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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION article on Madame Cottin's Amelie Mansfield had already put it in 1809, novels are, after all, 'often "romantic^\ not indeed by the relation of what is obviously miraculous or impossible, but by deviating, though perhaps insensibly, beyond the bounds of probability or consistency'.^ It is with certain underlying assumptions in studies Uke Clara Reeve's The Progress of Romance, Kurd's Letters on Chivalry or Percy's and Ritson's introductions to their various anthologies, that Scott is in real disagreement and in discussing this difference he shows his usual common sense. He dissents in particular from their 'levelling proposition' that Epic and Romance belong ultimately to the same class. He recognizes, as Addison, Voltaire and Blackwell recognized before him, the irreducible difference in quality between 'the marvellous' of the earliest heroic poems and the fantasy of their successors in the romantic kind. The feeling, which was made familiar to a later age by W. P. Ker, that 'Epic' implies some weight and massiveness while 'Romance means nothing if it does not convey some notion of mystery and fantasy', ^ had been experienced by Addison: speaking of the epic's power to combine astonishment and belief, he goes on, 'if the fable is only probable, it differs nothing from a true history, if it is only marvellous, it is no better than a romance' .^ The feeling is again conveyed through Blackwell's regretful admissions that 'polishing diminishes a Language ... it coops a Man up in a Corner .' . . and that Ariosto and Tasso quitting life, betook themselves to Aerial Beings and Utopian Characters, and filled their Works with Charms and Visions, the modern Supplements of the Marvellous and the Sublime.* For similar reasons, Voltaire sets Lucian's treatment of the enenchanted wood in the Pharsalia far above Tasso's portrayal of a kindred subject in the eighteenth book of the Gerusalemme Liberata.^ Like these writers, Scott recognizes the supernatural grandeur of the epic, while responding to the pleasing appari- 1 See below, pp. 49-50. 2 See W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance (1897), Chapter i. 3 Spectator, No. 315. * An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer (1735), pp. 58-9, 68-9. 'Essai sur la Poesie Epique', Chapter viii, CEuvres Completes (1883-5), Vol. VIII, pp. 343-6. 16
THE NOVEL AND THE MARVELLOUS tions of the romance. He knows that in some works there are properties belonging to each kind which may be almost equally balanced, but our taste and habits readily acknowledge as complete and absolute a difference between the Epopeia and Romance, as can exist betwixt two distinct species of the same generic class. ^ The preoccupation ofeighteenth-century novelists with the real relationship of the novel, the epic and the romance had its uses. It kept the creative imagination exposed to the 'appeal to wonder' of the old story-tellers, even in the teeth of the disapproval of reason or the moral sense with their allied demands that probability should be strictly kept. Yet this tug of war of allegiances had obvious disadvantages between 1 760 and 1 790. Attracted on the one hand by the literary possibilities of 'a familiar relation of such things as pass every day' and, on the other, by the appeal of 'nature strongly featured and probability closely bordering on the marvellous', ^ the novelists of these years only too easily fell into the trite or the extravagant, 'the Scylla and Charybdis of those who deal in fiction', as Coleridge puts it in his review of Mrs. Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).^ The work of the earlier novelists of the eighteenth century has a drive and coherence from their excitement at realizing the congenial possibilities of the 'new species of writing'. They were pioneers. In the novels of Defoe, Fielding and Sterne the tastes and sensibility of their authors are everywhere felt. But the flood of fiction which poured into English bookshops and circulating libraries in the last thirty-five years of the eighteenth century shows little of their distinction. We find that novelists who commented interestingly on the nature of the novel did not themselves produce outstanding novels. Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron (1777), Holcroft's Alwyn (1785) and Richard Cumberland's Henry (1795) are patchy at best. Nor did the sentimental humanitarians, Henry Mackenzie and 1 See his 'Essay on Romance', Miscellaneous Prose Works (1882), Vol. VI, pp. 138-9. He makes a similar distinction between Epic and Romance in the preface to The Bridal of Triermain (18 13). ^ See Clara Reeve and Richard Cumberland, below, pp. 47-8. 3 First published in The Critical Review, August 1 794; reprinted in Coleridge, Select Poetry and Prose (1933), ed. Stephen Potter, pp. 203-4. N.N.— 17
Page 2 and 3: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES COL
Page 5: NOVELISTS ON THE NOVEL
Page 8 and 9: 4 First published ig§g by Roiitled
Page 10 and 11: CONTENTS Ghost stories. Henry James
Page 12 and 13: 1 CONTENTS Part Two the genesis of
Page 14 and 15: CONTENTS TEXT 227 Unity and Coheren
Page 16 and 17: CONTENTS Andre Gide 273 Aldous Huxl
Page 18 and 19: TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER
Page 21: B Part One THE NATURE OF PROSE FICT
Page 24 and 25: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION wings t
Page 26 and 27: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION Romance
Page 28 and 29: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION weight.
