Critical Analysis of the Artistic Principles of William Dean Howe

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Loyola University Chicago

Loyola eCommons

Master's Teses Teses and Dissertations

1948

Critical Analysis of the Artistic Principles ofWilliam Dean Howell's Criticism and Fiction By

Means of a Comparison with Aristotle's PoeticsRichard H. LundstromLoyola University Chicago

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Copyright 1948 Richard H. Lundstrom

Recommended CitationLundstrom, Richard H., "Critical Analysis of the Artistic Principles of William Dean Howell's Criticism and Fiction By Means of aComparison with Aristotle's Poetics" (1948).Master's Teses. Paper 271.hp://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/271
http://ecommons.luc.edu/http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theseshttp://ecommons.luc.edu/tdmailto:[email protected]://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/mailto:[email protected]://ecommons.luc.edu/tdhttp://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theseshttp://ecommons.luc.edu/


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CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ARTISTIC PRINCIPLES OFWILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS S CRITICISM AND Ji ICTIOU BY

lVIEANS OF A COMJARISON WITH ARISTOTLE S POETICS

BYRICHARD H LUNDS l RO.M, S J

A THESIS STlBMITTED IN PARTIAL FUL:.::jliLLMEl TT OFTh E REQ.UIREivlENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF NIASTER

OF ARTS Jl T LOYOLA UNIVEHSITY

SEPTEMBER1948


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TABLE CF CONTENTSCHAPTER PAGE

I . INTRODUCTION: SETTING OF GTL'I'IC:;. lT. French Naturaligm---Dumas---Dist inctionbetween Real is ts and N a t u r a l i ~ t ~ - - - A nericanl i fe---Decl ine of p r u d . e r y M i s ~ i o n ofnovelis t---Will iam Dean H o w e l l ~ .

1

I I . HOWELLS AND ARISTOrrLE O GF.ARACTER AND PLOT ~Life of Howells---Definii ion of Realism--C r i t i c i ~ m and Fict ion as H o w e l l ~ s s t a t e ~ment of Real:i_sm---Realism and Naturalisl'lldist inguished---IndividEal v e r s u ~ type--A ris to t le s a r t i s t i c Ideal ism---Dist inct ionbetween H o w e l l ~ s Realism and A ris to t l e sIdealism---Realism as react ion to Roman-t i c i s ~ - - - H o w e l l s 1 8 defin i t ion of Realism--Agreement between Howells and Aris to t le - -

D i s a ~ r e e m e n t in thei r concepta of nature.I I I . HOVJELLS O TEE END OR PURPOSE OF FINE ART:NATURALISM Fundament of difference between Aristo t leand Howells---End of f ine ar t according toHowells---Truth defined philosophical ly--Howells 's defin i t ion of t ru th- - -u . S. Grant

a3 an exa'nple---Absence of t ru th in Naturali s m - ~ - H o w e l l ~ antipathy for beauty--Confusion of beauty and t ru th in the mindof Howells.

IV COMPARISON OF HOWELLS AND ArtiSTOTLE AS REGARDS

v.

THE FINAL CAUSE OF FINE ART 47Pleasure the end of f ine a r t according toAris tot le-- -Subject ive plea5ure---Objec-t ive pleat Jure---Similarity and divers i tyof beauty and t ru th as end of f lne ar t .CONCLUSION 56

BIBLIOGRAPHY 58


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VIT DCTORIS

H i c ~ : l . r d Eenry L1.mdstrom was born in Terre Haute IndianaOctober 5 1922. He received his elementary school educationa t St. Patr ick s parochial S(}hool in Terre Haute. He attendedState High School Honey Creek High School and Wiley HighSchool a l l in Terre Haute Indiana. He graduated from WileyHigh School in 1939. During 1939 and 1940 he attended IndianaState Teachers College. He attended Marquette Universityduring the summer sessions of 1942.

In September 1942 he entered the Society of Jesus a tSt . Stanislaus Seminary Flor issant , I:Io. and enrolled in St .Loui: l Universj ty wh:lch he attended from 1942 to 1946.

In August 1946 te began his three year course inPhilosophy a t West Baden College West Baden Springs Indianaa t which time he enrol led in Loyola Univers i ty. From LoyolaUniversity he received the Bachelor of Arts degree in June 1941In September 1947 he enrolled as a g r a c ~ u a te student in theDepartment of English a t Loyola Universityo


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CH PTER IINTRODUCTION

In our present day and age t has become the custom inf ic t ion writ ing to associate the phrase bes t - se l le r with

i ~ m o r a l i t y Great quant i t ies of novels are being poured uponthe public, some few of which are good, others doomed to medi-ocri ty , s t i l l others , and this class contains the vast majori tyof the publishers output, of pract ical ly no a r t i s t i c or moralvalue. All too many of these novels achieve prominence for ashort time because of the element of iMnorality contained inthem.

In the l a t t e r half of the nineteenth century, William DeanHowells, the Father of American R e a l i s ~ w a s s tar t ing the Ameri-can novel along the path by which i t has come to i t s presentcondition. His emphasis upon Realism was a react ion to Roman-t icism, then making a l as t feeble stand in America. However,Mr Howe lls s theory of Realism was moderate; and while themodern novel has developed logical ly from his theory and pr in-ciples , s t i l l in a l l too many instances i t has ignored theguide posts and warning signs he set up to direct i t .

1


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I t i s the purpose of th i s paper to e x a m i n e ~ ~ Howells stheory of Realism in the l ight of the general ar t i s t i c pr inci -ples set down by Aris to t le in his Poet ics. I t is important tonote that th i s is not to be a comparison of the theories ofAristo t le and Mr. Howells in so far as these theories are r i -vals . I t i s ra ther a study of the class ica l theory of c r i t i -cism represented by Aris to t le and i t s re la t ion to the c r i t i ca ltheory of Mr. Howells.

In the l a t t e r half of the nineteenth century, the Natural-i s t ic novel achieved the ascendency in France. The pens ofsuch ta lented authors as Gustave Flaubert , the Goncourt broth-ers, Emile Zola, and uy de Maupassant produced volume af te rvolume of pornographic l i t e ra tu re under the supposition,expl ic i t or implied, that there is an unbridgeable chasm be-tween ar t and morali ty. The inevi table swing away from Romant icism had begun innocently enough. In the beginning thereact ionary Real is ts were content to depict l i f e as i t waswithout the lof ty and i dea l i s t i c soarings of the Romanticists.However, there soon came men l ike Dumas f i l s ) who hitchedth i s Realism to a method of morals and sought to teach mento be good by showing in the i r novels the evi ls consequentupon sin .

To read a novel describing sin was tohave an effect similar to vaccinationagainst smallpox. The fa l lacy in thismethod of reasoning l i es in the fac t


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that the excitement of the senses i spleasurable and requires a strongerprophylactic than a book. All cannotr e s i ~ t the ordeal of St. Anthony.l

3

The next stage of the journey toward Naturalism followedquite logical ly . For the Realis t ic author dealing as he waswith material that in incapable hands might well become t r i t eand uninteres t ing was often forced to go far ther and far theraf ie ld , to portray more and more abnormal things the rea l butexceptional in l i f e , in order to at t ract the at tent ion requiredfor a well-stocked larder .

So he haunts the hoe pi t a l I?Jld theS a l p ~ t : e i e r e the dramahop and the brotheland dwell8 among the lowest passions ofhumanlty unt i l , as with the hero ofJilusset s Lorenzaccio they cl ing to himl ike the shi r t of Nessus . Thus Zola losesa l l sense of proportion and ~ i t h hisproneness to exaggeration he piles up descript ions of vice unt i l he can see inhumanity no atom of goodness.2

And so the dis t inct ion between the Real is t and the a t u ~r a l i s t becomes clear . The sane Real is t s s l i f e as i t i s .Of the abundance of matter avai lable to him he must exercisekeen ar t i s t i c select ion. e can not use the grotesque theexot ic or the fanciful as can the Romanticist ; his task i s

C H C Wright A Hietory of French Literature.. New YorkOxford University P r e ~ s 1925 757.2 I b i ~ . 758.


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4more di f f icu l t than that of the modern Idea l i s t who can l e t hisfancy play without control . n the contrary,

There is no worse perverter of ar t andnature than the French Natura l i s t because,as Meredith says of St . Simeon Sty l i t e s hesees only the hog in Nature and then takesNature for the hog. Naturalism had thepessimism and exaggeration of the unrealRomanticism and was, in some cases, hypoc r i t i ca l besides.3

The departure from the Romantic t radi t ion in l i t e ra tu rethrough Realism, to Naturalism, was not confined to France.With the passage of a few years, echoes of the new movementhad reached even to the shores of dis tant America. However,i t was not unt i l the l a s t two decades of the nineteenth cen-tury that the Realis t ic novel came in to i t s own in America.

Engulfed, as she was, in the rapid, almost violent ,growth of adolescence, America and her ci t izens fe l t the i rat tent ion drawn towards the momentous events tha t daily arousedgreat excitement and in teres t . American Westerners were ina s ta te of discontent because of a supposed lack of represen-t a t ion in the government and because of a very rea l persecut iona t the hands of ra i l roads insurance companies and land off ices .Str ikes resul t ing in violence were common; during one of these,the famous Pullman s t r ike in Chicago :ln 1893, Eugene 1/ Debsmade a name for himself. A Titan of the s tee l industry was

3 Ib id . 758-759.


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5~ h o t and stabbed. The r e m n a n t ~ of C o x ~ , a r m y arr ived inWashington. The World s Columbian Exposit ion of Chicago in1893 gave mill ions of people the i r f i r s t rea l insight intothe i r country, the United States of Amer: .ca. The upshot of i ta l l was tha t a new, nat ional self-consciou3ne:ss arose and peoplebegan to :seek to know more about region:s of the nation outsidethe i r own ken. Add to these fac ts the trouble with Spain tha twas brewing in Cuba and there resul t s a nation faced with problems and sincerely seeking to know more about i t3e l f and thoseproblems in order the bet te r to f ind a solution.4

The country was in a ferment; causeswere being bat t led for with a fervor thatdemanded that novel is ts should look thingsin the face and t e l l what they saw.5On the other hand, i n f l u e n c e ~ from without the United

S t a t e ~ were equally strong in preparing the nation for the new

In the f in de siecle the bulwark of AngloSaxon (or ra ther Victorian) re t icence-inmatters of :sex was ~ l o w l y but cer ta in lycrumbling under the ceaseless poundingsof waves that cro:ssed the Atlant ic . Theflood of new Realism from abroad was notto be denied, especial ly the surge fromFrance. Gautier and Flauber.t, Maupassantand Zola were being read, perhaps sub rosa;even The Cri t ic could not ignore them, butdid i t s best to make the i r names, or a tleas t tha t of Maupassant, synonymou3 withevi l . Sapho, which s ta r t led even Paris in4 Grant C. Knight, American Litera ture and Culture, Ray Longand Richard R. Smity, Inc . ew York,-r932, 369-370.5 Ib id . 368.


