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XXIII. The Views of the Great Critics on the Historical Novel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Ernest Bernbaum
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Extract

The significance of the historical novel may be summarily suggested by calling the roll of its greatest masters: Scott and Manzoni; Hugo and Dumas; Thackeray, Kingsley, and Reade; Tolstoi, Coster, and Sienkiewicz. Add those who are rivals of the leading masters: Gogol and Jokai, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and Jens Peder Jacobsen, Hawthorne and Pater, Blackmore and Stevenson; Merimée, Flaubert, and Anatole France. Here, without mentioning many who, like Dickens and George Eliot, were at their best in other forms of fiction, we have a genre rich in masterpieces,—certainly the only great genre in which the nineteenth century so excelled its predecessors as to cast their experiments of a similar kind into oblivion. The public loves it; great authors devote themselves to it. What do the critics make of it? What is its nature, its function, its value? Is this method, apparently so successful, of narrating an action imagined as occurring in an historic past, really a literary art or is it a temporary aberration? Such questions rang out in the nineteenth century as challenges to critical genius. How did the critics respond?

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , June 1926 , pp. 424 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1926

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References

1 Of the criticism of the historical novel, there is as yet no history; nor is there any, of the criticism of prose fiction. In these respects, as in nearly all others, scholarship in prose fiction lags far behind scholarship in other great fields of literature.

2 George Saintsbury, Essays in English Literature: 1780-1860. Second Series, 1895, p. 326.

3 K. W. F. Solger, Vorlesimgen über Aesthetik (1829).—Karl Rosenkranz, Aeslhetik des Hässlichen (1853).—W. P. James, “The Historical Novel,” Macmillan's Magazine (November, 1887), reprinted in his Romantic Professions and Other Papers (1894).

4 Works, ed. Shedd, VI, 256, 292, 325, 472, 495.

5 This hatred, which frequently (not, as Mr. Saintsbury thinks, always) hampered Hazlitt's critical judgment of Scott's novels, may be felt in all its virulence in the two suppressed paragraphs of the review of “Peveril of the Peak,” which have been restored in the Collected Works, 1902-04, xi, 538. See also ix, 451; and vi, 422, 518; besides the well-known attack in The Spirit of the Age, iv, 241.

6 The pertinent passages, chronologically arranged, are: 1819: On the English Novelists, viii, 106, 178-9.—Jan. 1822: The Pirate, xi, 531—Feb. 1823: Peveril of the Peak, xi, 537.—1823: Characteristics, No. 290, v, 397.—1824, 25: Sir Walter Scott, iv, 241—1826: The Plain Speaker, Nos. 17, 20, 27, 29; vii, 180, 229, 314n, 336.—1826-27: Conversations of James Northcote, Nos. 9, 12, 14; vi, 385-6 and editors' notes, 399-400, 408-409—Oct. 1829: American Literature, x, 312-314.—Nov. 1829: Why the Heroes of Romance are Insipid, xii, 59.

7 In La Quotidienne, 17 August and 29 October, 1823.—Helen Maxwell King, Les Doctrines Littéraires de la Quotidienne, Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, vol. i, 1920.

8 Racine et Shakspeare, deuxième partie; réponse: le romantique au classique (1825). Ed. Calmann-Levy, pp. 159-160.—It should be noted that Stendhal was writing before the dates when Merimée and Hugo raised the French historical novel to a high literary status.

9 Des Jugemens sur notre littérature contemporaine a l'étranger, June 15, 1836; P. L. ii, 305.

10 Balzac, 2 September, 1850; C. L. II, 462.

11 Ibid., pp. 459-460.S

12 Sainte-Beuve on Fiction, South Atlantic Quarterly, xx, 41-51, January, 1921.

13 The course of Sainte-Beuve's views on the subject may be traced as follows: 18 Dec. 1824: Denis, P. L. I, 11.—15 Jan. 1825: D'Arlincourt, P. L. i, 17.—8 July, 1826: De Vigny, P. C. ii, 537. 16 Apr. 1828: Cooper, P. L. i, 288. 27. Sept. 1832: Scott, P. L. ii, 108. Oct. 1835: De Vigny, P. C. ii, 52. 15 June, 1836: Des Jugements à l'étranger, P. L. ii, 305. 15 Sept. 1838: Fortoul, P. L. ii, 322.—15 Apr. 1839: Dumas, P. L. ii, 390. 15 Sept. 1840: Sue, P. C. iii, 87.

1 Apr. 1846: Vitet, Port Litt. iii, 412. 2 Sept. 1850: Balzac, C. L. ii, 445. 15 Sept. 1851: Marmontel, C. L. iv, 515. 6 & 13 Dec. 1852: Barthélemy, C. L. vii, 186. 7 Feb. 1853: Merimée, C. L. vii, 371. 28 July, 1855: Du Camp, C. L. xii, 3. 1861: Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire: i, 161, 206, 251; ii, 3, 5, 21, 23 and note, 55, 59. 22 Dec. 1862: Salammbô, N. L. iv, 31, 435.