Page 30 and 31: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION person
Page 32 and 33: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION by an i
Page 34 and 35: : THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION which
Page 38 and 39: . THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION Henry
Page 40 and 41: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION method,
Page 42 and 43: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION centuri
Page 44 and 45: . ^ THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION par
Page 46 and 47: . THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION of 'r
Page 48 and 49: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION Instead
Page 50 and 51: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION photogr
Page 52 and 53: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION and act
Page 54 and 55: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION Even so
Page 56 and 57: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION also th
Page 58 and 59: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION Until l
Page 60 and 61: ^ THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION may f
Page 62 and 63: own. And what is THE NATURE OF PROS
Page 64 and 65: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION Cervant
Page 66 and 67: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION ROMANCE
Page 68 and 69: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION for of
Page 70 and 71: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION deviati
Page 72 and 73: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION almost
Page 74 and 75: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION and the
Page 76 and 77: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION which i
Page 78 and 79: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION ADJUSTI
Page 80 and 81: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION innumer
Page 82 and 83: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION TRUTH T
Page 84 and 85: THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION In the
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION and ill
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION blocks,
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION before
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION REPRESE
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artistic works in form and colour,
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION guidanc
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION simply
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION things.
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION 'romanc
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. THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION same
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— THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION of
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION think t
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION life is
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION NO POLI
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. THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION the r
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, THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION must
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION who wri
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION than th
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION down, t
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, THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION (iii)
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THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION THE CHR
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. THE NATURE OF PROSE FICTION myste
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INTRODUCTION AS WE HAVE SEEN, the n
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THE novelist's APPROACH AND EQÛIPM
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THE NOVELIST S APPROACH AND EQÛIPM
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THE novelist's approach AND EQ,UIPM
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GERMINATION quent elation of the in
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AT work: effort and inspiration ///
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AT work: effort and inspiration use
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL of health, b
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, THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL merit. It
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL recognize fr
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL of which has
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Germination HENCE SPRUNG PAMELA Two
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL first story.
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL been some te
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL owner of whi
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL of its succe
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The Novelist at Work: Effort and In
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL Captain. Nay
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— THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL during t
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL very dear to
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL their appoin
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL THE NOVELIST
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL as hypnotic
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THE GENESIS OF A NOVEL birds, dawn
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INTRODUCTION IT IS ON MATTERS of me
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS had considered
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS Wuthering Heigh
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS independence an
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS The entire orde
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS novelist's incr
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS for organic uni
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tells US, 'is STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS a
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N STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS of art' seems
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS acknowledging w
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS wearing down hu
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS handling of the
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS of experience d
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQÛE dialogue: all
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQÛE thing it had t
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NARRATIVE TEGHNIQÛE rank quality o
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQ,UE writers like S
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NARRATIVE TEGHNIQÛE bility. Conrad
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CHARACTERIZATION in The Waves embod
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CHARACTERIZATION exasperation under
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CHARACTERIZATION writer's emotions,
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CHARACTERIZATION and idiosyncrasies
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CHARACTERIZATION dimensional nature
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CHARACTERIZATION than Lear or Ophel
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DIALOGUE 'real' and the stylized. T
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5 Chapter xxxiv. 211 DIALOGUE divid
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DIALOGUE spersed here and there—a
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BACKGROUND its 'development'. It is
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BACKGROUND in the imaginative recon
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STYLE that 'incorrect' writers like
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STYLE names,—snowdrop, primrose,
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STYLE Furthermore, Fielding likes t
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: STYLE ing Heights, as it is point
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TEXT / Structural Problems UNITY AN
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— STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS he begins a
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS ling recurrence
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS EPISODES DISTRA
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS FOCUS (5 July 1
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS better without
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— STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS of the read
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS pushed out of s
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS It would seem a
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS STORY THE SPOIL
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— STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS DOING AWAY
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. s STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS please acce
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS of the entire w
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS found, to proce
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STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS which intervene
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQÛE be pleaded for
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQÛE her own mouth,
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. NARRATIVE TEGHNIQ,UE enjoyed on t
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NARRATIVE TEGHNIQÛE ways rather th
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE FORM AS VARIED
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE everything she
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NARRATIVE TEGHNIQÛE eminence, they
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQÛE should form a
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NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE (viii) . . . th
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Characterization THE DIAL-PLATE OR
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. CHARACTERIZATION mood fittest to
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CHARACTERIZATION comings? in compan
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CHARACTERIZATION up, I have as a ne
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CHARACTERIZATION write my story, wh
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CHARACTERIZATION caused trouble, I
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CHARACTERIZATION then had to find f
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CHARACTERIZATION All the principal
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. CHARACTERIZATION This implies a f
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DIALOGUE Bovary is driving me mad!
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DIALOGUE dialogue on extraneous mat
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DIALOGUE US to dance hand in hand r
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V Background SCOTT TRANSFORMS MELRO
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BACKGROUND TOO MUCH BACKGROUND ...
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BACKGROUND vacuum. Man is not alone
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BACKGROUND HENRY JAMES FOLLOWS THE
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BACKGROUND all the corners of Germa
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STYLE reader, in the most lively ma
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STYLE ephemeral, sterile emotion wh
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STYLE It will be as rhythmical as v
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STYLE BYRON A MODEL ... I don't att
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STYLE moment, has no place here. Le
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STYLE life, and a far keener sense
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demand to STYLE be promptly improve
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The compiler and t
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INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES IN THE
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INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES Fathers
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INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES 5 Nostr
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INDEX TO THE TEXT Austen, Jane. Cha
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INDEX TO THE TEXT 2.51; narrative t
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INDEX TO THE TEXT Mrs. Barbauld on
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1 1 j 1 . AfR 19 '65 Date Due Due R
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m
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