; the proportion between exhibition and interpretation ; the possible interpretation of history in terms of biology or theology ; and the methods of attaining illusion. The theory of the novel has often allied it with history. Fielding writes in Tom Jones (IX, i), "as we have good authority for all our characters, no less indeed than the vast authentic doomsday book of nature, . . . our labors have sufficient title to the name of history." This entire chapter is well worth reading, and comparing with simi- lar passages of the same author. It is a curious fact that Defoe's Plague Year is not only often classified with history in the libraries, but has led to a spirited dispute among critics whether it is really to be considered as in any sense a novel. Sidney's famous discussion of his- tory and philosophy, in their relations to poetry, may be applied, with- out essential change, to the criticism of the novel. 183. The Essay. The essay, as commonly understood at present, originated in the awakened intellect of the Renaissance, and has stood for the wide variety of inter- ests of the modern secular mind. In this respect, and in its lack of definite form, it resembles the novel. Many individual essays could be better compared with the short COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 227 story, in that they give an isolated, intensive view of an episodic subject. One can easily recall eminent novelists who have been successful in the essay ; but probably the typical essayist is too abstract in thought to cultivate so concrete a form of literature as the novel. The essay, as essay, does not aim at any illusion for its principal effect, though it may employ illusion as a means. It may, like the short story, be primarily the expression of a mood, or an endeavor to create a definite emotional or moral attitude in the reader. The border line between the essay and the novel is crossed, so far as form is concerned, by essays written in dialogic, epistolary, or narrative form, and by novels in which the ex- pository comment really dominates the composition. The essay value of the author's comment, in brief passages or in complete chapters of a novel, is often quite apparent. 184. The Lyric. The kinship of romance and of cer- tain types of short story to the lyric has been mentioned several times in the preceding pages. Pastoral romance, as represented by Sannazaro's Arcadia, is not only largely composed of verse, but is to a great extent an expression of the lyrical episodes of the author's experience. In important respects, the lyric is almost the exact antithesis of the novel proper. In England, the modern novel arose in a period when lyric poetry was at a very low ebb ; and the lyrical schools of the romantic movement, and of pre- Raphaelitism produced little that is significant in prose fiction. It is not difficult to mention individual great novelists who have written great lyric poetry ; but this con- dition may be considered somewhat exceptional, and in most cases it is easy to make clear distinction between the lyrical and the novelistic talent of an author, either in period of production or in artistic quality. 228 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Hugo and Pushkin may be counted among the great lyrists, but their prose fiction, in the main, does not belong with the novel proper. Thackeray, George Eliot, George Meredith, and Thomas Hardy are all lyric poets of some accomplishment, but can hardly be recognized as among the great masters. Blake, Burns, Keats, Shelley, Heine, Ros- setti the pure lyrists wrote nothing of great value in prose fiction. A lyric may incidentally have many of the elements of novelistic form, dialogue, realistic settings, sharply de- fined incident, etc., but these elements do not belong to the real nature of a lyric. It may use dialect, but usu- ally becomes less lyrical thereby. The dramatic lyric, such as Browning loved to write, has much in common with the prose character study, but it is just so far removed from the nature of pure song. A lyric cannot be fairly judged by the same ethical standards as the novel. Scepticism, morbidity, misan- thropy, have very different values, recorded in a lyric of transitory mood, and embodied in a novel which summa- rizes the habitual attitude of the author. Again, a song without any considerable ethical content might be worthy of our admiration, whereas a long novel without deep moral meaning might be severely condemned. In the study of an individual novel, one may note the traces of lyrical attitude in the original impulse, and in the process of composition ; the passages of lyrical quality in the final text ; and the lyrical effects upon the reader. The incorporation of actual lyrics in a prose fiction has been briefly noticed in Section 12. In Silas Marner, select "lyrical germs" or motifs which could be developed into a dirge, a pastoral song, a wedding hymn, a love sonnet, etc. Study a few lyrics in which the narrative element is sufficient to suggest a short story. Compare realistic lyrics, such as Rossetti's Jenny, Tennyson's In the Children's Hospital, and Browning's La COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 229 Saisiaz, with realistic prose fiction, in the details of substance and form. See the glossary, under " lyrical." 185. Journalism. The historical associations of jour- nalism with the novel are quite intimate, and have con- tinued for two centuries. From the Sir Roger de Coverley papers until the present time, the practise of publishing prose fictions in periodicals has been common. Not only The Spectator, but The Idler, The Rambler, and Gold- smith's semi-journalistic Citizen of the World, all contain much that is novelistic in subject; and make use of such novelistic forms as the imaginary character, the "feigned letter," dialogue, allegorical story, etc. The book-reviewer was early recognized as an important power in modifying the popularity of fiction in general, and of individual works. Much of the best criticism of fiction, as well as most of the worst, has appeared in periodicals. A considerable number of novelists have been journalists, and have carried the spirit and method of journalism into the field of their art. In spirit, journalism resembles the realistic novel in its modernness, its social quality, its democracy, and its secularity. A critic who vigorously attacked or defended the one form of literature would logically take much the same attitude toward the other. Both have been severely criticized by the academic, classical mind, on aesthetic grounds ; and by the puritanic mind, on ethical grounds. Thoreau's advice to 'read not the times but the eternities,' would forbid one to loiter with the vast majority of popular novels. These words of his, with reference to the newspaper, are even more directly anti-novelistic : "If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications ? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old 230 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL women over their tea." 1 Compare Carlyle's interpretation of journal- ism as serving one function of the church in modern society : " A preach- ing friar settles himself in every village, and builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper," '* etc. 186. Other Types of Literature. Among other literary types with which a novel may be compared, with some special fitness, are the "character," the letter, and the sermon. The treatment of individual life in the character is too typical, too isolated, to resemble closely that of the novel ; but character-writing made its contribution to the historical development of the novel, and might still serve as a kind of preliminary exercise for the novelist. A series of char- acters, such as those of Earle's Microcosmography, may make considerable approach to the novel, by way of stud- ied contrasts, sketches of social groups, and description of place settings. The historical relation of letter-writing to the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century is clear ; and there are many similar technical points in the two forms. In a series of real letters, one may note, in much the same manner as in history or biography, the proportion of em- phasis upon incident and character, upon the individual and his social environment, upon exhibition and inter- pretation, etc. Outline the transformation of a dialogic and narrative novel into epistolary structure. Compare the amount of novelistic material in some of the famous series of real letters, such as the correspondence of Goethe and Schiller, of Carlyle and Emerson, of Mrs. Montagu, Horace Walpole, or Chesterfield. The purpose novel sometimes approaches very near to the nature of a sermon. It is often said that journalism 1 Walden ; What I lived for. a Sartor Resartus ; Organic Filaments. COMPARATIVE RHETORIC 231 and fiction have become substitutes for the sermon in modern society. Compare the statement of Carlyle in the preceding section. The number of recent novels with titles based on a biblical text may be worthy of notice. A sermonistic quality might be expected in the novels of Sterne, Kingsley, and Newman. For one thing, a thinker accustomed to ad- dress a living audience might be presumed to have an unusually clear consciousness of his reading public, when he turns to literature as a means of communication. CHAPTER XIII COMPARATIVE AESTHETICS 187. Relation of the Separate Arts. When art in gen- eral is examined in comparison with science, or life, or nature, the differences between the separate arts may appear of little moment. On the other hand, when any single art is studied intensively for a long period, its indi- vidual peculiarities may at times appear more important than its family resemblance to the other arts. The arts differ more in body, in form, than in spirit. It is clear that they have very diverse modes of appeal to the senses ; but the intellectual and moral messages they bring often have a remarkable unity. The technical student of any art is likely to emphasize its peculiarities of material and process of execution, with too little attention to its more general artistic values. On the contrary, some critics, whose interest is mainly historical or ethical, may almost lose sight of those physical characteristics which distinguish each art from its fellows. Among the arts there are small sub-groups with special bonds of technical, theoretical, or historical union. Note, for example, the inti- mate relations of music and the drama, of architecture and sculpture. In some respects, the novel and the drama may be viewed as composing such a group. As a subject for poetic treatment, the relation of the arts is a com- mon theme in Browning. Among other references one may recall the ideas of Jules, in Pippa Passes, and of Aprile, in Paracelsus ; and the career of Sordello, and of Cleon. The same conception at work in 232 COMPARATIVE /ESTHETICS 233 the practise and theory of a real artist, is familiar in Browning's famous contemporary, Wagner. 1 88. Classification of the Arts. The following simple examples are given merely by way of illustration. More elaborate classifications can readily be found in text-books of aesthetics. I. i. Presentative arts: architecture; music; land- scape gardening. 2. Representative arts : painting ; sculpture ; drama ; poetry. II. 1 i. Plastic arts: architecture; sculpture; painting. 2. Tonic arts : music ; song ; poetry. 3. Mimical arts : dance; meloplastik ; drama. III. 2 i. Arts of sound : poetry ; music ; dancing. 2. Arts of sight: sculpture; painting; architecture. Such classifications give one a general view of the aesthetic relations of the novel ; which is, of course, included under poetry. 189. Method of Study. The analysis of the novel in the preceding pages, in its larger outlines, may be applied to any work of art. The topics of such analysis may be summarized thus : external material ; external structure ; internal structure ; subject-matter ; style ; the process of composition ; the shaping forces ; the effects produced. The novel could be compared, in all these points, 'seriatim, with each of the other kinds of art. If one wishes to lay the emphasis more strongly upon the types of art, as sepa- rate wholes of interest, it may be best to follow other 1 Zeising : ^sthetische Forschungen. 2 Veron : Esthetics. The somewhat curious classification of dancing is explained on p. 29. 234 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL methods of study. One form of simpler comparison might note, in a general way, the historical, technical, and theo- retical relations. In the present volume, the individual novel is supposed to be the central subject of inquiry, and abstract theory to be subordinate to acquaintance with an actual concrete work. The study could be made most specific by comparison of an individual novel with an individual work in each of the other arts. 190. The Drama. The drama is essentially a composite art, based on the cooperation of play-writing, dramaturgy, and histrionics. Its text, considered purely as poetry, may be compared with the novel in the same general manner as was suggested for the epic in the preceding chapter. Any analysis of the relations of the drama proper and the novel may be modified for the various forms of music drama. The recent devel- opment of a new form of " melodrama," offers some very interesting points to the student of any type of plot-literature. The historical relations of the drama and the novel have been intimate throughout Europe. In many respects the two arts have aided one another, and have satisfied much the same emotional cravings, in both the artist and his public. The sources of a dramatic text have very com- monly been found in other forms of literature ; and since the Renaissance, the novel has been one of the favorite forms. To some extent, however, as is the case with the novel and the epic, the novel and the drama may be con- sidered as rivals. Among the famous novelists who have done notable work in the drama, are Goethe, Manzoni, Hugo, and Tolstoi. Fielding is a particu- larly interesting example. Considered by some critics as the very greatest of English novelists, he is also one of the chief figures in the English dramatic history of his century. The list of well-known novels which have been dramatized would COMPARATIVE AESTHETICS 235 be very extensive. Scott and Dickens have had abundant representa- tion upon the stage, and Rousseau, Balzac, Dostoyevsky, and Zola have been honored in like manner, if not in like degree. Seiiora Pardo Bazan gives the great vogue of the drama in Spain as an important cause of the retardation of the novel in that country. Professor Raleigh mentions more than one historical situation, in Eng- land, in which the one art has thrived at the expense of the other. The criticism of the novel, in general and in many details, has been based upon the previously developed criticism of the drama. Many technical terms and analy- ses familiar in the criticism of fiction have been borrowed from the other field. A glance at the list of types in the appendix will indicate the great extent to which the classi- fication of fiction illustrates this fact. Hostility to the novel on aesthetic grounds has not always implied hostility to the drama, but in general ethical attacks upon art, the two forms have frequently been condemned for substan- tially the same reasons. The technical differences between the novel and the drama have often been reviewed in recent criticism. In exactness of structure and finish of detail, the drama has obvious advantages. It is marked by immediacy in its costumes, scenery, and stage properties ; its spoken lan- guage, its living human bodies. The actor shares with the orator the privilege and the responsibility of using his own body as in a strict sense his primary artistic material. The effects, at least upon the unimaginative mind, are for these reasons likely to be very sharply defined ; but there may be danger of emphasizing the material at the expense of the moral. Again, every stage presentation of a dramatic text gives it a new interpretation, and produces almost an independ- ent work of art. This interpretation introduces a group 236 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL of artists between the writer and the audience, whereas the novelist comes into one's presence unaided and unhindered. There is one Shylock in Shakespeare's poem, another for the individual reader of the play, and another for the playgoer who sees Sir Henry Irving's " creation " of the character. The novel is much more free than the drama in the treatment of vague settings, physiognomy, gesture, and speech ; in flexible transitions in time, place, incident, and rate of movement ; in the introduction of animal and child life, and the supernatural; in thematic discussion, and direct interpretation of the author. The " dramatic " element may be found in painting, music, and sculpture, though drama is the art in which it is most adequately presented. An idea of the dramatic is gained by combining such ideas as intensity, activity, causal series, struggle, and physical presence. It is inter- esting to select and study the chief dramatic qualities of a great novel, and to note to what degree and in what man- ner it is a potential drama. The scenes d faire (see the glossary) of a novel are not necessarily those of a drama following the same general plan. Among the most dramatic situations of Silas Marner, are the draw- ing of the lots, the quarrel of the brothers, Eppie at the New Year's party, and the visit of Nancy and Godfrey to Silas. Analyze the dra- matic quality of these and other scenes according to the suggestions just given. Among situations which a dramatist might very possibly have inserted are meetings between Molly (living) and Godfrey, and Molly and Nancy. An attempt to dramatize this novel brings into prominence such dif- ficulties as these : the child life of Eppie ; the considerable amount of author's comment ; the reveries of characters, hardly capable of being expressed in dramatic language ; the animal life ; the long intervals and other irregularities in time perspective. COMPARATIVE /ESTHETICS 237 191. Painting. In painting, the value of pure form may be the chief interest for many artists and many critics ; but to the mind of the average man, the subject-matter, the power of painting to express substantial ideas, emotions, and incidents, are at least of equal importance. If a paint- ing is considered for its purely formal value, the compari- son with the short story is closer than that with the novel. The external material of painting is less significant than that of any other art. Schasler gives this suggestive, though perhaps somewhat theoretical, parallelism between painting and poetry 1 : PAINTING POETRY Subjective : landscape ; lyric. Objective : genre ; epic. Subjective-objective : historical ; dramatic. This tabulation suggests the old questions of the legitimacy of literary painting, and of pictorial literature ; and touches that general compari- son of plastic art and literature considered in Lessing's Laokoon. Both painting and the novel may represent individuals and groups, animals, inanimate objects, landscapes, inte- riors, historical or fictitious incidents, etc. Painting must describe all these subjects through the medium of concrete and condensed visible imagery, without outside comment. This fact may lead to an emphasis on the typical, and a tendency toward the symbolical. The two arts differ in subject-matter in this respect : the novel is always centered in humanity, whereas a painting may be devoted to nature, either animate or inanimate. Details such as tapestry, architectural ruins, animal groups, etc., which must be entirely episodic in the novel, may be the subject of whole compositions in the other art. Many phases of social life 1 System der Kunste. 238 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL martial, domestic, ecclesiastical are treated in such kindred manner in the two arts as to invite a comparative study. Any romance of chivalry, pastoral romance, or novel of domestic life may be compared with individual paintings concerned with the same subjects. The battle- field, to cite one specific theme, has been represented in art principally by fiction and by painting. Even the single painting, but in a clearer manner, a series of paintings, such as Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode, may introduce a decided narra- tive element, and approximate the interest of plot proper. Painting has frequently taken its subjects from fictitious literature, and interesting studies may be made by comparison of literary narratives with series of paintings illustrating them. For example, compare Abbey's Holy Grail pictures in the Boston Public Library with Tennyson's epic. In theory, the novel and painting both introduce the question of artistic illusion, its purpose and the methods of attaining it ; the question of form versus expression of subject ; and the relation of art to morals. (See the quo- tation from Henry James in the notes on novelistic criti- cism, in the appendix.) While classicism and romanticism may both be examined comparatively in the two arts, it is in connection with realism and impressionism that recent criticism has made the most fruitful comparisons. While no novel could be adequately represented by a single painting, every novel contains many details which could be given with equal force, often with more adequacy, through the other art. In Silas Marner, outline a single painting which would be the best possible pictorial representation of the entire composition. Suggest any probable changes of emphasis upon persons, incidents, landscapes, interiors, etc., if the novelist had also been a painter. Among small details which have a certain purely pictorial quality, notice the tankards and the smoky atmosphere at the Rainbow ; the gleam of the fire upon Eppie's hair ; the mist in which Dunstan ap- COMPARATIVE AESTHETICS 239 preached the cottage ; the texture of the disturbed sand on the floor of the cottage, and of a piece of linen in the process of weaving ; the dresses at the New Year's party. In the elements of light and color, a novel may be compared with painting, not only in details, but in gen- eral effects upon the reader. Fragmentary pictorial values in Silas Marner are the autumnal colors of the foliage ; the bright turf contrasted with dark cones ; the shadows lengthening under the hedgerows ; the ash-fretted screen ; the dark-blue cotton gown of Eppie, setting off her white throat, etc. The general color scheme of this novel may be said, perhaps not too fancifully, to be somewhat sombre, in keeping with the dominant emotional tone. As portraits of types of character, consider the subjects of the pedlar ; the country doctor ; the Squire; the horse-trader; the miser; the sis- ters ; the childless, etc. For scenes of a larger scope, consider the puss and the pup; the Rainbow group; theological discussion of peasants ; Christmas in the village church ; the peasants' wedding ; Molly's death ; Eppie by the pond ; learning to smoke. The author herself suggests one scene for a painter. It is interesting to remember that the novel originated in what might be called a pictorial memory. 192. Sculpture. Historically viewed, sculpture differs from the novel in that it was a highly developed art dur- ing the classical period. Its best examples have perhaps always been "classical" in a broad sense; and what is classical is to some extent anti-novelistic. It is with the epic rather than with the novel that one might best asso- ciate sculpture, in an aesthetic comparison. The intimate historical associations of sculpture with architecture have no exact analogies in the relations of the novel to any other art. In this art, the external material is often of great beauty and rarity, considered in itself. It is often little known in the ordinary practical uses of life ; in this respect offering a striking contrast to language. The externality of form in sculpture is very pronounced, and is the element which is often the most impressive to the average spectator. 240 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Certain languages may be called sculpturesque, in a figu- rative sense, but these languages (Latin clearly being one) are not the ones most responsive to the art of the novelist. Sculpture may characterize the individual and the group, may represent a simple incident, and, in a series of compositions, may approach very closely to a plot-interest. It is clearly anti-novelistic in reference to the qualities of complexity and comprehensiveness ; and it cannot rival the flexibility of the novel in the delicate shadings of emo- tion, incident, or description of place. Even more than painting, though for similar reasons, sculpture shows a tendency toward the typical and the symbolical. The choiceness of the materials used in sculpture, com- bined with the necessity for a masterly physical process of execution, may suggest that a subject ought logically to be dignified and of large permanent significance to deserve the epithet " sculpturesque." In addition to these qualities, the sculpturesque implies calmness, objectivity, perfection of form, simplicity of outline, and a high de- gree of intellectual interest. The rigid repression of non- essentials is necessary. Sculpture may be said to reproduce life sub specie ceternitatis the eternity of material form at least ; whereas the novel lives to a large extent by vir- tue of its treatment of the' concrete and transitory. Some short stories may be called sculpturesque in their entirety ; in a novel, this quality must be episodic, though it need not be accidental. In Silas Marner, there are several passages which have a consider- able sculpturesque quality, according to the analysis just given. Note, for example, the comparative simplicity, self-repression, and intellectual calm of Chapter XIX. As subjects for actual treatment in sculpture one might suggest : Wildfire dying ; the old violinist ; Godfrey and COMPARATIVE /ESTHETICS 24! his spaniel ; the doctor looking at dead Molly ; and " Memory " (Nancy in reverie). Godfrey, because of his fine form, might be especially attractive to the portrait-sculptor. 