Aside from occasional references to poetry and art in his philosophical writings, as, for example, in the opening paragraphs of the 'Prolegomena,' the essay on fiction here reprinted is Green's only venture in the field of aesthetic criticism. When we remember that it was one of his earliest productions, having been submitted for the Chancellor's prize in 1862, when Green was but 26 years of age, the maturity of both style and contents seems remarkable. It is in fact a monumental piece of literary criticism, sufficient to establish the reputation of many a lesser writer. At the same time, however, there is about it an air of constraint which shows that the author was not at ease in this kind of speculation. He was fencing, so to speak, with his left hand. His mind was so absorbed in the metaphysical, ethical, and religious aspects of experience that upon the aesthetic as such he had little attention to bestow. When he approached aesthetic problems at all it was for the purpose of obtaining data which he could employ in other fields of thought. He was obviously not in sympathy with the aims of English novelists. He had no expert knowledge of the history of fiction in England, and no knowledge at all, so far as appears, of its history in other countries. Probably he misunderstood the relation, in certain particulars, of the novel to the epic. Nevertheless, his appreciation of concrete works of art was so genuine and profound, his insight so clear, his expressed judgments so candid, that any contact of his mind with art, literary or other, could not fail to be illuminating. Whatever its limitations, the essay has at least one distinguishing merit: in it a fundamental principle of criticism is applied with merciless rigor to the solution of a literary problem. The products of such a method are certain to be interesting and valuable. Whether we agree with the author's conclusions or not, we can at least see whence he derives them and feel the stimulus which always comes from the spectacle of a powerful mind grappling in deadly earnest with momentous questions of art and life.
AN ESTIMATE
of the
Value and Influence of
Works of Fiction in
Modern Times
I. PRINCIPLES OF ART
A. EPIC, DRAMA, AND NOVEL
1. We commonly distinguish writings which appeal directly to the emotions from those of which the immediate object is the conveyance of knowledge, by applying to the former a term of conveniently loose meaning, "works of imagination." Of the kinds included in the wide denotation of this term there are three, between which it seems difficult at first sight to draw a definite line; which appeal to similar feelings, and excite a similar interest, in the different ages to which each is appropriate. These are the epic poem, the drama, and the novel. Each purports to be, in some sort, a reflex of human life and action, as obeying certain laws and tending to a certain end. In each men are represented, not as at rest, or in contemplative isolation, but in co-operation or collision. In each there is a combination of two elements, an outer element of incident, an inner of passion and character. In view of these common features, we might be tempted at first sight to suppose the difference between the three kinds to be merely one of form, merely the difference between the vehicle of prose and the vehicle of metre. We shall find, however, on deeper inquiry, that to the true artist, who does not find his materials in the world, but creates them according to the inner laws by which the world and himself are governed, the vehicle is not more a part of his creation than the "impassioned truth" which it conveys. Here, as elsewhere, form and substance are inseparable; and the difference of form that distinguishes the novel from the other kinds of composition which it seems for the present to have superseded, symbolises, or rather is identical with, a different potency in the art by which the substance is created.[1]