14 A. J. Balfour, Theism and Humanism (1915), p. 138.

15 Review of Stephen's Some Early Impressions, in The Sunday Times (London), 15 June, 1924.

16 The Author, 1 April, 1904. Maitland, Life of Leslie Stephen, p. 493.

17 A. J. Balfour, Theism and Humanism (The Gifford Lectures, delivered in 1914), lecture v. Stephen's philosophic depth may be plumbed by noting that he tried to read Hegel but gave it up. See Maitland, Life, p. 172.

18 Not by Stephen himself, but by Canon Ainger. See Some Early Impressions, p. 163.

19 The much praised essay on Wordsworth is on Wordsworth's ethical system, and, characteristically, “endeavors to state it in plain prose.” Hours in a Library, 1892, ii, 277.

20 Did Stephen really understand Coleridge's philosophy and aesthetics? I doubt it when I find him saying, in his essay on Godwin, that Coleridge's “poetry is most successful where it is most independent of his philosophy” (iii, 65).

There is no thorough study of Leslie Stephen as a critic and philosopher. The best approach to one is Herbert Paul's essay, published anonymously in the Quarterly Renew, April, 1904, cxcix, 468-475, and reprinted in Stephen's Essays in Freethinking and Plains peaking, 1905. I do not wholly agree with its admiring estimate of Stephen, but it really faces the philosophic issues that his work raises.—Mr. Stanley T. Williams' Leslie Stephen: Twenty Years Later, in the London Mercury, 1923, viii, 621-634, seems well read in Stephen, and is pleasantly written, but sidles away from the truly critical problems.—The Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen, 1906 (appropriately enough written not by a literary man or a philosopher, but by a great jurist), by Frederic William Maitland, keeps to matters of fact and evidence, and avowedly makes no attempt to appraise the literary and critical value of Stephen's work. As so often, a poet has been the best characterizer of the personality of the man: Thomas Hardy, in The Schreckhorn, originally published in Maitland, p. 278. Stephen was the first to climb to the top of that Alp,—

Drawn on by vague imaginings maybe

Of semblance to his personality

In its quaint glooms, keen lights, and rugged trim.

21 The few but very influential passages appeared as follows: 1874: Sir Waller Scott, Hours in a Library, i, esp. p. 156.—Compare therewith, Hawthorne, p. 170.—1879: Kingsley, Do. iii, esp. pp. 56-58.—Jan. 1902: Stevenson, Studies of a Biographer, especially the last three paragraphs.—1902: George Eliot, the chapter on Romola.

22 It was Brandes' lectures in 1888 that stemmed the Christian tide against Nietzsche, and initiated his vogue. Rudolf Eisler, Philosophen-Lexikon (1912), sub “Nietzsche.”

23 “En eneste Hymne til Friheden.” Samlede Skrifler, 1899, i, p. v. 21 “stor, tyk og doktrinær Afhandling,”—Skrifler, i, 404.

25 See his illuminating conversation with John Stuart Mill (who hadn't!), in Skrifter, ix, 540.

26 Most of the discussions of Dr. Brandes' work, including most of those in Danish, suffer from sectarian or political partisanship. The elementary facts, stated with fairness, may be found in Salmonsen's (Danish) Konversations Leksikon, 2nd ed., xv, 1915; or in Victor Basch's introduction to Brandes' l'école romantique en France, 1902. Even the admirers of Dr. Brandes seem to admit that the most thorough study of him is Alfred Ipsen's Georg Brandes: en Bog om Ret og Uret, Copenhagen, 1902-03, which is condemnatory, and scarcely known outside of Scandinavia.

American opinions concerning Dr. Brandes seem now abreast of the hasty and superficial opinions current in Europe thirty years ago. A wholly uncritical genuflection is Julius Moritzen's ill-written sketch, Georg Brandes in Life and Letters (Newark, N. J.), 1922, as fulsome and vapid as if a publisher's brochure about a popular author. Some who ought to know better utter about Dr. Brandes extravagances like these: “one of the great humanists of the age,” with “vast and accurate learning” (Ludwig Lewisohn, The Nation, October 10, 1923, pp. 399-400). Perhaps that kind of extreme leads to the other, represented by Mr. Robert Littell (The Bookman, July, 1923, pp. 556-557) who complains that the “enormous knowledge” of Dr. Brandes makes him dull!

27 Naturalismen i England, Skrifter, v, 381.—In the English translation, Main Currents, iv, 127.—Cf. Scott's Autobiography, in Lockhart.