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1864 1 was pirated by a New York publisherwho was so anxious to outs t r ip his compet:ttors that he divided the volume into threeparts for the sake of speedier t ranslat ion And the names of Baudelaire and theGoncourt brothers are sprinkled through thec r i t i ca l essays in the magazines of the t imes.6Likewise, English writers were helping to break down the

6

Victorian t radi t ion of prudery that whoever had wished to writehad had to obey. To name only a few, Kipling did not alwaysse del ica te words, nor did he t e l l del icate s tor ies ; and the

publicat;ion of Thomas Hardy 1 s Jude the ObsCL:re in Harper 1 sMagazine was a victory for l iberal ism since the new novel wasalmost negligibly romantic and was based upon a grim andremorseless theory of chance.?

Consequently, America was ready for Realism and there wereReal is t ic writers ready for America.

This Real is t ic method arose in a l l theWestern countr ies , spontaneously, in evitably, following similar generalc a n : : ~ e e one :tnvented i t : . i t came.Howells was a Real is t before he everheard the word, he had wri t tenReal is t ic sketches as a boy in Oh:i.osketches as natural as the tooth-ache,as his fa ther cal led them. Realism wasonly re la t ive ly new. In England, Defoewas a Real is t , and even Jane Austen Howells had developed his own Real is t icmethod, and Turgenev ra ther confirmedthan determirsd . this method Butscience had in tens i f ied the Real is t ic

6 Ib id . 370.7 Ibid.. , 368.


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impulses and the Yankee mind in general wasprepared for th i s movement.87

In France the l i t er ture had passed quite rapidly from Realismto Naturalism. In AMerica, on the contrary, the career of theFrench was retarded; for here Realism had, almost from thebeginning, a strong champion, William Dean Howells,. who setdown a clear-cut theory of Realism and si lenced the cry for

N a t L ~ a l i s t i c novels such as were to be found in the contempo-rary French school. Hi3 word carr ied suff ic ient influence andesteem to hold off for a number of yeara the logical t r a n ~ i t i o nfrom Realism to Naturalism. Nonetheless, hia posi t ion was thatof a small rear-guard, l e f t behind a re t re t ing army to slow asmuch as possible the advance of the enemy That Naturalism i sin our midst today is evident from the ~ r k of Dreiser ,Anderson, and countless other lesser l ights whose dim glowconsists chief ly in the r ther common bi l i ty to t t r c t t tent ion by being obscene. Paradoxical though i t seems, WilliamDean Howells, l l his effor ts on behalf of Realism notwithstanding, served to direct the American novel along the path bywhich i t has come to i t s present condition.

8

Yet what the Natural is ts missed in Howells,as so many others were to miss i t for almosth l f a century f te r them, was th t his del:tght in re l i ty and h i ~ rePUgnance to } oman-t icism cle r ly encouraged them to work t there l i ty they themseLves knew Vihatever hispersonal l imita t ions of t s te and the pruderythat was so obsessive that i t does not seemal together a quali ty of his age, Howells s


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service was to stimulate other:s and to lendthe dignity of hia sp i r i t to the i r quest.Whatever the fatuousness or parochialismthat could ca l l three-fi f th:s of the l i t e r -ature commonly cal led class ic f i l thy trashand set Daudet above Zola because the l a t t e rwrote of the ra ther brut i sh pursui t of awoman by a man which ~ m s to be the chiefend of the French novel is t , his insis tencethat youni writers be t rue to l i f e as theysaw t that i s the r ight American stuffwas tonic .9

8

The purpose of th i s paper is to analyze the principlesof Realism as set down b;y- lVlr. Howells in his small but :master-fu l and direct book, Cri t icism and Fict ion; and in so doing toreach a clear understanding of Mr Howells 's concept of Reali:smby a comparison with the a r t i s t i c tenets of Aris to t le as enunt ia ted in the Poet ics. Character , plot , and the f inal causeof f ine ar t wil l be discussed. Naturalism, ej_nce i t iecr i t ic ized by Mr Howells from the standpoint of it:: fa i lureto real ize the purpose of fine ar t , wil l be discussed in thechapter dealing with the f inal cause of f ine ar t .

9 Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds, New York, Reynal andHitchcock, 9 4 ~ 7-8.


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CHAPTER I IHOWELLS AND ARISTOTLE O CiiARACTER ND PLOT

William Dean Howells, the son of an indigent Scotch pr in t -er, was born before the American Civi l War in a small Ohio townwest of the Alleghany mountains. The date was 1837. He re -ceived l i t t l e or no formal education, but he began early toeducate himself when he was given a job as pr in te r s devil inhis fa the r s shop. There he learned to read and set type;there t was tha t i Je came into contact with his f i r s t books;and, more important s t i l l , there i t was that he came to brushshoulders with the plain, outspoken men of the West and to seel i f e as i t was without an overabundance of the social amenitiesof England and our New England s ta tes . During his free hourshe occupied himself with writ ing essays, the topics of whichwere quite natural ly drawn from the l i f e he saw about h i r ~ Heset the type,. printed, and dist r ibuted these essays free ofcharge when, as was usually the case, no purchasers presentedthemselves. Thus l ived William Dean Howells during the form-at ive period of his l i f e . When as a mature man he t raveledto the East, he took with him a genuine love for the t r u eand the commonplace not only as these qual i t ies were to be

9


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10found in his native Ohio, but also as they were manifestedin multifarious society theworld over . l

William Dean Howells 's greates t claim to fame r e s t ~ uponhis a r t i s t r y as a novel is t and cr i t i c . e was also a poet,dramatist , essayist , and ed i to r ia l i s t ; but the volume and quali ty of these l a t t e r are infer ior to his works of cr i t ic i sm andf ic t ion . All his l i t e ra ry writ ings are i s t i n g u i ~ h e y thatqu.ali ty of Realism to the propogation of which Nlr. Howells de-voted his long l i f e of e i g h t y ~ t h r e e years.

Realism, while i t always carr ies the connotation ofac tua l i ty , s t i l l is an equivocal term. Enigmatic as t mayseem to the many material-minded readers of the present age,the word in i t s philosophical use i s applied to t h e ~ p h i l o s o p h ywhich presents a 4J i r i tual view of the world, that i s , thatthere existe a rea l i ty apart from i t s presentat ion to consciencI t i ~ opposed to Idealism which denies any but subject ive, men-t a l real i ty .2 Even a precursory examination of t ~ s t w ~ posit ions wil l show that Realism in l i t era ture and a r t came as areact ion to the Romantic f l ights of fancy prevalent in the l a teeighteenth and the ear ly nineteenth centur ies .

1 William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham, Boston,Houghton Miffl in Company, 1912, Introduction.2 Encyclopaedia Britannica 14th edi t ion 1929) , -vol. 19,Art icle , Realism, 6.


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In the f i e ld of l i t era ture and ar t with which we are here

di rec t ly concerned, Realism s t i l l re ta ins i t s ambiguouscharacter.

The Real is t i s : a e who del ibera te lydecl ines to select his subjects from thebeautiful or harmonious, and, more espec ia l ly describes ugly things and br:i.ngsout deta i l s of an unsavoury sor t : b, ewho deals with individuals , not types:c, Most especial ly , he who str ivgs torepresent the facts as they are.These three divis ions, while subject to further qual i f icat ion,wil l suff ice for the present purpose. I t now remains to beseen to which of these three classes William Dean Howells be-longs, or, ra ther in to which of these groups he has placedhimself; for he has l e f t us a very concise and pointed s t a t e -ment of his l i t e ra ry tenets in his masterpiece of c r i t i ca lwrit ing, Crit icism and Fict ion.

To begin with, i t would be a mistake to assume that Mr.Howells was el ic i t ing ent i re ly new principles of his own con-t r ivance in this work.

3 Ibid. 6.

The principles with which t.his book ofninety pages is occupied had been affirmedwith energy before, as Mr. Howe lls s magnanimous citatj_ons clear ly prove. Thecredi t is f ree ly nay eagerly, r e l i n ~ i s h e dto Symonds to Farrar , to Emerson, to Valdes,to Carlyle. Mr. Howells i s content with thesure burdens and doubtful recompense of thedevoted subaltern When a l l has been conceded, i t is somehow Mr. Howells who has done


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the work. The honor he diver ts to othersflows back ineluctably to i t s source. Thesupremacy of the simple t ru th in f ic t ionhad been avouched by others; t was implanted by Mr. Howells.4Nor was Mr. Howells the f i r s t to breach the defenses of theentrenched Romanticism.

The widespread in teres t in f i c t ion in thenew mode of Realism was a natura l effect ofthe moment The popular mind was drawnaway from the contemplation of grandeurs andmysteries to the careful observation of humant r a i t s . uman nature in a l l i t s complexitybecame a suff ic ient f ie ld of in te res t andminds that had once been concerned with pr inciples and lof ty technique devoted themselveswith zest to the st..__ _ . y of manners. This in -evitable tendency of a l l post-heroic ages wasreenforced a t present by the spread of sciencewhich a t t rac t s the mind away from i t s e l f tothe world of outer experience to a l l thewondrous f ru i t s of observation. Science re -vealed the importance of environment thepower of material condit ions over the psychicand the half-romantic Balzac ~ n d his rea l -i s t i c French s u c c e ~ s 0 r s gradually brought thenovel to terms with science: whatever wasromantic heroic dist inguished was revealedas an effec t of natura l causes and more andmore the novel devoted i t s e l f to gicturingl i f e as ordinary people l ived i t .

Howells simply took up his stand with a r i s ing c a ~ s e andrecognizing the : intr insic worth or th is new mode of healismhe devoted a l l his e n e r g ~ e s and ac t iv i t i es to i t s prosperi ty.

4 Oscar W . F i r k i n ~ William Dean Howells: A Study CambridgeHarvard Universi ty Press '9'24, 269.5 Brooks c i t . 236-237.


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13Realism such a ~ William Dean Howells envisages, is a some-

what dis t inc t qual:i.ty in l i t e ra tu re , and n e e d ~ some study andelucidat ion to d i s t i n t r u . i ~ h i t from other 1: . te rary qnali t i esoften referred to a ~ Realism but which dif fe r great ly in factfrom Mr Howells s conception of i t . The purpose here i s notto decide which l i t e ra ry type_ia moat properly cal led RealiBmbut merely to underatand Mr Howells s terminology, and tobring out the various ~ h d e s of meaning which he saw f i t toplace on his in terpre ta t ion of i t .

Of the three defini t ions given above, the f i r s t wil l byno means suff ice for Ur. Howells. Real is ts as they, in asense, rnay be, those who del iberately decline to se lec t the i r~ u b j e c t from the beaut i fu l or harmonious and more especial ly,describe ugly things and bring out deta i l s of an unsavourysor t , 6 were class i f ied by Mr Howells as Natural is ts . Noenlargement upon the subject of Naturalism will be necessaryhere since the Natura l is ts wil l come in for expl ic i t mentionand discussion in a l a t e r chapter .

The next defin i t ion given, s ta tes tha t a Rea.list is he whodeals with individuals , not types. Obviously, the def in i t ion

h ~ to do with the del ineat ion of character , a subject uponwhich l.:rr. Howells frequently waxes eloquent. Now t i s impos-sible to 3tate tha t Mr Howells s characters , ei ther in theory

note 2.


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14or practice, are in every way individuals and in no way types.On the other hand, t is equally impossible to say that they artypes and not i n d i v i d u a l ~ . Once again, a clear under3tandingof the terminology involved will serve to resolve the mist .

Art is t ic endeavor, according to the great clasl ic prin-ciples se t down by Aris tot le in his Poet ics , has as i t s o b ~ c tthe repreaen ta t ion of human l i f e a ~ manifea ted by character, .act ion and emotion. Ari3 to t le s doctr ine is different fromlflr. Howe-lls's Realism in tha t the universal element in humanl i f e , and not t ~ e par t jcular , i s the object of ar t i s t i c imi-t a t ion .

' Imitat ive ar t in i t5 highest form, namelypoetry, i s an expression of the universalelement in human l i f e . (Poet. ix . 3.) I fwe may expand Aris to t le s idea in the l igh tof his own sys tam, f ine ar t eliminateswhat il l t r a n ~ : t e n t and par t icular and revealsthe permanent and essent ia l features of theor iginal . I t discovers the 'form 1 towardswhich an object tends, the r esu l t which nature s t r ives to at ta in , but ra re ly or nevercan a t t a in . Beneath the individual t findsthe universal . I t passes beyond the barerea l i ty given by nature , and expresses apur i f ied form of rea l i ty disengaged fromaccident, and freed from condit ions.?

The a r t i s t see:s a model and let: h:tf: imagination work upon thatmodel unt i l he h ~ conce1.tAd an ideal of i t . Thi: i dea l wil lbe without a l l the imperfection: of the par t icular model; twil l have had removed a l l the characteristic: : which go to make7 s. H. Butcher, Aris tot le 1 3 Theory of Poetry and FiBe Art,

London, Macmillan and o Ltd. , 1932, 150-151.


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15up the individual character of the model and wil l leave only thuniversal representat ion of some human character , act ion, oremotion.

This doctr ine seems a t f i r s t s ight to be, and, indeed, toa very large extent , i s , the very ant i thesis of the def in i t ionof Realism applying to character por t rayal . Now the posi t ion oMr Howells i s to be examined in the l ight of Aristot le s doct r ine . Because his theory of Realism was based upbn the impor-tance of rea l , extramental existence, because 0u r knowledge ofth is rea l i ty comes through contact with individual objectshaving individual; characteristic:: ' , and, most especial ly, becausehe considered t the funct ion of the a r t i s t to portray objectse 3 they are , Ivir Howells logical ly considered that Realis t ic arshould culminate in the expression of the individual .

~ V h e r e a followers of Aristo t le and Platohad urged that the a r t i s t imitate animaginative synthesis recreated fromrea l i ty selected in the in te res t of arepresentat ive type, something un: .versalderived from par t icu lars , Howells r i d i -culed th is doctr ine of idea l iza t ion asanalogous to reproducing a cardboardgrasshopper when a rea l grasshopper"was avai lable . Ideal iz ing charactersmeant to him taking "the l i fe l ikenessout of them and putt ing the booklikenessin to them." The greates t achievementof f ic t ion , in i t s highest sense, is topresent a picture of l i f e : and the deeperthe sense of something desultory, unfin iahed, imperfect t gives, even in theregion of conduct, the more admirablei t seems 88 Gay w AllenCroce


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16Passing over for the moment the rather f lagrant misinter -

pre ta t ion of the t rue meaning of A ris to t l e s imi ta t ion re -vealed by M:r Howells in th is quotation, we give his own veryconciBe statement upon the Realis t ic character .

But l e t f ic t ion cease to l ie about l i f e ,l e t t portray men and women as they are,actuated by the motives and passions inthe measure we a l l know; l e t t leave offpaint ing dolls and working them by springsand wire a l e t t show the different . interes ts in the i r true proportion, l e t tforbear to preach pride and revenge,. fo l lyand insani ty , egotism and prejudice, butfrankly own these for what they are, inwhatever f igures and occasions they appear;l e t t not put on f ine l i t e ra ry a i r s ; l e tt speak the dia lec t , the language of uaffected people everywhere; and there canbe no doubt of unlimited fu ture , not onlyof ~ e l i g h t f u l n e s a but of usefulness , fori t .

VanWyck Brooks has this to say of the Realism of Mr Howells scharacter portrayal :

Accordingly, for set t ings , he l iked thosefor tu i tous meeting-places, where his fellowAmericans gathered on a ne,J.tral ground: andhe 3hared a l l thei r plea3ures in the bust leof t ravel How amusing to s i t in a waitingroom with people whom one saw for half a minuteJ Howells delighted in these adventures, in the t inkle of the ice-water pi tchers ,in the cinders of the t ra in, in the negropor ters , the conductor3, the drummers, Through decade af ter decade, HowellB fo l -lowed the l i f e of the nation, and he caught30 many of i t s phase3 that as a socia lhis to r ian he had no equal. No doubt, hewas most a t home in domestic re la t ions 9 William Dean Howells, Cri t ic ism and F ic t ion, New York,Harper and Brothers, 1893, 104.


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How ells s por t ra i t -ga l le ry was lBrge. heknew the town and the vi l lage, the farmand the ci ty , the factory, the businessoff ice and the lumber camp the ar t i san ,the id le r , the preacher, the teacher: professors at home religiou.s impostors,phi lanthropis ts , helpless chi ldren, manufac turers , scient i s t s , country squires ,s te r i l e d i le t t an t i , and the vi l lage fool.All these people were admirably rea l In range and var ie ty his por t ra i t -ga l le rywas second to none: and so t ru thful lydrawn were a l l his people tha t every readerexclaiQed a t once, Yes, this i s r ight , howwell I know themJ They a l l assumed f leshand blood a t once .And ow natural werehis conversations, what an ear he had forshades of dis t inct ion in tone between regions and classes , the rus t ic and the urban, the Western, the Vtrginian, thr>ee orfour kinds of Bostonians, and the peopleof Maine1lO

17

I t can readi ly be seen that Mr. How ells s creat ions were highlyi n d i v ~ d u a l i z e d characters . In fac t , th is ab i l i ty to perceiveand bring out the maze of seemingly small yet signif icant de-t a i l is one of the important factors of l l ir. Howells s genius.

Further l ight wil l be shed upon the posi t ion of r ~Howells by an underst8nding of his posi t ion in regard to thethen recently defupct Romanticists and the i r followers. ThatMr. Howells came under the influence of these.men can readi lybe inferred from his words qnoted above, l e t i t speak the

d i l e c t ~ the language of unaffected people everywhere, 11 which

10 Brooks, op. c i t . , 215-223.11 Cf. Ohap-.-II;:note 9.


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18obviously have the i r origin in Wordsworth's Preface to theLyrical Bal lads . l2

Toward the middle of the nj_ne teen th century, the l i t e r a turof the Roman tic:i_sts had degenerated into what, in the f i e ld ofthe novel , w ~ a continual orgy of s i n i ~ t e r vi l l a in versus vi r -tuous heroine, of sent imental i ty, blmod and thunder, p u r ~ u i tand. chase.