193. Music. As in the novel, from the present-day point of view, the greatest development in this art has been mainly since the Renaissance, and even to a large degree since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Unlike the novel, the progress of music has been associ- ated with increasing perfection of mechanical agencies of expression. Another point in common with the novel is the democracy of music, its wide-spread popularity, which results in a certain tendency to lower its standards among the masses. In the general history of art, the romantic movement has special relations to music ; while realism, so prominent in painting, has comparatively scant embodiment in pure music. The works of Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Bee- thoven may be compared in many important respects with the fictions of Manzoni, Hugo, and Pushkin. The relations of morality to art, the contrast between the eccle- siastical and the secular service of art, are other topics which have much in common in the histories of music and of the novel. The external material of music is not only closely re- lated to that of the novel, but is in part actually identical with it. This fact opens up a very inviting field of techni- cal criticism. The sciences which most directly concern this material in the two arts, are both branches of acous- tics; but the science of music may or must approach more closely to an exact mathematical basis than philology. Music resembles the novel in that it is composed of details arranged in a temporal series. This fact makes possible a comparison of many such points as preparation, 242 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL reminiscence, mass, episode, cadence, introduction, conclu- sion, etc., in the two arts. In orchestral or chorus music, the interweaving of separable elements resembles the corresponding composition of plot. The analysis of a sonata or a symphony might be helpful to the stu- dent of formal structure in the novel. The "line of emotion" for a novel, as given in Section 35, could often be very closely followed in musical interpretation. In general, the entire structure of a great musical composition will bear more rigid analytical investigation than that of a novel. Instrumental music cannot narrate, but it has the power to furnish a significant accompaniment to a literary narration, or to suggest itself a series of the prin- cipal incidents already familiar in a literary composition. Though the term "descriptive" is found in musical criticism, it has not the same application as in fiction. The general mental and emotional elements of a situation can be suggested by music, but it cannot reproduce the exact details of place or time settings. Music can give the general atmosphere of the seasons, of morning and of evening, but it could not represent with any accuracy the historical period of Ivanhoe, or the particular evening of Molly Cass' death. Compare the aesthetic interpretation of Delirium, Sadness of Soul, Consolation, in Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, with the inter- pretation of similar themes in a novel. The terms " dramatic " and " lyrical " are also found in musical criticism. In its way, music can characterize indi- viduals, the seven ages of man, or the life of social groups. Compare the presentation of the Scandinavian peasant in the music of Grieg with the corresponding literary descriptions of Bjornson, Lie, and Kieliand. The national characteristics of the Pole appear in the music of Chopin as well as in the conscious literary analysis of Sienkiewicz. COMPARATIVE /ESTHETICS 243 It is with the lyrical element of fiction that music in general has the most obvious kinship ; and this fact once more places the short story and the romance in a separate category from the novel. Music stands unrivalled in its power to suggest the vague, the supernatural, etc., and to produce all the effects of sudden and delicate emotional transition. As in the drama, so in a musical performance by others than the composer, there is an artist intervening between the original artist and the audience; and the physical process of execution is visibly and immediately before the audience. A question of special interest, which may be taken as representative of a large class of questions concerning the musical type of style, is the capacity of musical art to express the comic. In Silas Marner, suggest the themes and the general tone of child songs for Eppie, and of instrumental accompaniment for Aaron. The general style of the music in the Lantern Yard church service is quite clearly indicated in the text. Among the musical themes toward which certain episodes of the novel point, are, the spirit of the spring and of the autumn ; moods of memory, longing, and love ; the marriage of peasants ; labor at the loom ; the solitary Christmas ; an old-fashioned country New Year's dance; an evening at the village inn; and the death of the opium eater. 194. Architecture. The historical relations of classical, Gothic, Renaissance, and revived Gothic architecture, have definite analogies in the field of fiction. In both arts, the transition from ecclesiastical to secular influences, the shifting of emphasis from a common church to individual nationalities, has much the same general outline. Doubt- less national schools have been much more determinate in the more material art. One could hardly imagine Ruskin 244 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL making a plea for an English school of fiction, with such a detailed program as he suggested for a school of archi- tecture. It was in those countries which had a rich Gothic architecture that the romantic movement was most naturally developed. (Compare Garnett's statement, given in Sec- tion 153.) The Gothic elements in architecture and in fiction were in one manner or another connected in the minds of Horace Walpole, Goethe, Scott, Mrs. Radcliffe, and Hugo. In external materials, architecture varies more than any other art. In part, it uses rare and precious materials, associated mainly with artistic service ; in part, materials as common and as intimately associated with practical daily life as language. In materials and in structure, architec- ture is the most objective of the arts. The average mind is at once impressed by the mere physical presence length, height, mass of a great building; and these characteristics are also of essential artistic meaning. The labor of construction, and the comparative permanence of works of architecture, are facts which make the lamp of memory shine more clearly in its domain than in that of fiction. The processes of material decay, addition, and restoration have no analogies in the novel. The relation of part to whole is very different in a build- ing and in a novel. In the former, there are many details which have less artistic meaning, separately considered, than the single words in a work of fiction. Yet it is in unity of structure that the two arts may be most readily compared. The best plots in the novel have a marked architectural quality. When the mind grasps the general design of a cathedral, the effect ceases to be sensuous and becomes one of the best examples of calm, free, intellect- ual mastery over the senses to be found in any form of art. COMPARATIVE ESTHETICS 245 In all that concerns the warmth of concrete individual experience, the trivial affairs of the common heart, archi- tecture can offer no successful rivalry to the novel. It cannot readily be associated with the emotional history of an individual artist, as every novel can be. So far as architecture serves practical purposes as a shelter from the elements, and a center for community interests, it is con- nected with social life, however, in a more real manner than the novel is. In any novel of ethical quality, Ruskin's interpretation of the lights and shadows of architecture can be applied. In an imaginative view, the note of aspiration in Silas Marner is Gothic, the sceptical element belongs to the Renaissance. This novel is hardly simple enough in general structure to be classical ; not sensuous enough to be Oriental. There is of course pronounced contrast between the lights and shadows of human experience. The constant presence of the -author's personal- ity is an important non-architectural quality. There is too much of her feminine and personal view, too little of the social, the national, or racial, for the spirit of architecture. 195. Landscape Gardening. The Catholic spirit of the middle ages was inclined to consider nature as under the curse of human sin, and given over to the devil. The art of landscape gardening, in modern Europe, is one of the innumerable results of the Renaissance spirit. At first it seems to have been decidedly aristocratic in tendency, as appears in the essay of Bacon on Gardens, and in similar essays by later writers. In the verse of the Restoration period, the parks of London are associated largely with the sovereign rather than with the citizens. Later, the progress of democracy may be followed in this art in a line causally related to the corresponding line in the history of fiction. The schools of pseudo-classic, romantic, and realistic taste are all represented in landscape gardening. 246 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Addison, for example, shows in this respect, as in many others, an interesting combination of pseudo-classicism with a foreshadowing of Gothic taste. The external materials of this art are natural in a more complete sense than is true of any other art. Landscape gardening, from one point of view, might be called the most real of all the arts ; and in connection with real- ism, the idealization of nature, and especially with natural- ism, a comparison with the novel offers some quite tangible points. In subject-matter, it would be very difficult to give any specific theme for a work of landscape gardening, which could be in any definite way compared with themes in the other arts. There are some analogies, interesting to the fancy at least, in the relations of miniature compositions to life-size in this art and in prose fiction. The small, perfectly kept city square might be compared in a number of respects with the short story ; while such great master- pieces of the art as Lincoln Park, Central Park, and Hyde Park, or still more clearly the entire unified system of parks in a great modern city, might be quite closely compared with the full-length novel, in some very important if very broad qualities of style. CHAPTER XIV GENERAL ESTHETIC INTEREST 196. Esthetic Analysis and Esthetic Theory. If, with- out any a priori theory of what art is or should be, an in- ductive, comparative study is made of works of art, certain common elements are discovered in all of them. It may be that no one of these elements, or even the combination of them, will entirely distinguish an artistic work from a non- artistic ; but a careful study of them may keep the student from wandering too far from facts in his later theorizing. In the present volume, the intention has been to follow, in the main, the method of such an inductive study. A summary of some of the principal points of analysis has been given in Section 189. In this chap- ter, the movement is, in a general way, from such analysis toward a more free, and perhaps a more suggestive, glance at aesthetic theory. 197. Nature and Humanity in a Work of Art. Art may be briefly and broadly characterized as the modification of nature by man. Nature appears in every work of art, first, in a direct manner, in the sensuous material which the artist uses as a medium ; second, in a more remote manner, in the mental substance and form for the artist takes his ideas largely from nature, and arranges them in forms, particularly those of space and time, which are in a real sense given to man by nature. The humanity of a work of art appears always in the personality of the artist and the personality of the recipient ; often, and in the novel always, in the subject-matter. 247 248 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 198. Language as External Material. Considering language as an artistic medium, one may study its an- tiquity, beauty, rarity, flexibility, etc., in itself, or in compari- son with the other mediums of art. It has already been noticed that language is in such constant use in practical life that the average mind finds it somewhat difficult to acquire a keen sense of its qualities as an artistic material. This fact might be considered as an advantage or a disad- vantage for the novelist. To the realistic novelist, it has a certain clear advantage. No sensuous material can ever be perfectly satisfactory as a medium through which to express all the nature of an artistic soul. This fact recalls the various technical and moral attitudes of the artist toward his material. He may be vexed at its limitations, and attempt in a rebellious spirit to transcend them ; or he may take delight in calm obedience to the will of nature, as it appears in marble, paint, or language. He may fail to acquire complete un- derstanding of his medium ; or he may become so absorbed in it as almost to forget that ideas and ideals may be expressed by means of its service. Some degree of special interest in language would naturally prove helpful in the study of a novel. One with a limited color sense would hardly make the most successful student of painting ; one indifferent to variations of tone would not undertake serious criticism of music as an art. It is mainly the facts and theories immediately related to the external mediums of art which give rise to physiological aesthetics. 1 The physio- logical view of art seems to require less emphasis in literature than in the non-literary arts, because language itself is only in part to be con- sidered as a sensuous medium. 1 For special attention to this phase of aesthetic interest see, for example, Grant Allen's Physiological Esthetics, N.Y., 1877; and Veron. GENERAL AESTHETIC INTEREST The arts may be ranked according to the materiality of the mediums they employ. On this basis, Hegel arranged the scale of the fine arts thus : architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry. 1 In one important respect, there- fore, this philosopher gives a very high place to the novel (if considered as poetry) ; though the judgment might not have much weight with an anti-Hegelian. 199. The Value of Form. Form is an elemental fact in nature, and in large part artistic form is a more or less direct imitation of natural form. In a more inevitable manner, form is an essential element in all art, as defined in Section 197 ; the main human modification of nature being in the form and not in the composition of the material. The student cannot escape the presence of form, how- ever much he is inclined to under-estimate it ; nor can he escape the fact that it is mainly in this form external and internal that the humanity and the significant indi- viduality of a work of art inhere. His theory may make form less important than matter, but his analysis must invariably turn and return to the development of raw mate- rial into expressive shape. (Compare the first conception of style, in Section 121.) In the novel, form is of emphatic value, because even the external material has almost no artistic meaning con- sidered purely as a natural product, and reveals the shap- ing mind of the artist in all its continuous and intricate details. 200. Individuality of a Work of Art. The simple fact that a work of art is given a material embodiment is suffi- 1 See Weber's History of Philosophy, English translation, p. 524 ff. 2$0 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL cient to give it a physical individuality for no two por- tions of matter can occupy the same place at the same time. Such individuality, however, belongs to works of nature as well as to works of art, and guarantees nothing more than such numerical identity as is found in every grain of sand. In works of art made by machinery, also, two pieces may be alike so far as the eye can detect ; and of exactly equal artistic value, so far as the imagination can discover. It is human mind or human hands which give noblest form to a composition, and it is practically impossible for the mind to think twice in exactly the same manner ; or for the hands to repeat their execution exactly, in a true expression of mind. The last fact does not prove that every novel has a note- worthy value of beauty or moral stimulus ; but it does indicate that every novel is an unmistakably individual work from the strictly historical, social, and psychological points of view. There are no real duplicates in the history of fiction ; for there are no two novels with the same arrangement of words. 201. Unity General Design. Unity may be viewed as a characteristic of external nature, or as an ideal of the human mind. In either case it extends beyond the boun- daries of art ; but in art there is an unusual opportunity to conceive and attain a satisfactory form of unity. Even without definite purpose of the artist, and apart from all theory as to what art should be, a significant degree of unity is found in every work of art, through a necessity of the artistic process. In some works, a more satisfying unity may be found in certain details than in the composition as a whole. In the novel, examine the unity of sentences, paragraphs, and chapters ; of single incidents and single characters. GENERAL ESTHETIC INTEREST 251 Examples of well-unified chapters were given in Chapter I. In Silas Marner, unity of character is perhaps best represented in some of the minor dramatis personae Mrs. Winthrop and Macey, for example. The marriage of Eppie is one of the most thoroughly unified events of the novel. Make a study comparing these and similar details with the details of a musical composition, a painting, and a cathedral. It is in the general design that the most severe test of unity is found. In the novel this design is a larger value than plot, in the narrow sense of unified action. Whether it include details outside the illusion or not, is a matter of definition ; but it is clear that in an important sense, every word in the novel belongs to a single composition. (Compare Sections 4 and 29.) A high standard of unity demands that all the author's comment, dramatic or non- dramatic, brief or extended, should have clear and vital relation intellectual, imaginative, or emotional to the general design of the work. Unity may be examined with reference to the author, the work itself, or the effect upon the reader. The short story is often very well-unified in the last particular. (See the glossary, under '''impression.") In the work itself, the central unity may be found in incident, character (compare Smollett's definition of a novel, in the notes on novelistic criticism), or character group, setting, theme, or style ; or it may be impossible to locate it in any one element. The novel proper is more likely to emphasize character, in this function ; the romance often centralizes in incident ; the short story is very variable. Again, unity may be viewed as physical, intellectual, or moral. Physical unity is only indirectly represented in the novel ; and can be best examined in the spatial arts. In- tellectual unity belongs most clearly to a true philosophical interpretation, either in the author or the reader. Moral 252 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL unity, found in a free and fearless soul, that remembers the maxim, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," would be considered almost the supreme excellence of a novel by some ethical critics. Unity may be called simple or complex, in reference to the amount and variety of material unified ; and in art each of these types of unity has its peculiar interest. A very simple unity is studied to better advantage in the plastic arts or in the short story than in the novel. The unity of a novel, when attained, is comparable with that of a large scientific, historical, or philosophical generali- zation. In connection with the last point, one may note as ten- dencies which endanger a satisfactory form of unity : the failure to exhibit a complexity sufficient to make the unifi- cation of it a real artistic achievement, a victory of imagina- tion or character over the confusion of mere phenomena ; the opposite error of accumulating more material than can be given vital unity ; and the assumption of a superficial unity, that cannot endure careful investigation. 202. Contrast. As with unity, contrast may be con- sidered as an element in the nature of things, or in the nature of the mind (compare Section 101, Royce); but in art there is special opportunity to express it in significant and attractive forms. Contrast is so easily conceived that the chief danger is often that of over-use of its resources. This opportunity and this danger are probably more obvious in the short story and the romance than in the novel proper ; yet because contrast is so important a fact in life itself, it must have a considerable place in extended realistic fiction. In the novel, contrast may be found within the limits of GENERAL AESTHETIC INTEREST 253 a single element, as in a paradoxical character ; or in the relations of two elements, as in contrast of incident and setting, of theme and character, etc. It may appear in the consecutive structure, in small or large units ; or be em- bodied in more complex manner in the warp and woof of the " internal structure." Contrast in the novel cannot have that direct appeal to the senses which it may have in the spatial arts, and it is likely for that reason to be more intellectual or more moral in immediate quality. Again, the novel must study contrast as it appears in concrete incidents, persons, and places, warm with human associa- tion ; and cannot make that direct appeal to the intellectual interest in abstract contrast, possible in music or archi- tecture. In plot-analysis, two large phases of contrast have already been noted that between the rise and the fall of the action, and that between play and counter-play. In Silas Marner, an example of a broad contrast, which can be carried out into considerable detail, is found in the relations of Lantern Yard and Raveloe. Note the two congregations, the two churches, the two pastors, the two life-episodes in the hero himself, etc. Contrast in the life of Lantern Yard itself is found between the picture in the early part of the novel, and that of the visit in Chapter XXI. The general con- trast between the joyous and the sad in this novel has already been compared with the lights and shadows of architecture. (Section 194.) 203. Proportion. Of this quality, once more, fiction can- not give so direct and sensuous evidence as the spatial arts ; but the general principle of proportion can be traced in a well-constructed novel, with the result of increased aesthetic delight. In music and the spatial arts, repetition, audible and visible, respectively, is a means of bringing out the value of proportion which is much less definitely used in the novel. 254 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL A certain degree of artistic proportion may sometimes be found in the alternation of dialogic and non-dialogic form. (See Section 28.) Often, in the novel, better examples of proportion are found in the relation of small parts to a large part, than in the relation of parts to the whole composition. In a well-constructed episode there is often a satisfactory proportion between the incidents and the event, and between events and episode. In any scene which would be called finely artistic, there is a true dis- tribution of values between the characters, the action and the settings. In the novel as a whole, common sense or moral sense may demand a reasonable proportion between mass and artistic meaning, between exhibition and inter- pretation, and between the tragic and the comic. As an example from Silas Marner, study the value of proportion in the relation of the Lantern Yard and the Raveloe life in number ot incidents and characters, in space given to exhibition and interpreta- tion, in the massing at important turning points, etc. 204. The Comic and the Tragic. An initial idea of these qualities may be gained by a suggestive contrast of their characteristics. The following analysis may not prove very accurate, but it leads the way to an examina- tion of the contrast in concrete examples. It is not to be assumed that any one item is sufficient to distinguish the two qualities, but a combination of several may be a fairly accurate test. THE COMIC THE TRAGIC (1) The social. The individual. (2) The pleasurable. The painful. (3) The normal. The abnormal. (4) The intelligible. The unintelligible. These characteristics may be examined in the experience of life itself, as well as in art. In both life and art, among GENERAL /ESTHETIC INTEREST 255 common conceptions of tragic condition are social ostra- cism (compare the treatment of exile in the epic and the drama), disease, insanity, crime, sin, and death. Pseudo-madness is a favorite motif through which to suggest the tragic without fully entering its domain, as in The Comedy of Errors. Temporary madness may also be introduced with comic effect, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Compare the treatment of madness in Don Quixote and in Sir Launcelot Greaves. Smollett had the power and the tendency to treat insanity both in a spirit of Gothic horror, and in a spirit of Shakespearian burlesque. Compare the treatment of death in the beginning of Sense and Sensibility and in Silas Marner. In the former example, death is scarcely tragic, because it is considered as a normal event, and looked at from a social point of view the view of comparatively happy living persons, who dominate the interest of the author and the reader. The responses of Miss Austen and George Eliot to Queen Gertrude's truism, " Thou know'st 'tis common ; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity," are curiously unlike. Very famous tragic conceptions of death are found in Werther and in Clarissa. Analyze the manner in which Rich- ardson gives to the death of his heroine an unusually tragic effect. Any element of the comic or the tragic may be noted in the physical, mental, or moral world. Each world has its own comic and tragic aspects, and a combination of these aspects, or a contrast between them, offers a rich opportunity to the artist. Moral tragedy is sure to be found in all the greatest novels, in some form or other ; but the treatment of what might be called intellectual tragedy the tragedy of the thinker is a specially favorite motif with many modern writers. The comic or the tragic may be found in either character or inci- dent ; and even the settings incline in the one direction or the other, by way of association. Other analyses may follow the contrast into the human and the superhuman, and into the exhibition and interpretation. 256 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL In connection with plot, a very important phase of the relation of the comic to the tragic is found in movements from one to the other. There are some situations without apparent tendency in either direction in equilibrium ; but most important situations tend decidedly in one direc- tion or the other. The four main movements are, (i) from the comic to the more comic ; (2) from the comic to the tragic 5(3) from the tragic to the more tragic ; and (4) from the tragic to the comic. These four movements are not of equal frequency in plot-formation, or of equal value for artistic effect. They may be traced not only in the plot as a whole, but in single actions, in episodes, single events, etc. The "avoidance" of comic or tragic result when it seems inevitable, produces some striking effects. A point or situation of "final suspense," suggesting possible tragedy or possible comedy, before a catastrophe of opposite char- acter, is found in perhaps the majority of well-formed plots. 