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Studies in the Sources of Arnold Bennett's Novels

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Studies in the Sources of Arnold Bennett's Novels STUDIES IN THE SOURCES OF ARNOLD BENNETT'S NOVELS Louis TILLIER Agrégé de l'Université Docteur ès Lettres STUDIES IN THE SOURCES OF ARNOLD BENNETT'S NOVELS Published with the assistance of the Centre national de la Recherche scientifique DIDIER 4 et 6, rue de la Sorbonne PARIS 14, rue 'des Comédiens 1442, av. McGill College BRUXELLES MONTR13AL CONTENTS Introduction 7 I. The sources of A Man from the North I. Autobiographical elements 13 II. The influence of Bel-Ami 20 II. Literary influences and personal memories in Anna of the Five Towns 25 III. The sources of Sacred and Profane Love 32 IV. The growth of The Old Wives' Tale I. The original idea and its transformation ... 39 II. The Old Wives' Tale and previous works by Arnold Bennett 42 III. French literary influences 44 IV. Local history 48 V. Rivain's execution 52 VI. The Siege of Paris 57 VII. The federation of the Five Towns 66 VIII. Prototypes of characters 70 V. The Card in life and fiction 74 VI. The theosophical and other sources of The Glimpse .. 84 VII. The sources of Clayhanger I. Sociological research 109 II. Personal impressions and memories 124 VIII. From Coquette to Lilian 138 IX. The genesis of Riceyman Steps I. From environment through character to action 143 II. Pinks and Wood's History of Clerkenwell .. 147 X. Is Lord Raingo a roman-a-clef ? I. The Bennett-Birkenhead controversy 155 II. Lord Raingo and Lord Rhondda 158 III. The War Cabinet 164 XI. Imperial Palace and French naturalism 168 XII. From An Experiment with Time to Dream of Destiny . 176 Conclusions 183 Bibliography . 189 Index ..../£I-v!" ........... 193 INTRODUCTION During the score of years that have passed since Arnold Bennett died1, his fame has suffered the eclipse which is the common posthumous lot of all popular writers, an eclipse made perhaps more complete in his particular case by the attacks to which his reputation had already been subjected, in his lifetime, by the spokes- men of the younger generation. In spite of his attempt to achieve variety, half-way through his career, by changing his scene from Staffordshire to London, and of his efforts to keep abreast with the spirit of the age, advanced literary opinion in the twenties already considered him somewhat old-fashioned; and Virginia Woolf, waging war on the leading novelists of the preceding period, and confidently declaring that "the sooner English fiction turn[ed] its back upon them, the better for its soul" 2, treated him (not without reason) as the most typical representative of that "materialism" which also vitiated, in her eyes, the work of Wells and Galsworthy. The English novel, after a certain amount of wavering, has declined to answer the call, or follow in the footsteps of Ulysses and Mrs. Dalloway. Though it has gained, in depth and subtlety, by the bold experiments of the nineteen twenties, it appears to-day 1, half-way through the century, as being rather more akin in structure and spirit to the four-square narratives of Edwardian days than to the neo-Georgian transcriptions of evanescent moods and feelings. That reaction, it might be argued, is the price the novel has had to pay for its survival as a genre. This may account for the fact that Arnold Bennett's reputation as a novelist — for it is only with the novelist that we are concerned here, as distinct from the writer of fantasias or short stories, the dramatist, the critic or the "pocket philosopher" — has stood the test of time better than might, in the adverse circumstances, have been expected. The popular press, when referring to him in the anec- dotes of its gossip columns, or quoting one of his pronouncements, still does not feel the need to explain who he was. Public librarians report a moderate but steady demand for his books, though the mere pot-boilers are gradually sinking into a well-deserved oblivion. Recent .j.This was written in 1948, the following studies being submitted as a subsidiary thesis for the doctorate of literature to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Paris in January 1949. Various changes — mostly additions — have been made at the time of publication. 2. Essay on Modern Fiction, reprinted in The Common Reader, pp. 184-95. criticism provides a pointer in the same direction. In spite of the keen interest aroused in 1939 by Georges Lafourcade's somewhat controversial Study3, the war, which broke out soon after its ap- pearance and which was to delay by half-a-dozen years that of M. M. Locherbie-Goff's Jeunesse d'Arnold Bennett4, might well have "killed" Bennett for good. In actual fact however, the recent publi- cation of Walter Allen's essay5, and the welcome it has received from the press, has afforded fresh evidence, not of a revival, but of a survival of interest6. This essay also marks, to some extent, a new departure in "Bennettian" criticism. By concentrating on the major Five Towns novels, and more or less ignoring what could only be of ephemeral value, Mr. Allen has shown how far passing years have already sorted out the grain from the chaff; he may indeed have hastened, by recognizing and sanctioning it, a process of selection and elimi- nation that had to take place before Arnold Bennett could definitely stake his claim to lasting recognition. It had long been obvious that the "traveller for immortality" would not be able to travel very far unless he abandoned part of his baggage by the wayside; but it remained uncertain how much, and which part of it, he could retain without jeopardizing his chances of reaching his goal. It cannot be said yet whether Arnold Bennett — assuming posterity preserves his name — will be remembered as the author of The Old Wives' Tale only, or of two or three books besides; but it now seems fairly certain among which of his works — half a dozen at most, and all of them novels, in the narrow sense — posterity's choice remains to be made. Perhaps the time has now come also to bring to the critical examination of his novels a slightly different method than has so far been applied to the task. During a writer's life-time, and for some years after his death, criticism of his work generally remains to a great extent a matter of personal opinions, an expression of the critic's likes and dislikes, halfway between journalistic reviewing and academic study. As the years go by, however, his claim to classical rank must, if maintained, be assessed on a more scientific, less subjective basis. At this point it becomes desirable to examine his sources, in order to reach a more exact estimate of his originality and gain a closer insight into the creative processes of his imagination. An attempt to do this for Arnold Bennett will be found in the follow- 3. Published by Frederick Muller (1939). 4. Imprimerie de l'Observateur, Avesnes-sur-Helpe (1941). 5. Published by Home & Van Thai (1948). 6. This was to be confirmed in the course of the next two decades, by the publication of a number of other books devoted to Bennett: Reginald Pound's biography (1952); Vittoria Sanna's Romanzi Delle Cinque Citta (1953); James Hall's Arnold Bennett, primitivism and taste (1959); J. G. Hepburn's Art of Arnold Bennett (1962). Angus Wilson's and John Wain's critical contributions (1954 and 1957 respectively) should also be mentioned in this connexion; and to the list, the present writer may be permitted to add his own Arnold Bennett et ses romans réalistes which, though submitted as a main thesis for the doctorate of literature as early as 1949, was not to appear in print until 1967. A fuller bibliography will be found at the end of this volume. ing studies, containing an account, mainly factual, of what is known today of the raw materials used by the writer in twelve of his twenty six novels. Contrary to general academic usage, the word "sources" should be understood here in its broadest possible sense as covering, not only the matter already published that the novelist has occasionally borrowed and transformed to suit his artistic purpose, but also the material he has borrowed from life itself, from reality as personally experienced by him or known to him by hearsay. It was often dif- ficult, in his case, to draw a definite line between the former and the latter kind of sources; and any clear-cut distinction between them was bound to appear highly artificial. Why, for instance, include historical data gathered from a book on the Siege of Paris, and discard memories of a conversation with personal witnesses of the Siege ? The argument, sometimes adduced in support of the usual definition of what is meant by a literary source, that docu- mentation is deliberate in the one case, casual and haphazard in the other, cannot be maintained; for the reverse may well happen. From the day when Arnold Bennett decided to become a writer, he prob- ably never looked at an interesting scene or listened to an inter- esting conversation without the idea lurking at the back of his mind that the present experience might some day be useful to him. His Journals, occasionally supplemented by note-books reserved for jottings on one particular subject, or one particular aspect of his craft, were the reservoir in which his observations from real life could be stored until the moment came to use them. Were such observations deliberate, or casual ? Conversely, a writer may well make use of facts or ideas gathered from books read for mere pleasure, in the most unprofessional, disinterested frame of mind.
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