The Art of Fiction by Walter Besant and Henry James
"Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, just fifty-fifty its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance. " The short essay Criticism, the focus of my review, is part of this drove which includes The Art of Fiction, The New Novel, and individual essays on Balzac, Trollope, Flaubert, Zola and Emerson. The reason for my pick should exist obvious to anyone reading this since and then much of what we do on this international internet site is write reviews. Below are a number of Henry James quote from the essay along with my more than personalized comments: "If literary criticism may exist said to flourish among united states at all, it certainly flourishes immensely, for it flows through the journal press like a river that has outburst its dikes." --------- With the advent of international internet sites such as this 1, a thousand times truer now than back in 1893 when Henry James wrote these words. Even every bit recently as the 1980s, if a reader wished to read a review of a particular book, perhaps one, 2 or three reviews could be located in newspapers or magazines. But nowadays with a few clicks, dozens of reviews are available. For an gorging reader and lover of books and book reviews, our brave new 21st century globe is a literary paradise. "What strikes the observer above all, in such an affluence, is the unexpected proportion the discourse uttered bears to the objects discoursed of – the paucity of examples, of illustrations and productions, and the drench of doctrine suspended in the void; the profusion of talk and the contraction of experiment, of what one may call literary conduct." ----------- Sounds like Henry James much prefers individual book reviews chock-full of examples and quotes rather than literary theory regardless of the theoretical slant. My preference also. I call up scanning shelves and shelves of books of literary theory when at Powell's in downtown Portland. I looked through dozens of volumes written by such as Roland Barthes, Terry Eagleton and Northrop Frye. But, darn, I couldn't find fifty-fifty i book that interested me. I had to acknowledge theorizing about literature leaves me cold. When it comes to novels and brusque stories, what I savour and discover most helpful are well-written, insightful volume reviews. "Information technology is a gift inestimably precious and beautiful, therefore, and then far from thinking that it passes overmuch from hand to hand, one knows that ane has only to stand past the counter an hour to see that business is done with baser money." ---------- Similar any other literary form - novels, brusque stories, plays, verse – writing good book reviews takes not merely technical proficiency and lots of do, but a love of the craft. And every bit Henry James notes, an outstanding review has an undeniable beauty and charm. "Yet not but practice I not question in literature the high utility of criticism, but I should be tempted to say that the part it plays may be the supremely beneficent one when it proceeds from deep sources, from the efficient combination of experience and perception." ----------- When James says "proceeds from deep sources" I take this to mean when a reviewer is widely read and has carefully read and reread the book nether review, their reflections and insights, if articulated clearly, acquit a measure out of weight and are worthy of serious consideration. "In this light one sees the critic every bit the real helper of the artist, a torch-begetting outrider, the interpreter, the brother. The more the tune is noted and the direction observed the more we shall enjoy the convenience of a disquisitional literature." ---------- Ane especial cracking value a reviewer can provide to the reading community – write a review of an overlooked or under reviewed book. "To lend himself, to projection himself and steep himself, to experience and experience till he understands, and to understand so well that he can say, to have perception at the pitch of passion and expression as embracing as the air, to be infinitely curious and incorrigibly patient, and yet plastic and inflammable and determinable, stooping to conquer and serving to directly – these are fine chances for an active mind, chances to add the idea of contained dazzler to the formulation of success." ---------- Henry James expresses and then elegantly how a reviewer is wise to exist as open and receptive as possible when reading, fifty-fifty if that book happens to be of a type mostly not read past the reviewer. "Just in proportion as he is sentient and restless, simply in proportion equally he reacts and reciprocates and penetrates, is the critic a valuable instrument; for in literature assuredly criticism is the critic, just as art is the artist; it being assuredly the artist who invented fine art and the critic who invented criticism, and not the other fashion round." ---------- This James quote really underscores how each review reflects the reviewer as much as the author – so much of one's feel with literature is a matter of private gustatory modality. And this dynamic is a prime reason why new reviews of even a well reviewed book tin still incorporate peachy value. "That of the critic, in literature, is connected doubly, for he deals with life at 2d-manus as well every bit at start; that is, he deals with the experience of others, which resolves into his own, and not of those invented and selected others with whom the novelist makes comfortable terms, but with the uncompromising swarm of authors, the clamorous children of history." ---------- Henry James appreciates how a dedicated book reviewer tin brand a lifetime delivery to reading books and writing nigh books. No demand to write in any other form; writing volume reviews is quite plenty. I concur completely!
― Henry James
"Life is as well brusque for bad books. And you lot can quote me on that!"
- Glenn Russell
I must admit that I would take never ever read Henry James' article nor that of Mr Beason if it wasn't for my Novel grade that I'm taking this year . Okay , both manufactures are magnificent , to say the least . But I , for 1 , thought that James' response article ( essay) was more articulate , straightforward and ,of course, genuine . Henry James fabricated two major contributions which exerted a powerful influence on the theory of the novel : 1- He managed to establish the novel equally a worthy object of critical attention ( literary criticism) by lifting it to the level of fine art . Throughout his article , James divers fiction as being ane of the fine arts . The word 'fine' does not describe the quality of the work in question , only rather the righteousness of the field / subject . For him , fiction -simply like arts - is a craft ; some are skilful at it while others are but not . He and then went on to raise a question that has always been debated on by literary critics ; that of the criteria which make of a novel a "good" work of fiction . Some , he said , believe that a adept novel is a representation of virtues through pious and aspiring characters ,others argue that information technology all depends on "the happy endings " ,while others regard the movements and deportment to embody the required criteria that make of a novel a expert one . Just James explained that it is a mistake to say so definitely beforehand what sort of an affair the adept novel is , because , after all , a novel is in its broadest definition a personal impression of life . And That is exactly why , I believe , James pleaded for the liberty of the artist to shape the grade which best suits his impression of life . The creative person , according to James , should be allowed the freedom in the choice of subject area and method just he must assume his responsability of making the two fuse to serve as the vehicle of expression of his intentions . I admittedly loved the last function of the article wherein James gave pieces of advice to a immature to-exist novelist . They spoke to me , not that I'll ever be a novelist or annihilation but they were just beautifully written . And yes , now I just tin't await to start reading ane of James' novels " The Turn Of The Spiral " .
2- He helped to initiate debates and discussions about methods , narrative structures , moral thinking and interpretation .
Volume 4 for the week long gilmore girls readathon Rory gilmore is a genius
DISCLAIMER: I copied these notes for personal reasons only: I utilize GR to proceed track of my notes, since I don't trust my Kobo and notebooks are impractical. I know I am a inexpensive bastard and don't deserve any like for it. then, this was NOT written by me! Henry James's"The Art of Fiction" Why is it revolutionary? 1. Selection of subject belongs to the artist without restriction. We must grant the artist his bailiwick, his idea, his donnée; our criticism is applied just to what he makes of it. (561) Fine art is essentially selection. (563). A novel is a living thing, all i and continuous, like any other organism, and in proportion every bit it lives volition exist found, I think, that in each of the parts there is something of each of the other parts. (560) 4. Artistry, non morality, should be the criterion. "Bad" novels and "expert" novels are a matter of taste, not morality or choice of subject matter. Nothing, of course, will ever have the place of the good old mode of "liking" a piece of work or not liking information technology. (562). 5. Faithfulness to life (realism) is the important cistron. The simply reason for the existence of a novel is that it does try to correspond life. (554). 6. The expertise of the writer, similar that of the painter, depends upon an artistic sensibility and openness to impressions. Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spiderweb of the finest silk threads suspended in the sleeping room of consciousness. (559).
2. Witting artistry and treatment of the subject is the key.
Questions of art are questions (in the widest sense) of execution. (655)
iii. Organic structure is important.
There are bad novels and good novels, equally at that place are bad pictures and skilful pictures; but that is the only stardom in which I tin meet any meaning. (560)
The air of reality (solidity of specification) seems to me to be the supreme virtue of a novel (559).
A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life. (557)
It goes without maxim that you lot will not write a practiced novel unless you possess the sense of reality; just it will exist hard to give you a recipe for calling that sense into beingness. (558).
"Try to be one of the people on whom goose egg is lost!" (559)
http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/a... "The former evangelical hostility to the novel, which was as explicit every bit it was narrow, and which regarded information technology equally petty less favourable to our immortal function than a phase-play, was in reality far less insulting. The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does compete with life. " "The only obligation to which in advance we may concord a novel without incurring the allegation of beingness arbitrary, is that it exist interesting. That full general responsibleness rests upon it, just it is the only ane I can recollect of. The ways in which information technology is at liberty to attain this result (of interesting u.s.) strike me every bit innumerable and such as can but endure from beingness marked out, or fenced in, by prescription. They are as various as the temperament of homo, and they are successful in proportion as they reveal a detail mind, different from others. A novel is in its broadest definition a personal impression of life; that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression. Merely there will be no intensity at all, and therefore no value, unless in that location is freedom to feel and say."
I read this in a collection of Henry James essays on writing and writers. I really enjoyed The Fine art of Fiction itself, equally it is very encouraging to budding immature writers like myself, and his articles on Turgenev were incredibly interesting, merely the essay The New Novel put me off Henry James forever. How cartel he criticize Joseph Conrad for demanding too much of the "common reader'southward" concentration?! Henry James demands then much concentration from his readers that I had to reread one-half his sentences and sometimes even full pages just to figure out what he was trying to say! Sometimes I never did figure it out, and just kept going anyway. And he had the audacity to complain about Joseph Conrad?! My beloved Joseph Conrad, who knew how to write an exciting tale in which more fascinating things happened in each chapter than EVER happened in whatsoever one of Henry James' stories?? I'd liked James' short stories, simply after reading that, I am officially not a fan.
Knocked off a star for Besant's assertion that 'everything (...) which is invented and is non the event of personal experience and observation is worthless'. I don't know if I can blame him for this- if the aim of art is to mimic real life and so, how tin he exist wrong? But to negate writings upon writings (fantasy, sci-fi etc, though I do not at all suspect he anticipated their field of study thing)...
Information technology doesn't sit quite right with me, a mod reader.
THIS was the guide to writing I was looking for! There'due south real encouragement here, and although it predates The Elements of Style, it manages to feel far more than contemporary. Henry James pretty much felt about literature what my circle feels about independent motion-picture show today. At that place's a swell and liberating freedom only to exist interesting!!
Oh Henry, you sure were vexed by Mr. Besant and his ideas, weren't you? I need to read the Besant slice now so I am clear on the basis of his arguments. Intriguing slice.
I'thou more into the art of art only Henry James is always worth reading.
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Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10387214-the-art-of-fiction
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