Edwards. E l l is s Seth Jones or The Captiveof the Front ier (1860) ,. one of the ear l i es tOf the sor t , i t s hero formerly a scoJt underEthan Allen, but now adventuring in WesternNew York, sold over 600,000 copies in halfa dozen languages. Though no other singledj_:r J e novel was perhaps ever so popular, thetype prospered, depending almost exclusivelyupon nat ive authors and nat ive materials: :f i r s t the old f ront ie r of Cooper and thenthe t rans-Mississ ippi region with i t s Indians,i ts . Mexicans, i t s bandits , i t s t rooiers , andabove a l l , i t s cowboys, among whom 'BuffaloBil l (Col. William 1- ,. Cody) achieved aprimacy much l ike that of Danie-l f>oone amongthe older order of scouts . Cheap, conventional ,hasty,--Albert W. Aiken long averaged one suchnovel a week, and Col. Ingram Prent iss produced in a l l over s ix hundred,--they w rexci t ing, innocent enough, and scrupulouslydevoted to the doctr ine of poetic jus t ice ,but they lacked a l l dis t inc t ion , and FrankNorris could jus t ly grieve that the epicdays of Western set t lement found only suchtawdry Homers .13

12 George B. W oods, Homer A. Watt, and George K .-Anderson,The Litera ture of England, third edit ion, Chicago, Scot t ,Foresman and Company, 1948, vol . 2,. 318.13 William P. Trent, and others , The Cambridge History ofAmerican Litera: ture , New York, --rrhe Macmillan Company,. 1945,~ v o l edi t ion, vol . I I I , Later National Literature, 66-67.


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What chief ly characterized American f ic t ionof the decade 1850-1860, was domesticsentimentalism.l4

19

All ' this vast output of extremely poor l i t era ture was character-ized by the t a l l strong, handsome hero, the dark scoundrel, andthe swooning heroine. The characters were not types; they werestereotypes. I t seems p r o b b l ~ that the great overabundance ofth i s type of l i t e ra ry output had no l i t t l e influence upon Mr.Howells; tha t i t was, a t leas t in part , responsible for hisdemand that characters be rea l be fu l l of the l i f e blood thencoursing through the veins of l iv ing, breathing Americans. Hes ta tes very clear ly and concisely his case when he writes thata rea l character is the most di f f icu l t type to create since i tinvolves an 1- n.derstanding of human character .

Superhuman characters , subterhurnan, prater-human or intrahuman characters are easy toportray compared with human characters . I tis easier to portray passion than feel ing.I t is easier to show onesself a geniusthan an ar t i s t . One may not make one'sreader enjoy or suffer nobly, but one maygive him.the kind of pleasure that ar isesfrom conjuring, or from a puppet show or amodern stage play, and leave him, i f he isan old fool , iri the sort of stupor thatcomes from hi t t ing the pipe; or i f he is ayoung fool , half crazed with the spectacleof qual i t ies and impulses l ike his own inan apotheosis of achievement and f ru i t ionfar beyond any ear thly experience. l5

In th is same regard Mr. Howells quotes a passage taken from theintroduction to Senor Armando Palacio Valdes' novel, The Sis ter14 Ib id . 69.15 Howells, c i t . 70-71.


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20of San Sulphizo. To get the fu l l import of th i s passage,imagine that Mr. Howells has jus t read for the twentieth ort h i r t i e th or even the hundredth time a s l ight ly modified versioof the heroinets breath-taking escape over the ice-f loes of astorm-tossed r iver . Such violent s t r ivings toward arousj_ngemotion he labels teffect ism.t

Valdes defines effectism as a vie exis t ingin h unan nature and in the ar t i s t which promptshim to display the qual i t ies that he thinkswil l astonish his readers, jus t as women laughfor no reason i f they have pret ty teeth.Art is ts think i t necessary to s t r ive for exaggerated effects in order to be recognizedas geniuses by the vulgar. There are manypersons who suppose that the highest proofan a r t i s t can give of his fantasy is the in -vention of a complicated plot spiced withper i l s and surpr ises , and suspenses; and anything else that is the sign of a poor andtepid imagination. Even some cr i t i cs referto this s t r iving on the part of the authorfor effect as power. Equally obnoxious,.says Valdes, are those who s t r ive for e f ~ e tin paradoxically complex characters . Lovetha t disguises i t s e l f as hate, incomparableenergy under the cloak of weakness, virginalinnocence under the aspect of malice andimpudence, wit masquerading as fo l ly e tc .etc . By th is means they hope to make aneffec t of which they are incapable throughthe di rec t frank, and conscientious studyof character . l6

Such is the objection of William Dean Howells to theeffete remnants of decadent Romanticism. However, i t would beerroneous to conclude from his words that he was the foe of t rueRomanticism. For, being a sincere man and consistent with his16 Howells . Ib id . 68-69.


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2J.principles of Realism and honesty, he could not but recognizethe in t r ins ic worth of the a r t i s t i c productions of the greatRomanticists,J; Wordsworth, Coler:tdge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron.Certainly with these men he has no quarrel . Indeed, he s ta tes ,once again ci t ing Valdes, that

I t is ent i re ly fa lse that the greatromantic . poets modified nature; suchas they have expressed ber they fe l t her :in th i s ~ r i e w they are as much rea l i s t s asourselves. In l ike manner i f in the rea l -i s t i c t ide tha t now bears us on there aresome sp i r i t s who feel nature in anotherway, in the romantic way, they could notfa l s i fy her in expressing her so. Onlythose fa l s i fy her who without feel ihgromantic wise set about being romantic;wearisomely producing the models offormer ages; and equally those who sharingthe sentiment of Realism which now prevai ls , force themselves to be r ea l i s t smerely to follow the fash:ton. The pseudorea l i s t s , in fact , are the worse offenders,to my thinking, for they s in against thel iving; whereas those who continue tocelebrate the heroic adventures of Puss inBoots and the escapes of om Thumb undervarious al iases , only cast disrespect uponthe immortals who have passed beyond thesenoises . l7

Consequent upon what has been revealed above, i t now ispatent that William Dean howells fu l f i l l s the second def ini t ionof Realism given a t the beginning of th is chapter ; that hedeals with individuals and not types.nl8 To th is extent he is

in d i s g r e e m ~ t with Aris to t le who maintains that ar t is the17 Ib id . , 63-64.18 cr:-chap. I I , note 2.


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22expression of the universal in human l i f e .

The th ird def ini t ion quoted above s ta tes that the Real is tis most properly he who s t r ives to represent the fac ts as theyare. l9 Mr. Howells places himself in th i s class .

Mr. Howells js not , nor can he be expected to be, assystematic and as clear as the master, Aristot le , who alwaysbegins with principles, proceeding therefrom to place everyelement of his ar t i s t i c ti1eory in i t s proper genus and species.However, in the instance of the most important def in i t ion inCri t ic ism and F'ic t ion l\tlr. Howells at ta ins for a moment the in -sight of the great philosopher. The words are profound, yetsimple and obvious once one's at ten t ion has been drawn to them.Realism, he says, is nothing more and nothing less than the

t ru thful t reatment of mater iaL 20 Mr. Howells does not proceedto analyze and define each term, to show i t s re la t ion to everyother term in the defin i t ion , and by so doing to reveal theexact s ignif icat ion of the whole. e considers that a man ofnormal inte l l igence wil l be ahle to understand the meaning ofl:lis defini t ion. The reader must cul l from the remainder ofCri t icism and Fict ion Mr. Howells 's own elaboration of hisdefin i t ion of Realism.

What Mr. Howells means by the t ru thful treatment of19 Cf. Chap. I I , note 2.20 Howells, c i t . , 73.


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3

character has already been made clear . Just precisely what i ~meant by t ruthful t reatment of the subject-matter of the plot

n e e d ~ fur ther elucidat ion. In view of the f ac t tha t the char-acter3 are to be drawn from individual3, preferably individualsof the author 's acquaintance seeing that he wil l be able towrite most real is t j_cal ly of these, the subject-matter of theplot must needs be conflned to such actions as these :Jhare.cterlwoult te l ike ly to perform. AccordiDgly, the b u l ~ of his s to-r ie8 were concerned with l i f e as t was being l ived in Americaduring his own l i fe t ime. As a boy, William Dean Eowells hadbecome famil iar with the rough and ready l i f e of the f ront ie r .In his m e ~ turer years he had f ' i t ted in well with the morear is tocra t ic and cultured circles of the eastern ~ e a b o a r d Asa re su l t he knew American l i f e in a l l i t s varying a 3 p e c t ~ andt was of America that he wrote.

I f Howells thought t salutary to confinehis novels to those asDects of our l i f ewhich as "the more smiiing ones," seemedto hi n "the more American," we have onlyrecent ly beg1m to see the value of hiswork in proper perspective. Even thoughhe was more courageous in his cr i t ic i smand his appreciat ion than in his owncreat ive work, there is much more awareness now than there was even ten yearsago tha t re s t r i c ted though they were,the novels of William Dean Howells broughtsomething both sol id and i l luminating tothe depict ion of Amer:tcan l : tfe. His t i t l eto fame as a pioneer:tng American r e a l i ~ t wil l one day stand again u n q u e s t i o n e d ~ l21 J . Donald Adams, 'rhe S _ h a ~ e of Books to Come, New York,

The Viking Press,"1:945, 7-28. - -


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Norman F o e r ~ t e r h a ~ th is to say:In a long Beriea of books he f a i t r ~ u l l y se tdown American l i f e as he saw i t - -Si lae

L a p h a m ~ house in flames, a c ~ l ~ writerdec:id:tng wmi magazine he would most l iketo edi t i f he were given the opportunity Howells, with grace and calmness, recordedthe real iem of the commonplace in theAmerica about him.22

24

Finally, . :W1r Howells 's posi t ion upon the al l - important denoue-ment of the plot i s quite c lear :

For the moment t i s charming to have theplot end happily, but af ter one hae l iveda cer ta in number of years, and read a certa in number of n o v e l ~ , t i s not the prosperous or adverse fortune of the characterstha t affec ts one, but the good or bad fa i the f the novel is t in deal ing with them. Willhe play us fa lse or wil l he be true to th isor tha t pr inciple involved? I cannot holdhim to less account than th is ; he must be t rueto what l i f e h s taught me i s the t ru th , andaf te r that he may l e t any fa te betide his

n e o p l e ~ the novel ends well that ends fa i th -f u l l y ~ 3

And so we have a t length seen tha t William Dean Howells isa true Realis t . For he deals with individuals , not types, andhe str ives to represent the facts as they are.24 However, hisa r t i s t i c stand places him a t logger-heads with Aris to t l e sstatement that f ine ar t is the representat ion of the universalelement in human l i f e . Mr. Howells del iberately contrived tomake his characters as individual as possible. Nonetheless,22 Norman Foers ter , Amer:i.can Prose and Poetr;L: Boston, HoughtonMiffl in Company 1 9 3 4 . - -23 Howells, c i t . , 85-86.24 Of. Chap. I I , note 2.


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25the two posit ions are not without their common grounds.

n explanation of. the agreement of these two men wil l bemore easi ly understood by using the por t rayal of character as anexample. In the f i r s t place, the two terms Idea l iza t ion andRealism, with i t s connotation of the individual , are not

mutually exclusive.According to Aris to t le , the object of ar t is the repre

sentat ion of human l i f e . t is important to note tha t th isrepresentat ion, or imi ta t ion as the t ranslators would havei t , i s to be ideal ized; it i s equally important to note tha tthe a r t i s t must give us his creat ion j_n a form mani.fest to thesenses. For our senses can, by no s t re tch of the imagination,apprehend an a ~ s t r a c t man; they must see the actua l i ty beforethem and th is actua l i ty wil l be apprehended only through indl -viduating charac ter i s t ics perceivable to the senses. True, theclassic Greek a r t i s t s so standardized these individuat ing notestha t the i r a r t i s t i c cre tions could not be said to be any par-t i cu lar individual . hus sculptors conformed to norms orstandards of proport ion between head and torso, height andweight.

Regular i ty was the fe t i sh of Pmlyclei tus;it was his l i f e aim to f ind and establ isha canon or rule for the correct proport ionof every par t in a s ta tue ; he was thePythagoras of sculpture, seeking a d : v ~ n emathematics of symmetry and f o r ~ hedimensions of any part of a perfect body,he thought, should bear a given ra t io to


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the dimenBions of any one par t say theindex f inger . The Polyclei tan canon cal ledfor a round head, broad ~ b o u l d e r s stockytorso, wide hips, and short legs, makinga l l in a l l a f igure of strength rather thanof grace. ~ e sculptor was so fond of hiscanon the. t he wrote a t rea til e to expound2i t and molded a statue to i l lus t ra te i t . 5

26

All imperfections that inevitably occur in the works of naturewere removed; the resul t was an idealized man.

To f ind the direc t opposite to the Greeks in a r t i f in -deed, th is may be cal led ar t we have only to examine the workof the Roman por t ra i t sculptors of l a ter centur ies . Theirworks are s lavishly individual . Every imperfection, everywrinkly sag of cheek or chin, every sign of cruel ty or debauch,every mark of kindness i s fa i thfu l ly wrought in the stone. Suchwork has nothing in common with Aristot le for the Roman por-t r a i t sculptor was in the very same s ta tus .as the modernphotographer. Mutatis mutandis, William Dean Rowe1ll"l has takena course midway between the two. His characters , as has beenshown above, are def in i te ly individual . Yet he has not drawnthem out to such an extent that we fee l that there exis ts onlyone such person in the world. The character of Silas Lapham,for example, despite a l l i t s rugged individualism, is a typewhich stands for a l l of America s nouveaux r iche struggling toassume a posi t ion of prominence in a poorer but more f ine ly-tuned l. lociety.

25 Will Durant, The Life of Greece, ew York, Simon andSchuster 193g--322-323:-


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The Rise of Silss Lapham, our f i r s t andgreatest analysis of the self-wade manand of the social implications of hismoney is a tragedy whose signif icancer e c ~ e s ~ g r l y the whole of self-madeAmerJ.ca.

27

Silas Lapham with his Yankee senae for business his blackcigars hi3 devotion to his wife and daughtera his uneasine3sduring the formal gatherings of the Boston blue-bloods hisham-like hands protruding from hi3 sleeves his ramblings aboutthe cit izen-army of the Civi l War while half in hi3 cups is acharacter whom one imasines one has met and talked with andloved And yet Sila3 Lapham is any man who has pull.e d him: el fup by his own bootstraps to a posi t ion of affluence only to f inl i f e made miserable by an unintel l igible maze of socia l t radi -t iona and conventions. Silas Lapham is a t once a par t icular mand a symbol standing for a whole class of men.

Nobody generalizes more persis tent ly than~ ~ r . E:owell3; the comprehen3ive re l fec t ionincru3ts--some would say infeBts-- the l a ternovel: ; yet outside of cri t ici3m his f i del i ty to the t r a i l of individual experienceis a valuable and noticeable face. The explanation i s not remote. Mr. Howells ispassionately fond of the general i ty. thatborders on the par t icular the general i tytha t is divided from the part icular by asingle step of the mind and i s s t i l lins t inc t with the aroma and warmth of theconcrete world which it has barely andpassingly forsaken.27

26 Helen Thomas Fol le t t and Wilson Fol le t t Some ModernNovelis ts New York Henry Holt and Company, 1918, 23.27 Firkjna op. c i t . 59-60.


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2BWilliam Dean Howells was no scholar of Aris to t le . I t i s

obvious from same of his writ ings that he never formed an ac-curate idea of the Aristo tel ian concept of imitat ion . A re f -erence made by Mr. Howells to class ica l imi ta t ion wil l begiven in fu l l .

28 Howells

The young wri ter is instructed to take thel i fe l ikeness out of them and put the booklikenP ss into them. e i s approached in thesp i r i t of wretched pedantry and to ld : 1 Isee tha t you are looking a t a grasshopperthere which you have four d in the grass andI suppose you intend to describe i t . Now dontwaste your time and sin against cul ture inthat way. I ve got a grasshopper here whichhas been evolved a t considerable pains andexpense out of the grasshopper in general ; infact , i t s a type. I t s made up of wire andcard-board very pre t t i ly painted in a conventional manner and i t s perfec t ly indes t ruc t ib le . I t i s n t very much l ike a rea lgrasshopper but it s a great deal nicer andit s served to represent the notion of a grasshopper ever since man emerged from barbarism.You may say tha t it s ar t i f i c i a l . Well i t isa r t i f i c i a l ; but then it s ideal too; and whatyou want to do is to cu l t iva te the ideal . Youwil l f ind the books fu l l of my kind of grasshopper and scarcelya t race of yours in any ofthem. The thing tha t you are proposing to do iscommonplace for the very reason tha t it hasn tbeen done before. But i f you say that for th i sreason it i s n t commonplace you l l have to admit tha t i t s photographic . I hope the timeis coming when the a r t i s t wil l have thecourage to re jec t the ideal grasshopper whereever he f inds i t , in science in l i t era ture , inar t , because i t is not l ike a rea l grasshopper.But I think the time i s yet far off and tha tthe people who have been brought up on the idealgrasshopper the heroic grasshopper the impassioned grasshopper the self-devoted grasshopper the adventureful good old romanticcardboard grasshopper . must die and the naturalgrasshopper can 1ave a fa i r f ie ld .28

11-12.


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Sad to re l a t e , Mr Howells displays here a ra ther profoundignorance of A ris to t l e s ar t i s t i c theory. What 1tr. Howells didnot real ize was that Aristot le , in s ta t ing that the universal isthe object of a l l a r t i s t i c endeavor, was presenting an objectthat was at leas t as rea l as that which he himself was advoca-t ing through his Realism. True, Mr Howells asked nothing moreof the a r t i s t than that he be true to nature. But to :MrHowells nature was the concrete, vis ible manifestations whichwe see around us, e .g . , the grasshopper in the f lesh . There-fore, he could see no reason why the 8r t i s t should go to theunnecessary and prof i t l ess trouble of ideal izing a grasshopperwhen he could walk to the nearest f i e ld and f ind an original tocopy. Mr Howells was imitat ing nature in tha t he consideredthe products of nature to be nature i t s e l f . Thus :n e consideredthe grasshopper, ra ther ti:1an the force tha t made the grasshop-per, as nature. To Aristot le , on the contrary, nature was notso much the grasshopper but ra ther that force which produced thegrasshopper.,

Art imitates nature , says Aris to t le . andthe phrase has been repeated as a summaryof the Aris to te l ian doctrine of f ine ar t The use of the word nature would ini t s e l f put the matter beyond dispute; fornature in Aris tot le is not the outwardworld of created things; i t i s the creat iveforce, the productive principle of theuniverse. 29

29 Butcher, c i t . , 116.


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3Now: Nature takes her course from the Divine In te l l ec t n3and being thus divinely fashioned can be content with nothingshort of perfect ion in her works. Nature always tends towardth is perfect ion yet never fu l ly achieves i t . I t is the work ofthe ar t i s t , according to Aristot le , to real ize t h i ~ p e r f e ~ t i o n0f nature in h is ar t i s t i c productions.

Nature, often baffled in her intentions,yet tends towards the desirable end. Shecan often enl i s t even the blind force ofnecessi ty as her a l ly , giving a new direct ion to i t s resul ts . Wherever organicprocesses are in operation, order andproportion are in varying degrees apparent.The general movement of organic l i f e i spar t of a progres a to the 1bet te r , ' theseveral parts working together for thegood of the whole. ~ e a r t i s t in his mimicworld carr ies forward th is movement to amore perfect completion. The creat ions ofhis are framed on those ideal l ines tha tnature has drawn: her int imations, herguidance are what he follows. He too aimsa t something bet te r than the actual . Heproduces a new thing, not the actual thingof experience, not a copy of rea l i ty , buta higher rea l i ty - - for the ideal type mustsurpass the ac tua l ; the ideal is bet te rthan the rea l . 31

And so we have the higher rea l i ty which is the objectof Aristo,tle. s imitat ion. ' I t i s the perfect ion toward whichnature tende but which i t can never reach because of the l imi-ta t ions of the material i t must use. I t i s the perfect ion ofwhich the a r t i s t forms a concept by visualizing to himself the30 Ib id . , 120,. (Carlyle s t ranslat ion of Dante s Inferno,:x r. ; 97-111) .31 Ib id . , 152.


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common end toward which a l l the part icular vis ib le manifestat ioof nature are tending. I t i s the ideal , the object of ar t .