205. The Beautiful and the Unbeautiful. The novel cannot rival several of the other arts in the presentation of absolute beauty. If the analysis of novelistic style in Chapter VIII was correct, the novel is not by nature de- voted to the purely beautiful. One must turn to painting, music, sculpture, or lyric poetry for the embodiment of untroubled beauty ; and the short story is better adapted to its expression than is the novel. The unbeautiful in a work of art may be justified or explained in various ways, of which these are among the more important : it may be introduced for the sake of increasing the effect of the beautiful ; or for the sake of truth, conceived as a nobler reality than beauty ; or it may be allowed because it is presented with so much imagina- tion the ideal rather than the beautiful being considered GENERAL /ESTHETIC INTEREST 257 the supreme test of art. (See Moulton's study of Richard Third as the " ideal villain.") Struggle is commonly sup- posed to be an important element of the dramatic, and the great novels are usually characterized by a large dramatic element. Note the bearing on this conception of the fol- lowing statement of a philosopher : " When we regard morality as involving a struggle of the will, it can scarcely impress us as beautiful." l As in the other analyses of this chapter, the beautiful and the un- beautiful may be traced in details, or in the whole work ; in characters, sentiments, or incidents ; in the physical, mental, or moral domain. Akin to the beautiful, if not considered as phases of it, are the sub- lime, the picturesque, the graceful, etc. Related to the conception of the unbeautiful in somewhat the same manner, are caricature and the grotesque. 206. Artistic Truth. Truth may be conceived as fidelity to something outside the mind of the author fidelity to individual facts ; to the typical elements in those facts ; to the goal toward which life seems to be moving, or to the purpose which seems to direct it. Another view of truth in art, more subjective, locates it in the mind of the artist. It may then take the form of faithful record of his im- pressions of the outer world ; or the form of perfect alle- giance to the ideal of his own inner world. In either of these views, artistic truth is substantially equivalent to sincerity. These various conceptions are obviously con- nected in part with some of the familiar " isms " in fiction. The large scope of the novel offers abundant opportunity for violation of truth, as in life itself it is more difficult to speak truth through a long career of various circumstances than through the commonplace events of an average day. In the difficulties due to the large array of miscellaneous 1 Mackenzie : Manual of Ethics ; 3d ed. p. 30. 258 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL data which he reviews, to the effort of attaining verisimili- tude and unity of thought, the novelist is often tempted from the straight and narrow way, when the disciple of a simpler form of art might escape the danger. Truth is sometimes spoken of as either negative or posi- tive. Reticence may give a false impression, and then arises the question, how far is the artist to be blamed for the erroneous result ? It has been previously noticed that the biblical Book of Esther is, so far as the text is con- cerned, absolutely atheistic, in a negative way ; but this fact does not imply that the work contains any positive atheism, or that the author was aware that he might pro- duce a non-religious impression. Perhaps the artist cannot be placed upon the witness-stand to give " The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," so help him God ; though to the great artists, the situation is fully as serious as that of a court of justice. Sidney's Defense attempts to answer the old complaint that poetry is a lie. He declares, " Now for the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth. " This statement may be in some respects no more than sophism ; but in another view, it seems to note clearly an important fact in the nature of artistic fiction. 207. Artistic Illusion. The artist finds, to a certain de- gree, a model for the aesthetic effects of illusion in nature herself. No one who has admired the marvelous mirages of seacoast or lakeshore could fail to see, imaginatively, the resemblance between them and the dream-pictures of human fancy. The student of psychology could make an interesting comparison between the development and effects of artistic illusion, and those of insanity, hallucina- tion, and kindred forms of morbid mental condition. In the reception of art, " conviction" of the imagination is one mat- ter ; of the judgment, another. Probably a few weak minds here and GENERAL /ESTHETIC INTEREST 259 there have been insanely convinced of the reality of fiction. The degrees between such insanity and cold-blooded refusal to enter the illusion an artist has prepared, make an interesting scale, and raise some delicate points in the theory of aesthetic interpretation. In a complete and constant value, illusion is found only in the representative arts ; but it has a minor occasional function in architecture and music. To the layman, its values seem to be most clearly shown in painting and in the drama. In painting, a curious if not strictly legitimate example of the shading from reality to illusion is found in the cyclorama with its real objects in the foreground. Compare the combinations of painting or sculpture with a background of real landscape. Illusion is produced by means of an arrangement of real materials, and it often happens that these materials inter- fere with the illusion. For a simple example, if in a novel a medieval character should use the scientific language of the nineteenth century, it is not probable the scientific reader would " believe" in the reality of that character though he might choose to be deceived, for the sake of aesthetic delight. Except in the purely dramatic novel, a continuous illusion is rarely attempted ; and in few novels of any form is it attained with complete success. A distinc- tion could be made between narrative illusion the imagi- native conviction that the events related have happened ; and dramatic illusion the corresponding belief that those events are happening in the present time. A discussion of the methods of producing illusion would be in large part a review of recent studies of realism. Professor Moulton's analysis of the methods of " rationalization " and " derationalization " in relation to the drama, ought to prove helpful to the student of the novel. There is perhaps no English novelist in whom artistic illusion of a realistic type can be examined with more profit than in Defoe, and no 260 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL better novel for this purpose than The Plague Year. Compare these two statements regarding that work : "It is fictitious throughout " (Cross, page 29) ; " Now Defoe's work is not?a fiction, nor is it based upon fiction ; and great injustice is done to his memory so to represent it. 1 ' (Introductory Observations, Brayley's edition, 1882.) 208. Theories of Art. A comparison of representative theories shows that some of them keep quite close to the nature of art as analyzed in Section 189; and that others seem to arise without particular reference to such nature, possibly in violation of it. A few broad and familiar conceptions of art readily applicable to the novel may be given, in a very condensed statement. 1. Art is an imitation of nature ; as accurate as possible. (Aristotelian, realistic conception.) 2. Art transcends nature ; is a human escape from its ugliness, complexity, transitory quality, etc. (Platonic, idealistic conception.) 3. Art is an expression of the individuality of the artist. (Lyrical, impressionistic conception.) 4. Art is a specialized (emotional, moral) means of communication between man and man. (Sociological conception.) In the study of an individual novel, the question is, which of these conceptions does the novel best embody ? and which of them, if any, did the novelist have in mind ? As an inductive study, it would be interesting to compare a considerable number of conceptions of art by eminent critics, and reduce them, so far as possible, to common terms. The non-scientific student might find greater pleas- ure in applying to the novel the conceptions of thinkers whom he recognized as personal masters. GENERAL ESTHETIC INTEREST 261 The following application of specific ideas of art to Silas Marner is merely illustrative : . " In Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions its purpose be- ing pleasure. 11 (G. H. Lewes.) The main appeal of the hero, in his character and his history, and of most of the other characters, is largely to the emotions ; but " pleasure " would need a rather broad definition to be considered as the real purpose of this novel. Such definition, however, is very common in aesthetic criticism. "Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them." (Tolstoi.) George Eliot lived through emo- tions similar to those of her hero, in her personal moral history ; the feelings of some of the other characters she experienced only in the imagination. Is this second form of emotional experience outside of Tolstois conception ? Silas Marner has been a literary success, only in part a popular success ; so that it only partially satisfies the last requirement of Tolstoi. " All the great arts have for their object either the support or exalta- tion of human life, usually both." (Ruskin.) In Silas Marner, support is given to human life by the spectacle of patience under suffer- ing ; and by the exhibition of rational, moral law governing the individ- ual and social life. There is a certain exaltation of human life in the beauty and fearless fidelity of Eppie, and in the happiness which radiates from her ; but on the whole, in this novel and in her other works, George Eliot is inclined to look upon life as a matter of noble endurance rather than of brilliant victory. "Art must make obvious . . . the structure of the actual world, the forms of its connection, and the absolute value and significance of these forms." (Lotze.) It is clear that this idea of art calls for interpreta- tion as well as exhibition. It demands some philosophical power in the artist, and George Eliot has this beyond the majority of novelists. Among forms of connection of the actual world which Silas Marner interprets, are the bonds of the family, the relations of the church to the individual life, of one generation to the following ones, etc. The absolute value and significance of the family, for example, are clearly not found in mere sensual happiness, but in the moral development of its members. 262 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL 209. Theories of the Novel. Many conceptions of what the novel is or should be are essentially conceptions of what all art is or should be, and embody the ideas just examined, or similar ones. Other theories endeavor to distinguish the novel from other forms of art, and belong under comparative aesthetics. Narrowing the field still more, are those theories which define the novel in relation to other forms of literature. (Comparative rhetoric.) Artists differ so much in the combination of creative and critical interest, it may well be that some of the masterpieces of fiction were produced without much attention to theory ; but, on the whole, the novelist has had the critical temper, and it is usually possible to discover what theory preceded, accompanied, or followed the creation of a great novel, in the mind of the author. The following brief summary of some important general conceptions of the novel is in part a review of previous state- ments. Each of these conceptions should be compared with the theories of art given in the preceding section. Other ideas about the general nature of the novel will be found in the glossary, under "novel," and in the notes on the history of novelistic criticism. 1. The novel is not in a strict sense a determinate form of art it has no " style " of its own but is a mixture of various genres , or a type still in the process of becoming. It obeys no "laws," and obedience to laws is a necessary sign of a true form of art. 2. The above view is antagonistic ; but the same facts may be accepted with a favorable interpretation. The novel is the most comprehensive form of representative art that man has discovered ; and the most flexible in add- ing interpretation to exhibition. It is the true universal art ; and, in an ideal sense, the true composite art. GENERAL ESTHETIC INTEREST 263 3. The novel is an artistic response to the demands of modern individualism. (a) With reference to the author, the novel allows a more extended interpretation of experience, a more com- plete expression of ideals, a more adequate imagination of a satisfying life-history, than any other form of art. (b) With reference to the novel itself, the main subject is the individual life (especially the slow development of character under complex circumstances). (c) With reference to the reader, individuality is satis- fied in much the same general manner as in the author. 4. The novel is sociological. It excels every other form of art in its power to represent social life, in response to social conditions, and in its appeal to the social sense. There are many sub-varieties of this conception ; based in part on different ideas as to just what " section of life " should be represented, and in just what manner. 210. Judgment of a Novel. Many persons consider that ability to enjoy a work of art is more desirable than ability to give a correct judgment of it. This view is specially frequent in reference to the novel. Another idea draws a somewhat sharp line between an inductive analysis of a work of art, pursued in a scientific spirit, and the old- fashioned criticism by means of preconceived standards. 1 In the present volume, the endeavor has been to accept, in consider- able measure, the scientific spirit. All of the preceding study, if one wishes, may be considered as simply a preparation for higher ends either of pleasure or of aesthetic judgment. To examine these ends systematically, so far as systematic treatment might be desired, would require another volume. A few paragraphs must here suffice to sug- gest a transition from the analytical to the judicial attitude. 1 See Moulton's Introduction, Hennequin, and various criticisms of their views. 264 THE STUDY OF A NOVEL Two methods of judging a novel might be called, with some degree of correctness, the quantitative and the quali- tative. The former method takes account of all varieties of excellence and defect, and judges in accordance with the resulting sum of values. The latter method selects some one master test, conceived as a summum bonum for the novel, and the individual work is ranked high or low as it meets or fails to meet this test. The dogmatic critics accept the second method, though not agreeing among themselves as to what the single test should be. Again, one may attempt to judge the novelist, the novel itself, or the novel as it affects the reader. Judgment of the author may be based upon his character, his purpose, or the degree of success in attaining his purpose. It is a delicate matter often, in art as in life, to discover just what human purpose is, 1 and the critic may well note the appli- cation of the biblical "judge not" to his own special field. The judgment of a novel in itself may note only the inward relations of beauty, consistency, etc., or it may compare the presentation of the novel with the outside real world represented, directly or through fictitious imagery. Judg- ment of a novel by the effect it produces can never be entirely a judgment of the novel itself ; for its influence is never exerted without the cooperation of other influences. In all forms of judgment, if the critic has a clear theory of the novel, it will be brought to the front ; and many obscure theories often emerge from the darkness theories of life as well as of art so soon as he essays to give a final verdict upon a work produced by his fellow-man. 1 See Mackenzie : Manual of Ethics; 3d ed., p. 136. APPENDIX I. SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF A NOVEL A MORE or less definite method of analysis is often implied in reviews or studies of fiction, without any announcement of it. Many critics, particularly those of impressionistic creed, object vigorously to detailed formal analysis. In the following examples the method is clearly stated by the critic. In some cases the general outline of analysis was planned for several types of literature, but in all it has been applied to the novel. In the present statement, only the main heads are given when there is much subdivision, and some alterations and ex- planations have been made, the most important being indicated by brackets. The purpose here is simply to suggest a compara- tive view, and the student should consult the originals. The ex- amples are arranged in chronological order. Compare analyses of epic and drama. See also some references in the Bibliography, and examine the introductions to novels edited for school purposes. For many technical terms, consult the Glossary. i. Fielding. (Prefaces to David Simple, Tom Thumb, Covent Garden Tragedy, and Joseph Andrews.) A plan for the "regular examination" of drama and novel. I. The Fable. (II. The Action.) III. Incident. IV. The Char- acters. V. The Sentiments. (VI. The Moral.) VII. Diction which is the " lowest perfection in a writer and one which many of great genius seem to have little regarded." 265 266 APPENDIX 2. Dunlop. (Chapter I.) " Points chiefly to be considered in a novel or romance." [Mainly for judicial criticism.] I. The Subject. (Story ; Nuda Materia.) II. The Disposition. [/.<?., Narrative method.] III. The Ornaments ; of which the " most important " are : A. The Style. B. The Characters. C. The Sentiments. D. The Descriptions. 3. Masson. (Chapter I.) " Points for criticism in a novel." I. The Subject. (Scheme, idea, total meaning, aim, impression.) " The first or main matter of interest for the critic." Compare Section 119 of the present work. II. Incident. (Construction ; plot-interest.) III. Description. (Scenery.) IV. Characters. (By which " a novelist is chiefly judged.") V. Style, and other " obvious matters." VI. The Extra-poetical Contents. s\A ' 4. Hennequin. (Appendix ; applied to Victor Hugo.) Plan for a com- plete study of " Esthopsychologie." I. Analyse Esth clique. A. Les Moyens. 1. Les Moyens Externes-. (a) Vocabulaire. () Syntaxe. (r) Composition. (d) Ton. (<?) Precedes de Description. (Deslieux et des gens ; des dmes ; des idees abstraites.) 2. Les Moyens Internes. (Sujets preferes.) (#) 6poques. () Lieux. (c) Moments. (</) Person- nages (exterieur, interieur). (e) Sujets abstraits. B. LesEffets. (Synthese des Moyens.) [Repetition of the above analysis, with reference to the effects.] II. Analyse Psychologique. A. Les Causes (in the individual author). 1. Hypothese Explicative. 2. Faits Expliques. B. Interpretation Physiologique. III. Analyse Sociologique. A. Determination des categories d'admirateurs. B. Conclusions des livres speciaux aux categories speciales. IV. Conclusions generates. Syntheses. SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF A NOVEL 267 5. Crawshaw. A general method for literary types, modified for the novel j with detailed subdivisions, not given here. I. Study of the Form. A. Structure. B. Style. II. Study of the Substance. A. Beauty (and the unbeautiful) in characters, plot, etc. B. Ideality (including the " main ideal conception," and reality) in characters, plot, settings, etc. C. Emotion. D. Thought (including the "central thought"). 6. Maigron. Without definite announcement of plan, his chief technical analysis is : I. Le Recit. II. Les Personnages. III. La Description. IV. Le Dialogue. 7. Riemann. (Analysis with reference to special types of fiction, or to Goethe individually, is here omitted.) I. Komposition. A. Gliederung. [I.e., " External structure."] B. Einsatze. C. [Intercalations.] 1. Eingeschobene Icherzahlungen. 2. Eingeschobene Briefe. D. Lyrische Einlagen. (Citate ; rhythmische Prosa ; lyrische Mo- nologe, etc.) II. Die Mittel der Charakteristik. A. Charaktergemalde und typische Gegeniiberstellungen. B. Das Absinken der Charaktere. C. Charakterentwicklung. D. Physiognomik und Mimik. (Much subdivided.) 8. The Present Volume. The underlying analysis in mind is as follows : I. The Novel Itself. A. Form. I. Structure. (a) External. (3) Combination of External and Internal Consecutive Structure. (<r) Internal. (Organic.) Plot ; Settings ; Dramatis Per- sonse ; Characterization. 268 APPENDIX 2. Style. (Transitional to II., A, I and 2.) B. Subject-Matter. II. Relations of the Novel. A. Psychological and Social. 1. The Process of Composition. (" Genetic Analysis.") 2. The Shaping Forces. (" Dynamic Analysis.") 3. The Influence of the Novel. (" Kinetic Analysis.") B. ^Esthetic. 1. Other Types of Literature. 2. The Individual Arts (other than literature). 3. Art in General. 9. Current American Criticism. The following technical analysis may be said to be generally recognized, with many individual variations in details : I. Form. A. The Characters. (B, Characterization.) C. Plot. (General analysis, and " details of narrative method.") D. Set- tings. E. Style. II. Subject-Matter. (With emphasis on the " central idea " ; often on " purpose.") II. GLOSSARY AND TOPICAL REFERENCES AN adequate dictionary of literary criticism would fill several volumes, and would require the labor of many scholars for a series of years. The aim of the following pages is to distinguish in several cases different meanings of the same term ; to list some of the most precise terms, largely found in German criticism, as examples of technical analysis ; and to give references for the study of a few topics of special importance. Most of the authorities to which reference is made are noted in the Bibliography. "Types of Fiction " refers to the list in this Appendix. Most of the terms commonly found in the criticism of the novel are also found in the criticism of epic and drama. Many of them belong to a still wider field, and the student should consult not only rhetorics and poetics, but general aesthetics and the dictionaries of the separate arts. Allegorische Mimik. (Riemann.) Allegory. See Symbolism. Amplification of Plot; of Theme. Animalism. For one definition see The Nation, Number 1618. Cf. Natu- ralism. Anticipation. Cf. use in music. Anticipatory Hint ; Suspense. (Hammond.) Art, Absolute. The novel is rarely so considered. See general aesthetics, dictionaries of music, etc. 1'Art pour 1'Art. For application to the novel, see Gilbert, pp. 122, 162 ; Lanson, p. 998 ; Warren, p. 220. Artist (in modern French sense). See Brunetiere, R. N., p. 162. Artistic. I. Contrasted with scientific. 2. Referring to conscious method in the writer. 3. "The word artistic as applied to fiction, denotes a structure that produces the most telling effect on the reader." (Cody.) Author's Comment. Generalization and interpretation rather than mere 269 2/0 APPENDIX description. May sometimes be limited to passages in propria persona. See Chorus. Autobiographical. I. In first-person form. 2. With reference to the author. Avoidance. Might be used as in musical analysis. Background. I. Of minor characters, incidents, emotions, etc. 2. The settings. 3. The place setting. See Scenery. Beleuchtungseffekt. (Riemann.) Besserungstheorie. The theory that a hero should be dismissed in the best condition possible for the individual plot. (Riemann.) Cadence. Artistic approach to a conclusion ; as, chapter cadence, cadence of episode, etc. Cf. use in music ; versification. Caricature. See Baldwin; Morillot; Symonds. Catastrophe. i. Incident or event closing the dramatic line (preferable technical usage). 2. Plot-conclusion marked by strong effect. See Climax and Conclusion. Catharsis, Aristotelian. For a review of recent interpretations, see Baldwin. Central Character ; Idea ; Incident ; Theme ; Truth; etc. Centrifugal (Centripetal). Mainly with reference to plot. Cervantine Humor. Compared and contrasted with Rabelaisian Satire. Character (a type of literature). See Morley. Character, Central. Necessary for the short story, not for the novel. (Cody.) But cf. p. 293 of this volume, under Smollett. Character Compensation. See Hedging. Character Disclosure ; Elucidation. ( Hammond.) Character, Dismissal of. See Riemann, on Absinken der Charaktere. Character Function. Value as social type, in distinction from individual value. (Maigron, of Scott.) Character, Introduction of. Technical definition in Davidson's Creative Ait of Fiction. See also Dunlop, Bohn edition, I, p. 32. Cf. Personen, Ein- fuhrung der. Character, Isolation of, in short story. (Barrett.) Characterization, Center of. (MacClintock.) Characters, Interplay of. (MacClintock.) Chorus, Greek Dramatic. Compared with author's comment. See Tom Jones, III, 7 ; preface to Sarah Fielding's The Cry ; and Worsfold. Cf. Maigron on the lyrical choruses in Atala. Climax. i. General rhetorical usage. 2. The center of the dramatic line (preferable usage in technical analysis). 3. The catastrophe. (Gardi ner ; and many critics of the short story.) GLOSSARY AND TOPICAL REFERENCES 271 Climax, False or Technical ; Preliminary. (Barrett.) Coincidence (in plot). Complication of Idea. Governs length of story. (Cody.) Complication of Plot. Contrasted with Resolution. Cf. also Denoument; Entanglement. Composition. For use in the sense of plastic power and unity in the structure, cf. music and painting. Comprehensiveness. A common standard of judgment for the novel. See Totalitat. Conclusion. Distinguished from Catastrophe. (Barrett.) Conclusion, Dramatic. Equals Catastrophe. (Cody. ) Concreteness, Canon of. (Gardiner.) Cf. Detaildarstellung. Seep. no. Convergence of Characters; of Narration and Action; of Single Actions. Conversation. See Dialogue. Counter-play. i. Of Characters (Simonds) ; cf. Interplay. 2. In plot -analysis. See Play. Decoration. See p. 266, Dunlop. Cf. Dekoration. (Riemann.) Degeneration, Social. See Baldwin, Nordau, Robiati; and Taylor, on Greek romance. D6noflment. (In English criticism.) I. The catastrophe. 2. The entire fall of the action. Cf. Resolution. Description. Sometimes about equivalent to Scenery, or place setting. For philosophical definition, see Baldwin. " Fiction is essentially a descriptive art." (Cody.) Deus ex Machina. See Baldwin. Dialog, Alternierend-explizierend ; Alternierend-replizierend ; Theo- retisierend ; contrasted with Rede als Ausdruck des Affekts. (Riemann.) Dialogue "is a description of conversation." (Cody.) Dialogue, Characteristic ; Descriptive ; Dramatic ; Reflective ; Thematic. Didactic Interpolation. Disentanglement. See Denoument. Disposition. See p. 266, Dunlop. Dramatic. i. Objective, contrasted with lyrical. 2. Intense, striking, in reference to action or feeling. See Types of Fiction. Dramatic Effect ; Form ; Irony ; Moment ; Movement ; Order of Thought, contrasted with Scenic Order (DeMille's Rhetoric); Probabil- ity; Situation. Dynamic Criticism (Analysis). A convenient term in reference to thf forces that influence a novel. Cf. Genetic ; Kinetic. 2/2 APPENDIX Effectism. Author's tendency to over-emphasize single effects. Effets, les. See les Moyens. Emotions, Primary. Contrasted with the complex emotions of civiliza- tion ; common in the naturalistic novel. See Baldwin, on Fear. Entanglement. Contrasted with Denodment. Environment, Immediate; Remote. (Hammond.) For philosophical definition see Baldwin. Epic (adj.). i. Narrative. 2. Comprehensive and objective ; contrasted with lyrical. 