Chapter 1 Introduction: the Literacy Mood of the Fin De Siècle
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Notes Chapter 1 Introduction: the Literacy Mood of the Fin de Siècle 1 Sparked by Walter Besant’s article, ‘The Art of Fiction’ (1884), James wrote his own defence of realism in ‘The Art of Fiction’ (1884). Stevenson responded good-naturedly with ‘A Gossip on Romance’ and ‘A Humble Remonstrance’ (1884). Earlier, in 1883, Stevenson had put the case for romance in an article for ‘The Art Magazine’ entitled ‘A Note on Realism.’ 2 Dorian Gray first appeared in serialized form in Lippincotts Magazine in 1890. 3 Of course this did not turn out to be his last novel: The Well-beloved was serialized in 1892 and published in book form by Osgood, McIlvaine on 16 March 1897. 4 For a discussion of the faultlines in Zola’s theory see, for example, Stromberg, p. xvii. Becker’s Documents of Modern Literary Realism reprints a comprehen- sive collection of realist criticism and commentaries that provide a useful overview of realist fiction in the nineteenth century. 5 Selected Letters of Oscar Wilde, p. 82. 6 For further discussion of the imperial romance genre see Andrea White, Joseph Conrad and the Adventure Tradition: Constructing and Deconstructing the Imperial Subject (1993), and Linda Dryden, Joseph Conrad and the Imperial Romance (2000). 7 All references to The Picture of Dorian Gray are from the Norton Critical Edition, ed. Donald L. Lawler. 8 I use the term ‘new’ realists in order to distinguish the realist writers of the late century from other realist writers. As most critics agree, realism or an attempt at representation of actual life has always been present in art. See, for example, Erich Auerbach, Mimesis (1937). 9 Wilde’s novel, however, was heavily criticized for immoral and decadent themes. See for example Letters p. 81, note 2. 10 The Importance of Being Earnest was actually first staged at the St James’s Theatre in February 1895. 11 Buchanan’s novel The New Abelard (1884) was a highly romanticized text on the tragedy which ensues from religious doubt. In the book he describes Zola as ‘a dirty, muddy, gutter-searching pessimist, who translates the “anar- chy” of the ancients into the bestial argot of the Quartiers Latin’ (The New Abelard, 202). 12 It must be said, however, that Vizetelly’s main consideration in publishing Zola’s works was not necessarily one of artistic conscience; there was a strong financial incentive in such a venture. See Keating, pp. 244–50, for more dis- cussion of the Vizetelly trial. Vizetelly was a victim of the National Vigilance Association that set about the task of ‘protecting’ public morals at a time when the ‘health’ of the nation was a burning issue. The Association was particularly concerned with shielding the young from what it regarded as 191 192 Notes ‘pernicious’ literature. The Methodist Times responded to the Vizetelly trial by declaring: ‘Zolaism is a disease. It is a study of the putrid’ (Becker, 381). 13 Reprinted in Becker, p.248, from Maupassant ‘Les Bas Fonds’, Oeuvres Complètes Illustrée, 15, p. 73 (Librairie de France, 1934–38, pp. 73–5). 14 Reprinted in Becker, p. 100, from de Sainte-Beuve, ‘Madame Bovary par Gustave Flaubert’, Causeries de Lundi, pp. 346–63 (Monday, 4 May 1857, Paris: Garnier Frères, n.d.). 15 Reprinted in Becker, p. 102, as above. 16 Reprinted in Becker, p. 192, from Zola, ‘Le Roman Expérimental’, Le Roman expérimental (Paris, 1880). 17 See Jacob Korg, George Gissing, A Critical Biography. John Goode, writing on Gissing in Tradition and Tolerance in Nineteenth Century Fiction, says the condi- tions in which Gissing found his dead alcoholic wife, Nell, ‘seem to have been the direct motivation of [his] last and best major work on the working classes’ (Howard, Lucas and Goode, p. 210). Goode is referring to The Nether World. 18 Reprinted in Becker, p. 289, from Lilly, ‘The New Naturalism’, Fortnightly Review, 38 (1 August 1885, pp. 240–56). 19 Reprinted in Becker, p. 290, as above. Furthermore, the form of the novel itself was undergoing a transformation: the traditional three-decker novel favoured by the publishing houses was giving way to the shorter one-volume novel. See Keating, pp. 9–56, for more discussion of the decline of the three- decker and the pecuniary concerns of authors and publishers. 20 The realists’ claims to present life ‘as it is’ has of course been much debated and many critics have pointed to the impossibility of recreating reality, not least because of the virtual impossibility of defining what reality is. J. P. Stern, in his study On Realism, makes the important point that ‘Realism is as compatible with selection as is any other mode of experience (of which lit- erature is a part)’ (Stern, 67). Ian Watt, in The Rise of the Novel, also argues that formal realism is only a convention not necessarily more authentic than any other genre of writing. 21 Quoted in Greenslade, p. 26. Chapter 2 The Modern Gothic 1 See Robert Mighall, A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction, for more discussion of the significance of the historical and geographical in the traditional Gothic. 2 See Keating, ‘A Woven Tapestry of Interests’, in The Haunted Study, pp. 330–68, for a detailed discussion of these new literary forms. 3 For a full discussion of the history of the genre see Gillian Beer, The Romance. 4 Stevenson, ‘A Note on Realism’, p. 27. 5 See George Saintsbury, ‘The Present State of the Novel’, Fortnightly Review, xlii, 1887, pp. 410–17; Andrew Lang, ‘Realism and Romance’, Contemporary Review, lii, 1887, pp. 683–93, and H. Rider Haggard, ‘About Fiction’, Contemporary Review, li, 1887, pp. 173–80. 6 It is important to mention here too Marie Corelli, whose A Romance of Two Worlds appeared in 1886. Much neglected until recent years, Corelli was a best- selling author in her day, and her romances indicate that the genre was not the sole province of male writers. Oscar Wilde was an admirer of her work. Notes 193 7 Of course this perception of the Goths as ‘barbarians’ is probably no longer tenable. 8 Quoted in Ellis, p. 48. 9 In Spender p. 241, quoted from Anne Elwood, Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England (1843), vol. II, p. 165. 10 For example, Hurley observes that ‘to assert that something is too horrible to be spoken of is the privileged utterance of the Gothic . .’ (Hurley, 48). 11 In Mighall, A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction, and Hurley, The Gothic Body. 12 For example, the Society for Psychical Research had been established in 1882 and was influenced by Frederic Myers and Henry Sidgwick. Freud was a ‘corresponding member who contributed to its journal in 1912’ (Ledger and Luckhurst, 269). 13 This appears to have strong resonances of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ‘The Man of the Crowd’, which, as Deborah L. Parsons says, has along with Baudelaire’s work become a ‘meta-text for the discussion of flâneurie’ (Parsons, 19). 14 Quoted in Curtis, p. 128. It is probable that the term ‘hobbledehoy’ is a hid- den Irish reference linked to the immigration issue and to the ‘alien’ question. 15 All reprinted in Curtis, p. 122. 16 Reprinted in Curtis, p. 133. 17 Reprinted in Curtis, p. 138. Notably this verse seems to use the motif of the aristocratic bloodsucker and registers a humanitarian concern for the poor of the East End. 18 Such comments are tantalizingly close to some of Conrad’s musings on human nature and morality. Conrad too is often regarded as having a division in his nature, being both a Polish patriot and an aspiring English gentleman. 19 Miller says that ‘Homo duplex was the invention of Buffon and the French eighteenth century, (Miller, 123). Chapter 3 The City: London, Real and Imagined 1 Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography (2000), figures London itself as a body: The byways of the city resemble thin veins and its parks are like lungs. In the mist and rain of an urban autumn, the shining stones and cobbles of the older thoroughfares look as if they are bleeding. (Ackroyd, 1) 2 Of course many writers, including those under discussion here, also saw the city as a place of joyous excitement and exhilarating experiences, but the purpose of this volume is to explore the alternative to that vision. 3 For a full and informative discussion of the murders and their aftermath see Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight, pp. 191–228. 4 See Curtis, p. 33. 5 Curtis argues, for example, that perceptions of Oriental otherness included Jews: ‘Convinced that no true Englishman could commit such savage 194 Notes crimes – if only because the culprit killed far too swiftly, viciously, and silently for an ordinary phlegmatic Englishman – ethnocentric readers were quick to construct a Jewish “monster” or a culprit who belonged to some other “inferior race”’ (Curtis, 41). 6 The Pall Mall Gazette, for example, on 25 September 1888, in jocular mode, ‘proposed sending a “Mission to the Anthropoid Apes” that would be made up of kindly missionaries and serious scientists who would teach them how to climb up the evolutionary ladder toward the “long-lost Missing Link”’ (Curtis, p. 134). 7 Curtis comments that this writer may well be W. T. Stead himself. 8 Quoted in Curtis, p. 35. 9 Quoted in Altick, p. 118. 10 Quoted in Curtis, p. 133. 11 ’Unfortunates’ was the euphemism used for prostitutes. 12 See Walkowitz, pp. 219–22. 13 See Curtis, p. 261 for further evidence of these culprits. 14 Stead’s actions here changed the face of journalism: the ‘new journalism’ based on investigation and first-hand experience was born.