I t passes beyond the bare real i ty given bynature, and expresses a puri f ied form ofreal i ty disengaged from accident, and freedfrom conditions which thwart i t s development.The rea l and the ideal from this point ofview are not opposites, as they are sometimes conceived to be. The ideal i s the real ,but rid. of contradict ions, unfolding j_tselfaccord:tng to the laws of i t s own being, apartfrom l i ~ n influences and the disturbances ofchance.3.

Mr Howells s lack of a t rue understanding of Aristo t leis undoubtedly at t r ibutable to his informal education. I t i svery unlikely that he ever received any incentive to read thePoetics; and, consequently, his knowledge of what Aris to t le hadtherein was got through hear-say. e was so in tent upon thequest for rea l i ty that he fa i led to see that his r ea l grasshopper chirping in the nearby lo t was but the production, theshadowy image, of a greater real i ty .

Nonetheless, i f Mr Howells s posi t ion be examined in thel ight of the a r t i s t i c theory, tas tes , and output of his own day,his advocation of Realism immediately becomes a subject for ouradmiration and profound respect . The t radi t iona l classics hadbeen used as the models for a great deal of s te r i l e , colorlesswrit ing. Men were afraid to speak out the i r souls unless i tbe in the sp i r i t of the former masters of ar t . This adherence

32 Ib id . , 150-151.


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3to t radi t ion was without a l l moderation, without reasonablefoundation, without allowance for the personal i ty of the par t ic -ular ar t i s t . I t was because of th is condition that Mr Howellslaunched his cr i t ic ism of the ancients and demanded that a r t i s t sre jec t the ideal grasshopper because i t was not simple, honest,and natural .n33 Because of the circumstances we can recognizethe propriety of his statement of the a r t i s t ~ commission:

i t i s his business to break the imagesof fa lse gods and misshapen heroes, to takeaway the poor s i l l y toys that many grownpeople would s t i l l l ike to play with. Hecannot keep terms with Jack the Giant-ki l leror Puss in Boots, under any name or in anyplace, even when they reappear as the con-vic t Vautrec, Jr the Marquis de Montrivaut,or the Sworn Thirteen Noblemen. He must sayto himself that Balzac, when he imaginedthese monsters, was not Balzac, he was Dumas;he was not r ea l i s t i c he was romantic.34

What Mr Howells wanted was not a group of men who couldimitate the great a r t i s t s of the past , but who could imitatenat1;re as they saw i t around them in the nineteenth century.Both Classicism and Romanticism, insofar as they had becomethe objects of s lavish imitat ion, were the objects of MrHowells 's at tack.

33 Howells, c i t . 12.34 Ib id . 16-17.


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CH PTER I I IHOWELLS: THE END OR PLffiPOSE OF FINE ART. NATURALISM

Having, therefore, examined the differences between theclassic a r t i s t i c theories of ~ i s t o t l e and those of Mr. H o w e l l s ~both in regard to character and the object of a r t we now quitenatura l ly ask what the fundamental_.cause of such divers i ty maybe. What are the premises from which logical reasoning devel-oped the diverse conclusions? The answer to this question is tbe found in each man s conception of the purpose or f ina l causeof f ine ar t ; for having different ly conceived the purpose off ine a r t Mr. Howells and Aris to t le quite natural ly differed inwhat they considered to be the most.appropriate manner of ful -f i l l ing th i s purpose. Mr. Howells is quite clear on the point :

Democracy in l i t era ture i s the reverse ofa l l th i s . I t wishes to know and to t e l lthe t ru th confident that consolat ion anddelight are there; i t does not care to paintthe marvellous and impossible for the vulgarmany or to sentimentalize and fa l s i fy theactual for the vulgar few. Men are morel ike than unlike one another: l e t us makethem know one another bet te r that they maybe a l l humbled and strengthened with a senseof thei r f ra te rn i ty . Neither ar t s norl e t te r s nor sciences, except as they somehow clear ly or obscurely, tend to make therace bet ter and kinder, are to be regardedas serious in te res ts ; they are a l l lowerthan the rudest craf ts that feed and house

33


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and clothe, for .except they do th is off icethey are id le ; and they cannot do th i s except from and through the t ru th . l

4

Quite clear ly, the purpose of f ine ar t , according to ~ n rHowells, i s the presentat ion of t ru th . s is frequently thecase in Crit icism and Flct ion, Mr. Howells does not consider tnecessary to define the term in question; he presumes that a maof maturity wil l know what is meant by his term. His own elaborat ion must be culled from the remainder of the book.

To t r ea t the defin i t ion of 1t ru th 1 br ief ly from i t s phi-losophical point of view, the term implies a cer ta in conformitybetween the i n t e l l ec t and the object known. 2 Thus a man i s sa ito have the t ruth when his idea of an object i s conformed tothe object i t s e l f . Now t ru th thus defined applies to a l lbeing, since there can be conformity between everything tha texis t s , or can exis t , and some i n t e l l ec t , i f not the in te l lec tof man then the in te l lec t of God. Obviously, the range of1 t ruth 1 must be confined within less ,extended bounds when i t :tsapplied to f ine ar t . Otherwise, a l l sciences, phy sics, chem-i s t ry , his tory , biology, and philosophy would be included inthe realm of f ine ar t . Mr. Howells t e l l s us the l imi ta t ion ofthe applicat ion of the term t ru th as he uses i t in th is rega.r1 Ib id . , 188.2 ~ br ie f and clear t reatment of the transcendental,t ru th , 1 cf . The Philosophy of Beins_ by Henri Renard, S.J . ,St. Louis, JohnS. Swift Co., Inc. , 1942, 95-97.


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I confess that I do not .care to judge any workof the imagination without f i r s t applying th i st es t to i t . We must ask ourselves before weask anything else, Is i t t rue?-- t rue to themotives,. the impulses, the principles thatshape the l i f e of actual men and women andi f the book is t rue to what men and women knowof one another 's souls i t wil l be t rue enough.3

35

In these words lVIr 1i owells defines the bound.aries of f inea r t . Fine ar t i s to be, f i r s t a Yl.d foremost, t rue; t rue to themotives, the impulses, the principles tha t shape the l i f e ofactual men and women 11 Mr Howells tr1en proceeds to his quas i -

~ f i n i t i o n of t ru th , 1 not according to genus and species, butrelying upon tha t notion of t ru th , however hazy, that every manhas within his s o u l - ~ - a n d i f the book is t rue to what men andwomen know of one another 's souls i t wil l be t rue enough. 11 Soattached to th i s idea of t ru th was he tha t he occasional ly ~ e e mto s t ress i t too strongly, even to the detriment of the elementof human emotions, impulses and principles . An example of whatis here intended : i ~ liTr Howells 1 s reference to the memoirs ofGeneral u S. Grant. I f any bias i s present , i t may be ex-plained by the great devotion Mr Howells f e l t toward the manwho had at length brought an end to the bloody American Civi lWar.

But the personal memoirs of U s. Grant,wri t ten as simply and straightforwardly ashis bat t les were fought, couched in the mostunpretentious phrase,. with never a touch ofgrandiosi ty or at t i tudiniz ing, famil iar ,3 Howells, c i t . , 99-100.


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homely in style , form a great piece ofl i t e ra ture , because great l i te ra ture i snothing more nor less than the clear expression of minds that have something greatin them, whether re l igion, or beauty, ordeep experience.4

36

What at t racted the eye of Mr. Howells in the memoirs of GeneralGrant was a shining example of the simple presentat ion of thet ru th he loved so well .

When one has clear ly real ized the importance that Mr.Howells places upon t ru th in l i te ra ture , many of the other e le -ments of his a r t i s t i c theory immediately become int imately con-nected with the whole. Having understood l ir. Howells 's devotioto t ruth , one can readi ly perceive the purpose behind theobject ion to Naturalism as understood in the French school.

Naturalism has been heretofore defined as the product ofar t i s t s who del iberately decline to select the i r subjects fromthe beaut i ful or harmonious and more especial ly , describe uglythings and. bring out deta i l s of an unsavoury sor t . 5 Havingset up t ru th as the end of f ine ar t , Mr. Howells wil l quitenatural ly cr i t i c i ze th i s Naturalism of the French novel is tsfrom the standpoint of i t s t ru th , from i t s conformity, or i t slack of i t , to the fac t s as they are.

Now the French natura l i s t ic novel was, according to liJU .4 Ibid . , 89-90.5 Of. Chap. I I , note 2.


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37H o w e l l ~ bo1md up with a t radi t ion of indecency."6 The t ru thof th is statement can be borne out by anyone with even a ~ l i g h tacquaintance with the works of such men as Zola, Flaubert , andthe Goncourt brothers . Tne passion of love is the perpetualtheme. t pervades every p:nase of the live:s of the natura l i s t iccharacters , and even seems to assume the import,=mt posi t ion ofthe one be-a l l and end-al l of human l i f e . Mr. Howells was him-se l f a r ig id Puritan, a s t r i c t m o r a l i ~ t as wil l be seen fromhis a t tUtude toward Shakespeare r s Fals ta f f .

The voice of centuries t e l l s him tha tFals taf f i s one of the grea t charactersof l i t e ra tu re . e feels as though heought to admire Fal s t a f f : he r ea l ly t r ieshard to do so, but he can ' t . e ia bothre l ieved and delighted when Shakespearef ina l ly dismisses the old reprobate in tooblivion. Thus Shakespeare i s jus t i f iedand morali ty is preserved.7Because of h ~ s s t r i c t moral i ty he often c r i t i c izes the

Natura l i s t from a moral standpoint as when he commends SenorValdes for object ing to the Natural is ts because "he f inds themunnecessar i ly, and suspects of being sometimes even mercenari ly,nasty."8 However, Mr. Howells 's at tack upon Naturalil m i s notlaunched solely from the standpoint of morali ty . Rather hecensures Naturalism b e c a u ~ e it f a i l s in the cornrnisl ion of ar tto be "nothing more and nothing less than the tr"L'.thful p r ~ n6 Howells, op. c i t . , 150.7 George E.-ne MIIle, Literary Crit ic ism in America, New York,The Dial Press, 1931, 182.8 Howells, c i t . , 59.


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38ta t ion of the fac ts as they are . 9 Quoting Senor Valdes, heagrees with th is c r i t i c tha t the Prench Natural:lsm representsonly a moment and an ins ignif icant part of l i f e I t ischaracter ized by sadness and narrowness. 10 That the passionof love is but a.n ins ignif icant part of l i fe i s indeed t rue,

b e c u ~ e th i s passion, a:: t::.e i ' rench Natural is ts t rea ted i t , wasnot subordinate to other goals in l i f e , but the other goals wersubordinate to i t . This, according to 1.:r. Howells, was thecase in cer ta in instances in actual l i f e ; i t was indeeu rea l ,but i t was also the exceptional in l i f e and, therefore, not theproper art : ts t ic subject . He says:

No one wil l pretend that there is notvicious love beneath the surface of oursociety; i f he did, the fe t id explosionsof the divorce t r i a l s would refu te him;but i f he pretended tha t i t was in anyway character is t ic of our society, hecould be s t i l l more eas i ly refu ted . l l

Thus he acknowledged the fac t that vicious love exis ts insociety. Nonetheless, the t reatment of this love in the rawmanner of the Natural is ts dooms to fa i lure any attempt a t thet ru thful t e l l ing of the fac ts of l i f e and, consequently, pre-dest ines any work to ar t i s t i c worthlessness. The reason hegives for such a posi t ion i s val id in view of the manner inwhich human beings normally ac t .

The material i t se l f , the mere mention of9 Cf. Chap. I I , note 20.10 Howells, ~ . 59.11 Ib id . , 150-151.


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i t , has an ins tant fascinat ion; i t a r res t s ,i t deta ins , t ll the l a s t word i s said, andwhile there is anything to be hinted. Thisi s what make3 a love in t r igue of some sorta l l but essent ia l to the populari ty of anyf ic t ion . Without such an in t r igue thein te l lec tua l equipment of the author must beof the highest , and then he wil l succeed withonly the highest class of readers . But anyauthor who wil l deal with a gui l ty love in -t r igue holds a l l readers in his hand, thehighest with the lowest, as long as he hintsthe s l ightes t hope of the smallest potent ia lnaughtiness. l2

39

Because human nature i s fa l len, i t s at tent ion is too eas i lyr iveted to the passion of love, and any too vivid t reatment ofth is passion wil l completely obscure from a reader ' s mind theother elements of the author 's work. Thus the novel wil l notbe t ru ly rea l i s t ic , for i t wil l present only a moment and an: lnsignificant part of l i f e .n l3 And because i t is not rea l i s t ic ,the natura l i s t ic novel is to be re jec ted as a work of fine ar t .Naturalism is not art .because i t does not present a t rue pic turl i f e . I t i s as i f a painter were to desire to produce a sea-scape in oi l and then proceed to make the derel ic t boat uponthe beach so large and prominent that a l l the sand, the sea,and the sky are locked from view. Human l i f e covers a widerange of act iv i t ie l , contain: mult i far ious aspects, and anyar t i s t w o portrays only one aspect , only one ac t iv i ty , i s notpresenting a t rue picture of l i fe , is not t ru ly real : lst ic, and,therefore, is not producing f ine ar t .12 Ib id . , 151-152.13 Ib id . 59.


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Generally, people now ca l l a spade anagr icul tural instrument; They requireof a novel ie t w om they respect unquestionable proof of his seriousness, i f he proposesto deal witb cer ta in phases of l i f e ; I t i squite fa lse to suppose that our novels havel e f t untouched these most important real: t t iesof l i f e . They have only not made them the i rstock and t rade; they have kept a t rue perspective in regard to them They have kepta correct proportion, knowing perfect ly welltha t unless the novel is to be a map, witheverything scrupulously la id down ~ i t afa i thfu l record of l i f e in far the greaterextent could be made to the exclusion ofgui l ty love and a l l i t s circumstances andconsequences I jus t i fy them in th is viewnot only because I hate what i s cheap andmeretr icious, and hold in pecul iar loathingthe cant of the cr i t i cs who require npassion.as something ln i t s e l f admirable and des i re-able in a novel, but because I prize f ide l i tyin the histor ian of feel ing and character .Most of the cr i t i cs who demand 'passion' wouldseem to have no conception of any passion butone. Yet there are several other pasaiona:

40

the passion of gr ie f the passion of avarice,the passion of pi ty the passion of ambition,the passion of hate, the passion of envy, thepassion of devotion, the passion of fr iendship;and a l l these have a greater part in the dramaof human l i f e than the passion of love, andinf in i te ly greater than the passion of gui l tylove. Wittingly or unwittingly, English f ic t ionand American f ic t ion have recognized this t ruthnot fully, not in the measure i t meri ts i but ingreater degree than most other f ic t ion .

Despite his Puri tan outlook, despite his high personalsense of morali ty , William Dean Howells censures Naturalismchiefly from an ar t i s t i c point of view; Naturalism does notpresent a t rue picture of l i f e i t f a i l s to be nothing more andnothing less than the t ruthful t reatment of material . Life,14 Ib id . 154-157.


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41for the most par t consists in a succession of commonplaceevents, motives, aspirat ions, and characters . Each passion,each aspirat ion, egch event takes i t a appointed place in thecharacter and l i f e of man, and, taken together, the form a har-monious, rounded, t rue picture of l i f e . When a par t icu lar pas-sion i s drawn from i t s surroundings, emphasized and bloated toundue proportions, then the picture of l i f e thus given is aboutas rea l i s t i c ~ the image of a man seen through the curvedmirror in the fun house a t the carnival .

However, Mr Howells s adverse cr i t ic ism of the FrenchNatural is ts was not without i t s mitigat ing element. e knewtha t a f te r a l l de Maupassant, Zola, and the Goncourt brotherswera but the chi ldren of the age in which they had been born andeducated; that they were the re l iable ref lec t ion of the condi-t ion of a large sect ion of French l i f e . Due to the onrush ofthe sc ient i f ic m o v m n t ~ the l i t e ra ry e l i t e of France sought toexplain a l l natura l phenomena, even human act ions, as the re -sul t of cer ta in combinations of chemical and physical causes.Consequently, morali ty and the high aspirat ions of the sp i r i -tual component of human nature were barred from the i r l i t era tureThe physical , the animal component of human nature, advanced tothe fore in the consciousness of the French because i t was themost observable element in human l i f e and because i t was themost susceptible to description, , c lass i f ica t ion and explana-t ion . The French Natural is ts were merely act ing in accord with


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42the trend of the t imes. l5 "There is something ant ipathet ic andgloomy and l imited in i t , as there i s in modern French l i fe , 16says Senor Valdes. bw Howells 's comment upon these words i s :

But th is seems to me to be the beat possiblereason for i t s being. I believe with SenorValdes that "no l i t era ture can l ive long without joy;" not because of i t s mistaken aes thet ics ,however, but because no c iv i l iza t ion can longl ive without joy. The expression of Frenchl i f e wil l change when French l i f e changes: andFrench natural ism at itl worst i i bet te r thanFrench unnatural ism a t i t s best . 7French Naturalism was an expression of ti:1e unnaturalness ofcontemporary French l i f e . But because French l i f e of the agedid not r ing t rue, i t a l i t era ture also sounded off key; i t sl i t era ture did not f u l f i l l the requirements Mr Howells had setup as the norms of t rue l i t e ra tu re ; i t did not portray l i f et ru thful ly .

Many modern cr i t i cs consider beauty as the f ina l cause off ine ar t . Obviously, Mr Howells is not in th is t radi t ion sine,he proposes t ru th as the f ina l cause of .fine art. , He believedthat the novel should be a means by-which the people of a natio,.could be brought in to contact with the modes of l i f e of thepeople in remoter regions of tha t nat ion. l8 For Mr Howells,the novel was a means of broadcasting the t ruth. Now as hasbeen noted a b o v e ~ l Mr. Howells does not give us a clear-cut15 Brooks, c i t . , 236.16 Howells, c i t . , 60.17 Ib id . , 60.18 cr : -chap ter I .19 Cf. P 39.


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43def in i t ion of the ~ e r m truth. Nor, again, does he define'beauty. Nonetheless, his p o ~ i t i o n is clear .

Along with th i s Puri tanica l love of highmoral i ty went the Puri tanica l contemptof beauty Howells 's depreciat ion ofbeauty in l i t e ra tu re arose from a desireto e m p h a ~ i z e more s trongly what he cons idered the highest qual i ty of a work ofa r t - - i t s t ru th The passion for t ru thwas the foundation-stone of his theory ofthe novel-- the theme of nearly a l l hiscr i t ic i sm. In his love for t ru th--notmerely abst rac t t ru th but f a c t ~ rea l i ty - he became ly r ic . Ah, poor r ea l l i f ewhich I love, he chanted, can I makeothers share the del ight I fee l in thyfool ish and ins ip id face? The vir tue ofthe novel , then, i s i t s t ru th ; i t shouldpresent the facts of l i f e jus t a ~ theyoccur. From th i s basic theory, and i t slogical c o ~ 8 l l a r i e ~ Howells judges a l lnovel is t s .

I t seems highly probable, although such a statement can neverbe more than conjecture, tha t Mr Howells w a ~ inspired with t h i ~antipathy for beauty because of the fa lse Romanticism and fa lseClassicism with which the book-stores of his age were f i l l ed .There was far too much s lavish imi ta t ion, far too l i t t l e hon-es t and simple following of the s impl ic i ty of nature. WilliamDean Howells can e to associate the idea of beauty with theseClassics and, sad to say, he also associated with them hisloathing for the so-ca l led beaut i fu l works then being wri t ten .I t w a ~ in such a sp i r i t tha t he could say:

At l eas t three- f i f ths of the l i t e ra tu recal led class ic in a l l languages, nomore l ives than the poems and s to r ies tha tper ish monthly in our magazines. I t i s20 De Mille, E c i t . 185.