3. Having the special qualities of epic poetry; most commonly applied to historical romance. Epische Darstellung ; Stoff ; Totalitat ; Weltauffassung ; Ge- setz der epischen Phantasie. Episode. I. Of an entire composition. 'The novels of Henry James are all episodes.' 2. Psychological meaning; see Gardiner. 3. A centrifugal narrative of some scope and marked unity. 4. See Section 33. See also dictionaries of music. Episodes parasites. (Brunetiere.) Erkennungsscene. (Riemann.) Esthopsychologie. Hennequin, mainly with reference to the effect of art : it might also refer to the creative process. Exciting (Inciting) Force. (Erregende Moment, Freytag.) The motiv- ating force which originates the plot-movement. Exposition. I. General rhetorical use. 2. Explanation of action not directly given, as entr'acte exposition. Expositions Monolog ; Scene. ( Riemann.) Fable, The. Often in eighteenth century criticism, e.g., Fielding, about equal to Plot. (German Fabel is still so used.) , Fantasy, Touch of. Especially in short story. See Matthews' Philos- ophy uf the Short Story. Form. Generally equals structure, or structure and style. Compare Bald- win, Bray, Perry, and Riemann's Dictionary of Music. " Der Roman ist . . . zwar cine sehr mangelhafte Form, aber ein bestimmter und selbstandiger Aus- druck eines Stils." (Vischer.) Form, Geschichte der. Contrasted with Stoffgeschichte. Frame. I. General structural outline. 2. The environing action or set- tings for " frame-stories," such as the Decameron. Gedankcnkreis. Of the speech of characters. (Riemann.) Genetic Criticism (Analysis). A convenient term applicable to the process of composition ; or to the development of the novel as a species. Cf. Dy- Mamic ; Kinetic. Gewohnheitsgesten. (Riemann.) GLOSSARY AND TOPICAL REFERENCES 273 Gothic. i. Of northern Europe, especially in the middle ages. 2. Bar- barian ; romantic, as opposed to classical. Largely a term of reproach, in eighteenth century criticism. See Bray; Phelps; Ruskin's Stones of Venice. Gothic Machinery. See Machinery. Grands Genres, les. Especially of tragedy, comedy and epic, " genres essentiellement classiques, appeles pour cette raison les grands genres." (Maigron.) 'The novel became a grand genre early in the nineteenth century.' (Lanson.) Grenzen des Romans, Die. The comprehensiveness and amorphous qual- ity of the novel have led critics to special effort to define its limits. See, for example, Spielhagen's Technik des Romans ; Das Gebiet des Romans. Hedging. In characterization, the principle of compensation. (Moulton.) This term might be applied also to incidents and settings. I'HSroisme sentimental. (Lanson.) Humor. I. A quality of style. See Leigh Hunt's Wit and Humor. 2. Predominant and one-sided tendency of character; as in Novel of Humors. An early definition in Jonson's dialogic preface to Every Man out of his Humour. Cf. Riemann's treatment of Steckenpferd in Tristram Shandy, etc. See Traill. Hypernatural. " In fiction ... a character must be exaggerated to ap- pear natural." (Quoted in Barrett.) Ideal. Baldwin gives six meanings for the term as used in aesthetic criticism. See also Bray. Idealization, Monochromatic. I-Form. (Ich-Form.) Contrasted with third-person form. (Er-form.) Impression. " The novel gives a personal impression of life ; the drama a personal demonstration of life." (Lockwood and Emerson : Composition and Rhetoric.) "A novel is, in the broadest definition, a personal impres- sion of life." (H. James: Art of Fiction.) Impression, Unity of. A standard of excellence in the short story rather than the novel. (Matthews.) Impressionism. See Brunetiere's R. N.; and criticism of painting. Bald- win gives Sterne as an example. Incident. I. See Section 31. 2. The " event which supplies the motive for the action of the scene." (Simonds.) 3. See Moulton. Indirekte Rede als Einleitung der direkten ; als ordnendes Prinzip. (Riemann.) Inference (The Reader's). Recognized as a definite principle of artistic effect. See, for example, Smith's Writing of the Short Story. Interplay of Characters. Cf. Counter-play. Interweaving of single actions into plot. 274 APPENDIX Intrigue. I. Of plot, as complicated design. 2. Of character relations, as in " novel of intrigue." Invention. Creative power in the artist as distinct from observation. See Spielhagen's Technik der Romans ; Finder oder Erfinder. Formerly used in a rather more technical sense than at present. Irony. Perhaps a special characteristic of the novel. I. A general quality of style. 2. Dramatic Irony (cf. tragische Ironii). See Moult on. 3. Detached attitude of the author in reference to his work. (Fr. Schlegel.) Isolated Scenes. Kinetic Criticism (Analysis). Referring to the effect of a novel. Cf. Dynamic ; Genetic. Laws of Fiction, The. Various attempts have been made to state them. See Section 129, Spielhagen on das Gesetz der Objektivitat ; and Novelistic Criticism, Gottsched. Also the discussion in Besant. Maigron, however, gives an interesting explanation of the novel as an anarchistic form, craved by the romanticists, * who hated law and Boileau.' (p. 152.) Leitmotiv. See criticism of Wagner. Considered by Robiati, in refer- ence to Fogazzaro. Life-size. Of the novel as compared with the short story. (Cody.) Link Action ; Personage . ( M oulton.) Local Color. "Couleur locale" used by Marchangy early in the nineteenth century. (Maigron.) For application to ballet music, see Krebhiel's How to Listen to Music. Lyrical. For many shades of meaning see poetics, aesthetics, etc. " Der Roman ist eine sehr universelle Gattung, und daher nach einer Seite bin auf dem Punkte ins Lyrische iiberzugehen." (Solger.) " Le lyrisme est 1' expres- sion du moi, et le roman doit e"tre la perception du non-moi." (Lanson, P- 1055.) Lyrische Einschaltungen ; Monologe. (Riemann.) Cf. Browning's dramatic monologue. Machinery. Refers mainly to the motivation, especially when traditional, artificial, or obvious. An Aristotelian term, characteristic of eighteenth century criticism, but used by Dunlop, Scott, Senior, and Raleigh. Manner. I. Specific method; about equivalent to style. 2. See Sec- tion 152. 3. German Manier is about equivalent to Mannerism. Mannerism. Two meanings are discussed at some length in Senior, p. 97 ffi Materia Nuda. (Dunlop.) Medias Res, in. In the novel, probably often imitated from the epic. Milieu Int6rieur. (Brunetiere: R. N., p. 206.) Mimik. Defined and considered at length in Riemann. Mistaken Identity. As a type of plot. GLOSSARY AND TOPICAL REFERENCES 275 Monolog, Expositions- ; gedachter ; gesprochener ; Klammer-; Reflexions-. (Riemann.) Moral. See p. 265, Fielding. Morphology of the Novel. Motives (in characters), Conflict of; Ruling. Moyens, les. See p. 266, Hennequin. Narrative Problem, The. (Gardiner, p. 107.) Naturalism. I. Sometimes about equivalent to Realism, as opposed to Idealism and Romanticism. 2. Extreme, usually pessimistic or debased, realism. 3. Interpretation of human phenomena in biological terms. Cf. Animalism. Distinguished from Realism in Baldwin. See Brandes ; Bru- netiere ; Guyau ; Pardo Bazan ; Volkelt ; Zola. Naturism. A term invented to denote the better elements in naturalism; but not in general use. Nemesis. See Baldwin, and Moulton. Novel. The following are probably the most important shades of meaning found in English criticism. I. Any type of prose fiction; e.g., as translation of novella (Elizabethan criticism). 2. A long fiction, contrasted with short story. Cf. French and German Ionian. 3. Contrasted with Romance. This distinction was probably implied in Elizabethan criticism, was clearly stated by Congreve, in 1692 (see Raleigh, p. 101), and by many eighteenth century writers; but is not always observed even now. 4. The mature " mod- ern novel," i.e., that since Richardson. " With due respect to the writers of fiction from the sixteenth century down to Defoe and Marivaux, it was in the year 1740 that the European novel, as we understand it, began to exist." (Gosse : Modern English Literature, p. 240.) 5. The realistic novel of con- temporary life. 6. Special historical usage, an example of which is given in Cross, p. 21. A few suggestive attempts at concise definition may be quoted : "A fictitious narrative, differing from the romance, because the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events, and the modern state of society." (Scott : Essay on Romance.) " Le recit developpe d'une action vraie ou imaginaire, historique ou non, ou les evenements marchent avec ordre vers un but determine, et ou les carac- tres, bien que vivants et naturels et quoique plus voisins de la realite que dans tout autre genre de poesie, sont agrandis neanmoins par l'ide"al et par le style." (Leveque.) " The modern novel is a drama ; description holds the place of scenery ; narration gives a clue to the mise-en-scene ; but it is the talk which consti- tutes the main substance and texture of the work." (Edmond Scheref Assays on English Literature ; translated by Saintsbury.) 2?6 APPENDIX "A novel is a fictitious story of some complexity of plot, purporting to be modeled after real life, and portraying the working of some great passion, often that of love." (Lockwood and Emerson: Composition and Rhetoric.) Cf. Roman, novella, etc. See Romance. Ornaments. See p. 266, Dunlop. Parabasis. Parabatische Einsatz ; Schlusswendung. (Riemann.) Parallelgeschichte. (Riemann.) Pause (in the plot-movement). t Personen, Einf iihrung fler, dramatische; durch die Gruppe; durch Erwahnung. (Riemann.) Cf. Character, Introduction of. Picaresque. I. Strictly, of the "rogue novel." 2. Broadly, having the general characteristics of that type loose, episodic plot, variety of adven- ture, etc. Play. In the analysis of plot, the aggressive activity of the hero; opposed to Counter-play, in which he is acted upon. (Freytag.) Plot. i. The unified plan of the action. 2. The unified plan of the entire composition. 3. Of a specially intricate action. 4. In a hostile sense, in reference to the artificial or sensational element. Plot Amplification (Hammond); Architecture (Raleigh); Business (Baker) ; Germ ; Scene ; etc. Plot, By- (Raleigh) ; Multiple (Hammond) ; Separable ; True; Working (Barrett). Poetik. Generally includes imaginative prose, therefore the novel; as contrasted with English poetics. Cf. Prosaics. Probability, Dramatic. Prosaics. (Gayley and Scott, p. 245.) Psychologist's Fallacy. Common in the novel. See Baldwin, and W. James. Purpose. Frequently used as a semi-technical term in analysis. Rabelaisian Satire. See Cervantine Humor. Rationalization ; Derationalization. See Moulton. Realism. Commonly contrasted with Romanticism ; but they have much in common, especially as compared with Classicism. A term discussed in nearly every recent criticism of the novel. For wider meanings see aesthetics, poetics, etc. See Naturalism ; Veritism. Realism, Higher. RSalisme sentimental. (Brunetiere, R. N.) Relief Scene ; in Relief. Reminiscence (narrative). Cf. dictionaries of music. Reminiscence (psychological). See Brunetiere, R. N., p. 174. GLOSSARY AND TOPICAL REFERENCES 277 Resolution (of plot). See Denoument. Further Resolution. See Moulton. Reticence. Is characteristic of artistic fiction. (Besant.) Romance. I. In general sense. Distinguished, as natural and permanent, from Romanticism, as artificial and temporary, in Matthews' Historical Novel. 2. Contrasted with novel. Congreve's definition is given in Raleigh, p. 101. A famous definition is found in Johnson's Dictionary ; a very suggestive one in the preface to The House of the Seven Gables. See Novel. Romantic. See Bray, Baldwin, Phelps; dictionaries of music and other arts. Four shades of meaning are given in Stoddard, p. 124. Cf. definitions in eighteenth century criticism. Romanticism. I. General aesthetic meaning. 2. Historical meaning, referring to the romantic school, which is characterized in all histories of fic- tion covering the period. Gilbert gives as a summary of the school in French fiction : sensibility, personality, lyricism, and pessimism (p. 117; cf. pp. 75, 76). See Brunetiere ; Haym ; Maigron. Ruhige Darstellung. As an ideal for the novel. (Jeitteles ; Ludwig.) Scenery. I. In dramaturgic sense, of material background. 2. " All the peculiarity, material and moral, which gives a general character to the events " ; Greek chorus included. (Senior, p. 190.) Scene, The. General place setting. ScSne, en, 'Everything in Scott is.' (Maigron.) Scenes, Isolated ; Plot. Scenes a faire. In the drama. (Francisque Sarcey ; explained in Mat- thews' Development of the Drama, p. 24 and/otftm.) Scenic Characters (contrasted with Individual, Senior, p. 191); Order of Thought. See Dramatic Order of Thought. Sensitivists, the contemporary Dutch. See Gosse's introduction to English translation of Couperus' Eline Vere, N.Y., 1892. Sentimental School. See Novelistic Criticism : Clara Reeve ; Coleridge ; and Karamzin. (Pp. 292, 296, 300). School of " Sensibility." Sentiments. In analysis, the general ideas expressed in a novel. See p. 265, Fielding. Short Story. For theory and technic see especially Barrett, Canby, Cody, Heyse, Matthews, Nettleton, Perry, L. W. Smith, and Spielhagen's essays, Novelle oder Roman, and Roman oder Novelle. Silhouette, en. (Lanson, of the characters in Notre Dame de Paris.) Simplicity (in ^Esthetics). See Baldwin. Simplification, Artificial. (Gardiner.) Situation. I. The dramatic element in a scene. 2. Circumstances at the beginning of plot. (Simonds.) 3. See Section 30. 2?8 APPENDIX Solidity of Life (Gardiner) ; of Specification. See Vraisemblance. v Solution (of plot). Cf. Denoument; Catastrophe. Soul of the Story. (Cody.) Story. i. A novel as a whole. See Types of Fiction. 2. That ele- ment in a novel which satisfies story interest. 3. See Section 45. 4. The entire body of artistic (especially fictitious) narrative in the world. Stummes Spiel. At the close of a novel. (Riemann.) ^ Suspense, Final. Located just before the final resolution. Common in well-constructed plots. SeeFreytag; Moulton ; Perry. Symbolism. i. General aesthetic meaning. Sometimes distinguished from Allegory ; the former having more value in the concrete imagery, the latter in the abstract ideas. See Baldwin. 2. Of a contemporary school in poetry and fiction. See Brunetiere. Theme, Abstract ; Central ; Concrete ; Main; Sub-. (Cf. dictionaries of music.) Thematic Character ; Dialogue ; Incident ; etc. Having more value as subject-matter than as serving the illusion. Topographischer Einsatz. (Riemann.) Totalitat, Epische, as canon of the novel (Spielhagen and other critics) ; des Weltbildes ; False and True distinguished (Riemann, p. 324). Cf. Comprehensiveness. Tragic Moment. A sudden, unexpected, but completely motived turn in events, soon after the climax, at which the fall of the action really." begins. (Freytag.) Transparency, Device of. See Matthews' Historical Novel, p. 157 ff. Truth. Often distinguished from fact. See Baldwin. Cf. Veritism. Type (in Art). See Baldwin, Perry, Senior, p. 289, and Veion. Type achev6 du Genre. None exists for the novel, as the Iliad does for the epic. (Le"veque.) Veritism. Fidelity to truth rather than fact. A term suggested by the hostile critical attitude toward "realism." See Rod, Etudes sur le XIX 8 Siecle, Les Veristes Italiens; and Garland. Verkleidungsscene. (Riemann.) Vraisemblance. " II faut que dans les Romans bien faits la vraisemblance soil partout et soit mSme partout maftresse." (Mad. de Scudery : Clelie, 1661.) "The air of reality (solidity of specification) seems to me the supreme virtue of a novel." (H. James : Art of Fiction.) Zimmeryerwechslungsmotiy . (Riemann.) III. TYPES OF PROSE FICTION No attempt has been made in this volume to consider the difficult problem of classification. In his once famous Rhetoric (1783), Blair affirmed that literary species ' shade into one another like the colors of nature.' The following list will indicate that certain novelistic types are well-established in European criticism, and that many others, of various degrees of historical and tech- nical isolation, are distinguished by individual critics. While the list is far from complete, it is sufficient to show the variety of bases on which classification or description is attempted. With very few exceptions, the terms have been taken from critics of some note, but authority has been quoted only in a few cases, for special reasons. The student of comparative literature may, perhaps, be inter- ested in comparing the general tone of several national schools of criticism in examining the contrast, for example, between the accurate but cumbersome German terminology and the less technical but more lucid manner of the French critics. The student of comparative aesthetics will find some of the broader terms, or similar ones, in dictionaries of music and painting. Many are borrowed from dramatic criticism, and others were originally found in the field of the epic. The following abbreviations are used : " N ", for novel; " R ", for romance, roman and romanzo ; "T. T." f for type-title (see Section 5). The figures after the terms are for cross-reference, and suggest a much more elaborate study of shading, contrast, and systematic arrangement. ENGLISH x. Action, N. of. 13, 66, 151. 2. Adventure, N. of; R. of. Adven- tures. (T. T.) 3. Allegorical N.; R. 217. 4. Amatory Narrative. (Dunlop.) 5. Analytic (Analytical) N. 6. Annals. (T. T.) 7. Antiquarian R. (Baker.) 279 280 APPENDIX 8. Archaeological N. 9. Art and Culture N. (Masson) ; Art-R. (Carlyle, of Heinrich von Ofterdingen.) 277. 10. Autobiographical N ; R. 68. 11. Biographical N. 12. Burlesque Fantasy ; Picaroon. (Baker.) 13. Character, and Passion, N. of; Character Study. I, 101, 107. 14. Chivalry, R. of. 92. 15. Chronicles. (T. T.) 16. Civilian R. (Dunlop.) 17. Classical Heroic R. 55. 18. Comedy, of Accidents; Domes- tic ; Love ; Low ; of Man- ners ; in Narrative ; Poetic ; Psychological; Social. (Most of these, and other similar terms, in Baker.) 19. Comic Epic ; N ; R. 20. Cosmopolitan N. 70. 21. Crime, N. of; Criminal N. 98. 22. Descriptive N. 23. Detective Story. 24. Dialect Story. 25. Dialogue, N. in ; Dialogues. (T. T.) 26. Didactic N. 27. Discursive N. 28. Doctrinal (Doctrinaire) N. 29. Domestic Comedy ; N ; Satire, N. of. 30. Drama, Complete ; Psychologi- cal ; Tragic. 31. Dramatic Effect, Story of ; Form, Story of (Barrett) ; Nar- rative ; Sketch ; Story ; Tale. 295- 32. Eastern Tale. (Goldsmith.) 95. 33. Eclogue. 34. Elevated Fiction. (Senior, con- trasted with Familiar.) 35. Epic, Comic; Pastoral; Prose. 36. Episodes. (T. T.) 37. Epistolary N; R. 38. Epoch, N. of an. 341. 39. Erotic Adventure, N. of (Warren, of Greek Romances) ; Lyrico- Erotic N. 40. Ethical N. 41. Extravaganza (Extravagance). (Baker.) 42. Fables. (T. T.) 43. Fairy R ; Tale ; Story. 44. Familiar N; Fiction. (Senior, contrasted with Elevated.) 45. Family R. 46. Fancy, N. of. (Tuckerman.) 47. Fantastic Tale (Barrett) ; Fantasy. 48. Fashionable N; Tale. 284. 49. Folk-Story. 50. Genre Picture. (Baker.) 51. Ghost Story. 52. Gothic R ; of Mystery and Terror. 80, 139. 53. Grotesque and Arabesque, Tales of the (Poe). 54. Hero, N. without a (Thackeray) . 55. Heroic R. 17. 56. Historical N; R; Tale; N., True ; Background, N. with. (Matthews distinguishes the last two.) 57. Historico-Political N. (Fitzmaurice- Kelly.) 58. History of. (T.T.) (See Section 5.) 59. Horror, Study in. (Barrett.) 319. 60. Humanitarian N. (Cross, of Oroo- noko.) 102, 190. 61. Humorous N ; Story. 62. Humors, N. of. (Trail!, contrasted with N. of Manners.) 63. Idyll, Prose; Rural; Senti- mental. 64. I m agin ative R ; Tale . 65. Impressionistic N. 66. Incident, and Action, N. of. I. 67. Ingenuity, Story of. (Barrett, as type of Short Story.) 68. I-Novel. 10. 69. Intellectual N. (Bulwer Lytton.) 183. 70. International N. (Cross; "created by Maria Edgeworth.") 20, 144. 71. Intrigue and Gallantry, R. of. (W. Hazlitt.) 160, 348. 72. Key, N. with a. 73. Knavery, R. of. 104, 119, 320. 74. Letters, N. of. TYPES OF PROSE FICTION 281 75. Life of; and Adventures of. (T. T.) 76. Life, and Manners, N. of (" typical form of prose fiction ") ; and Passion, N. of. 96. 77. Local Fiction ; N ; Short Story ; History. 78. Love Comedy; Drama; Idyll; N ; Pamphlet (eg., Greene) ; R ; Story ; Tale. 79. Manners, Comedy of; N. of. 80. Marvel and Mystery, R. of. 52. 81. Melodrama; Melodramatic R. (Baker.) 82. Memoirs. (T. T.) 83. Metaphysical N. 103. 84. Military N. 85. Mock R. (including Comic ; Hu- morous ; Satirical ; T. Arnold) ; Mock-heroic R. (e.g., Hallam). 86. Modern Life and Society, N. of. (Traill.) 285. 87. Moral Story ; Story with a. 88. Mystery, N. of ; R. of. 89. Narrative. (T. T.) 90. Naturalistic N. 91. Nautical R; Naval N. (Masson.) 92. Necromancy and Chivalry, R. of. (W. Hazlitt.) 14, 340. 93. Novel. 94. Novelette. 95. Oriental History (Goldsmith) ; N; R. 32. 96. Passion, N. of. 76. 97. Pastoral Comedy ; Epic ; Idyll; N; R. 98. Pathological N. 21. 99. Peasant Tale. ico. Pedagogic R. (Cross.) 101. Personality, N. of. (Stoddard.) 13- 102. Philanthropical N. 60, 190. 103. Philosophical Fable ; N ; R. 83- 104. Picaresque N ; R ; Picaroon N. 73- 105. Picturesque N. (Bulwer Lytton.) 106. Pictures. (T. T.) 107. Plot-Novel ; N. of Plot. 13, 330. 108. Poetical R; Poetic Comedy. 109. Political N. no. Popular Tale, in. Problem N. 112. Propagandist N. (Baker.) 130. 113. Prose Epic; Poem (e.g*> Dow- den, of Atala) ; R. (Dunlop, Scott, etc.) 114. Psychological Comedy; Drama; N; R. 115. Purpose, N. of. 116. Realistic N. 117. Religious N ; R. 118. Revolutionary N. (Masson.) 119. Rogue N ; R. of Roguery. 73. 120. Romance. 121. Romantic Love, R. of. (Lewis.) 122. Satirical Fiction ; N. 123. Scenes (T.T.) ; Fiction of Scenery. (Senior.) 124. Scientific Experiment, Tale of. (MacClintock) ; Scientific N. 125. Sensation N. (Baker.) 126. Sentimental N. 127. Serious R. (Scott.) 128. Short N; Story; Long Short- Story ; Storiette. 129. Sketches. (T.T.) 130. Socialist N. 112, 289. 131. Social Comedy ; N ; R ; Study; Society N. 132. Spiritual R. (Hallam; Scott, con- trasted with Temporal R.) 133. Sporting N. 134. Story. (Common in titles.) 135. Study. (As a type of short story, frequently.) 136. Supernatural Phantasy, N. of. (Masson.) 137. Tale. 138. Temporal R. (Scott, contrasted with Spiritual R.) 139. Terror, Gothic Tale of. 52. 140. Theological N. 141. Third-Person N. 142. Tragic Drama ; N ; Pastoral ; Tragi-Comedy. 143. Traveller's N. (Masson.) 144. Ubiquitous N. (Walter Bagehot.) 70. 282 APPENDIX 145 . Utopian N ; R . 146. Vision. 147. Volume N, Single ; Three. 148. Weird Story. (Barrett.) 149. Wonder, Story of. (Barrett.) 150. Yarn. FRENCH 151. Active, R. de la Vie. (Jusserand.) i. 152. Amour, R. d'. 153. Analytique, R; R. d* Analyse intellectuelle ; morale. 154. Arcadien, R. (Jusserand.) 200. 155. Archeologique, R. (Lanson, of Salammbd.) 156. Autobiographique, R. 157. Aventure, Conte d'; R. d'; Aventures. (T. T.) 158. Bourgeois, R. 159. Burlesque, R. 160. Cape et d'Epee, R. de. 71. 161. Champe'tre, R. 162. Chevaleresque, R. 163. Chretien, honnSte et familier, R. (Gilbert.) 164. Clef, R. a. 165. Coeur, R. de. 166. Comique, R. 167. Conte. 168. Devot, Conte. 169. Epique, R. (Maigron; Jusserand) ; Epopee-roman (Jusserand). 170. Exotique, R. (Gilbert.) 334. 171. Experimental, R. (Zola.) 172. Fabliau. 173. Famille, R. de. 174. Fantaisiste, R. 175. Fees, Conte de. 176. Feuilleton, R. 177. Gothique, R. 178. HeroTque, R. 179. Historique, R; Histoire. (T. T.) 180. Humoristique, R. 181. Idylle. 182. Impressioniste, R. 183. Intellectuelle, R. d'Analyse. 69. 184. Intrigue, R. d'. 185. Lettres, R. par. 186. Longue Haleine, R. a (of Heroic Romance) 187. Lyrique, R. (Lanson, of George Sand.) 188. Memoires. (T. T.) 189. Militaires, R. de Mceurs. 190. Misanthropique, R. (of Flaubert). 102. 191. Moeurs, R. de. 192. Mondain, R. 193. Morale, R. d'Analyse. 194. Nationaux, R's. (Erckmann-Cha- trian.) 195. Naturaliste, R. 196. Nocturne, Conte (title used by Hoffman). 197. Nouvelle. 198. Oriental, R. 199. Pastel. 200. Pastoral, R. 154. 201. Personnel, impersonnel, R6cit. 202. Philosophique, R. 203. Picaresque, R. 204. Plaisant, Conte. 205. Poetique, R. (Lanson.) 206. Politique, R. 207. Psychologique, R. 208. Realiste, R. 209. Roman. 210. Romantique, R. 211. Rustique, R. 212. Satirique, R. 213. Scenes. (T. T.) 214. Scientifique, R. 215. Sentimental, et personnel, R. (Lanson ; Gilbert) ; R. d'Analyse des Sentiments. (Jusserand.) 216. Social, R. 217. Symboliste et occulte, R. (Gil- bert.) 3. 218. Tendance, R. a. 219. Tiroirs, R. a. 220. Utopiste, R. 221. Voyage Imaginaire. 297. 222. Voyage, R. de. TYPES OF PROSE FICTION 28 3 GERMAN 223. Abenteuer ; roman ; und trans- oceanischer R. 224. Allegorischer R. 225. Anekdotenroman. 226. Aristokratischer R. (Vischer.) 227. Autobiographischer R. 265, 323. 228. Backfischroman. 229. Bauern novelle ; roman. 230. Bettlerroman. 231. Bildungsroman. 276. 232. Briefroman ; R. in Brief en. 233. Biirgerlicher R. 234. Burlesker R. 235. Charakterroman. 236. Dialogroman. (Riemann.) 237. Didaktischer R. 238. Dorfgeschichte. 239. Eklektischer R. (Jeitteles.) 240. Emanzipationsroman. 309. 241. Ernster R. (Vischer, Aesthetik; Jeitteles.) 242. Erotischer R. 243. Er-Roman. 244. Erzahlung. 245. Ethnographischer R. 246. Familienroman. 247. Feengeschichte. 248. Feuilletonistischer R. 342. 249. Frauenroman. (Mielke.) 250. Gedicht-geschichte. (Birken, in 1679.) 251. Geisterroman. 252. Geistlicher R. 253. Geographischer R. 254. Geschichtlicher R. 255. Gesellschaftsroman. (Mielke.) 327. 256. Gespensternovelle. 257. Heldenroman. 258. Heroisch-galanter R. 259. Herzgeschichte. (Spielhagen.) 260. Hintertreppenroman. 261. Hirtenroman. 262. Historischer R; halbhistorischer R. 263. Humanistischer R. 264. Humoristischer R, 265. Ich Erzahlung; R; Brief- roman. (Riemann.) 227. 266. Idealroman. (Korting.) 267. Idylle; Idyllischer R. (W. Sche- rer.) 268. Judenroman. 269. Jugendroman. 270. Kinder- und Hausmarchen. 271. Kolportageroman. 272. Komischer R. 273. Komodiantenroman. (Riemann, of Roman Comique.) 274. Kosmopolitischer R. 275. Kriminal geschichte ; roman ; anthropologischer R. 276. Kultur roman ; geschichtliche Novelle. 231. 277. Kunstroman ; Kunstlerroman. 9. 278. Landschaftsroman. (Mielke.) 279. Legende. 280. Leidenschaftsroman. (Riemann.) 281. Liebes roman; historic. (Jeit- teles.) 282. Liigenroman. 283. Marchen. 284. Mode-Roman. (A. W. von Schle- gel, 1798.) 48. 285. Moderner R. (Spielhagen, in defi- nite sense, contrasted with his- torical novel.) 86. 286. Moralischer R. 287. Musikernovelle. 288. Naturalistischer R. 289. Nihilistischer R. 130. 290. Novelle; Novelette. 291. Objektive Erzahlung. (Spielhagen.) 292. Opposition, R. der. (Korting.) 293. Orientalischer R. 294. Padagogischer R. 295. Pantomimischer R. (Riemann.) 296. Pastoralroman ; Antipastorale. (Korting, of Berger Extrava- gant.) 318. 297. Phantastischer R ; Reiseroman. (Korting.) 221. 284 APPENDIX 298. Philosophischer R. 320. 299. Politischer R. 329. 321. 300. Pornographischer R. 322. 301. Prohlemroman, moralphiloso- 323. phischer. 302. Professorenroman. 324. 303. Psychologischer R; Situations- 325. roman. 304. Rahmenerzahlung. 326. 305. Rauberroman. 306. Realistischer R ; Realroman. (Kor- ting.) 327. 307. Reise fabulistik (Rohde) ; ~ 328. feuilleton ; roman. 329. 308. Religioser R. 330. 309. Revolution, R. der. (Mielke.) 331. 240. 332. 310. Ritter geschichte; roman; 333. und Rauberroman. 334. 311. Robinsonade. 312. Roman. 335. 313. Romanskizze. (Spielhagen.) 336. 314. Romantische Novelle. 337. 315. Romerroman. (Mielke.) 338. 316. Sagen geschichte; und Ritter- roman. 339. 317. Satirischer R. 340. 318. Schaferroman. 296. 341. 319. Schauer licher R (Jeitteles, of Mrs. Radcliffe) ; roman. 59. 342. Schelmenroman. 73. Schwank. Seeroman. Selbst biographischer R ; bio- graphic. 227. Sensationsroman. Sentimentaler R ; Sentimentalitats- roman. Sitten gemalde ; roman ; und Familienroman. (Jeitteles, of Richardson.) Socialer R. 255. Soldatenroman. Staatsroman. (Riemann.) 299. Stoff roman. 107. Tendenzroman ; Tendenzioser R. Theaternovelle. Theologischer R. Trans atlantischer R ; ocean- ischer R, Abenteuer- und. 170. Umwandlungsroman. Unterhaltungsroman. Vaterlandischer R. Volks buch; marchen; roman ; volkstiimlicher R. Wundermarchen. Zauberroman. (Hildebrand.) 92. Zeit geschichtlicher R ; roman. (Mielke.) 38. Zeitungsroman. (Mielke.) 248. ITALIAN AND SPANISH 343. Amatoria, Novela ; R. d' Amore ; Historia amorosa. 344. Analitico, R. 345. Brevo, Racconto. 346. Caballeria, Novela de; Libro de ; R. di Cavalleria. 347. Campagnuol (a; o), Novella; Rac- conto. 348. Capa y Espada, Novela de. 71. 349. Comico, R. 350. Corta, Novella. 351. Cuadros. (T. T.) 352. Cuento. 353. Exemplares, Novelas. (Cervantes.) 354. Fabula. 355. Fantasia. 356. Historia; Novela Historica; His- torieta; Historion. 357. Idilio; Idillio. 358. Impressionisto, R. 359. Intimo, R. 360. Istoria; R. Istorico. 361. Legendario; Leggenda; Leyenda. 362. Naturalista, R. 363. Novela. 364. Novella. 365. Obiettivo, R. (Robiati.) 381. 366. Pastello. 367. Pastorale, R; Novela Pastoral; Pastorela. 368. Patrana. 369. Picaresco, R; Novela Picaresca. TYPES OF PROSE FICTION 28 5 370. Politico, R. 371. Popolare, Racconto; Libro; Narracion. 372. Psicologico, R. 373. Racconto. 374. Realisto, R. 375. Relacion. Popular, 376. Romanzo. 377. Rusticana, Novella. 378. Satirico, R. 379. Sintetico-obiettivo, R. (Robiati.) 380. Storia; Storiella; Storietta. 381. Subiettivo, R. (Robiati.) 365. 382. Suenos. (T. T.) IV. NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM No volume devoted to this subject has appeared, so far as the present writer is aware. The following works are helpful, as giving the general background of the development of criticism, or as con- taining specific reference to the novel. (Works not identified in these Notes will be found listed in the Bibliography.) Brunetiere : L'Evolution de la Critique. Roman Naturaliste. Borinski. Braitmaier. Dunlop. See the extended, though poorly arranged bibliography prefixed to the text. (Bohn edition.) Gayley and Scott. Hamelius : Die Kritik in der englischen Litteratur des I7ten und iSten Jahrhunderts. (Leipzig, 1897.) Haym. Korting. Mai- gron. Moulton : Library of Literary Criticism. Raleigh. Rie- mann. Rocafort. Saintsbury : History of Literary Criticism. (Referred to as "S" in the following pages.) Spingarn : History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance. (N.Y., 1899.) Warren. Wylie : Evolution of English Criticism. (Boston, 1894.) The following notes are a slight introduction to a vast field. Criticism of immediate interest to the student of the novel is found in works on the general history of literature, in aesthetics, in works on the epic and drama, etc., etc. Indexes to periodical literature show an accumulation of material it would take years to assimilate. Much of the best criticism is found in biographies of the novelists. It may be noted that the novel itself has often been a mode of criticism, since the beginning. Kastner and Atkins say of Anatole France, "The critical spirit pervades the whole of his thought, so much so that his novels are almost as much of criticism as romance." Individual novels, especially parodies, are frequently criticisms of other novels, or schools of novelists. 286 HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 287 GR^ECO-ROMAN PERIOD Aristotle. The Poetics influenced the theory of the novel, to some extent, in the Renaissance and the i8th century. Cf. S., II., p. 58. Plato. Use and exposition of didactic allegory. His treatment of the social effect of fiction influenced Renaissance defenses of poetry. The romances themselves were the product of a critical spirit. See also Dunlop, I., pp. 36 ; 96 ; 105. THE MIDDLE AGES TO 1400 "From the 5th to the I5th century . . . humanity was obliged to do as well as it could without the solace of novels." (Warren.) " The Middle Ages were not critical." (S.) Defense of realism in Boccaccio, Chaucer, etc. Religious application of fiction, as in the Gesta Romanorum. Critical consciousness in the saga and verse romance. On the relations of epic and romance, see Ker, and Saintsbury's Flourish- ing of Romance. Eustathius. Hysmenia and Hysmene. A caricature of Tatius. (Rohde- Dunlop.) Photius. Myriobiblion. (pth century.) Abridgments and fragmentary criti- cisms of Greek and Latin romances. (Dunlop.) THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY Caxton. Critical work as editor, translator, expositor, and defender of ro- mance. His preface to Morte d' Arthur is " memorable as marking the beginning of prose fiction." (Raleigh.) Martorell. Tirante el Blanco, (cir. 1450.) Is a "predecessor of Don Quixote and ... no less a parody on the genuine romances of chiv- alry." (Warren.) Sannazaro. Arcadia. On its critical significance, see Garnett, and Warren. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY The numerous critical treatises scarcely touched prose fiction, though discussing many matters related to it, such as the use of vernacular, epic theory and technic, allegory, etc. 288 APPENDIX Pastoral romance continued to represent classical scholarship and artistic motive. Picaresque fiction was a critical as well as creative reaction from the older romance spirit. ENGLISH " A singular scorn for the older romances is displayed by the men of the later i6th century." (Raleigh.) Ascham. The Schoolmaster. Severe criticism, from a Protestant and Eng- lish point of view, of Morte d' Arthur, and the Italian novelle. See below, 1 8th century, English, Warton. Lyly. The Euphues embodies a theory of poetical prose. See also its prefaces and dedications. Painter. The Palace of Pleasure. (1566.) The preface gives some expo- sition and defense of the novella. Sidney. Arcadia. Burlesque of pastoral romance and romance of chivalry ; the author's disdain for the work. Defense of Poetry. Much that is essentially applicable, though not applied, to prose fiction. FRENCH Brugis. (Belgian.) Nonis Aprilis. (1523.) Satirical attitude toward romance of chivalry. See Goedeke : Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (1884), I., p. 340. ITALIAN See S. on Castelvetro (II., p. 84), and on Cinthio and Pigna (II., p. 214). Giraldi. Discorsi intorno al comporre dei Romanzi. (1554.) SPANISH For the critical relations of early picaresque fiction, see Chandler and Warren. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH Some of the tendencies suggested by the following references are : Indifference toward romance on the part of scholars ; gen- HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 289 eral hostility of the idealists, especially the Puritans ; the vogue of the aristocratic heroic romance ; the democratic sub-current ; the debased realism of the Restoration; conscious distinction between romance and novel. Bacon. Wisdom of the Ancients. Theory of allegory implied and stated. Advancement of Learning. Dunlop quotes a famous passage, with "fiction" substituted for the "poetry" of some translations. (Introduc- tion.) In the main, Bacon seems afraid to linger in the domain of romance. See S. on his general position. Barclay. Argenis. (1621.) The allegorical purpose is explained (II., 14) according to the current sugar-coated pill idea. Bunyan. See Masson, p. 82, and cf. Defoe, below. Bunyan's influence on Defoe and realism in general was unintentional. Congreve. Incognita. (1692.) See Raleigh, p. 101. Davenant. Preface to Gondibert. (1651.) See S., II., p. 368. Dryden. Much criticism on matters related to prose fiction, such as heroic poetry, satire, allegory, etc. A novelistic method of acquiring materials is recorded in the preface of Annus Mirabilis. Head, The English Rogue. (1665-71.) The prefatory matter defends realistic method in about the same spirit shown by Defoe, Fielding, Smollett, etc. "Though it may seem a romance . . . there is nothing but the truth, naked as she ought to be," etc. Burlesque of high-flown style, and other points of critical interest. Ingelo. Bentivolio and Urania. (1660.) Prefaces. " Examined with a judi- cious eye [romances] would appear to be full of the grossest indecorums of invention, as odious misrepresentations of Divinity, unnatural descriptions of Human Life, improper and profane allusions to sacred things, frequent and palpable contradictions, sottish stories and in short, all the absurdities of wild imagination." The lovers of romance "read Fables with such affection, as if their . . . best interests were wrapped up in them. . . . How unsatisfied are they till the end of a paper combat ! What fears possess them for the Knight whose part they take. . . . How are they taken with pleasure and sorrow for the good and bad success of the Romantic Lovers," etc. Jonson. See S., II., p. 208. Mackenzie. Aretina. (1661.) See Raleigh. Milton. Examine Paradise Lost, opening of Bk. IX.; and note the tendency of the Areopagitica, as to popular reading. 2QO APPENDIX FRENCH For criticism of prose fiction in general, see Korting and Maigron. Boileau. Les Heros de Roman. See Cross, and S., II., p. 292. Calprenede, La. Pharamond. The preface objects to the word " roman," because it confuses historical works with pure inventions like Amadis. (Maigron.) " Durch ihn kommt die Romandichtung zuerst gleichsam vollig zum Selbstbewusstsein," etc. (Korting, I., p. 362.) He ob- served unity of place. (Ibid.) Chapelain. Sur la Lecture des Vieux Romans. See S., II., p. 260. Fancan. Le Tombeau des Romans. (1626.) See Dunlop, II., p. 344. Fresnaye, Vauquelin de la. Art Poetique. (1605.) See S., II., p. 131. FuretiSre. Roman Bourgeois. (1666.) See S., II., p. 554, and Raleigh, p. 115. Huct. De 1'Origine des Romans. (1670.) See S., II., p. 275, and Dunlop, introduction and passim, Molidre. Les Precieuses Ridicules. As a burlesque on the love motifs of Scudery, see Cross. Scarron. Roman Comique. As a burlesque. ScudSry, Georges de. Preface to Ibraham. " Mais entre toutes les regies qu'il faut observer, celle de la vraisemblance est sans doute la plus ne- cessaire." (Quoted in Maigron.) See also S., I., p. 266. Scud6ry, Madeleine de. See Maigron, and under " vraisemblance," Glossary. Sorel. Berger Extravagant. (1627.) As a burlesque " antipastorale." GERMAN Birken. Kurze Anweisung zur deutschen Poesie. (1679.) Considers the relations of romance to pastoral, history, epic, etc. Zesen. One of the most popular fiction writers of the century, but does not mention the romance in his poetic theory. (Borinski, p. 278.) SPANISH Cervantes. Don Quixote. See S., II., p. 347. Note, however, these pas- sages in the novel: I., I., 6; I., L, 21. See above, Martorell. There is a bit of pastoral criticism in the preface to Galatea, and of realistic ethics in the preface of the Novelas Exemplares. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY This is the period in which the " modern novel," in one sense, arose, and it is a period of special critical activity. These two facts are doubtless closely related. HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 291 There is vigorous criticism of the novel in England and Ger- many ; perhaps less notable criticism in France. Among the general phases of this criticism one may note : The defense of realism, and the rise of romantic doctrine ; specific criticism of the Gothic romance, and of the sentimental movement ; increased attention to the theory and technic of prose fiction ; more careful effort to distinguish romance from novel; considerable attention to the history of fiction, and to biographical sketches of novelists ; the development of book-reviewing in the periodicals ; a general neglect of prose fiction in the histories of literature, and in works of general literary criticism ; considerable hostility to fiction, with reference to its great popularity, and the evil effect of circulating libraries. ENGLISH Blair, Hugh. Rhetoric (1783). "There remains to be treated of another species of composition in prose, which comprehends a very numerous, though, in general, a very insignificant class of writings known by the name of romances and novels. These may, at first view, seem too in- significant to deserve that any particular notice should be taken of them." But it is explained that the trouble is with the authors rather than with the nature of the species ; and Blair gives a fairly generous, though very brief, treatment of prose fiction. Defoe. Defense of realism, and relation of fiction to fact in his prefaces ; the doctrine of allegory in the Third Part of Robinson Crusoe, with reference to the Biblical parables. See Geissler. (Halle dissertation, 1896.) Fielding, Henry. Much theoretical, technical, and ethical criticism in his prefaces and intercalated essays. See prefaces of Amelia, Joseph Andrews, David Simple, Letters of David Simple, Tom Thumb, and Covent Garden Tragedy ; Joseph Andrews, I., I and 7, II., I, III., I ; Tom Jones, first chapters of Books V., VI., VIII., IX., X., XL, and XVI.; Jonathan Wild, I., I ; and essays on Conversation, and Knowledge of Men. Also note his burlesque element. See p. 265 in this Appendix. Fielding, Sarah. Theoretical, technical, and ethical criticism in the pref- aces of The Cry and The Countess of Dellwyn. Discussion of chorus, episode, characterization, relations of the novel to the drama and the essay, definition of "humors," and of "romantic," etc. "The motives to actions, and the inward turns of mind, seem, in our opinion, more 2Q2 APPENDIX necessary to be known than the actions themselves; and much rather would we choose that our reader should clearly understand what our principal actors think than what they do." (Were these notable pref- aces written or inspired by Henry Fielding ?) Gentleman's Magazine, The. Reviews many novels toward the end of the century; giving a half column to Evelina, five columns to Juliet Grenville, ten columns to Humphrey Clinker, etc. Goldsmith. Citizen of the World. Criticism of " Bawdry and Pertness " (an attack on Smollett) in No. 53 ; and see also No. 33. Gray. For his views of Ossian, The Castle of Otranto, etc., see Phelps. Hurd. Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762). See S., Vol. III. Johnson. Definitions of romance and novel in the Dictionary ; The Rambler, No. 365 ; Preface to Shakespeare ; many passages in Boswell. See Section 166 of the present volume. Kames. Elements of Criticism (1762). An elaborate aesthetic treatise, / hardly mentioning prose romance. Law. Serious Call. (1726.) This famous ascetic work, influencing the Methodist movement, unconsciously supports the theory and practise of the realistic novelists : " If you are told only in the gross of the folly and madness of a life devoted to the world, it makes little or no impres- sion upon you ; but if you are shown how such people live every day ; if you see the continual folly and madness of all their particular actions and designs, this would be an affecting sight," etc. (Chapter XII.) Leland. Longsword. (1762.) See Phelps. Moore, John. View of the Commencement and Progress of Romance. Life of Smollett. (Both prefixed to Smollett's Works, 1797.) Reeve, Clara. The Progress of Romance. (Two vols., Dublin, 1785.) " While many eminent writers have . . . skimmed over the surface of this subject, it seemed to me that none of them had sounded the depths of it. ... Of metrical Romances they have treated largely, but with respect to those in prose, their informations have been scanty and imper- fect." (Preface.) While beginning with Greek romance, the considera- tion of 1 8th century fiction is liberal. Particular attention is given to the differences between the " old [medieval] Romances," " modern [heroic] Romances," and "the Novel." The prefaces of The Phoenix (translation of Barclay's Argenis), and of The Old English Baron, are of considerable critical importance. Preface of The School for Widows. Criticism of the reigning sentimental school; and distinction between true and false sensibility. Richardson. Exposition of epistolary technic, and of ethical interest, in critical addenda to Pamela and Clarissa. HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 293 Smollett. Preface and Chapter I. of Ferdinand, Count Fathom ; burlesque of Gothic method in Sir Launcelot Greaves. "A novel is a large dif- fused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purposes of an uniform plan, and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is sub- servient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by virtue of his own importance." (Preface of F. C. F.) Walpole. The Castle of Otranto. See Phelps. Warton, Thomas. History of English Poetry. (1778-81.) Answers Ascham's attack on the Italian novelle, and devotes about eighteen pages to them (Section LX.) ; defends an interest in romance in general (Section V.). See S., III., p. 70 ff. See also prefaces of Brooke's Fool of Quality ; Day's Sandford and Merton ; Graves' Columella, and The Spiritual Quixote ; Johnstone's Chrysal; and many other novels of the century. FRENCH For the novelistic doctrine of the Encyclopaedists in general, see Rocafort, Chapter IV. Diderot. Eloge de Richardson. (1742.) Famous for its " superstitious ad- miration." In a well-known passage he places Richardson beside Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, to be read by turns. " Par un roman, on a entendu jusqu'a ce jour un tissu d'evenements chimeriques et fri- voles, dont la lecture etait dangereuse pour le gout et pour les moeurs. . . . le fond de son drame est vrai ; ses personnages ont toute la re"alite possible ; ses caracteres sont pris du milieu de la societe; ses inci- dents sont dans les moeurs de toutes les nations policees ; ... les passions qu'il peint sont telles que je les eprouve en moi ; . . . il me montre le cours general des choses qui m'environnent." See S., III., p. 92. Fresnoy, Lenglet du. L'Histoire justifiee centre les Romans. (1735.) Rousseau. Preface to La Nouvelle HeloTse. (1760.) On the relation of the novel to social degeneracy, etc. References to fiction, especially his own novels, in the Confessions. Voltaire. Criticism of Rousseau, Sterne, and Swift, etc. See S., II., p. 5 16. 294 APPENDIX GERMAN For the criticism of the latter part of the century, see Braitmaier, Haym, and Riemann. Blankenburg. Versuch fiber den Roman. (1766.) See Riemann, p. 4 and passim. Bodmer. " Bodmer, in dealing with prose fiction, recognizes, as few critics had recognized, the second greatest division of the imaginative literature of the world." (S., III., p. 25. See the whole of the passage.) Goethe. Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, V., 7. On the relations of drama and novel. Gottsched. Kritische Dichtkunst. (1730.) "Ihre Verfasser [of the com- mon novels] verstehen oft die Regeln der Poesie so wenig, als die wahre Sittenlehre : daher ist es kein Wunder, wenn sie einen verliebten Laby- rinth in den andern bauen, und eitel Thorheiten durcheinander flechten, ihre wolliistige Leser noch iippiger zu machen, und die Unschuldigen zu verfuhren. Wenn sie erbaulich seyn sollten, miissten sie nach Art eines Heldengedichtes abgefasset werden, wie Heliodorus, Longus, Cervantes und Fenelon gethan haben." (Third ed., 1742, p. 167.) Beitrage zur kritischen Historic. (1732-44.) " Ein Roman muss sowohl als andere Schriften, nach geivissen Regeln abgemessen und eingerichtet werden. Sein erster Hauptzweck soil dieser sein, dass er dem Leser allezeit die Tugend belohnt und das Laster bestraft vorstelle. Alle diejenigen, welche hierwider anstossen, entfernen sich von einem Ziele, welcher der- gleichen Schriften allein leidlich macht." See also S., II., p. 555 ff. Lessing. Some criticism of La Nouvelle Helolse, in Hamburgische Drama- turgic, Nos. 8 and 9. Mendelssohn, Moses. Criticism of La Nouvelle Helolse in his Letters con- cerning Contemporary Literature. See also Braitmaier, II, p. 236 ff. Nicolai, Friedrich. Preface to Sebaldus Nothanker. (1773.) "Alle Bege- benheiten sind in unserer Erzahlung so unvorbereitet, so unwunderbar, als sie in der weiten Welt zu geschchen pflegen. . . . Die Personen . . . sind ganz gemeine schlechte und gcrechte Leute," etc. Novalis. "Die Liebe ist das liochste Reale, der Urgrund ; alle Romane, wo wahre Licbe vorkommt, sind Marchen, magische Bcgebenheiten." "Der Roman ist gleichsam die freie Geschichte, gleichsam die Mythologie der Geschichte." All must be " so natvirlich und doch so wunderbar, dass man glaubt, es konne nicht anders sein, und als habe man nur bisher in der Welt geschlummert und gehe einem nun erst der rechte Sinn fur die Welt auf." See also S., III., pp. 388-9. Schiller. See S., III., p. 381 ff. HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 295 FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In this period the novel became, in the view of many critics, and largely owing to Walter Scott, a "grand genre." The critical theory of the romantic school was inclined to accept the novel, on account of its freedom from traditions, its ready adaptation to the individual writer, and the lyrical mood. The lingering traces of classical criticism appear in continued disdain of romance in gen- eral. Specifically, criticism was at first largely occupied with Scott, partly with the new-old question of the relations of history to fiction raised by the Waverley Novels. Later, realistic reaction against the romantic movement appeared in theories of fiction, as elsewhere. For the purposes of the general student, this is the period in which American and Russian criticism first became of significance. AMERICAN Some general tendencies may be noted in the periodicals; among which The Portfolio (1801-27), The North American Review (established, 1815), The Knickerbocker (1833-58), and The Dial (1840-44) are important. Fuller (Ossoli), Margaret. Brief notes on American novelists. Poe.i" Preface of Murders in the Rue Morgue; periodical reviews, and essay on The Philosophy of Composition. The last has become a classic in the criticism of the short story, though written with lyric poetry mainly in mind. Compare also, "The Poetic Principle." Prescott, W. H. Biographical and Critical Miscellanies include Memoir of C. B. Brown, Cervantes, Sir Walter Scott, Chateaubriand's English Literature, and Poetry and Romance of the Italians; all of which have some reference to prose fiction. In the Chateaubriand, he touches at some length on the relation of history to fiction. Whipple, E. P.^ Literature and Life. (1849.) A chapter on Novels and Novelists contains some general theory, criticism of the sentimental school, selection of Wilhelm Meister as "perhaps the greatest single novel," etc. ENGLISH Barbauld, Mrs. Introduction to Correspondence of Richardson. (1804.) Outline history from Greek romance to Rousseau, etc. 296 APPENDIX Bulwer Lytton attempts serious historical or aesthetic criticism in a con- siderable number of prefaces, and in a few essays. Carlyle. Severe criticism of the Waverley Novels in the essay on Scott " not profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for edification, for building up or elevating in any shape," etc. He criticizes Scott's facility, but praises his effect on the conception of history. Essays on German literature, and preface to Wilhelm Meister. Coleridge. Chapter 23 of Biographia Literaria contains severe criticism of Clarissa and of Gothic romance. See also Statesman's Manual, para- graph 12; Table-Talk, passim ; many fragments in his lectures of 1818; Sections 160 and 165 of the present work, and Tuckerman, p. 200. De Quincey. " Novels are the one sole class of books that ever interest the public, that reach its heart, or even catch its eye. And the reason why novels are becoming much more licentious, and much grosser in the arts by which they court public favor, lies undoubtedly in the quality of that new reading public which the extension of education has added to the old one." (Quoted by F. N. Scott.) Condemnation of Wilhelm Meister, in Essay on Goethe. See S., III., p. 479. Dickens. Prefaces of several novels ; mainly on the sources, process of composition, purpose, etc. Dunlop was remarkably defective in reference to Russian and Scandi- navian fiction. His distribution of space is about as follows : from Greek romance to Boccaccio, 480 pages ; from Boccaccio to 1 700, 490 pages ; the 1 8th century, 50 pages. See p. 266 in this Appendix. Hallam. Literature of Europe. (1837.) "Fiction" is a regular heading in the latter part of the work. Hazlitt, William. English Poets, Chapter I. ; Age of Elizabeth, Lectures VI. and VIII.; English Comic Writers, chapter on novelists; and the essay, Why the Characters of Romance are Insipid. See also S., TIL, p. 251 ff. Jeffrey -reviewed a great deal of fiction during the first quarter of the century, in the Edinburgh Review. His technical interest may be indi- cated by the terms used in February, 1818 (Rob Roy) : scene, underplot, structure, situation, action, coloring, and design. In March, 1817 (Tales of My Landlord), he gives this general approval of fiction: "If novels, however (generally regarded as among the lower productions of our literature), are not fated to last as long as epic poems, they are at least a great deal more popular in their season ; and slight as is their structure, and imperfect as their finishing may often be thought in comparison, we have no hesitation in saying that the better specimens of the art are incomparably more entertaining, and considerably more instructive." HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 297 In 1843, Jeffrey wrote an introductory note to collected Reviews of Novels, Tales and Prose Works of Fiction, in which he gives a very interesting " corrected impression " of the novel in general. Kingsley, Charles.