28 Balzac, Préface de la Comédie Humaine.—Brandes, Skrifter, vi, 45, 150.—Brunetiere, Honoré de Balzac, ch. i.

29 “I vore Dage …. forældet …. Man er over hele Europa tilb⊘jelig til den Opfattelse, at den historiske Roman med alle sine Fortrin er en Bastardart ….. I vore Dage ved Tidens stumme, men lærerige Kritik bleven Yndlingsdigteren for Drenge og Piger omkring Fjortenaarsalderen, en Digter, som alle Voksne har laest og ingen Voksen nogensinde læser.” Skrifter, v, 379-80, 382. (Translation, Main Currents, iv, 125, 127.)

30 The more important passages on historical fiction, or bearing in some way thereon, may be found in: 1873: Carsten Hauch.—1875: Naturalismen i England, esp. ch. x.—1876: J. P. Jacobsen.—1881: Gustave Flaubert.—1882: Den romantiske Skole i Frankrig, esp. on Scott's influence, on Hugo, on Balzac, and on Merimée.—1887: Ingemann.—1889: Heidenstam.—1905: Anatole France.

31 Last paragraph of The Art of Fiction. In Partial Portraits, 1888, p. 408.

32 The chief passages on historical novels are in the following: Apr. 1873:

Gautier (in French Portraits).—Feb. 1876: Bernard and Flaubert (in the same).—1879: Hawthorne, chap. v.—1884: The Art of Fiction (in Partial Portraits).—1885: George Eliot (in the same).—1893: Flaubert (in Essays in London.—1912: The Novel in “The Ring and the Book” (in Notes on Novelists). This indicates how Henry James would have written an historical novel,—but only implicitly.

33 The best introduction to a critical study of Brunetière is Professor Babbitt's essay in The Masters of Modern French Criticism, 1912, chap. v. The most thorough-going analysis of Brunetière's views, and of their philosophical implications, is in Ernst Robert Curtius' monograph, Ferdinand Brunetière: Beitrag zur Geschichte der französischen Kritik, Strassburg, 1915.—Add to the bibliography in Curtius and in Lanson (Manuel bibliographique, 1921) : Georges Renard, Les Princes de la jeune critique, 1890, a noteworthy early attack, containing (p. 103) a sentence which anticipates many of the later adverse judgments: “Savant donc plus que philosophe, M. Brunetière est peut-être aussi plus savant qu'artiste.”

34 This was a “classicist” who had little interest in Latin literature, and none in Greek.—He had opinions on medieval literature, and on German literature; but no proper knowledge of either.—English literature he knew chiefly through Taine, i.e., through a glass, darkly.—His sketch of the history of French fiction (l'évolution des genres, pp. 26-28) is a presumptuous mental construction betraying deep ignorance of the objective facts.

35 Masters of Modern French Criticism, 1912, p. 337.

36 See his Théorie du lieu commun, in Histoire et littérature, i, 31.

37 émile Faguet, la Révolution littéraire de 1660, in Propos littéraires, 1904, ii, 1-27.

38 The last phrase is, of course, Lord Haldane's. On the metaphysical basis of the aesthetic principle, see his Pathway to Reality, 1903-04, ii, 182 ff.

39 Balzac, ch. 1, section 3, last paragraph.

40 Quoted in Selden T. Whitcomb, The Study of a Novel, 1905, p. 304.

41 In its purity the classical tradition is not hostile to the union of history and literature; are not Homer, Virgil, Milton, and Racine sufficient precedents for “classicists?” As for the other branch of the great tradition, I tried to show, in my address to the Shakespeare Association of London, October, 1923, that every important argument brought against the legitimacy of the historical novel would tend to invalidate the art of Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra.

42 The more important of the pertinent passages in Brunetière are the following: 1 June, 1877: l'érudition dans le roman (in le Roman naturaliste). 15 Sept. 1881: les Origines du roman naturaliste (in the same).—15 July, 1881: On the “inherent vice” of the historical novel, Théorie du lieu commun (in Histoire et littérature, i, 50).—1 July, 1890: A definition of the novel, Mme. de Stael, (in études critiques sur l'histoire de la littérature française, iv, 382).—1 June,1891 : Le Roman de l'avenir (in Essais sur la littérature contemporaine, p. 181, ff.).—1 Nov. 1892 : Ranking the kinds of fiction in order of merit, Un roman de M. Paul Bourget (in Nouveaux Essais, pp. 213-214).—1898: Another characteristic definition of fiction, Manuel de l'histoire de la littérature française, pp. 442-443.—1906: Honoré de Balzac, throughout, but especially chap. i, the beginning of chap. iv, and the last eight paragraphs of chap. viii.

43 Readily applicable to the historical novel are many of the ideas on the Epic in the criticism of the Renaissance,—ideas whose history has been recently set forth anew by Dr. R. C. Williams. See his The Theory of the Epic (Johns Hopkins), 1917; The Purpose of …. the Epic, in Romanic Review, 1921, xii, 1; and Two Studies in Epic Theory, in Modern Philology, November, 1924.