GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

678 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
ownership of the means of production and exchange. Thus
good literature in the modern world will specifically relate
itselfto the impending change from Capitalism to Socialism,
and will seek to promote that change. To quote from a con-
temporary communist writer: "The social organism to
which literature has to be related is humanity in its advance
to Socialism. The function of criticism is to judge literature,
both content and form, as a part of this movement. 19
Bourgeois (Bad) and Proletarian (Good) Fiction.
To illustrate these principles, theories are propounded
which seek to define the function of the good novel in
contemporary society. Most English novels, it is pointed
out, are written by members of the bourgeois class to be
read by members of that class. They are indicted on three
grounds: (a) They are written in a faded and jejune
language, in which abstract and latinized substitutes for
plain speech take the place of the fresh and racy language
of common men, enriched by images drawn from their
working experience. The phraseology of contemporary
American novels, it is pointed out, is vivid and colloquial in
comparison with the fiat and insipid prose of Kng^th
writers, and American novels are, therefore, regarded with
favour, (b) In the bourgeois novel the emphasis is laid upon
individuals and the -novelist's judgments of individuals are
inspired by bourgeois, that is to say, by capitalist, morality.
The bourgeois novel as concerned with such questions as,
"Is Miss X a good -woman?" "Did X and Y achieve
happiness?" "Did Y 'make good'?" that is to say, "Did Y
succeed according to the standards of the bourgeois society
of which he was a member ? "
The good novel, on the other hand good, that is to say,
by reference to the standards which the principles enunciated
above invoke will deal with masses rather than
individuals. "From the mass" I am quoting from a recent
statement of the aims of die writer of proletarian fiction
by Arthur Caldcr Marshall "now one person, now another
is picked out not in contradistinction from the others, but