plot, especially at the climax and catastrophe. In some works of art, the central idea is virtually technical in spirit, but in the novel it is usually on a broader basis, being ethical, social, historical, or psychological in spirit. It may be identical with the original germ, or define itself as the process of composition proceeds. A theme, like a plot, may be stated in various degrees of abstraction; and it is usually helpful to consider it in direct relation to the individual work, and in comparison with other works in which it is of similar value. In Robinson Crusoe, the main theme may perhaps be stated as the conquest of the individual over circumstances, through the power of reason, patience, and reliance on Providence. In Soll und Haben, the theme, stated concretely, is the moral excellence of the German commercial character; more abstractly, the moral excellence of German national character; still more abstractly (perhaps beyond the conscious purpose of the author), the superiority of sane, well-regulated life over the life of passion and capricious emotion. In Wilhelm Meister, the education and self-culture of the individual, through social experience and reflection, is one conception of the main theme. In Romola, the contrast between self-indulgence and selfrenunciation, as moral habits, is at least a very important theme. CHAPTER VIII STYLE 121. General Conception. For present purposes, three of the numerous shades in the meaning of style may be noted: (1) The whole causal relation of the qualities in an artistic structure to the mind of the artist- the objectivesubjective bond. It is clear that in this sense every work of art has style. (2) Adequacy of expression. This is substantially the idea in Spencer's principle of "economy," and is one common conception of a "good style." It does not necessarily imply beauty or rarity of expression, for the mind expressed may lack these qualities. In this sense, style is of high excellence in Boccaccio, Cervantes, Rabelais, Defoe, and Jane Austen; less successful in Scott, Balzac, Tolstoi, and Zola. It is often unattained in George Meredith, because he fails to convey his ideas to the average reader, or to distinguish the language of his characters from his own, as he apparently attempts to do. This (3) Conscious adaptation of means to purpose. conscious control of the medium of expression may be highly intellectual, critical, associated with the labor lima, or more spontaneous. It is most naturally and most severely tested in details, as commonly implied in the phrase, "a great stylist." In this sense, Goethe, Manzoni, Hugo, Flaubert, and Stevenson are eminent stylists. 122. Objective and Subjective Aspects. The fully objective aspects of style appear directly in the external structure, and are readily distinguished from the author's intention and the reader's interpretation. The differences between vowel melody and consonantal friction, the interrogative and the imperative sentence, or iambic and anapestic rhythm, are external, and may be examined without reference to their shade of meaning. (Compare the structural details noticed in Sections 8, 9, 19, 23-24, and passim in Chapter I.) Only when this meaning is considered, does one pass into the study of style, properly speaking. The frequency of such words as "fortune," "good-breeding,” “gentleman," "manners," etc., in Jane Austen, suggests elegance as a quality of her own mind. Defoe's itemized lists of articles, and his numerical division of expository passages indicate concreteness in his observation and thought. The elaborate divisions of the Comédie Humaine — paragraph, set dramatic speech, all kinds of document, part and book are evidences of complexity in Balzac's own nature. (See the footnote, page 24.) But language is the most subjective of all artistic mediums, except possibly musical sound, and it is convenient to give a wider meaning to objectivity. Whatever values are determined by a general social consent, as distinguished from the individual interpretation of writer or reader, may be considered as at least semi-objective. In the sentence, "She's a very pretty, nice girl, isn't she, Nancy?" the simplicity is fully objective-clearly marked in vocabulary and syntax; the degree of pathos depends on the reader's power of memory and imaginative association, with reference to the whole plot. In the sentence, "All I say is, it's a lovely carkiss,” the humor in the mispronounced word and the unusual phrase appeals to the majority of readers, as it did to the author. (Examples from Silas Marner, Chapters XX and VI.) 123. Qualities of Style. The above analysis suggests that the qualities most clearly stylistic are such as have both objective and subjective significance. Ductility can be predicated only of matter, timidity, only of the mind; complexity and concreteness may appear both in the material structure and in the mental attitude. This distinction is blurred by the common application to the mind, in a figurative sense, of qualities such as weight, color, and smoothness, which refer in a literal sense only to matter. The analysis here in question is a practical one, without attention to psychological subtlety. For ordinary purposes, any quality of mind may be called stylistic when it is revealed by the objective structure. