Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/715

 RECENT FICTION.] FRANCE 679 fertility, and the inexhaustible supply of comparatively novel imaginations with which she kept it up, is one of the most remarkable characteristics of her work, and in this respect she is perhaps second only to Sir Walter Scott ; but there is at the same time a certain want of finish about her fertility, and she is not generally found to be an author whose readers return to her individual works, as in the case with less productive but more laborious writers. Of her different styles may be mentioned as fairly characteristic, Lelia, Lucrezia Floriani, Consuelo, La Mare au Diable, La Petite Fadetle, Francois le Champy, Mademoiselle de la .he Qidntinie. Considering the shorter length of his life the r - productiveness of Balzac was almost more astonishing, especially if we consider that much of his early work is never reprinted, and has passed entirely out of remembrance. He is, moreover, the most remarkable example in literature of untiring work and determination to achieve success despite the greatest discouragements. His early work was, as we have said, worse than unsuccessful, it was positively bad ; and even the partiality which is usually shown to the early work of a man of genius has found it impossible to reverse the verdict of his first readers. After more than a score of unsuccessful attempts, Les Chouans at last made its mark, and for twenty years from that time the astonish ing productions composing the so-called Comedie Humaine were poured forth successively. The sub-titles which Balzac imposed upon the different batches, Scenes de la Vie Parisienne, De la Vie de Province, DC la Vie Intime, ic., show like the general title a deliberate intention on the author s part to cover the whole ground of human, at least of French life. Such an attempt could not succeed wholly ; yet the amount of success attained is astonishing. Balzac has, how ever, with some justice been accused of creating the world which he described, and his personages, wonderful as is the accuracy and force with which many of the characteristics of humanity are exemplified in them, are somehow not alto gether human, owing to the specially French fault which we noticed in Racine and Moliere of insisting too much on the ruling passion. Since these two great novelists, many others have arisen, partly to tread in their steps, partly to strike out independent paths. Octave Feuillet, beginning his career by apprenticeship to Alexandra Dumas and the historical novel, soon found bis way in a very different style of composition, the roman intime of fashionable life, in which, notwithstanding some grave defects, he has attained much popularity. The so-called realist side of Balzac has been developed by Gustave Flaubert (b. 1821), who, to all his master s acuteness, and more than his knowledge of human nature, adds culture, scholarship, and a literary power over the language inferior to that of no writer of the century. Madame Eovary and L JZducation Sentimentale are studies of contemporary life; in Salammbo and La Tentation de St Antoine erudition and antiquarian know ledge furnish the subjects for the display of the highest literary skill. Of about the same date (b. 1828) Edmond About, before he abandoned novel-writing, devoted himself chiefly to sketches of abundant but always refined wit (L llomme a VOreille cassee, Le Nez d un Notaire), and sometimes to foreign scenes (Tolla, le Roi des Montagues). Champfleury (b. 1821), an associate of Murger, deserves notice for stories of the extravaganza kind. During the whole of the second empire one of the most popular writers was Ernest Feydeau (1821-1874), a writer of great ability, but morbid and affected in the choice and treatment of his subjects (Fanny, Sylvie, Catherine d Overmeire). In the last ten years many writers of the realist school have en deavoured to outdo their predecessors in unflinching fidelity, nominally carrying out the principles of Balzac and Flaubert, but in reality rather reverting to the extravagance of the very earliest romantic school, such as that of Jules Janin in L Ane Mart, and Petrus Borel in Champavert, Emile Zola, for instance, in parts of his long series Les Rouyon-Macquart, f descends to mere thieves Latin and rhyparography. Emile Gaboriau, taking up that side of Balzac s talent which devoted itself to inextricable mys teries, criminal trials, and the like, produced M. Le Coq, Le Crime d Orcival, La Deyringolade, &c. ; and Adolphe Belot for a time endeavoured to out-Feydeau Feydeau in La Femme de Feu and other works. Of a different stamp, and less of a mere exaggerator, is Victor Cherbuliez, who has produced in Le Roman dune honnete Femme a good novel of the analytic class, and in Le Comte Kostia, Ladislas Bolski, &c., less successful romances of incident. Gustave Droz deserves praise for extraordinarily witty and finely drawn domestic sketches, and Alphonse Daudet has written novels of manners the popularity of which is too recent to allow us to judge its chances of continuance. Periodical Literature since 1830. Criticism. One of the causes which led to this extensive composition of novels was the great spread of periodical literature in France, and the custom of including in almost all periodicals, daily, weekly, or monthly, a feuilleton or instalment of fiction. The same spread of periodical literature, together with the increasing interest in the literature of the past, led also to a very great development of criticism. Almost all French authors of any eminence during the last half century have devoted themselves more or less to criticism of literature, of the theatre, or of art, and sometimes, as in the case of Janin and Gautier, the comparatively lucrative nature of journalism and the smaller demands which it made for labour and intellectual concentration have diverted to feuilleton-writing abilities which might perhaps have been better employed. At the same time it must be remembered that from this devotion of men of the best talents to critical work has arisen an immense elevation of the standard of such work. Before the romantic movement in France Diderot in that country, Lessing and some of his successors in Germany, Hazlitt, Coleridge, and Lamb in England, had been admir able critics and reviewers. But the theory of criticism, though these men s principles and practice had set it aside, still remained more or less what it had been for centuries. The critic was merely the administrator of certain hard and fast rules. There were certain recognized kinds of literary composition ; every new book was bound to class itself under one or other of these. There were certain recognized rules for each class ; and the goodness or badness of a book consisted simply in its obedience or disobedience to these rules. Even the kinds of admissible subjects and the modes of admissible treatment were strictly noted and numbered. This was especially the case in France and with regard to French belles lettres, so that, as we have seen, certain classes of composition had been reduced to unimportant variations of a registered pattern. The romantic protest against this absurdity was specially loud and completely victorious. It is said that a publisher advised the youthful Lamartine to try &quot; to be like somebody else &quot; if he wished to succeed. The romantic standard of success was, on the contrary, to be as individual as possible. Victor Hugo himself com posed a good deal of criticism, and in the preface to his Orientales he states the critical principles of the new school clearly. The critic, ho says, has nothing to do with the subject chosen, the colours employed, the materials used. Is the work, judged by itself and with regard only to tho ideal which the worker had in his mind, good or bad 1 It will be seen that as a legitimate corollary of this theorem the critic becomes even more of an interpreter than of a judge. He can no more satisfy himself or his readers by comparing the work before him with some abstract and ac cepted standard, and marking off its shortcomings. He has to reconstruct, more or less conjecturally, the special