Contents
| Editor’s Foreword | [v] |
| Chapter One. THE STUDY OF THE POLITICAL NOVEL | [1] |
| The Importance of the Political Novel | [1] |
| The Nature of the Political Novel: Problems of Definition and Selection | [1] |
| Characteristics of the Political Novel | [3] |
| The Novelist and the Political Scientist | [4] |
| The Purposes of This Study | [8] |
| Chapter Two. THE NOVEL AS POLITICAL INSTRUMENT | [10] |
| The United States | [10] |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Civil War | [10] |
| Albion Tourgée: The Blunders of Reconstruction | [11] |
| Perennial Theme: Corruption | [12] |
| Upton Sinclair: Corruption Plus Radicalism | [12] |
| Growing Political Consciousness: 1930 to 1954 | [13] |
| John Steinbeck: The Party Organizer | [14] |
| Sinclair Lewis: Native Fascism | [14] |
| John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway: Liberal Causes Abroad | [15] |
| George Weller: International Communism | [16] |
| Norman Mailer: The Extreme Left | [17] |
| Novels of the Cold War | [17] |
| Great Britain | [19] |
| Benjamin Disraeli: Revitalized Toryism | [19] |
| Henry James: The Breakup of Victorian Tranquillity | [20] |
| Joseph Conrad: Early Cloak and Dagger | [21] |
| E. M. Forster: The Problem of Imperialism | [22] |
| Aldous Huxley and George Orwell: The Future in Perspective | [23] |
| The Continent | [23] |
| Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Nihilism and Its Rejection | [23] |
| André Malraux: Pro-Communism | [24] |
| Ignazio Silone: Disillusionment on the Left | [25] |
| Arthur Koestler: The Bolshevik on Trial | [26] |
| Africa | [26] |
| Alan Paton: The Race Question | [27] |
| Chapter Three. THE NOVELIST AS POLITICAL HISTORIAN | [28] |
| Great Britain | [29] |
| George Eliot: The Early Nineteenth Century in the Midlands | [30] |
| Benjamin Disraeli and Anthony Trollope: Whigs v. Tories | [30] |
| George Meredith: The Early Radical | [31] |
| Mrs. Humphrey Ward: Victorian Portraits | [31] |
| H. G. Wells: England in Transition | [32] |
| Howard Spring: Labour and the Course of Empire | [32] |
| Joyce Cary: The Edwardian Age and After | [33] |
| The United States | [33] |
| Edgar Lee Masters: Expansion and Conflict | [34] |
| Albion Tourgeé: Slavery and Emancipation | [34] |
| John W. De Forest: Post-War Corruption | [35] |
| Hamlin Garland: Enter the Farmer | [36] |
| Winston Churchill and David Phillips: Bosses and Lobbies | [36] |
| Jack London: Marxism v. Fascism, Early Phase | [37] |
| James L. Ford, Samuel H. Adams, and Upton Sinclair: Oil Men and Anarchists | [38] |
| John Dos Passos and James T. Farrell: Communist Infiltration | [39] |
| Upton Sinclair and John Dos Passos: Global War and Politics | [40] |
| Post-War Directions | [40] |
| The Continent and Elsewhere | [42] |
| Joseph Conrad: Colonial Politics and Revolution | [42] |
| The Soviet State: Its Roots and Growth | [43] |
| Marie-Henri Beyle [Stendhal]: Napoleonic Panorama | [44] |
| André Malraux: Comintern v. Kuomintang | [44] |
| Jean-Paul Sartre: The Shadow of Munich | [45] |
| Fascism through Italian Eyes | [45] |
| Alan Paton: The Trek of the Boers | [46] |
| Richard Kaufmann: The Third Reich | [47] |
| Chapter Four. THE NOVEL AS MIRROR OF NATIONAL CHARACTER | [48] |
| Great Britain: A Self-Portrait | [48] |
| Peaceful Change in the Political Realm | [48] |
| The Fruits of Imperialism | [50] |
| The United States: A Self-Portrait | [51] |
| Forces of Corruption | [52] |
| The American Idealist | [53] |
| Responsibility at Home and Abroad | [53] |
| Italy: A Self-Portrait | [55] |
| Spain: An American Portrait | [57] |
| Greece: An American Portrait | [58] |
| France: A Composite Portrait | [58] |
| Russia: A Composite Portrait | [59] |
| Union of South Africa: A Self-Portrait | [61] |
| Germany: A Self-Portrait | [61] |
| Chapter Five. THE NOVELIST AS ANALYST OF GROUP POLITICAL BEHAVIOR | [63] |
| Economic Groups | [63] |
| The Lumpenproletariat | [63] |
| Peasants | [64] |
| Labor | [65] |
| Proletarians | [68] |
| The Middle Class | [68] |
| The Rich and Well Born | [69] |
| Political Groups | [72] |
| Office Holders: Rules and Skills | [73] |
| The Mechanics of Control | [75] |
| International Communism | [76] |
| Analysis of Mass Phenomena | [78] |
| Chapter Six. THE NOVELIST AS ANALYST OF INDIVIDUAL POLITICAL BEHAVIOR | [79] |
| Motivation | [79] |
| Moral Problems and Changing Values | [81] |
| The Successful Politician | [82] |
| Political Pathology: Deviates, Martyrs, and Authoritarians | [84] |
| Men Behind the Scenes | [88] |
| The Disillusioned | [88] |
| The Role of Woman | [91] |
| Chapter Seven. SOME CONCLUSIONS | [93] |
| Bibliography | [96] |
chapter one
The Study of the Political Novel
The Importance of the Political Novel
In an age in which progressively more men have engaged in politics while the politics themselves have become increasingly complex, any means for understanding these interrelated phenomena becomes correspondingly more valuable. The techniques of science are constantly being brought to bear upon this problem of understanding. But one of the best means of enlightenment has been available for more than a hundred years. Since its beginning the political novel has fulfilled the ancient function of art. It has described and interpreted human experience, selectively taking the facts of existence and imposing order and form upon them in an aesthetic pattern to make them meaningful. The political novel is important to the student of literature as one aspect of the art of fiction, just as is the psychological novel or the economic novel. But it is important in a larger context, too. The reader who wants a vivid record of past events, an insight into the nature of political beings, or a prediction of what lies ahead can find it in the political novel. As an art form and an analytical instrument, the political novel, now as ever before, offers the reader a means for understanding important aspects of the complex society in which he lives, as well as a record of how it evolved.
The Nature of the Political Novel: Problems of Definition and Selection
The political novel is hard to define. To confine it to activity in the houses of Congress or Parliament is to look at the top floor of the political structure and to ignore the main floor and basement which support it. One has to follow the novelist’s characters, on the stump and into committee rooms—sometimes even farther. But the line is drawn where the political element is forced into the background by the sociological or economic. The political milieu develops in part out of the conditions described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Although these books are proletarian novels, to include them would be to open the door to a flood of books that would spread far beyond the space limitations of this study. Of course, proletarian novels which are also political novels are included. Two such books are André Malraux’s Man’s Fate and Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle. But for the purposes of this study, a cast of characters drawn from the proletariat is not enough, even if they are oppressed economically and socially. They must carry out political acts or move in a political environment. Also excluded are novels such as Herman Melville’s Mardi which treat politics allegorically or symbolically. Here a political novel is taken to mean a book which directly describes, interprets, or analyzes political phenomena.
Our prime material is the politician at work: legislating, campaigning, mending political fences, building his career. Also relevant are the people who influence him: his parents, his wife, his mistress, the girl who jilted him, the lobbyist who courted his favor. The primary criterion for admission of a novel to this group was the portrayal of political acts, so many of them that they formed the novel’s main theme or, in some cases, a major theme. These acts are not always obvious ones like legislating. In Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo a mine owner contributes financial support to political movements which will provide a more favorable climate for his business. In Dubious Battle presents labor organizers who manipulate a strike to serve the political ends of the Communist Party. The terminology of the theater can be helpful in bridging the gap between the world of actual events and the world of fiction. It helps to show how various aspects of the actual political process are translated into the forms of fiction. The author may concentrate his attention upon the actors—the public officials who make decisions and wield authority on behalf of the community or the whole society. A good many of the actors may not be public officials, but rather private citizens whose acts are political: voicing opinions, helping to select candidates, voting, attempting to influence the political process, revolting. These actors, and those who are public officials, may demonstrate factors in the overall drama which are predominantly political in their consequences: attitudes, social power, social stratification. The novelist will be concerned with the roles the actors play and the lines they speak, the purposes they have and the strategies they employ. He may concentrate upon the interaction between these actors or between them and the audience—the public. An author may choose to emphasize the drama as a whole rather than the individual actors, highlighting the stage upon which it is played out—the country or area of national life in which the scenes are laid. This emphasis upon the drama will throw into sharp relief the events and decisions in which the actors participate, and the framework of rules or custom against which they take place.
The novels considered here deal with political activity at all levels—local, state, national, and international. If, as von Clausewitz said, “War is merely the continuation of Politics by other means,” one may find politics in war, too. This study, therefore, includes works on revolutionary as well as parliamentary politics. On the international level especially one encounters group attitudes which are politically relevant. The groups may be the conventional social, economic, or political strata of British and American society, or they may be those of the rigid Marxist state. Other relevant attitudes spring from national characteristics, and many political novels identify some of them. This definition is wide and inclusive, but so is political activity.
The primary sources of this study are eighty-one political novels. Over half of them are by Americans. The next largest group is the work of English writers. Other novels are taken from Italian, French, German, Russian, and South African literature. These eighty-one novels are the minimum necessary to give an understanding of the political novel. At the same time, this is the maximum number that could be included in the study. Only in the case of the English and American political novel has an attempt been made to trace the development of literary genre. Some of these novels are used because they show artistic excellence, others because they show how the form developed historically. More American than English novels are used because they are more readily available, many of them in inexpensive, paper-bound editions. It was not possible to attempt the same outline with the other literatures because of the brevity of this study. For some of them, too, a sufficiently representative group of political novels was not available.