*^ Preface and epilogue of Yeast ; preface of Alton Locke, and of his edition of The Fool of Quality. See S., III., p. 539. Mangin, Edward. Preface to Richardson's Novels. (1810.) Contrasts Richardson's works with the debased "circulating novel" of his own time. Newman, J. H. Prospects of the Anglican Church. (1839.) A brief but significant approval of Scott, as preparing "men for some closer and more practical approximation to Catholic truth." . . . Contrasted with " the popular writers of the last century, with its novelists, and some of its most admired poets, as Pope, [Scott's poems and romances] stand almost as oracles of Truth confronting the ministers of error and sin." Scott. His numerous and various prefaces contain a mine of interesting matter. The essay on Amadis of Gaul is a noteworthy study of the romance of chivalry. On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition (a review of Hoffman). Essay on Romance. Lives of the Novelists. The Journal (published, 1900). Talfourd. The essay on British Novels and Novelists includes a general defense of romance. In this and in other essays, Talfourd wrote on Defoe, The Fool of Quality, Fielding, Goldsmith, Godwin, Mackenzie, Maturin, etc. Thackeray. His burlesque fictions are criticisms of current types or indi- vidual novelists. Jerome Paturot contains " Consideration on Novels in General," and the Paris Sketch Book includes a " Plea for Romances in General." See also the consideration of novelists in English Humor- ists ; Chapter I. of Henry Esmond, and the preface of Pendennis. See S., III., on Lockhart and Macaulay. FRENCH The general development of the criticism of the Romantic Movement is to be traced in Saintsbury, and in all histories of French literature. For the criticism of Scott, see Maigron, especially Book II., Chapter I. On page 158, Maigron gives a glimpse of the artificial criticism of late classicism, with its twenty-six conditions for perfect tragedy, twenty-three for comedy, twenty- four for epic. Balzac. Dedications and prefaces ; especially the preface of La Peau de Chagrin. Chateaubriand. His general relation to the Romantic School. Essai sur 298 APPENDIX la Litterature Anglaise. Genie du Christianisme. See American criti- cism, Prescott, above. Gautier. See S., III., p. 339 ff. Girardin, Saint-Marc. See Bibliography. Hugo. See the authorities noted above. Preface of Notre Dame de Paris. " L'Histoire dit bien quelque chose de tout cela ; mais ici j'aime mieux croire au roman qu'a 1'histoire, parce que je prefere la verite morale a la verite historique." (Quoted in Maigron.) Hulot. Instruction sur les Romans. (1825.) Moral argument against romance. MSrime'e. See S., III., p. 348 ff. ; Dowden, French Literature, p. 410, note. Sainte-Beuve. There is much criticism of novelists in the Causeries, Por- traits Contemporains, Portraits Litteraires, and Chateaubriand et son Groupe Litteraire. Sismondi. Litterature du Midi de 1'Europe. (1813-29.) Some 35 pages out of 1000 are given to prose fiction, Cervantes receiving most attention. Stael, Mme. de. Essai sur les Fictions. (1795.) "L'art d'ecrire des romans n'a point la reputation qu'il merite, parce qu'une foule de mauvais auteurs nous out accables de leurs fades productions en ce genre, ou la perfection exige le genie le plus releve, mais ou la mediocrite est a la portee de tout le monde. . . . Un roman tel qu'on peut le concevoir ... est une des plus belles productions de 1'esprit humain, une des plus influentes sur la morale des individus, qui doit former ensuite les mceurs publiques. . . . On regarde (les romans) comme uniquement consacres a peindre 1'amour, la plus violente, la plus universelle, la plus vraie de toutes les passions. . . . L'ambition, 1'orgueil, 1'avarice, la vanite, pourraient etre Pobjet principal de fictions dont les incidents seraient plus neufs et les situations aussi variees que celles qui naissent de 1'amour. . . . On peut extraire des bons romans une morale plus pure, plus releve"e, que d'aucun ouvrage didac- tique sur la vertu. . . . Les evenements ne doivent e*tre, dans les romans, que 1'occasion de developper les passions du coeur humain. . . . Les romans que 1'on ne cessera jamais d'admirer . . . ont pour but de reveler ou de tracer une foule de sentiments dont se compose, au fond de 1'ime, le bon- heur ou le malheur de 1'existence, ces sentiments qu'on ne dit pas parce qu'ils se trouvent lies avec nos secrets ou nos faiblesses et parce que les hommes passent leur vie avec les hommes, sans se confier jamais mutuelle- ment ce qu'ils eprouvent. . . . Observer le coeur humain, c'est montrer a chaque pas 1'influence de la morale sur la destinee. ... II n'y a qu'un secret dans la vie, c'est le bien ou le mal qu'on a fait. . . . Cest ainsi que 1'histoire de 1'homme doit Sire representee dans les romans, c'est ainsi que les fictions doivent nous expliquer, par nos vertus et nos sentiments. HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 299 les mysteres de notre sort." De 1'Allemagne. Preface of Delphine, and Quelques Reflexions sur le But Moral de Delphine. Stendhal. (Beyle.) "Qu'est-ce que le roman de Walter Scott? De la tragedie romantique, entremelee de longues descriptions." (Quoted in Maigron.) Vigny, de. Reflexions sur la Verite dans 1'Art. (Preface of Cinq-Mars ; 1826.) "On doit s'abandonner a une grande indifference de la realite" historique pour juger les oeuvres dramatiques, poemes, romans ou trage- dies, qui empruntent a 1'histoire des personnages memorables. L'Art ne doit jamais tre considere que dans ses rapports avec sa beaut e ideale," etc. GERMAN For the romantic critics, see Haym. Bouterwek. Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, etc. (Twelve vols., 1805-19.) Vol. III., English translation, " History of Spanish Litera.- ture." (Bohn Library.) This volume gives some attention to prose fiction, particularly to Cervantes. " The result [of Cervantes' initiative] has proved that modern taste, however readily it may in other respects conform to the rules of the antique, nevertheless requires in the narration of fictitious events, a certain union of poetry with prose, which was un- known to the Greeks and Romans in their best literary ages." Jeitteles gives excellent articles on the Novelle and the Roman. Goethe. See S., III., 363, and 366 ff. Richter. Vorschule der Aesthetik. (1804.) "Der Roman verliert an reiner Bildung unendlich durch die Weite seiner Form, in wekher fast alle Formen liegen und Happen konnen. Ursprunglich ist er cpisch ; aber zuweilen erzahlt statt des Autors der Held, zuweilen alle Mitspieler. . . . Aber die Neuern wollen wieder vergessen, dass der Roman chcn sowohl eine romantische dramatische Form annehmen konne und angenommen habe. Ich halte sogar diese scharfere Form . . . fur die bessere, da ohnehin die Laxitat der Prosa dem Romane eine gewissc Strengigkeit der Form notig und heilsam macht." From a passage on the theory of the novel. See also S., III., p. 384 ff. Schlegel, A. W. Vorlesungen iiber schone Litteratur und Kunst. (1803- 04.) On the different relations of prose and verse in ancient and modern literature. " Und so wircl der Roman nicht als Beschluss und Ausartung, sondern als das erste in der neueren Poesie gesetzt ; eine Gattung, welche das Ganze derselben reprasentieren kann. . . . One who cannot under- stand Cervantes "hat wenig Hoffnung den Shakespeare zu begreifen." 300 APPENDIX See also his essays on Lafontaine, Schulz, "Ueber den dramatischen Dialog," etc. Schlegel, Friedrich. Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur. (1815.) Some historical account of the novel, with some theory. His roman- ticism appears in the criticism of Cervantes and Richardson. In the later eighteenth century, " Romance . . . grew to be a favorite mode of composition with those whose enthusiasm for nature found no vent in any of the older existing forms : for it was exempt from all those fetters that cramped aspiring effort in other departments of poetry. . . . Ro- mance became in the hands of these men of genius exactly what each of them wished." (Translation in Bohn Library.) Elsewhere he calls the novel " the highest reach and the sum of all poetry, the ideal and typical romantic form." See also his essays on Boccaccio, Goethe's works, etc.; and S., III., p. 401. Solger. Vorlesungen iiber Aesthetik. (1829.) An example of the early treatment of the novel in German aesthetics. Definition of the novel as a form of epic ; relations of novel, short story, etc. The romantic con- ception of the free form of the novel is embodied in the quotation given under " lyrical " in the Glossary of this Appendix. Schopenhauer. Some interesting references to the novel in his literary essays. See S., III., p. 566 ff. See S.,111., on Heine and Tieck. RUSSIAN The movement from romanticism, through realism, to naturalism may be suggested by these three citations : Karamzin, an admirer and imitator of Sterne, defined the aim of art in some such words as these : "to pour forth floods of emotion on the realm of the sentimental." Gogol speaks of his realistic method as follows : " Pushkin . . . used to say that no author had, as much as I, the gift of showing the reality of the trivialities of life, of describing the petty ways of an insignificant creature, of bringing out and revealing to my readers infinitesimal details which would otherwise pass unnoticed. In fact, there is where my talent lies. The reader revolts against the meanness and baseness of my heroes. . . . They would have forgiven me if I had described some picturesque theatrical knave, but they cannot forgive my vulgarity. The Russians are shocked to see their own insignificance." (Letter, quoted in Pardo Bazan, p. 201.) Byelinski. (181 1-48.) " Nature is the eternal model of art, and the greatest and noblest subject in nature is man. ... Is not for the anatomist and HISTORY OF NOVELIST1C CRITICISM 301 physiologist the organism of a wild Australian as interesting as the or- ganism of an enlightened European ? For what reason should art, in this respect, differ so much from science," etc. (Quoted in Wiener, II., p. 206.) THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY i In this period, one notices first the greatly increased amount of criticism of prose fiction, and the even more significant fact that few of the great critics have failed to make some contribution. Serious consideration of the novel becomes common in works of general criticism, in aesthetics, and in all domains of literary history. German criticism has probably done most for technical study, and perhaps for detailed historical investigation ; French criticism has applied its fondness for formulas, and its clear, rapid examination of problems, to the field of the novel. While many critics now consider the novel as one of the highest forms of art, dissenting voices may still be heard. Viewed as accompanying the creative movement, criticism is at first mainly realistic, then naturalistic, then reactionary in the direction of a new idealism, or neo-romanticism. A few further aspects may be noted : The considerable number of extended works in the history of national fiction ; works on the art of fiction by novelists or others, intended for practical guidance to beginners ; the increased number of monographs of all varieties in this field ; fresh consideration of fiction in the light of new sociological, psychological, and ethical views; increased attention to the short story as a distinct type; work in the educational domain university theses, edited masterpieces, pamphlets, and books for the systematic study of fiction, syllabi of lecture courses etc. AMERICAN Garland, Hamlin. Crumbling Idols. The " new spirit " of American realism appears in vigorous fashion. There is much general reference to the 302 APPENDIX novel, exposition and defense of "veritism," consideration of "local color," and a striking theory of " the local novel." Hawthorne. Notes on his sources, method, etc. Preface of The House of the Seven Gables, on the nature of romance. Howells. Criticism and Fiction. My Literary Passions. Heroines of Fiction. Magazine editorials. In general, exposition and defense of the realistic position, with special interest in continental realism, including Russian. James, Henry. < Periodical articles. Hawthorne. French Poets and Novelists. The Art of Fiction. "The analogy between the art of the painter and the art of the novelist, is, so far as I am able to see, complete. A novel being a picture . . . how can a picture be either moral or im- moral ? " " The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does compete with life. " "The air of reality (solidity of specification) seems to me the supreme virtue of a novel." Cf. Stevenson, below. See also under " impression," in Glossary. Lanier. There is severe criticism of his English Novel in S., III., p. 643. Mabie, H. M. has given some attention to fiction. Matthews, Brander. Theoretical, technical, and historical criticism. Special exposition of the short story, as an independent type. See the Bibliography, under C. S. Baldwin Barrett Burton Canby Chandler Cody Cook Crawford Crawshaw Cross David- son Dixson Dye Forsyth Hammond Lewis MacClintock Moulton Nettleton Frank Norris Perry Scudder Simonds L. W. Smith Stoddard Thompson Tuckerman Van der Velde Warren. ENGLISH Dallas. May be noted for a low opinion of the novel at a late date. The " novel is but a fictitious biography." ..." A novel may be described as gossip etherealized, family talk generalized." Dowden has given special attention to George Eliot and to Goethe, in various essays and studies ; some attention to the novel in the French Revolution, and the History of French Literature. Eliot, George. A vigorous defense of realism in the preface of Adam Bede; essays on Story-Telling, Lady Novelists, Silly Novels by Lady Novelists; and material for study of her own work in Cross's Life. Gosse has made something of a specialty of the novel, discussing theory as well as history. Northern Studies. Questions at Issue. In his history of Eighteenth Century English Literature he gives a good account HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 303 of the rise of the novel. Also note his numerous introductions to trans- lations of continental novels Dutch, Scandinavian, Spanish, etc. Hardy, Thomas. Prefaces of Return of the Native, Mayor of Casterbridge, A Pair of Blue Eyes, and Jude the Obscure. In the last, he gives this realistic, impressionistic statement : " Like former productions of this pen, Jude the Obscure is simply an endeavor to give shape and coherence to a series of seemings, of personal impressions, the question of their con- sistency or their discordance, of their permanence or their transitoriness, being regarded as not of the first moment." Helps. See S. Meredith, George. The prelude of The Egoist is a defense of satire in art, especially in fiction. Cf. the Essay on Comedy. Chapter I of Diana of the Crossways touches the relation of fiction to philosophy. Ruskin. Characteristic reference to fiction in many passages. Attack on realism in Fiction, Fair and Foul. Consideration of Scott in Part IV., Chapters 16 and 17, and incidental mention of other novelists, in Modern Painters. Comment on fiction in Fors, especially Letter 31 and follow- ing, on Scott. "Of the four great English tale-tellers whose dynasti.-s have set or risen within my own memory Miss Edgeworth, Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray I find myself greatly at pause in conjecturing, however dimly, what essential good has been effected by them, though they all had the best intentions. Of the essential mischief done by them, there is, unhappily, no doubt whatever." Cf. Carlyle and Newman, above. Saintsbury has been a wide reader of fiction, as of most forms of litera- ture, and has recorded many of his impressions. French Novelists. Corrected Impressions. Volumes in the history of English literature, and in Periods of European Literature. Miscellaneous essays. Edi- torial introductions to the novels of Balzac, Defoe, Fielding, and others. Stevenson. His criticism is partly an expression of the neo-romanticism of the closing decades of the century. See passages in his letters, and the essays, A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas', A Gossip on Romance, Victor Hugo's Romances, and A Humble Remonstrance. The last is directed in part against the Art of Fiction, by Henry James. (See above.) "The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life . . . but by its immeasurable difference from life, which is designed and sig- nificant, and is both the method and material of the work." Traill, H. D. See S., III. Trollope, Anthony. The Autobiography contains, besides much mate-rial on his own fiction, a chapter on Novels and the Art of Writing Them, and a chapter on English Novelists of the Present Day. The first of these opens with the statement, " It is nearly twenty years since I pro- 304 APPENDIX posed to myself to write a history of English prose fiction." It is interest- ing to note that this time coincides with the date of Masson's work the first important history of English fiction. See the Bibliography, under Baker Besant Jack Ker Masson W. E. Norris Raleigh Robertson Senior Turner Wilson Wors- fold. FRENCH Bourget. Criticism of French novelists in Etudes de Psychologic Contempo- raine, and in Etudes et Portraits. Brunetidre. Many separate studies in Etudes Critiques, Questions de Cri- tique, Essais sur la Litterature Contemporaine. Victor Hugo. Notable attention in the Manual of French Literature. Le Roman Naturaliste is probably one of the best five or six volumes of aesthetic criticism in the whole field of the novel, for the average student. It was " largely instrumental in hastening the end of naturalism." (Kastner and Atkins.) Of the novel he says : " nul autre genre ne se prete plus complaisamment a des exigences plus diverses." " Par Pimprevu de ses combinaisonsinfinies, par la variete des formes qu'il peut presque indifferem- ment revStir, par la liberte de son allure et 1'universalite de sa langue, il convient particulierement a nos societes democratiques." Of historical romance : " ni du roman ni de 1'histoire, ou plutot qui sera de 1'histoire si vous y cherchez le roman, mais qui redeviendra du roman si vous y cherchez de 1'histoire." Lemaitre. Impressions de Theatre. Contains notices of dramatizations of Pere Goriot, Crime and Punishment, and Germinie Lacerteux. Montegut. Dramaturges et Romanciers. Ecrivains Modernes de 1'Angle- terre is largely upon novelists. See also S. Pellissier. The following may be quoted as a representative recent view of the novel by an historian of general literary movements : " Tenu par les anciens et mSme par notre Sge classique pour un divertissement frivole, le roman avait echappe" ainsi aux definitions et aux regies d'une critique que ne daignait pas s'en occuper. II n'y a guere plus de cinquante ans, Villemain osait a peine le faire entrer dans 1'histoire litteraire, et ne 1'admet- tait du moins qu'en langue grecque. La nature meme du genre se prStait d'ailleurs a tous les sujets et a tous les tons ; aussi, favorise par les con- ditions sociales, devait-il en notre temps prendre les formes les plus diverses et refleter les multiples aspects de 1'dme mod erne. Et, s'il n'est au XIX C siecle aucun sentiment, aucune idee, qui n'y trouve son expres- sion, il n'est aucune ecole de quelque importance qui n'ait tente d'en renouveler la formule d'apres ses vues particulieres, aucune conception HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 305 de 1'art & laquelle il ne se soit accommode*. II avail etc d'abord une effusion de sensibilite personnelle. II s'appliqua ensuite a faire revivre les siecles passes dans leurs personnages, leurs moeurs et leurs costumes. Quittant 1'histoire pour la societe contemporaine, il se divisa cnfin, sans sortir de ce cadre mSme, en deux genres bien distincts et repondant a deux tendances irreductibles de 1'esprit : les uns, regardant la vie reelle a travers leur imagination Uprise de beaute, de vertu, de bonheur, en rendirent un tableau toujours idealise dans sa verite me"me ; les autres, armes d'une analyse sagace et penetrante, s'etudierent a la voir tclle qu'elle est et a la representer telle qu'ils 1'avaient vue." (Fourth edition, Paris, 1895, P- 2 32.) Paris, Gaston. Important for medieval fiction. Sand, George. Prefaces to several novels. Scherer, Edmond. One of the chief critics of George Eliot in France. Cf. Le Roman Naturaliste : Le Naturalisme Anglais, Etude sur George Eliot. See pp. 205 and 206 of the present volume. Taine. " He undoubtedly gave considerable impetus to the Naturalistic movement, but it is entirely unfair to make him responsible for its exaggerations and excesses." (Kastner and Atkins.) Cf. Lanson, p. 1060. V6ron. " It has been the fashion for the last fifty years to abuse novels on every opportunity. Would-be serious criticism looks down upon them as beneath its notice," etc. Against such a view Veron affirms the " poetic character " of the novel. Vogue", de. "The Neo-Christian movement [is due] in great measure to his critical studies on the great Russian novelists." (Kastner and Atkins.) Zola. Brunetiere's Roman Naturaliste is in part an answer to his theories as well as practise. See S., and many monographs and essays. See S. on Amiel, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Baudelaire, Doudan, Flaubert, Gautier, the Goncourt brothers, Planche, Texte, etc. See Bibliography, under Albert Chassang Do umic Gilbert Guyau Jusserand Lanson Le Breton Le Goffic Maigron Morillot Rocafort Texte. GERMAN Baumgart. " Der Prosaroman ist viel zu fest an die Detaildarstellung gebunden, als dass er jemals sich ganz zu der Hohe des Epos erheben konnte, wo das Kennzeichen aller echten Poesie die Darstellung des Besondern in lebendigster Gegenwartigkeit zugleich mit der Wirklichkeit wetteifert und doch uberall das Allgemeine in sich chliesst." (p. 315.) 306 APPENDIX Beyer, C. Deutsche Poetik. About fifty pages are given to the novel a good example of its treatment in later German poetics. " Der Roman ist das Prosaepos der Gegenwart . . . jene umfangreiche Prosa-Erzahlung, welche Entwickelungsgang und Geschick eines Helden vom ersten Ahnen oder Beginnen seines Strebens bis zu einem gewissen Abschluss einer Reihe von Begebenheiten (bis zur Erreichung eines Zieles oder bis zur Sichtbarwerdung der poetischen Gerechtigkeit, d. i. der Vollendung der poetischen Idee) in abgerundeter Form und poetischer, das wirkliche Leben und den jeweiligen Charakter der Zeit wiederspiegelnder Weise darstellt. Mit andern Worten : der Roman bietet die poetische Ge- staltung eines individuellen, einheitlich bestimmten bedeutenden Lebens in der Form geschichtlicher Erscheinung ; die Spiegelung dieses Lebens mit seinen sittlichen Hohen und Tiefen ; das Bild dieses durch Erfah- rung gereiften, durch Gefahren erprobten, zuletzt zu einem sichern Stand- punkt gelangten Lebens, wie es beispielsweise bei der homerischen Erzahlung der Irrfahrten des Odysseus entgegentritt." (Third edition, Berlin, 1900, II., p. 347.) Borinski. Interesting as an example of the study of the theory of the novel in the general history of criticism. Brandes discusses a number of novelists in Moderne Geister and Menschen und Werke, as well as in Hauptstromungen. In the last work he treats the " historical and ethnographical naturalism " of Scott at some length. Carrie" re. Aesthetik. (1885.) "Die Poesie hat sich ins Gemiith gefliichtet, die Entwickelung der Individuality in einer vielfach widersprechenden prosaischen Welt verlangt nun ihre kiinstlerische Wiedergeburt, und diese ist der Roman." Freytag. The analysis of plot in the Technik des Romans has been applied to the novel by various critics. Some theory and technic in the essay on Wilibald Alexis. Preface to Soil und Haben. " Dem Schonen in edelster Form den hochsten Ausdruck zu geben, ist nicht jeder Zeit ver- gonnt, aber in jeder soil der erfindende Schriftsteller wahr sein gegen seine Kunst und gegen sein Volk. . . . Gliicklich werde ich sein, wenn . . . dieser Roman den Eindruck macht, dass er wahr nach den Gesetzen des Lebens und der Dichtkunst erfunden und doch niemals zufalligen Ereignissen der Wirklichkeit nachgeschrieben ist." Ludwig. The novel "verlangt erstens Ruhe, Abwcisen jeder Art Ungeduld, zweitens je grosser, d., h., langer, reicher er ist, desto mehr eine gewisse Ausserlichkeit. . . . Eine Hauptkunst des Romanschreibers ist ferner das Arrangement, das Verschweigen von Dingen, die man gern wissen mochte, das Zeigen von Personen und Dingen, deren Verhaltniss zum HISTORY OF NOVELISTIC CRITICISM 307 Ganzen noch unbekannt, das Ahbrechen, das Verschlingen, das Ver- bergen des Innern hinter dem Aussern, der Absichten der Personen." Meyer. Konversations-Lexikon. " Das eigentlich Charakteristische des Ro- mans im heutigen Sinne dieses Wortes, besteht clarin, dass der Roman in hoherm Grade und in umfassenderer Weise als jede andre, auch jede andre epische Dichtungsart, auf die analysierende Darstellung des vielver- schlungenen Getriebes des seelischen Lebens und seiner innern Geschichte gerichtet ist, oder mit einem Worte : in seinem eminent psychologischen Charakter. Steht dem Drama besonders nahe." (Fifth edition, 1896.) Nietzsche. SeeS., III. Nordau, Max. Cf. the treatment of Tolstoi and Zola as degenerates, with Robiati and Merejkowski. Chapters in Paradoxes, on The Import of Fiction, etc. Riemann. One of the most suggestive volumes of recent criticism in the field of the novel. See p. 267 of this Appendix. Scherer, W. Kleine Schriften, II. Includes essays on George Eliot, Auer- bach, etc., and on technic of the modern short story. See Bibliography. Spielhagen. In addition to volumes given in the Bibliography, there are chapters in Aus Meiner Studienmappe on Auerbach, Bjornson, and Feuil- let. This contribution to the much-discussed relation of drama to novel may be quoted : " Der Roman ist in jeder Beziehung des Stoffes, der Oekonomie, der Mittel, ja selbst, subjectiv, in Hinsicht der Qualitat der poetischen Phantasie und dichterischen Begabung, der voile Gegensatz des Dramas." Schmidt, Erich. Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe. Charakteristiken also contains much on novelists. See the Bibliography, under Bobertag Bolsche Braitmaier Cholevius Eichendorff Gottschall Heyse Koberstein Korting Kreyssig Mielke Reborn Rohde Volkelt. ITALIAN d' Annunzio. The preface of II Trionfo della Morte is interesting as show- ing the Italian traditions of language, and the fine sense of art. Robiati. His critical theory is distinct if not original : " Per me la critica ha P ufficio di studiare il movimento del pensiero di un popolo . . . studiare 1' opera d' arte non in se, ma come segno di una data epoca, di un determinato periodo storico." For each of the principal novelists studied he has a formula : "In Verga ho studiato lo sviluppo del ro- manzo naturalista da noi ; in Rovetta una nuova forma di pessimismo ; in Fogazzaro 1' influenza germanica presso di noi ; in Ottone di Banzole 308 APPENDIX 1* arte di decadenza." He defines the naturalistic novel as one " che cerca le leggi matematiche con cui un individuo od un gruppo sociale agisce o deve agire in date circonstanze, in determinati ambienti." See also p. 189 of the present volume. Verga. The novel is "la piu completa e la piu umana delle opere d' arte." See also Section 129. RUSSIAN Gorki gives a severe criticism of realism, with some reference to his own work, in Poet-Lore, summer, 1904. Merejkowski. The volume given in the Bibliography is one of the ablest and most stimulating criticisms of Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, and Tolstoi, accessible in English. In a sense it is a review of the major tendencies of Russian fiction throughout the century. Tolstoi. What is Art, while not directly on the novel, is of large interest to the student of that form of art. Preface to edition of Maupassant. SPANISH Pardo Bazan, Emilia. Fiction is considered in the volume on Russian literature and life. The influence of Russian naturalism on French and Spanish fiction, etc. Discussion of realism and naturalism in several other critical works. Vald6s. Los Novelistas Espafioles. Brief chapters on Alarcon, Galdds, Valera, etc. Valera. Royal Academy addresses on Amadis of Gaul, Don Quixote and methods of judging it. Preface to later editions of Pepita Jimenez. Nuevo Arte de Escribir Novelas. V. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES THE following list includes : I. Some works mentioned elsewhere in this volume without sufficient bibliographical clearness. II. A few important references in the fields of, 1. The theory and technic of fiction, including the short story, as that is usually discussed in comparison with the novel ; 2. The study or methodical criticism of fiction ; 3. The history of European fiction, in large areas, and when it is the principal subject of a work ; 4. The history of theory. III. A few other works of such nature as to be of special value in connec- tion with the above interests. Suggestion for much more extensive reading is given in the Notes on the History of Novelistic Criticism. In the present list, a f indicates that the author (not always the individual work) is mentioned in those Notes. A * has been placed before those works which are entirely or mainly concerned with fiction. ALBERT, PAUL : La Prose. Paris, 1887. About 20 pages on the novel. * BAKER, E. A. : A Descriptive Guide to the Best Fiction. London, 1903. Limited to English originals and translations. BALDWIN, J. M. (editor) : Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. Three vols.,N.Y., 1901-03. Defines or discusses many aesthetic, ethical, psychological, and socio- logical terms found in the criticism of fiction. (References elsewhere are to this work.) * BALDWIN, C. S. : American Short Stories. N.Y., 1904. Selections ; with introductory essay on the short story. * BARRETT, C. R.: Short Story Writing. N.Y., 1900. Theory ; technic ; classification, etc. tBAUMGART, H.: Handbuch der Poetik. Stuttgart, 1887. 309 310 APPENDIX * BESANT, WALTER : The Art of Fiction. London, 1884. A brief work on the theory, "laws," and technic of the novel as a form of art ; from a novelist's point of view. BETZ, L. P.: La Litterature Comparee. Essai Bibliographique. 2d ed., Strassburg, 1904. Lists many studies in the international relations of fiction, f BEYER, C. : Deutsche Poetik. 3d ed., three vols., Berlin, 1900. * BOBERTAG, F. : Geschichte des Romans und der ihm verwandten Dichtungs- gattungen in Deutschland. Two vols., Berlin, 1877-84. BOLSCHE, W. : Die naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der Poesie. Pro- legomena einer realistischen Aesthetik. Leipzig, 1887. Consideration of Zola is included, f BORINSKI, K. : Die Poetik der Renaissance. Berlin, 1886. About 30 pages on the novel. BRAITMAIER, F. : Geschichte der poetischen Theorie und Kritik von den Diskursen der Maler bis auf Lessing. Two vols., Frauenfeld, 1888-89. A little discussion of the novel. fBRANDES, GEORG: Die Hauptstromungen der Litteratur des igten Jahr- hunderts. 5th ed., six vols., Berlin, 1897. Translated from the Danish. English translation, N.Y. and London, six vols., 1901-05. BRAY, J. W. : History of English Critical Terms. Boston, 1898. Valuable within its field ; but " critical " is understood as judicial, and there is no consideration of strictly technical terms. f* BRUNETIERE, F.: Le Roman Naturaliste. New ed., 1893. Broad aesthetic and ethical criticism of realism, naturalism, impres- sionism, the experimental novel, etc. Illustration chiefly from French fiction, with an essay on "Le Naturalisme Anglais: Etude sur George Eliot." (References elsewhere are to this work.) BRUNETIERE, F. : L'Evolution des Genres. 1890. * BURTON, RICHARD : Forces in Fiction. Boston, 1902. BURTON, RICHARD : Literary Likings. Boston, 1898. (1903.) Besides criticisms of individual novelists, includes four essays on gen- eral " Phases of Fiction." *CANBY, H. S.: The Short Story. N.Y., 1902. A pamphlet ; mainly theoretical. Revised as the Introduction to Jessup and Canby's Book of the Short Story. N.Y. and London, 1903. * CHANDLER, F. W. : Romances of Roguery. Vol. L, N.Y., 1899. Mainly historical research in the Spanish field. * CHASSANG, M. A. : Histoire du Roman et de ses Rapports avec PHistoire. 1862. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES 311 *CHOLEVIUS, L. : Die bedeutendsten deutschen Romane des lytcn Jahr- hunderts. Leipzig, 1866. * [CODY, SHERMAN] : How to Write Fiction. Especially the Art of Short Story Writing. London, 1895. A defense and exposition of technical method. * COOK, MAY E. : Methods of Teaching Novels. Chicago, n. cL A pamphlet for secondary schools. * CRAWFORD, F. M. : The Novel : What It is. N.Y., 1903. CRAWSHAW, W. H. : The Interpretation of Literature. N.Y., 1896. Pedagogical ; special outlines for the study of the main types of litera- ture. See p. 267 of this Appendix* * CROSS, W. L. : The Development of the English Novel. N.Y., 1899. A standard work, covering the entire history of the English novel, conceived as an evolution d'un genre. Cf. Stoddard. Much material on the form of the novel. t DALLAS, E. S. : The Gay Science. [Criticism.] Two vols., London, 1866. A chapter on the novel. * DAVIDSON, HARRIET A. : The Study of Ivanhoe; Romola; Silas Marner, etc. Albany, and in some cases, N.Y. Suggestive analytical pamphlets. * DAVIDSON, HARRIET A.: The Creative Art of Fiction. (Pamphlet.) Albany. *DixsoN, ZELLA A.: Subject-Index to Universal Prose Fiction. N.Y., 1897. * DOUMIC, RENE : Contemporary French Novelists. N.Y., 1899. Translated from the French. t*DuNLOP, J. C.: History of Prose Fiction. London, 1814. Revised ed., with important additions, two vols., London, 1888. See p. 266 in this Appendix. * DYE, CHARITY : The Story-Teller's Art. Boston, 1898. A brief analytical treatise for secondary schools. * EICHENDORFF, J. VON: Der deutsche Roman des iSten Jahrhunderts in seinem Verhaltnis zum Christentum. Leipzig, 1857. FITZMAURICE-KELLY, J : History of Spanish Literature. N.Y., 1898. * FORSYTH, WM. : Novels and Novelists of the i8th Century. In Illustration of the Manners and Morals of the Age. N.Y., 1871. fFREYTAG, GUSTAV : Die Technik des Dramas. 1863. 8th ed., Leipzig, 1898. English translation, Chicago, 1895. GARDINER, J. H. : Forms of Prose Literature. N. Y., 1900. t GARLAND, HAMLIN : Crumbling Idols. Chicago, 1894. GARNETT, RICHARD : History of Italian Literature. N.Y., 1898. 312 APPENDIX GAYLEY, C. M., and F. N. SCOTT : Introduction to Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism. Vol. I., Boston, 1899. GIDDINGS, F. H. : Inductive Sociology. N.Y., 1901. * GILBERT, EUGENE : Le Roman en France pendant le XIX e Siecle. 2d ed., 1896. GIRARDIN, SAINT-MARC : Cours de Litterature Dramatique. Five vols., 1843 S< 1' Includes considerable direct reference to the novel pastoral romance, heroic romance, etc. The treatment of the psychology of the drama, in reference to love, jealousy, suicide, etc., is applicable in part to the novel. GOTTSCHALL, R. VON : Poetik. 5th ed., Breslau, 1882. About 30 pages on the novel and short story ; classification of fiction. GUYAU, M. : L'Art au Point de Vue Sociologique. 1889. Quite extended treatment of the novel. * HAMMOND, ELEANOR P. : Class Questions for Analysis of Narrative Fiction. University of Chicago, 1899. A pamphlet of technical analysis. HAYM, R. : Die Romantische Schule. Berlin, 1870; reprint, 1902. Excellent on the theory of the novel held by the romanticists. HENNEQUIN, EMILE : La Critique Scientifique. 1890. See p. 266 in this Appendix. HEYDRICK, B. A. : How to Study Literature. 3d ed., N.Y., 1903. For secondary schools ; brief but sound analysis for the separate types of literature. * HEYSE, PAUL, and H. KURZ (editors) : Deutscher Novellenschatz. Introduction, on theory of short story. * HITCHCOCK, A. M. : How to Study Fiction. Boston and Chicago, 1899. A brief pamphlet for secondary schools, f* HOWELLS, W. D. : Criticism and Fiction. N.Y., 1895. * HOWELLS, W. D. : Heroines of Fiction. Two vols., N.Y. and London, 1901. *JACK, A. A. : Essays on the Novel as Illustrated by Scott and Miss Austen. London, 1897. t* JAMES, HENRY: Art of Fiction. Boston, 1885. Theory of the novel, from a realistic position. * JAMES, HENRY : French Poets and Novelists. N.Y., 1878. (1884 ; 1893.) JAMES, WILLIAM : Principles of Psychology. Two vols., N.Y., 1890. t JEITTELES, IG. : Aesthetisches Lexikon. Two vols., Vienna, 1835-37. * JUSSERAND, J. J. : Le Roman Anglais. Origine et Formation des Grandes Fxoles de Romanciers du XVIIP Siecle. 1886. * JUSSERAND, J. J. : The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare. N.Y. and London, 1890. Translated from the French. Entertaining as well as scholarly. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES 313 KASTNER, L. E. and H. G. ATKINS : Short History of French Literature. N.Y., 1901. KER, W. P. : Epic and Romance. London, 1897. A scholarly consideration of the medieval transition from epic to ro- mance, in the main viewed as a degeneration, with close analysis of both types. KOBERSTEIN, A. : Grundriss der Geschichte der deutschen Nationallitteratur. 5th ed., 5 vols, Leipzig, 1872-73. About 100 pages on the novel ; including theory of prose narration, and particularly the iSth century theory of the novel, in Germany. * KORTING, C. : Geschichte des franzosischen Romans im I7ten Jahrhundcrt. Leipzig, 1885-87. * KREYSSIG, FR. : Vorlesungen iiber den deutschen Roman der Gegenwart. Berlin, 1871. (1891.) f* LANIER, SIDNEY : The English Novel and the Principles of its Develop- ment. N.Y., 1883. LANSON, GUSTAVE : Histoire de la Litterature Francaise. Ed. of 1901. Detailed critical discussion of types as well as individual novelists. * LE BRETON, A. : Le Roman au XVII e Siecle. 1890. (1898.) * LE GOFFIC, CHARLES : Les Romanciers d'Aujourd'hui. 1890. LEVEQUE, C. : La Science du Beau. 1872. * LEWIS, E. H. : Types of American Fiction. (Syllabus of lecture course.) University of Chicago, 1896. Presents a method of analysis, applied to individual works. LOTZE, H. : Outlines of ^Esthetics. Translated and edited by G. T. Ladd. Boston, 1886. f* LUDWIG, OTTO (1813-65) : Romanstudien (one vol. in Schriften, six vols.). Leipzig, 1891. Important for theory, technic, and classification. * MACCLINTOCK, W. D. : Studies in Fiction. (Syllabus of lecture course.) University of Chicago, 1897. Suggestive and detailed ; quite technical analysis. * MAIGRON, L. : Le Roman Historique a 1'Epoque Romantique. Essai sur PInfluence de Walter Scott. 1898. *MASSON, DAVID: British Novelists and Their Styles. London, 1856. (Boston, 1892.) Historical review from Morte d'Arthur to date of writing. Some theory and technic. See p. 266 in this Appendix, t* MATTHEWS, BRANDER : Philosophy of the Short Story. N.Y., 1888. (1901.) * MATTHEWS, BRANDER : Aspects of Fiction. N.Y., 1896. 314 APPENDIX * MATTHEWS, BRANDER : The Historical Novel and Other Essays. N.Y., 1901. Several essays on fiction; one on "The Study of Fiction." t MEREJKOWSKI, D. : Tolstoi as Man and Artist. With an Essay on Dos- toievski. English translation, N.Y. and London, 1902. * MIELKE, H. : Der deutsche Roman des iQten Jahrhunderts. 4th ed., 1900. " The best work on the [German] fiction of the century." f* MONTKGUT, E. : Dramaturges et Romanciers. 1878. (1890.) MONTEGUT, E. : Ecrivains Modernes de 1'Angleterre. Three vols., 1892. * MORILLOT, PAUL : Le Roman en France depuis 1610 jusqu'a nos Jours. 1893. * MORILLOT, PAUL: Scarron et le Genre Burlesque. 1888. MORLEY, HENRY : Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century. London andN.Y., 1891. Only English works are included. MOULTON, C. W. (editor) : The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Eight vols., Buffalo, N.Y., 1901-04. Includes systematically arranged criticisms of novels and novelists. * MOULTON, R. G. : Stories as a Mode of Thinking. (Syllabus.) University of Chicago. * MOULTON, R. G. :. Four Vears of Novel Reading. Boston, 1895. A record of literary club work. Introduction on the study of fiction. MOULTON, R. G. : Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist. N.Y., 1885. (1901.) A defense and program for systematic analytical criticism. Much that is applicable, mutatis mutandis, to the novel. (References elsewhere are to this volume.) NETTLETON, G. H. : Specimens of the Short Story. N.Y., 1901. NICHOL, JOHN : American Literature. 2d ed., Edinburgh, 1885. fNoRDAU, MAX: Degeneration. Translated from the German. N.Y., 1895. NORDAU, MAX : Paradoxes. (1885.) Translated from the German. Chi- cago, 1895. * NORRIS, FRANK : The Responsibilities of the Novelist and Other Literary Essays. N.Y., 1903. Realistic, democratic, and American position ; defends technical study, and includes a chapter on "The Mechanics of Fiction." * NORRIS, W. E., and others : On the Art of Writing Fiction. London, 1894. Rather light essays on special types and elements of fiction, by novelists, largely by way of advice to beginners. t PARDO BAZ/N, EMILIA : Russia ; its People and its Literature. Translated from the Spanish. Chicago, 1890. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES 315 fPELLissiER, GEORGES: The Literary Movement in France during the Nine- teenth Century. Translated from the French. N.Y., 1897. * PERRY, BLISS : A Study of Prose Fiction. Boston, 1902. The first important work in English on the theory, technic, and general study of fiction, as distinct from historical works. PHELPS, WM. L. : The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement. Boston, 1893. * RALEIGH, WALTER : The English Novel. N.Y., 1894. An historical review from Chaucer to Waverley. * REHORN, K. : Der deutsche Roman : Geschichtliche Ruckblicke und kri- tische Streiflichter. Cologne, 1890. f* RIEMANN, R. : Goethes Romantechnik. Leipzig, 1902. ROBERTSON, J. M. : Essays towards a Critical Method. Two vols. " Es- says," 1889; "New Essays," 1897; London. On critical method in general, and its application to individual writers, including Poe and W. D. Howells. f* ROBIATI, G. : II Romanzo Contemporaneo in Italia. Milan, 1892. (Written in 1888.) in pages. ^Esthetic, sociological, and psychological discussion of schools and individual novelists. ROCAFORT, J. : Les Doctrines Litteraires de PEncyclope"die. 1890. Five or six pages on the theory of the novel. * ROHDE, E. : Der griechische Roman und seine Vorlaufer. Leipzig, 1876. t* SAINTSBURY, GEORGE : Essays on French Novelists. London, 1891. SAINTSBURY, GEORGE : The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory. N.Y., 1896. SAINTSBURY, GEORGE : A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe. Three vols., N.Y., Edinburgh, and London, 1900-1904. Invaluable as a general background for the historical student of the novel and its theory, f SCHERER, EDMOND : Etudes sur la Litterature Contemporaine. Nine vols., 1863-1889. A selection translated by Saintsbury, "Essays on English Literature," London, 1891, includes three studies of George Eliot. t* SCHERER, W. : Die Anfange des deutschen Prosaromans. Strassburg, 1877. t SCHMIDT, ERICH : Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe. 1875. SCUDDER, VIDA D. : Social Ideals in English Letters. Boston and N.Y., 1898. For the novel, the development of the subject is traced in More, Swift, Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot. * SENIOR, N. W. : Essays on Fiction. London, 1864. Still valuable for its theoretical and technical, as well as historical matter. 316 APPENDIX SIMONDS, W. E. : Introduction to the Study of English Fiction. Boston, 1894. Mainly a selection of texts, but with some critical and historical matter. * SIMONDS, W. E. : School edition of Ivanhoe. Chicago, 1900. (References elsewhere are to this volume.) * SMITH, L. W. : The Writing of the Short Story. Boston, 1904. t* SPIELHAGEN, FR. : Beitrage zur Theorie und Technik des Romans. Leip- zig, 1883. One of the most important works on its subject. SPIELHAGEN, FR. : Neue Beitrage zur Theorie und Technik der Epik und Dramatik. Leipzig, 1898. Some discussion of the novel. * STODDARD, R. H. : The Evolution of the English Novel. N.Y., 1900. A standard work, but not as extensive in historical scope as Cross. SYMONDS, J. A.: Essays Speculative and Suggestive. Two vols., London, 1890. TAYLOR, H. S. : The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages. N. Y., 1901. TEXTE, J. : J.-J. Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitanisme Litteraire. 1895. English translation, N.Y., 1895. Distinctly conceived in the spirit of comparative literature. Liberal discussion of the eighteenth-century English novelists. * THOMPSON, D. G. : The Philosophy of Fiction in Literature. London and N.Y., 1890. Important discussion of the aesthetic, ethical, psychological, and social aspects of fiction ; chapters on "The Construction," and " The Criticism," of a Work of Fiction. fTRAlLL, H. D. : The New Fiction and Other Essays. 1897. Includes discussion of the political novel, the novel of manners, and the " novel of humours." *TUCKERMAN, B. : A History of English Prose Fiction. N.Y., 1882(1899). * TURNER, C. E. : Modern Novelists of Russia. London, 1890. Excellent for the period covered. TURNER, C. E. : Studies in Russian Literature. London, 1882. (The references of the present volume are to this work.) t* VALDES, A. PALACIO : Los Novelistas Espafioles. Madrid, 1884. * VAN DER VELDE : French Fiction of To-Day. Two vols., N.Y., 1891. fVERON, EUGENE: ^Esthetics. Translated from the French. London and Philadelphia, 1879. VISCHER, F. T. : Aesthetik. Three vols., 1846. f* VOGUE, E. M. DE : Le Roman Russe. Paris, 1886. English translation, Boston, 1887. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES 317 VOLKELT, J. : Aesthetik des Tragischen. Munich, 1897. Illustrations are in part from fiction Tolstoi, Zola, etc. WALISZEWSKI, K. : La Litt6rature Russe. Paris, 1900. English translation, N.Y., 1890. Much historical and critical matter on the nineteenth-century novelists. * WARREN, F. M. : A History of the Novel previous to the Seventeenth Cen- tury. N.Y., 1895. A standard work for the history and characteristics of Greek romance, pastoral romance, romance of chivalry, etc. * WELLS, B. W. : A Century of French Fiction. N.Y., 1898. A study of the development of the novel as a form of art in the nine- teenth century. WIENER, LEO : Anthology of Russian Literature. Two vols., N.Y., 1902-03. Indispensable to the average American student of Russian fiction. * WILSON, S. L. : The Theology of Modern Literature. Edinburgh, 1899. Largely with reference to the English novel. Chapters on the theology of George Macdonald; George Eliot; Mrs. Humphry Ward; Hardy; George Meredith, and the " Scottish School of Fiction." WORSFOLD, BASIL : The Principles of Criticism. London, 1897. One chapter on " The Novel as a Form of Literature." t * ZOLA, EMILE : Le Roman Experimental. 1880. English translation, N.Y., 1893. * ZOLA, EMILE: Les Romanciers Naturalistes. 1881. * ZUEBLIN, C. : Social Reform in Fiction. (Syllabus.) University of Chicago, 1897. By a professor of sociology. Studies of Hard Times, Alton Locke, All Sorts and Conditions of Men, Marcella, and David Grieve. INDEX Action and narration, 49. Action, the single, 53. Addison, 246; Sir Roger de Coverley, 96, 194, 198, 229; The Spectator, 145, 208, 229. ^ESTHETIC INTEREST, GENERAL, 247- 264. ^Esthetics, analysis and theory in, 247. ESTHETICS, COMPARATIVE, 232-246. Age of the author, 184. Aldrich, T. B., The Queen of Sheba, 122. Aleman, Mateo, Guzmdn de Alfarache, 195- Allen, Grant, Physiological /Esthetics, 248, n. Amadis of Gaul, 8, 22, 113, 206. American Criticism of the Novel, Notes on, 268, 295, 301-302. Analysis of the novel, vii ff. ( 265-268. See also Glossary, 269. Analysis and theory in aesthetics, 247. Andersen, H. C., The Improvisatore, 13, 82. Annunzio, Gabriele d', 119, 192, 194, 195, 211, 307. Romances of the Lily, 5. Tr ion/o della Morte, 153, 189, 192, n., 194, 307. Architecture and the novel, 243. Aristotle, 212, 287. Arnold, Matthew, 145, 161, n., 188, 199. Art, the novel as. See /Esthetic Interest, and ./Esthetics, Comparative, theories of, 260. Arts, classification of the, 233. relation of the separate, 232. Ascham, Roger, The Schoolmaster, 288; Toxophilus, 17, 130. Augustine, Saint, 51, 161, 209. Austen, Jane, 9, 22, 67, 83, 98, 101, 126, 150, 151, 163, 164, 186, 197. Northanger Abbey, 5. Pride and Prejudice, 32, 33, 54, 55, 58, 60, 62, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 76, 77, 80, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 95, 96, 99, loi. 102, 106, 113, 117, 120, 134. Sense and Sensibility, 6, 16, 33, 46, 98, 118, 123, 145, 148, 255. Author, the, age of, 184. and dramatis personae, relations of, 101 ; in respect to settings, 87. episodes in his life, 186. individuality of, as a shaping force, 183. sex of, 185. Azeglio, Massimo d', Ettorre Fieramosca, 169, 170. Background, middleground, and fore- ground characters, 96. Bacon, Francis, 156, 159, 245, 289; The New Atlantis, 193. Baldwin, J. M., Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, 140. Balzac, Honore de, 8, 86, 94, 106, lao, I2i, 150, 153, 155, 156, 159, 176, 178, 183, 184, 190, 235, 297. Comidie Humaine, IM, 5, 6, 7, 106, 133. 135, ISL 170, 173. J 78. Deputy for Arcis, The, 8. Eugenie Grandet, 33, 98, 184. Letters of Two Brides, 13, ai. Lost Illusions, 8. Peau de Chagrin, La, 12, 153, 170, 397, Pere Goriot, Le, 33, 127. Woman of Thirty, A, & 319 320 INDEX Barbauld, Anna L., 295. Barclay, John, Argents, 12, 192. Baumgart, H., Handbuch der Poetik, no, n., 305- Beautiful, the, and the unbeautiful, 256. Beckford, William, Vathek, 20, 33, 173, 177, 211. Beethoven, 241. Beginning, middle, and end of composi- tion, 32. Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 186; Oroonoko, 102, 180. Belleau, Remi, Journee de la Bergerie, 13- Beowulf, 15, 19. Besant, Walter, 180; Art of Fiction, 167, 174, 179- and James Rice, All Sorts and Condi- tions of Men, 214. Beyer, C., Deutsche Poetik, 306. Bible, The : Book of Esther, 120, 161, 258 ; Genesis, 46 ; Revelation, 161 ; Book of Ruth, 16, 161. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES, 309- 317- Biography and the novel, 224. Birken, Kurze Anweisung zur deutschen Poesie, 290. Bjornson, Bjornstjerne, 119, 187, 190, 242. Blair, Hugh, Rhetoric, 279, 291. Blake, William, 228. Boccaccio, 150, 287 ; Ameto, 14 ; Decam- eron, 4, 206. Bodmer, J. J., 294. Boileau, Nicolas, Les Heros de Roman, 290. Book, the, as a unit of structure, 8. Borinski, K., Die Poetik der Renaissance, 306. Boswell, James, Life of Dr. Johnson, 209. Bourget, Paul, 24, n., 195, 304 ; Cosmop- olis, 82. Bouterwek, Fr., History of Spanish Litera- ture, 299. Boyle, Roger, Parthenissa, u, 25, 26. Brandes, Georg, 306. Bronte, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, 123, 186. Brooke, Henry, The Fool of Quality, 209 ; Juliet Grenville, 8, 25, 117, 119. Browne, Sir Thomas, Religio Medici, 189, Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, Aurora Leigh, 221. Browning, Oscar, Life of George Eliot, 172, 201. Browning, Robert, xii, 19, 24, 117, 141, 142, 199, 221, 224, 228, 232 ; Pippa Passes, 114. Brugis, Nonis Aprilis, 288. Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 188, 215, 304; Roman Naturaliste, 24, n., 101, 140, 141, 168, 172, 304. Buffon, Comte de, 207. Bulwer Lytton, 194, 296; Kenelm Chil- lingly, 10, 13, 43; Last Days of Pompeii, 82 ; Last of the Barons, 112; Parisians, The, 99; Paul Clifford, 10, 24, 43; Pausanias, 180; Rienzi, 14, 22. Bunyan, John, 23, 83, 198, 224, 289 ; Holy War, The, 17; Mr. Badman, 17, 125; Pilgrim's Progress, 17, 26, 71, 92, 123, 136, 185. Burney (D'Arblay), Frances, 186; Eve- lina, 21, 31. Burns, Robert, 209, 228. Burton, Robert, Anatomy of Melancholy^ 195- Byelinski, Vissarion G., 300. Caine, Hall, The Manxman, 8. Campanella, Tommaso, Civitas Solis, 26. Carlyle, Thomas, 176, 196, 296 ; Chartism, 123 ; Correspondence, 230 ; French Revolution, 48; Sartor Resartus, 230. Carriere, M., Aesthetik, 306. Catastrophe in plot, 60. Caxton, William, 287. Central character, 97. Cervantes, 95, 150, 153, 156, 163, 290. Don Quixote, 4, 5, 23, 33, 89, 102, 123, 153, 174, 179, 185, 189, 194, 195, 205, 206, 215, 224, 255, 290. Galatea, 14. Chapter, the, 9. distribution of characters, 93. Character and characterization, 109. CHARACTERIZATION, 109-129. Character point of view, 71. INDEX 321 CHARACTERS, The, 91-129. association of, 99. author, and, relations of, 87, 101. central, 97. change (development) in, 124. composition of, 91. costume and physical environment of, 114. foreground, middleground, and back- ground, 96. grouping of, 93-108. identity, individuality, and type in, 121. names of, 112. number of, 92. pantomime of, 116. physiognomy of, 113. psychological grouping of, 107. settings, and the author, 87. social grouping of, 105. successive grouping of, 94. typical and individual, 104, HI. unfolding of, in. utterance of, 117. Chateaubriand, 297 ; Atala, 153, 154, 281. Chaucer, 118 ; Canterbury Tales, 4. Chesterfield, Letters, 230. Chopin, Frederic F., 241, 242. Circumstantial settings, 83. Classics, the, and the novel, study of, xi. Classification of fiction, 279. Climax and foiling, 44. Climax of plot, 59. Clough, A. H., Amours de Voyage, 221. Cody, Sherman, How to Write Fiction, 167, 174, 178. Coleridge, S. T., xi, 164, 203, 207, 209, 296. Collaboration, 180. Comic, the, and the tragic, 254. COMPARATIVE ^ESTHETICS, 232-246. Comparative literature and study of the novel, x. COMPARATIVE RHETORIC, 218-231. Complexity in the novel, xii ; as a qual- ity of style, 160. COMPOSITION, PROCESS OF, 166-180. Composition, the whole, 3; beginning, middle, and end of, 32 ; germ of, 167; length of, 6; plan of, 169; sources of, 170. Comprehensiveness, as a quality of style, 155- Conceptual effect, 213. Concerted speech, 19. Concreteness, as a quality of style, 158. Congreve, William, preface of Incognita, 289. Conscience, Hendrik, 117. CONSECUTIVE STRUCTURE, 28-46. Contrast, 252. Conversation, group, 18. Cooper, J. F., 204 ; Last of the Mohicans^ 10, 19, 55, 62, 94, loo, 224. Costume of characters, 114. Crabbe, George, Tales, 221. Crawshaw, W. H., The Interpretation of Literature, 267. CRITICISM, NOVELISTIC, NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF, 286-308. American, 295, 301-302. Eighteenth Century, 290-294. English, 287, 288, 289, 291-293, 295- 297, 302-304. Fifteenth Century, 287. French, 288, 290, 293, 297-299, 304- 305- German, 290, 294, 299-300, 305-307. Grseco-Roman Period, 287. Greek, 287. Italian, 287, 288, 307-308. Middle Ages, 287. Nineteenth Century, First Half, 295- 301 ; Second Half, 301-308. Russian, 300-301, 308. Seventeenth Century, 288-290. Sixteenth Century, 287-288. Spanish, 287, 288, 290, 308. Cross, J. W., Life of George Eliot, 168, 176, 177. Cross, W. L., Development of the English Novel, 20, n., 24, n., 52, 260. Cyrano de Bergerac, Histoire Continue des Etats et Empire de la Lune, 193- Dallas, E. S., The Gay Science, 159, 302. Dante, 106, 192; La Divina Commedia, 7, 86, 177 ; La Vita Nuova, 13. Daudet, Alphonse, 173. 