Novelists on the Novel

Miriam Allott Novelists on the Novel Edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu Press Release Monday 24 February 2014 Miriam Allott Novelists on the Novel Edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu The Theory of the Novel Teoria Romanului Fifty-Five Years Later. după cincizeci şi cinci de ani. Besides the fact that it Pe lângă faptul că a anticipat preceded the multitude of present multitudinea de studii contempora- studies about the craft and meanings ne despre tehnicile şi înţelesurile of the novel, Novelists on the Novel, romanului, volumul englezesc pe first published in the year 1959, and care Contemporary Literature Press îl published again now, in 2014, by publică acum, la 55 de ani de la Contemporary Literature Press, comes prima lui apariţie, are şi o poveste to its readers with a very personal românească. story. Această poveste nescrisă încă That unwritten story dates datează din anii 1960. Un tânăr lector back to the middle 1960s. A young la Catedra de Engleză a Universităţii lecturer at the Department of English din Bucureşti, C. George Sandulescu, of the University of Bucharest, C. rezident al Principatului Monaco în George Sandulescu, presently living acest moment, a adus cartea scrisă de in the Principality of Monaco, had Miriam Allott din Anglia. Avea de brought Miriam Allott’s book from gând s-o traducă. A semnat un England. He was going to translate it. contract cu redactorul Editurii pentru With Editor Antonaeta Ralian, he Literatură Universală―Antoaneta Ra- signed a contract for the book to be lian. A semnat un contract şi pentru published at Editura pentru Literatură traducerea în limba română a Universală in Bucharest. He also romanului lui Henry James The signed a contract for Henry James’s Ambassadors. Spera că va putea să The Ambassadors to be published in his înfiinţeze o catedră nouă la translation. He hoped it might be the Bucureşti: o Catedră de Teoria beginning of a new Chair in Romanului. Atunci când George Bucharest: a Chair of the Theory of Sandulescu a plecat din ţară, toate the Novel. When he left Romania, aceste planuri s-au năruit. both contracts and his plan fell În Anglia, el studiase cu through. Arnold Kettle, unul dintre marii A former student―while in specialişti în Teoria Romanului. Şi în England―of Arnold Kettle, who was prezent, Sandulescu continuă să fie a major specialist in the Theory of the convins că Teoria Romanului este o Novel, Sandulescu still considers that direcţie esenţială a criticii literare. Ea direction to be of utmost importance profesionalizează discursul critic, in literary criticism. Theory spells creează un spaţiu de gândire în professionalism. It brings pondering prelungirea analizei practice a distance from the immediacy of the creatorului. creator’s approach. Novelists on the Novel este, Novelists on the Novel is a road aşadar, drumul pe care România nu not taken―in Romania. By publishing l-a urmat atunci când ar fi fost it, we are trying to help Romanian vremea lui. Publicăm această carte teachers of literature. We are also pentru a-i ajuta pe profesorii de offering students and critics both an literatură şi pe studenţii lor. Ea aduce image of le temps perdu and a possible tuturor celor care o vor citi un temps road towards le temps retrouvé. perdu, dar şi un timp regăsit. Bucharest, 11 Feburary 2014 Lidia Vianu ISBN 978-606-8592-40-4 © Universitatea din Bucureşti © Miriam Allott © C. George Sandulescu Cover, Illustrations, and Overall Layout: Lidia Vianu Subediting: Mircea Cosoianu, Ana Dumitrache, Iulia Gherghescu, Maria Lucescu, Andreea Ştefan. Typing: Valentina Albu, Cristina Andrei, Vlad Bîrsan, Sabina Cârnu, Daniela Chiriţă, Diana Corbu, Florin Manea, Costin Mazilu, Elena Negrilă, Ciprian Peia, Roxana Ţicămucă, Valentin Ţepeş-Paleu. IT Expertise: Simona Sămulescu. Publicity: Violeta Baroană. Acknowledgments Miriam Allott: Novelists on the Novel, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1959. If you want to have all the information you need about Finnegans Wake, including the full text of Finnegans Wake, line-numbered, go to A Manual for the Advanced Study of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake in One Hundred Volumes by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu, at the following internet addresses: http://sandulescu.perso.monaco.mc/ http://editura.mttlc.ro/Joyce%20Lexicography.html Miriam Allott Novelists on the Novel Edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu Miriam Allott Novelists on the Novel, 1959 Edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu 1 Table of Contents Preface p. 12 Part One The Nature of Prose Fiction p. 13 I The Novel and the Marvellous II The Novel as a Portrait of Life III The Ethics of the Novel Introduction p. 14 I. The Novel and the Marvellous p. 47 Rejecting romantic improbability. Samuel Richardson p. 47 A caution against the supernatural. Henry Fielding p. 48 Romance reformed by the novelist. Tobias Smollett p. 49 Pleasing delusions. Sarah Fielding p. 50 La belle nature. Jean-Jacques Rousseau p. 50 Combining the marvellous and the probable. Clara Reeve p. 51 Romance lacks unity of design. Thomas Holcroft p. 52 The difference between the novel and the romance. Clara Reeve p. 53 Sunt certi denique fines p. 53 Richard Cumberland p. 53 Mrs Sarah Green p. 54 An epic in prose? Anna Barbauld p. 54 Novel: Romance: Epic. Sir Walter Scott p. 55 The historical romance combines the marvellous and the probable p. 56 Sir Walter Scott p. 56 Nathaniel Hawthorne p. 57 The novelist’s sense of conflict p. 58 Gustave Flaubert p. 58 Guy de Maupassant p. 58 The quality of romance. Robert Louis Stevenson p. 59 Miriam Allott Novelists on the Novel, 1959 Edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu 2 A romantic realist. Joseph Conrad p. 60 Cutting the cable. Henry James p. 61 Ghost stories. Henry James p. 63 Adjusting the exceptional and the non-exceptional. Thomas Hardy p. 64 II. The Novel as Portrait of Life p. 66 A new species of writing. Henry Fielding p. 66 The bounds of probability. Henry Fielding p. 67 No ‘sudden conversions’. Samuel Richardson p. 68 Truth to be kept in sight. Richard Cumberland p. 69 The offspring of nature. Fanny Burney p. 69 The paths of common life: Jane Austen’s Emma. Sir Walter Scott p. 70 Accidents admissible? Charles Dickens p. 73 Dickens defends fantasy. Charles Dickens p. 73 The art of novels is to represent nature. William Makepeace Thackeray p. 74 Realism compatible with sensationalism. Anthony Trollope p. 74 Truth lies in the ‘exceptional’. Feodor Dostoevsky p. 75 Scientific realism. Emile Zola p. 75 Reality only a spring-board. Gustave Flaubert p. 76 The naturalist modifies nature. Emile Zola p. 77 Realists are illusionists. Guy de Maupassant p. 78 Representative art both realistic and ideal. Robert Louis Stevenson p. 79 The novel ‘an artificiality distilled from the fruits of observation’. p. 80 Thomas Hardy Imitation cannot serve as a standard. Leo Tolstoy p. 82 Art ‘all discrimination and selection’. Henry James p. 82 Imagined life clearer than reality. Joseph Conrad p. 83 Is life like this? Virginia Woolf p. 84 Realism impairs the sense of tragedy. D. H. Lawrence p. 85 Realism and stylization. André Gide p. 86 Truth stranger than fiction. Aldous Huxley p. 87 Not an observer, but a creator. François Mauriac p. 87 A discussion about categories of fiction: p. 88 Henry James dismisses them p. 88 Robert Louis Stevenson remonstrates p. 89 Miriam Allott Novelists on the Novel, 1959 Edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu 3 III. The Ethics of the Novel p. 93 The novelist and the young person. p. 93 Samuel Richardson p. 93 Jean-Jacques Rousseau p. 93 Clara Reeve p. 94 Oliver Goldsmith p. 95 Sir Walter Scott p. 95 Anthony Trollope p. 95 Charles Dickens p. 96 Henry James p. 96 François Mauriac p. 97 Reforming the wicked reader. Daniel Defoe p. 98 Gilding the pill. Samuel Richardson p. 98 Useful examples provided. Henry Fielding p. 99 Exemplary ambitions achieved. Tobias Smollett p. 100 No politics? p. 100 Richard Cumberland p. 100 Stendhal p. 100 The reader uninterested in the moral. Sir Walter Scott p. 101 On not impaling the butterfly. Nathaniel Hawthorne p. 101 Truth is best. William Makepeace Thackeray p. 102 The writer’s responsibility. George Eliot p. 102 An argument about artistic detachment. p. 103 Gustave Flaubert p. 103 George Sand p. 104 Gustave Flaubert p. 104 High moral purpose of the naturalists. Emile Zola p. 105 Foul to tell what is false: unsafe to suppress what is true. p. 106 Robert Louis Stevenson Natural truth better than didacticism. Thomas Hardy p. 107 The artist must set the question, not solve it. Anton Chekhov p. 107 Is it genuine, is it sincere? Henry James p. 108 Cherishing undying hope. Joseph Conrad p. 109 Thumbs off the scale. D. H. Lawrence p. 110 Best to be without any views. Ford Madox Ford p. 111 How to present ideas in a novel. p. 112 Miriam Allott Novelists on the Novel, 1959 Edited by C. George Sandulescu and Lidia Vianu 4 Honoré de Balzac p. 112 Ivan Turgenev p. 112 D. H. Lawrence p. 113 André Gide p. 113 Aldous Huxley p. 113 Poetic justice. Ivy Compton-Burnett p. 114 Moral tragedy. André Gide p. 114 The Christian novelist. François Mauriac p. 115 Tailpiece. Oscar Wilde p. 118 Part Two The Genesis of a Novel p. 119 I The Novelist’s Approach and Equipment II Germination III At Work: Effort and Inspiration Introduction p. 120 I. The Novelist’s Approach and Equipment p. 131 Invoking assistance. Henry Fielding p. 131 In the destructive element immerse? p. 132 Gustave Flaubert p.

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