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a l l printed and repr inted, generat ion a f te rgeneration, century af te r century; but i t isnot a l ive ; t is as dead as the people whowrote i t and read i t and to whom i t meantsomething, perhaps; with whom i t was afashion, a caprice, a passing t as te . Asupers t i t ious piety preserves i t and pretends that t has aesthet ic qual i t ies whichcan delight or edify; but nobody rea l ly enjoys i t except as a revelat ion of the pastmoods and humors of the race, or a revela t ionof the author 'e dharacter; otherwise i t i st rash, and often very f i l thy t rash 2whichthe present t rash general ly ia not. 1

44

William Dean Howells seems to have fa l len in to the error orprejudice of those cr i t i cs who have attempted to show that thefundamental principles of f ine ar t are deduced by Aristo t lefrom the idea of the beaut i fu l . 2,2 Consequently, despite thefac t that there existed a conception of f ine ar t ent i re ly d i-vorced from any theory of the beaut i fu l - -a separat ion which i scharacter is t ics of a l l ancient aesthet ic cr i t ic ism down to ala te period--23 Howells presumed that beauty was the end ofthese Classics, and in reject ing them, rejected beauty as well .

Mr. Howells does not make a clear dis t inct ion betweent ru th and beauty, as i s so frequently the case in his use ofterminology. De Mille says that as to the re la t ion betweent ru th and beauty, his conception was by no means clear .n 24The statement is indeed true; for having disparaged the theorythat beauty i s the object of ar t he seems to repent of his21 Howells, E c i t . 146.22 Butcher, E c i t . 160.23 Ib id . 161.24 De Mille, 2 12 c i t . 185.


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45statements and to seek to include beauty somehow ~ n his theory.

In the whole range of f ic t ion we know ofno t rue picture of l i f e - - tha t i s , ofhuman nature,--which i s not also a masterpiece of l i t e ra tu re , f i l l l of divine andnatural beauty. I t may have no touch ort in t of this special c iv i l iza t ion or that ;t had bet ter have this local color wellascer tained; but the t ruth is deeper andf iner than aspects and i f the book is trueto what men and women know of one another 'ssouls t wil l be true e ~ o u g h and t wil lbe great and beaut i fu l . 5

Mr. Howells s e e m ~ to be seeking to explain in ra ther an obscuramanner the fac t that t ru th and beauty, as transcender.tal: , a r ecoextensive with a l l being; that when an object is t rue , t i salso beaut i fu l , and vice versa. Mr. HowellB was grasping a t threa l i ty of the matter in not wishing to separate beauty andt ru th completely. But his concepts of t ruth and beauty and oftheir place in a r t are not quite clear , with the re su l t that hiexpression of these concepts suffers from a lack of precis ion.The mind of Mr. o w e l l ~ was warmed by Jne e::reat pas3ion--thepassion for t ru th . 26 I t is as i f Mr. Howells, in his deter -mined and single-minded campaign on behalf of t ruth suddenlyreal ized tht:Jt tea11t;T was also t ru th , and not W i ~ S h i n g to harmhis beloved t ru th , reconci led the two. In so doing he achievedthe t ru th at J regards the re la t ion between t ru th and beauty; foras Keats says, "Beauty is truth, t ruth beauty."2725 Howells, op. c i t . , 100.26 De Mille, op c i t . , 186.27 John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn, cr . Woods, Watt, and

Anderson, c i t . , -282 .


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46De5pite his occasional lack of c la r l ty in hia uBe of

terminology, William Dean Howells iB, in the broad and large ,jus t i f ied in placing t ru th as the f ina l cause of f ine ar t . Indeed, the yery word 'Realism' would seem to demand that t ru thbe i t a object . s Jacques r.Iari ta in says in his splendid book,Art and Scholaatici: lm:

n in tegra l real ism is only possible for ana r t sensi t ive to the whole t ru th of the universe of good and ev i l for an ar t pervadedby the consciousness of g ~ c e and s in and theimportance of the moment. Mr. Howells 's error l i e s not in a lack of a clear understandingof w h ~ t his theory of Realism implied, but in a lack of a clearunderstanding of what t did not imply. He con: idered thatt ru th excluded beauty; and when he f ina l ly discovered the t ruere la t ion between the two, he relented only enough to concede aminimum to ' Jeauty.

8 Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, with other easaya,t rans la ted by J . F:--B'canlan, New York, Charles Scribner 'sSon: , 1935, 118.


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CF..APTER IVHOWELLS AND ARISTOTLE: THE FINAL CAUSE OF FINE ARTWe have now examined William Dean Howells s posi t ion that

t ru th is the f inal cause of f ine art from three dif feren tpoints of view:. in i t s e l f ; as compared with Naturalism; and asre la ted to the theory that bea11 ty is the f inal cause of f inear t . I t now remains to examine A ris to t l e s posi t ion as regards.the purpose or end of f ine ar t and to see in what elementsHowells i s similar to and in what elements dif feren t from, theposi t ion of Aristot le . As wil l be seen, the discussion wil lhinge upon the posi t ions of these two men as regards the uni*versal and part icular in ar t i s t i c representat ion.

Consistent with his customary manner of inves t iga t ion ,Aristot le goes back to the fundamentals in seeking to explainthe purpose of f ine ar t . Accordingly, in this human ac t iv i ty ,f ine ar t , he begins with tha t in hum n nature V 1f:d.ci:1 is thesource of f ine a r t .

Poetry in general seems to have sprung fromtwo causes,. each of them lying deep in ournature. Fi rs t , the ins t inc t of imitat ion i simpla.nted in man from childhood, one differencebetween him and the other animals being that hei s the most imitat ive of l iving creatures, andthrough imitat ion learns his ear l i es t lessons;and no less universal is the pleasure f e l t in

47


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thin3s imitated. We have experience oft h i ~ in evident fac t s . Objects which inthem3elves we view with pain, we del ightto contemplate when reprod J.ced. with in f in i t e f ide l i ty : 3uch as the forms of themo3t ignoble a n i m a l ~ and of dead bodie3.The cause of th is again i s , that to learngives the l ive l i es t plea3ure, not only tophilosophers, but to men in e;eneral; w h o ~ ecapacity , however, of learning is morel imited. Thus the reason why men enjoyseeing a l ikeness i s , that in contemplatingit they f ind themselves learning or in ferr ing, and saying perhaps, 1Ah thatia he . ' 1 or i f you happen not to haveseen the original , the pleasure wil l be duenot to the imitat ion as such, but to theexecution, the coloring, or some such othercause . l

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Man has two basic ins t inc ts , says Aris tot le , which are thefundaments of f ine ar t . Fi rs t , he tends by nature to imitate,the t ru th of which wj_ll be at tes ted by our own experience. schildren we were in that time of l i f e wherein s t i l l t r a i l ingclouds of glory from God who is our home 2 we were c loses t tonature and, therefore, moat incl ined to follow her whims.Imitat ing the new wonder3 that dai ly f i l l ed our l ives was purelspontaneous and natural . s Wordsworth says:

Behold the chi ld among his new-born bl i sses ,A s i x - y e a r ~ Darling of a pigmy size1 See a t his f ee t some l i t t l e plan or char t ,Some fragment from his dream of human l i f e ,Shaped by himself with n e w l y l e a r n ~ d a r t ; s i f his whole vocationWere endless imitat ion.3

1 Aris to t le , Poetics , iv. l -5 . Cf. Butcher s t ransla t ion inButcher, 2, c i t . , 15.2 William Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality, cf .Woods Watt, and Anderson; op. c i t : , l 6 I ; l ines 64-65.3 Ibid. l inea 85-107


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49And becauee he iB following the impulses of nature, followinga natural appet i te , pleaeure ensues from his works of imita t ion.Thie is what Aris tot le means when he says there is in humannature an in3t inct to im:ttate and that pleasure follows uponthe carrying out of that ins t inc t .

Ae the chi ld , eo the man takes pleasure in im1tation. Hisimitat ion takes the form of f ine ar t and the joyous rapture ofthe child becomes, according to Aris to t le , a cer ta in pleasurable impression produced upon the mind of the hearer or spectator . 4 This pleasure is not the same as that pleasure whichcomes from the purely in te l lec tual apprehension of some lo f tymetaphysical t ru th , although the pleasure of philosophy andthe pleasure of f ine ar t are closely a l l i ed .5 Such is neces-sa r i ly the case, for f ine ar t i s addreseed to the sense facul tyof man p r t i c u l r ~ y his imagination, and through i t achieveei t e end. Consequently, the pleasure deriving from f ine ar t cannot be purely in te l lec tua l .6 Nonetheless, a cer ta in in te l lectua l element i s present in the apprecia t ion of in the pleasurederiving from, f ine a r t . The mind, having been given the senseapprehension of the v.ork of art,. recognizes the idea, the perfect ion beyond the vis ible manifestatione of nature, and th iein te l lec tual element, joined with the ac t iv i ty of the senses,4 Butcher, _QP c i t . , 206.5 Ibid . , 20Z.6 Ib id . , 209.


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50produces a.pleasurable emotion consis t ing of an in te l lec tua las well as the more important sensible element. 7

We see, therefore, the contras t between the posi t ions ofWilliam Dean Howells and Aris to t le : for Mr Howells, t ru th isthe f ina l cause or purpose of f ine ar t , while for Aris to t le ti s pleasure.

Now in the l ight of Aristot le. s whole philosophic systemwith i t s strong emphasis upon object ive rea l i ty , i t seems thatto make t ru th the end of f ine a r t would be more consis tent andappropriate; for t ru th , considered t ranscendental ly, followsthe essences of things, and i s in i t s e l f an objective rea l i ty .8On the other hand, pleasure i s subject ive; i t is the personalreact ion of an individual to the work of ar t i s t i c imi ta t ion.Thus the standard of f ine ar t would seem to be subjective inA ris to t l e s system, while the f ina l cause of Mr Howells wouldpreserve an objective c

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Critical Analysis of the Artistic Principles of William Dean Howe