322 INDEX Davenant, Sir William, preface of Gondi- bert, 289. Defoe, Daniel, 7, 16, 23, 102, 115, 125, 150, 151, 157, 184, 196, 198, 202, 291. Colonel Jacque, 17, 114, 124, 225. Moll Flanders, 115, 124, 202. Mrs. Christian Dames, 115. Plague Year, Journal of the, 16, 17, 51, 64, 65, 76, 92, 94, 97, 98, 226, 260. Robinson Crusoe, 4, 5, 6, 17, 33, 67, 70, 71, 74, 75, 84, 89, 95, 98, 115, 123, 124, 136, 143, 148, 149, 153, 154, 155, 161, 164, 165, 172, 174, 185, 188, 192, 205, 215, 291. Deloney, Thomas, Jack ofNewbury, 136. De Quincey, Thomas, 296. Design, general, 250. Dialogic form, 17-19. Dickens, Charles, 8, 24, 82, 104, 163, 184, 195, 198, 214, 296. David Copperfield, 7, 71, 98, 102, 185. Dombey and Son, 12, 22, 80, 84, 86, 87, 88, 90, 134, 201. Edwin Drood, 180. Old Curiosity Shop, 82. Oliver Twist, 6. Pickwick Papers, 184. Tale of Two Cities, 5, 8. Diderot, Eloge de Richardson, 293. Divisions of a novel, 7-12. Documentary form, 20-22. Dostoyevsky, Fy6dor M., 119, 160, 206, 235 ; Poor Folk, 21. Dowden, Edward, 302. Drama, the, and the novel, 234. Dramatic and non-dramatic form, 15-16, Si- Dramatic line, the, 57-61. DRAMATIS PERSONS. THE, 91-108. See CHARACTERS. Dryden, John, 289. Dumas, pere, Alexandre, 104, 140, 180, 191. Dunlop, J. C, History of Prose Fiction, x, 266, 296. Duologue, 18. Earle, John, Microcosmography, 230. Ebcrs, Georg, Homo Sum, 52, 138. Edgeworth, Maria, 156, 186 ; Castle Rack- rent, 82, 184. Eeden, Frederik van, 211. Effects of a novel, particular, 209-214; in general, see INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL. \ \ I Eliot, George, 83, ;0i, 126, 133, 140, 144, 152, 156, i&j, 168, 170, jffl, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 184, 185, 192, 193, 198, 199, 201, 205, 206, 228, 302 ; see Cross, J. W. Adam Bede, 7, 10, 120, 126, 168, 170, 172, 173, 174, 203, 222. Daniel Deronda, 7, 8, 171. Felix Holt, 171. Janet's Repentance, 22, 27,46, 57, 59, 73. Middlemarch, 136, 153, 170, 175, 185, 188. Mill on the Floss, 22, 71, 117, 134, 170, 171. Mr. Gilfil's Love Story, 22. Romola, 79, 82, 149, 161, 168, 176, 177. Scenes of Clerical Life, 170, 222. Silas Marner, 7, 10, II, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 3, 3i, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 50, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 68, 70, 72, 73- 76, 77, 78, 80, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 9i, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 99, 100, 101, 106, in, 113, 115, 120, 123, 126, 136, 140, 142, 146, 148, 151, 159, 164, 168, 170, 174, 176, 203, 2IO, 222, 225, 228, 236, 238, 239, 240, 243, 245, 251, 253, 254, 255, 26l. Emerson, R. W., 145, 159, 188, 230. Emotional effect of the novel, 212. Emotion, line of, 39. English Criticism of the Novel, Notes on, 265-266, 287, 288, 289, 291-293, 295-297,302-304. Environment of the author, immediate social, 197. Environment of characters, physical, 114, Epic, the, and the novel, 222. Episode in plot, 37. Episode in the author's life, 186. Epistolary form, 20, 31. Erckmann-Chatrian partnership, 180. Essay, the, and the novel, 226. INDEX 323 Eustathius, 287. Event and incident, 34. Everyman, 198. Exhibition and interpretation of subject, 131- Extensive and the intensive, the, in subject-matter, 131 ; methods of study, ix. External material, language as, 248. EXTERNAL STRUCTURE, 1-27. Fiction. See Ideality, Illusion, Prose Fiction. Fielding, Henry, 8, 10, 14, 74, 95, 134, 143. 155. 156, iS7. 163, 169, 179, 184, 185, 192, 194, 198, 221, 223, 224, 226, 234, 265, 291. Amelia, 8, 10, 134, 172. Jonathan Wild, 10, 17. Joseph Andrews, 5, 6, 102, 123, 153, 169, 179. Tom Jones, xi, 5, 10, 33, 76, 98, 185. Fielding, Sarah, 8, 172, 291. and Jane Collier, The Cry, 8, 291. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, J., History of Spanish Literature, 179. Flaubert, Gustave, 101, 150, 153 ; Madame Bovary, 178. Fogazzaro, Antonio, 137, 184, 195. Foiling and climax, 44. Force, as a quality of style, 164. FORCES, THE SHAPING, of a novel, 181- 201. Foreground, middleground, and back- ground characters, 96. Form and subject-matter, 130. Form in art, value of, 249. Forms of discourse, 218. Foscolo, Ugo, 190; Jacopo Ortis, 21, 123. Fragments of a composition, 180. France, Anatole, 146, 286. French Criticism of the Novel, Notes on, 266, 288, 290, 293, 297-299, 304- 3<>5- Freytag, Gustav, 306; Die Ahnen, 5; Soil und Haben, 6, 33, 101, 102, 120, 134, 149, 188, 203; Technik des Dramas, 47, n., 306. Froude, J. A., Life of Carlyle, 224. Fuller (Ossoli), Margaret, 295. Furetiere, Antoine, Roman Bourgeois^ 290. Gald6s, Perez. See Perez Gald6s. Garland, Hamlin, 198 ; Crumbling Idols, 301. Garnett, Richard, History of Italian Literature, 188, 196 ; Vathek, 173. Gentleman's Magazine, The, 202, 292. German Criticism of the Novel, Notes on, 267, 290, 294, 299-300, 305- 37- Germ of a composition, the, 167. Gesta Komanorum, 287. Giddings, F. H., Inductive Sociology, 107, 124, 132, n., 207. Gilbert, Eugene, Le Roman en France pendant le XIX" Siecle, 178, 277. GLOSSARY AND REFERENCES, 269-278. Godwin, William, Caleb Williams, 193. Goethe, ico, 112, 140, 150, 156, 165, 167, 184, 206, 209, 224, 225, 230, 234, 244, 294, 299. Wahlverwandtschaften, Die, 16, 144. Werther, 13, 21, 102, 123, 128, 169, 182, 183, 184, 185, 190, 205, 206, 214, 255. Wilhelm Meister, 5, 8, 33, 105, 123, 125, 142, 148, 149, 153, 155, 174, 180, 183, 184, 192, 206, 295. Gogol, Nikolai V., 160, 163, 171, 176, 180, 183, 187, 206, 300. Dead Souls, 8, 180, 189, 195, 224. Taras Bulba, 14, 22, 153, 170, 224. Goldsmith, Oliver, 163, 292; Citittn of the World, 229 ; Vicar of Wake- field, 98, 102, 134, 172, 185. G6mez de Quevedo y Villegas, Fran- cisco, Suenos, 86. Goncourt, de, Edmond and Jules, 119, 172. Gontcharoff, Ivan A., A Common Story, 6, Gorki, Maxim, 308. Gosse, Edmund, 170, 174, 275, 277, 302. Gottsched, J. C., 294. Graves, Richard, The Spiritual Quixote, 8. Gray, Thomas, 208, 292. Greene, Robert, Alcida, 171, n. Grieg, Edvard H., 242. 324 INDEX Group Conversation, 18. See Concerted Speech, Dialogue. Grouping of dramatis personae, 93-108. Groups, character, characterization of, 128. Gummere, F. B., Handbook of Poetics, 218. Hallam, Henry, Literature of Europe, 296 ; Middle Ages, 48. Hardy, Thomas, 87, 119, 132, 182, 198, 228, 303; Life s Little Ironies, 6; A Pair of Blue Eyes, 90. Harte, Bret, 195. Hauff, W., Lichtenstein, 10. Hawthorne, Julian, 204, 210. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 87, 121, 137, 172, 182, 302; The Ambitious Guest, 6, 92, 222; Dolliver Ro- mance, 180; Ethan Brand, 89, 222; House of Seven Gables, 33, 82, 89 ; Scarlet Letter, 7, 33, 51 ; Septimius Felton, 180. Haywood, Mrs. Eliza, Memoirs of a cer- tain Island adjacent to Utopia, 12. Hazlitt, William, 296. Head, Richard, The English Rogue, 22, 289. Hegel, G. W. F., 249. Heine, Heinrich, 228. Heliodorus, Theagenesand Chariclea, 16. Hennequin, Emile, La Critique Scien- tifique, 184, 207, 266. Heyse, Paul, 82. Historical influence on the novel, 195. Historical interpretation in the novel, 139. Historical period in subject-matter, 138. History (as a type of literature) and the novel, 225. History and sociology in subject-matter, 132. Hobbes, Thomas, 203. Hogarth, William, Marriage a la Mode. 238. Holberg, Ludwig H., Iter Subterraneum, 12, 192. Howells, W. D., 9, 163, 175, 302; A Modern Instance, 6. Huet, Pierre D., De VOrigine des Ro- mans, 290. Hugo, Victor, n, 45, 94, 137, 140, 150, 184, 198, 206, 228, 234, 241, 244, 298 ; Les Miserables, 43, 185 ; Notre Dame de Paris, 8, 10, 86, 92, 127, 134 ; Quatre-vingt-treize, 79. Hulot, Instruction sur les Romans, 298. Humanity and nature in a work of art, 247. Human nature, in the author, 198; as subject-matter, 143. Hume, David, 196. Humor as a quality of style, 162. Hunt, Leigh, What is Poetry?, 164, n. Hurd, Richard, Letters on Chivalry and Romance, 292. Ibsen, Henrik, 68 ; Hedda Gabler, 81. Ideality, in narrative plot, 48 ; and reality in characters, 102; reality, and truth in settings, 84 ; as a quality of style, 163. Identity, individuality, and type, in char- acters, 121. Illusion, artistic, 258. Incident and event, in plot, 34. Individual, the, and society as subject- matter, 142; and the typical, in subject-matter, 131. Individuality, in the author, 183; and type, in the characters, 104, 121 ; as subject-matter, 140; of a work of art, 249. Individuals, influence of a novel on, 208. INFLUENCE OF A NOVEL, THE, 202-217. Influences shaping a novel. See FORCES, SHAPING. Ingelo, Nathaniel, Bentivolio and Urania, 26, 289. Interpretation and exhibition of subject- matter, 131. Interpretation of history in the novel, 139. Italian Criticism of the Novel, Notes on, 287, 288, 307-308. James, Henry, 191, 238, 302; The Art of Fiction, 158, 167, 273, 278, 302. James, William, Principles of Psychology, 122, 128. Jeffrey, Francis, 296. INDEX 325 Johnson, Samuel, 169, 208, 292; The Idler, 229; The Rambler, 229; Rasselas, 24, n., 142, 147, 169, 174. Jokai, Maurus, 205. jonson, Benjamin, 104, 208, 289; The Alchemist, xi. Journalism and the novel, 229. Judgment, of a novel, 263 ; of plot, 76. Jusserand, J. J., Le Roman Anglais, 20, n., 116, n. Kames, Lord, Elements of Criticism, 292. Karamzin, 119, 190, 226, 300. Keats, John, 228. Kemeny, Zsigmond, Baron, 205. Kempis, Thomas a, Imitation of Christ, 161. Kielland, Alexander, 87, 191, 242. Kingsley, Charles, 198, 231, 297; Alton Locke, 51, 123; Yeast, 123; West- ward Ho ! 10, 102, 103, 120. Kipling, Rudyard, 53. La Bruyere, Caracteres, 123. La Calprenede, 290. La Fayette, Comtesse de, La Princesse de Cleves, 143, 146, 186, 188, 198. Lamartine, 140. Landscape gardening and the novel, 245. Language, as external material, 248; in- fluence of, on the novel, 191. Lanier, Sidney, The English Novel, 78, 215, 220, 302; Individuality, no. Lanson, Gustave, Histoire de la Littera- ture Francaise, 154, 172, 178, 187, 273, 274- Law, William, Serious Call to the Uncon- verted, 292. Lazarillo de Tonnes, 195, 206. Lcland, Thomas, 186 ; Longsword, 8, 292. Lennox, Charlotte, The Female Quixote, 22, 194. Lermontoff, Mikhail Y., A Contemporary Hero, 98. Le Sage, 95, 195 ; Gil Bias, 5, 8, 10, 73, 153, 174- Lessing, Hamburgische Dramaturgie, 294; Laofcoon, 114, 237. LevSque, C., La Science du Beaux, 275. Lewes, G. H., 180, 261. Lie, Jonas, 190, 242; One of Life's Slaves, 6. Line of emotion, the, 39. Lines of interest, 38. Literary influence, from a novel, aoj; upon a novel, 193. Literary types and the novel. Sec COM- PARATIVE RHETORIC. Lodge, Thomas, verse quoted, 199; Rosalind, 13, 17, 22, 115, 124, 157. Longus, Daphnis and Chloe, 118, 136, 140, 144. Lotze, Hermann, Outlines of /Esthetics (translated and edited by G. T. Ladd), 124, 132, 261. Ludwig, Otto, 306. Lyly, John, 163; Euphues, 17, 24, 57, 113, 124, 157, 208, 288; Love's Meta- morphosis, 163. Lyric, the, and the novel, 227. MacClintock, W. D., 54. Mackenzie, Henry, The Man of Feeling, 6, 22, 25, 98, 112, 116, 176. Mackenzie, J. S., Manual of Ethics, 257, n., 264, n. Maigron, L., Le Roman Historique a I'Epoque Romantique, 267, 273. Malory, Sir Thomas, Morle d Arthur, 48, 86, 157. Man, nature in, as subject-matter, 144. Manzoni, Alessandro, 104, 137, 150, 190, 195, 234, 241 ; / Prornessi Sfosi, 12, 33, 92, 94. 98, 104, 134. 154. *75, 185, 205. Masses (of structure) in a novel, 30 ff. Masson, David, British Novelists and their Styles, 132. 147, 183, 266, 304. Matthews, Brander, 180, n., 187, 189, 195, 302. Maupassant, Guy de, 153, 176. Mendelssohn, Felix, 241, 242. Mendelssohn, Moses, 294. Meredith, George, 24, 150, 163, 164, 228, 303- Merejkowski, D., 206, 308. MeYimee, Prosper, 140, 298. Meyer, Joseph, Konversations- Lex ikon, 3<>7. 326 INDEX Milton, 289; Paradise Lost, 7, 15, 16, 19, 289. Moliere, 290. Momentum, mass in, 42. Monologue ^and soliloquy, 17. Montegut, E., 304. Montemayor, George of, Diana, 206. Moore, John, 292. Moore, Thomas, Lalla Rookh, 221. More, Sir Thomas, Utopia, 102, 103, 134, 192. Morley, Henry, 25, 116. Morris, William, 14 ; House of the Wolf- ings, 14. Motivating forces, 63. Motivation, 62 ff. Moulton, R. G., Shakespeare as a Dra- matic Artist, 47, 49, n., 54, 259, 263, n. Movement, rate of, in narration, 43. Movement and situation, 33. Music and the novel, 241. Names of characters, 112. Names of novels. See Title, the. Narration and Action, 49. Narratives, simple, sequence of (in plot analysis), 56. Narratives simpler than the novel, analy- sis of, 46. Narrator, the, and his point of view, 66 ff. Nash, Thomas, Jack Wilton (The Un- fortunate Traveller), 112, 115, 116, 118, 124, 157. National and racial influences on the novel, 187. Natural, social, and socialized settings, 86. Nature, and humanity in a work of art, 247. external, as subject, 144; influence on a novel, 199. human in the author, 198; as sub- ject, 143. in man, as subject, 144. Navarre, Margaret of, Heptameron des Nouvclles, 4. Newman, J. H., 137, 138, 183, 194, 195, 198, 209, 224, 231, 297; Callista, 101, 155, 194 ; Loss and Gain, 102. Nichol, John, American Literature, 204. Nicolai, Friedrich, 294. Nietzsche, F. W., 176, 307. Nordau, Max, Degeneration, 176, 307; Paradoxes, 208, 307. Norris, Frank, Responsibilities of the Novelist and Other Literary Es- says, 167, 174, 178. Norris, W. E., and others, On the Art of Writing Fiction, 167. Novalis, 294. Novel, the, analysis of, vii, 265-268. and other types of art, 232-246. and other types of literature, 218-231. as a type of literature, 218-231. as a work of art, 232-264. characterization in, no. criticism of, notes on the, 286-308. definitions of, 273, 275-276, 293. external structure in, 2. judgment of, 263. laws of, 274, 294. popularity of, 202. study of, vii-xii, 265-268. style in, 152-165. subject-matter in, 132 ff. technical terms in criticism of, 265- 278, 296. theories of, 262, 272, 273, 274, 275- 276, 278, 293, 294, 298, 299, 302, 303, 304-305, 306, 307. types of, 279-285. Objective and subjective aspects of style, 151- Objectivity as a quality of style, 156. O'Shaughnessy, Arthur, 196, n. Ossian, 14, 208. Overbury, Sir Thomas, Characters, 123. Painter, Palace of Pleasure, 6, 288. Painting and the novel, 237. Palacio Valdes, Armando, 308; Es- puma, 91, 137, 198; La Ft, 137, 142, 155 ; Maximina, 5 ; Riverita, 5. Paltock, Robert, Peter Wilkins, 26, 102. Pantomime of characters, 116. Paragraph, the, 10. Pardo Bazan, Emilia, 235, 308. Paris, Gaston, 305. INDEX 32; Parry, Catherine, Eden Vale, 25. Part, the, as a unit of structure, 8. Pater, Walter, Marius the Epicurean, 144. Patmore, Coventry, quoted, 189 ; Angel in the House, 221. Pellissier, Georges, The Literary Move- ment in France during the Nine- teenth Century, 304. Perceptual effect of the novel, 209. Perez Gald6s, 187; Episodios Nacio- nales, 135; Dona Perfecta, 10, 22, 33. 5 1 - 5 2 . 73. 76, 137- Philosophy, general, in subject-matter, 147. Phonology, 27. Photius, 287. Physiognomy of characters, 113. Physiological psychology, in character- ization, 118. Place distribution, in the influence of a novel, 204. Place settings, 81-83. Plan of a composition, 169. Plato, 130, 193, 287. PLOT, 47-77. See also STRUCTURE, CONSECUTIVE. -action and narration in, 49, 53-57. analysis of, 49-71. climax and catastrophe in, 59-62. (dramatic line, the, in, 57-62. generalized statement of, 72. ideality of, 48. judgment of, 76. ^meaning of, 47, 52. motivation and motivating forces in, 62-65. narration and action in, 49, 53-57. narrator, the, in, 66-72. necessity of, in narration, 48. point of view in, 66-72. proper, 52. story, and, 51. s^ types .of, 74. unity of, 73. Poe, Edgar Allan, 33, 96, 121, 153, 168, 175, 206, 295; The Gold-bug, 86, 92, 164, 222 ; Tales, xii ; William Wilson, 122. Poetry and prose in the novel, 219. Point of view in the plot, 66-72. Points, in the structure, 40-45. Pope, Alexander, 297 ; Essay on Man, 199; Rape of the Lock, 208, 224. Popularity of fiction, 202. Prescott, W. H., Biographical and Criti- cal Miscellanies, 295. Proportion, 253. Prose and poetry in the novel, 219. Prose and verse in the novel, 13, 220. PROSE FICTION, TYPES OF, 279-285. Psychological effects. See Effects of a Novel, Particular, groups of characters, 107. Psychology, in characterization, 118 ff. ; in subject-matter, 140-144. of the process of composition, 176. Pushkin, Alexander, 171, 180, 191, 198, 206, 221, 228, 241. Quevedo. See G6mez de Quevedo. Rabelais, 22, 23, 150, 153, 156. Racial and national influences on a novel, 187. Radcliffe, Mrs. Ann, 8, 10, 13, 63, 64, 80, 82, 87, 145, 186, 244; Gaston de Dlondeville, 13 ; Italian, The, 20, 80, 137, 161 ; Mysteries of Udolpho, 13 ; Romance of the Forest, 7, 13 ; Sicilian Romance, 20. Raleigh, Professor Walter, 153 ; The Eng- lish Novel, 235. Reade, Charles, The Cloister and the Hearth, 46, 52, 136, 185. Reality, and ideality in characters, 102; ideality, and truth, in settings, 84. Reciprocity, in structure, 45. Reeve, Miss Clara, Old English Baron, 7, 20, 186; Progress of Romance, 202, 204, 292. Reich, Emil, Hungarian Literature, 205. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, Discourses, 175. RHETORIC, COMPARATIVE, 218-231. Richardson, Samuel, 5, 7, 21, 24, 68, 157, 175, 184, 185, 190, 197, 221, 292, 293. Clarissa Harlowe, 7, 21, 116, 118, 154, 185, 206. Pamela, 4, 5, 17, 21, 66, 72, 123, 169, 172, 174, 208. Richter, Jean Paul, 299. 328 INDEX Riemann, R., Goethcs Romantechnik, 14, n., lor, 112, 116, n., 267, 307. Robiati, G., // Romanzo Contcmporaneo in Italia, 176, 184, 189, 195, 307. Rossetti, D. G., 169, 228. Rousseau, J.-J., 155, 176, 193, 224, 235, 293 ; La Nouvelle Helo'ise, 6, 8, 12, 185. Royce, Josiah, Conception of Immortality, 122, 127, 252; Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 195. Ruskin, John, 109, 209, 243, 261, 303. Russian Criticism of the Novel, Notes on, 300-301, 308. Sainte-Beuve, 298. Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, Etudes de la Nature, 4 ; Paul et Virginie, 4, 92, 98, 140. Saintsbury, George, 303. Sand, George, 156, 187, 305 ; Indiana, 8 ; Ulia. 8. Sannazaro, Jacopo, Arcadia, 13, 227, 287. Santayana, George, Sense of Beauty, 49. Scarron, Paul, Roman Comique, 8, 290. Scene, the, as a unit of structure, 36. Schasler, Max, System der Kiinste, 237. Scheffel, J. V. von, Ekkehard, 203. Scherer, Edmond, 147, 178, 205, 206, 275, 305- Scherer, W., 307. Schiller, 180, 230, 294. Schlegel, A. W., 299. Schlegel, Friedrich, 189, 206, 300. Schmidt, Erich, 307. Schopenhauer, Arthur, 300. Scott, Sir Walter, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 20, 23. 37, Si. S 2 , 63, 73, 80, 82, 85, 86, 87, 103, 104, 108, 114, 133, 140, 145, X 5. 153. 163, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 186, 187, 190, 197, 198, 214, 223, 235, 244, 275, 295, 296, 297, 299, 303, 306. Abbot, The, 216. Anne of Geierstein, 171. Antiquary, The, 5, 89, 90, 98. Bride of Lammermoor , The, 3, 16. Fortunes of Nigel, The, 12, 17, 51, 73. 173, *9S- Guy Manner ing, 5, 170, 172. Heart of Midlothian, The, 4, 12, 172. Ivanhoe, 5, 10, 13, 19, 23, 33, 35, 36, 51, 52, 62, 68, 70, 92, loo, 104, 106, 148, 154, 164, 171, 216, 224. Kenilworth, 104, 216. Lady of the Lake, The, 168. Monastery, The, 10, 73, 102, 169, 172, 216, 217. Old Mortality, 3, 12, 22. Peveril of the Peak, 12, 17. Pirate, The, 102, 108, 172. Quentin Durward, 12, 217. Redgauntlet, 21, 170. Rob Roy, 5, 10, 12, 102, 137. St. Ronan's Well, 187. Tales of My Landlord, 4, 9, 12, 33. Talisman, The, 79, 104, 224. Waverley, 5, 153, 168, 174, 185, 186, 206. Waverley Novels, The ,5,7, 26, 92, 94, ^S. *39. I 6 5. l6 9 X 7 6 2I 4. 216, 296. Scudery, Georges de, 290. Scudery, Madeleine de, 278, 290; Le Grand Cyrus, 7. Sculpture and the novel, 239. Secularity, as a quality of style, 161. Senior, William N., Essays on Fiction, v, 107, 203, 205, 217, 277. Sensational effect, 211. Sequence, in structure, 29. See also STRUCTURE, CONSECUTIVE. of dramatic and non-dramatic masses, 31 ; of simple narratives, 56. SETTINGS, THE, 78-90. aesthetic function of, 78. author, and dramatis personae, 87. circumstantial, 83. distribution of, 88. economy, general, of, 89. ideality, reality, and truth in, 84. natural, social, and socialized, 86. place, 81-82. reality, ideality, and truth in, 84. social, socialized, and natural, 86. time, 78-81. vague and exact, 85. Sex in the author, 185. Shadwell, Thomas, The Squire of At- safia, 195. INDEX 329 Shakespeare, 13, 19, 96, 112, 129, 146, 155, 157, 162, 236; As You Like It, 98, 107, 123; Comedy of Errors, 121,255; Coriolanus,\g\ Hamlet, 99, 117, 165, 199; Macbeth, 165; Merchant of Venice, 45, 236 ; Mid- summer Night's Dream, 105, 255 ; Othello, 117, 165; Richard Third, 257; Romeo and Juliet, 98, 124; Taming of the Shrew, 122; Tem- pest, The, 19, 79, 91, 124; Two Gentlemen of Verona, 124. SHAPING FORCES OF THE NOVEL, THE, 181-201. Shelley, Mary, 186 ; Frankenstein, 33, 45, 57, 102, 142, 169, 201, 211, 212, 216. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 228 ; Defense of Poetry, 220. Sheridan, R. B., 208. Short Story, the, and the novel, 221. Sidney, Sir Philip, Arcadia, 14, 17, 22, 43, 102, 105, 107, 108, 123, 203, 288; Astrophel and Stella, 159; Defense of Poesy, 220, 226, 258, 288. Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 190, 195, 242 ; Chil- dren of the Soil, 142 ; Deluge, The, 5 ; Fire and Sword, With, 5 ; Pan Michael, 5; Quo Vadis, 51, 55, 62, 82, 104, 155, 161. Sisraondi, Jean de, Litterature du Midi de T Europe, 189, 298. Situation and movement, 33. Smollett, Tobias, 6, 14, 24, 74, 95, 131, 157. 163, 195, 197, 198, 221, 224, 251, 255, 292, 293 ; Adventures of an Atom, 92; Ferdinand Count Fathom, 293 ; Peregrine Pickle, lo; Roderick Random, 66; Sir Launcelot Greaves, 43, 44, 89, 255- Social composition in subject-matter, 133. environment of the author, immedi- ate, 197. grouping of the characters, 105, ff. groups, influence of the novel on, 207. life, in the subject-matter, 135. socialized, and natural settings, 86. - Society and the individual, in subj matter, 142. Sociology and history, in subject-matter, 132. Solger, K. W. F., Vorlesungen iibcr Aesthetik, 274, 300. Soliloquy and Monologue, 17. Sorel, Charles, Le Berger Extravagant, 290. Sources of a novel, 170. Spanish Criticism of the Novel, Notes on, 287, 288, 290, 308. Spatial point of view, 69. Speech of characters. See Utterance. Spencer, Herbert, 150, 156. Spenser, Edmund, 114; The Faerie Queene, 124. Spielhagen, Fr., 206, 307; Technik des Romans, 79, 138, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159, i&z, 172, 175, 178, 204, 307. Stael, Mme. de, 156, 298 ; Corinne, 8, 13, 82, 102; Delphine, 21, 299; Essai sur les Fictions, 298. Stendhal (Henri Beyle), 299. Sterne, Laurence, 24, 116, 157, 163, 183, 190, 203, 231 ; Tristram Shandy, 10, 185, 195. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 24, n., 74, 150, 153, 167, 180, 303; Black Arrow, The, 10 ; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 122; Kidnapped, 6; Master ofBal- lantrae, 12. Stoddard, R. H., The Evolution of the English Novel, 26, 200, n. Story, in a technical sense, 51. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 214 ; Uncle Tom's Cabin, 82, 203, 217. STRUCTURE, CONSECUTIVE, 28-46. STRUCTURE, EXTERNAL, 1-27. STRUCTURE, INTERNAL, 47-129, 267. Study of the novel, vii-xii, 265-268. STYLE, 150-165. in general, 150-152. in the novel, value of, 152. novelistic qualities of, 154-165 ; com- plexity, 160; comprehensiveness, 155; concreteness, 158 ; force, 164; humor, 162; ideality, 163; objec- tivity, 156 ; secularity, 161. novelistic type of, 154. ibject- jSubjective and objective aspects of style, 330 INDEX SUBJECT-MATTER, 130-149. exhibition and interpretation of, 131. extensive and intensive, 131. form, and, 130. history in, 132, 138-140. human nature in, 143. individual, the, and society in, 142. individuality as, 140-142. interpretation and exhibition of, 131. in the novel, 132. main theme in, 148. nature as, 143-145. philosophy in, 147. society as, 132-138, 142. supernatural, the in, 145. typical and individual values of, 131. Sudennann, Hermann, Frau Sorge, 13, 203. Sue, Eugene, The Wandering Jew, 112. Supernatural, the, in subject-matter, 145. Swift, Jonathan, 163, 176, 196; Battle of the Books, 14, 23, 224; Gulliver's Travels, 26, 69, 75, 76, 85, 102, 174, 193. 2I 5- Symonds, J. A., quoted, 189. Syntax, 22. Taine, H., 188, 200, 305. Talfourd, Thomas N., 297. Tarkington, Booth, The Gentleman from Indiana, 85. Tasso, Torquato, Jerusalem Delivered, 224. TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL, 265-268. TECHNICAL TERMS IN THE CRITICISM OF FICTION, 265-285. Technic of the process of composition, 174. Temporal point of view, 67. Tennyson, Alfred, Harold, 68 ; Idylls of the King, 45, 135, 197, 198, 224, 238; In the Children's Hospital, 228 ; The Princess, 221. Terence, Adelphi, 195. Thackeray, W. M., 24, 139, 151, 156, 163, 194, 195, 206, 228, 297 ; Henry Es- mond, 8, 12, 24; Pendennia, 33; Vanity Fair, 184 ; The Virginians, 12, 24. Theme, the main, in a novel, 148. Theories of art, 260. of the novel, 262, 272, 273, 274, 275- 276, 278, 293, 294, 298, 299, 302, 33. 304-305. 306, 307. Theory and analysis in aesthetics, 247. Thomson, James, The Castle of Indo- lence, 136. Thoreau, H. D., 115, 229. Time distribution of influence, 203. Time perspective of the process of com- position, 173. Time settings, 78-81. Title of a novel, 5. Tolstoi, Count Lyof N., 104, 119, 140, 150, 156, 160, 189, 190, 198, 206, 209, 224, 234, 308. Anna Karenina, 33, 71, 82, 102, 106, 133, 142, 143, 176, 185, 189. Master and Man, 15, 16, 19, 46, 76, 79, 86, 92, 98. The Resurrection, 10. War and Peace, 7, 10, 102, 176, 224. What is Art?, 261, 308. Tragic, the, and the comic, 254. Traill, H. D., 303. Trollope, Anthony, 9, 104, 163, 167, 175, 178, 198, 303 ; Barchester Towers, 10, 90, 134, 161, 175, 178, 188 ; Can You Forgive Her f, 10 ; Chronicles of Barsetshire, 5 ; Small House at Allington, 82. Truth, artistic, 257. Truth, ideality, and reality in settings, 84. Tuckerman, Bernard, History of English Prose Fiction, 48. Turner, C. E. Studies in Russian Litera- ture, 180, n., 189, 206. Turgenieff, Ivan S., 87, 98, 123, 133, 189, 195, 206, 214; On the Eve, 6; \ Smoke, 189. Typical, the, and the individual, in char- acters, 104, 121 ; in subject-matter, 131- TYPES OF PROSE FICTION, 279-285. Unity general design, 250-252. of plot, 73. Utterance of the characters, 117. INDEX 331 Vague and exact settings, 85. Valdes. See Palacio Valdes. Valera, Juan, 308 ; Comendador Mendoza, 13 ' Pepita Jimenez, 21, 33, 87, 137, 144, 169, 170, 189, 194. Van Dyke, John, 188. Verga, Giovanni, 158, 308. Veron, Eugene, ^Esthetics, 127, 233, n., 248, n., 305. Verri, Alessandro, Notti Romane, 8. Verse and prose in the novel, 13, 220. Vigny, Alfred de, 104, 299; Cinq-Mars, 10, 104, 140, 188. Vischer, F. T., Aesthetik, 272. Vocabulary, 25. Vogue, E. M. de, Le Roman Russe, 305. Volitional effect of a novel, 214. Voltaire, 196, 293 ; Candide, 147, 188. Volume, the, as a unit of structure, 8. Waliszewski, K., 170, 189. Walker, Francis A., Political Economy, ix. Walpole, Horace, 186, 230, 244 ; The Cas- tle of Otranto, 12, 20, 67, 137, 164, 169, 174, 196, 208, 216, 293. Walton, Isaac, The Complete Angler, 17, ISO- , Mrs. Humphry, Robert Elsmere, 123. Warton, Thomas, History of English Poetry, 293. Wesley, John, 209. Whipple, E. P., Literature and Life, 295. White, James, Earl Strongbow, 8, 25, 26, 69. Wilson, S. L., The Theology of Modem Literature, 147. Winthrop, Theodore, 204; John Brent, 126. Wordsworth, William, 155, 167, 172. Zangwill, Israel, 190. Zeising, A., Aesthetische Forschungen % 233- Zesen, Philip von, 290. Ziegler, H. A. von, Die Asiatische Banise, 5- Zimmermann, R., /Esthetik, 62. Zola, Emile, 49, 83, 94, 119, 149, 150, 153, 178, 193, 206, 211, 235, 305; As- sommoir L', 203; Debacle, La, 8, 33, 134, 203 ; Lourdes, 5 ; Paris, 5 ; Roman Experimental, 49, n., 108; Rome, 5; Rougon-Macquart t Les> S, 106; Terre, La, 8, 13. 3 $*< RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO ^ 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 1 month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing the books to the Circulation Desk Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1 /83 BERKELEY, CA 94720 YB 74347 BERKELEY LIBRARIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY