II. THE NOVEL AN INFERIOR FORM OF ART
A. BEGINNINGS OF THE NOVEL
11. The novel in its proper shape did not come to the birth in England till the time of Fielding and Richardson, but it had long been in process of formation. The seventeenth century at its close had lost the tragic impulse of its youth. The ecstatic hope of a new world, combined with the sad and wondering recollection of the old, which had raised the human spirit to the height of the Shakesperian tragedy, had died out, and the age had become eminently satisfied with itself. Wits, philosophers, and poets, alike were full of the present time. While the wits complimented each other on their superiority to the weaknesses of mankind, they made no scruple of indulging those weaknesses in their own persons. It was part of their business to do so, for it was part of "life." The only difference between them and other men was that they were weak and laughed over it, while others were weak and serious. Philosophers congratulated themselves on their new enlightenment; but it was an enlightenment which gave them insight into things as they are, not as they are to be. "The proper study of mankind," they held was "man;" man, however, not in his boundless promise, but in the mean performance with which they proclaimed themselves satisfied. The poetry of the time was, at best, merely common-sense with ornamentation. It was neither lyrical nor tragic, though it may have tried to be both. It represented man neither as withdrawn into himself, nor as transported into an ideal world of action, but as observing and reasoning on his present affairs. The satire and moral essay were its characteristic forms.
B. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SPECTATOR
12. The most pleasing expression of this self-satisfaction of the age is found in the Spectator, the first and best representative of that special style of literature—the only really popular literature of our time—which consists in talking to the public about itself. Humanity is taken as reflected in the ordinary life of men; and, as thus reflected, it is copied with the most minute fidelity. No attempt is made either to suppress the baser elements of man's nature, or to transfigure them by a stronger light than that of the common understanding. No deeper laws are recognised than those which vindicate themselves to the eye of daily observation, no motives purer than the "mixed" ones which the practical philosopher delights to analyse, no life higher than that which is qualified by animal wants. The reader never finds himself carried into a region where it requires an effort to travel, or which is above the existing level of opinion and morality. It is from this levelness with life that the Spectator derives its interest—an interest so nearly the same, barring the absence of plot, with that of the novel, as to lead Macaulay to pronounce Addison "the forerunner of the great English novelists."[11] The elements of the novel, indeed, already existed in Addison's time, and only required combination. Fictitious biography, which may be regarded as its raw material, had been written by Defoe with a life-like reality which has never since been equalled; and the popular drama furnished plots, in the shape of love stories drawn from present life. Let the adventures of the fictitious biography, instead of being merely external to the man, as in Defoe, be made subservient to that display of character in which Addison had shown himself a master, and let them become steps in the development of a love-plot, and the novel—the novel of the last century, at any rate—is fully formed. As was the self-contented, and therefore uncreative and prosaic, thought of the age, which produced the novel, such the novel itself continued to be. Man, comfortable and acquiescent, wished to amuse himself by a reflex of the life which he no longer aspired to transcend. He wanted to enjoy himself twice over—in act and in fancy; or, if the former were denied him, at least to explore in fancy the world of pleasure and excitement, of which circumstances abridged or disturbed his enjoyment in fact. In "the smooth tale, generally of love,"[12] the novelist supplied the want.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] "We have not the least doubt that, if Addison had written a novel, on an extensive plan, it would have been superior to any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be considered, not only as the greatest of the English essayists, but as the forerunner of the great English novelists."—Macaulay, 'Life and writings of Addison.'
[12] "A small tale, generally of love."—Johnson's Dictionary.