Literary Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 5, Issue 22, 4 September 1897, Page 11

Literary Notes.

[Bt Libbb.] * REALISM IN FICTION. (Continued.) Further justification might be made in this direction, but occasion rather requires that the comprehensive application of the term ‘ Realism ’ should be indicated. Let its wider meaning and scope teonce understood, let it be seen what truly excellent •works are included in the category, and the reputation and defence of Realism are secure. For much of the opposition which it still encounters is readily traceable to the character of the body of fiction to which this distinctive name was first applied. To many minds, even at the present day, the word Realism suggests nothing but the most unsavoury productions of the French school and its English imitators. British prejudice against ‘ Zolaism ’ was lofty and unyielding. While Zola presented only frightful pictures of Parisian immorality, and George Moore dealt exclusively with the vice of sensual and degraded sections of English society, there was nothing but reprobation and odium for them and their works. Was this Realism ? Then, away with it as an evil thing and a pollution of innocence and youth. Such was the antipathy to the great French realist, that shocked British propriety regarded the man himself as a sensual monster. For decades the patient little Frenchman, chaste indeed in character and record as any of his detractors, laboured on amidst vindictive obloquy, never departing one jot from the aim and plan he bad set himself. In time that plan brought him into new fields where, in his remorseless fidelity to all that is in life, he did not directly meet with those phases of it which we Britishers must have sedulously veiled in our literature. Then those superior persons, who had made noisy vituperation against art they knew nothing of, condescended to read the oft-excommunicated author. The man and his work emerged from misrepresentation and injustice, English literary and journalistic circles united to do him honour when he ■visited England a few years since. The most respectable journals now quote from bis writings, and many of his books adorn our libraries. A more discerning judgment credits him with purity of motive even where our insular ethics, differing from the Continental, continues to regard the themes he openly deals with as improper for introduction into general literature. To him as an artist and a realist these matters are simply vital, Tar-reaching factors in social and individual existence, on no account to he neglected. Bat the many who will hear no good thing said of French Realism need not go abroad for exponents of the principle. George Eliot is as true, as uncompromising, and as vivid xs any writer of the school. The solidarity of the race, the growth or degeneration of individual character, the inscrutable allocation of good and evil, the sway of chance snd error in human things—these and such stern truths find unsurpassed elucidation in her works. Again, in most of Thackeray’s works events and characters move strictly on the plane of humanity and nature, though the cheerful optimism of the author lends life a brighter and more joyous aspect than his present day successors are able to discern in it. In England, within recent times, .many realist novelists of diverse tastes and experience have sprung up. Of these, Hardy, Gissing, Lucas Malet, and Kipling may stand as worthy exemplars. Many writers of less endowment might be added to the list, and outside the list are many authors 'whose productions are perceptibly influenced by the canons of a school they do not seek to emulate—a school whose leaven is thus so manifest that conservative critics and reviewers are wont, in deploring its tendencies, to assume that it has

become the literary fashion of the day. The ascen dency gained by Realism was no easy triumph in view of the character at first ascribed to it* and of the continued opposition of selfelected leaders of taste. But the genius of writers gifted like those mentioned caught and fostered the incipient desire, with the result'that they have at le?st vindicated adit won recognition for the modern forth of art which they pursue. Most of them reflect powerfully in their works the spirit of pessimism which prevails in these last years of the closing century. Thackeray, whose best known novels were published about the middle of the century, will never be associated with them. It is not so much the gap of years as the wholly altered standpoint from which things are viewed which divides his Realism from that holding sway in this generation. The artistic spirit has greatly changed tone, in keeping with the rapid developments of the century. A hearty joy in mere living characterised our forefathers. The knew the seamy aide of existence, as they also knew of its perplexing problems. But, in their rude primitive health of mind and body, they kept these matters in the background as being inimical to happiness. They knew human frailty and limitation, but were goodnaturedly cynical or tolerant in presence of examples of the fact. Lastly, they accepted the evils of life without rebellion, having large faith in the unseen, as a region where all wrongs would be righted. Of those robust times, of that buoyant temper was Thackeray; and his writings are imbued with a cheerfulness unknown to the pessimistic Realism of to-day. We live at a pace and pressure which exhaust the vital energy, and take from ns too often the physical springs of mental resiliency and gladness. Moreover, our age has lost faith and “ other worldism ” is not the potent solace it was. Intellectual activity applies its scrutiny to abstract questions as well as to material science. And while, on the one hand, mighty advances are in progress as a result, on the other hand, the fruit of the tree of knowledge has been bitter. On the moral side of life there is disappointment and disenchantment. The disease of ambitious thought is upon us. In terrible earnestness we ask, Is life worth living ? —a question men in the past would have laughed out of court as the outcome of morbid weakness. Thus, then, it comes about that our truest Realists, interpreting these features of the time and giving them vivid expression, are pessimists. Let Hardy, in general estimation the ablest of his school if not of living novelists, put the matter for us, and express for himself the sum of his studies of mankind and nature. In “ The Return of the Native ” he says ; “ The view of life as a thing to be pnt up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense in early civilisations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution of the advanced races that its facial expression will become accepted as a new artistic departure. People already feel that a man who lives without disturbing a curve of feature, or setting a mark of mental concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed from modern perceptive ness to be a modern type The truth seems to be that a long series of disiilusive centuries has [permanently displaced the Hellenic ideas of life, or whatever it may be called. The oldfashioned revelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we uncover the defects of natural laws and see the quandary in which man is placed.”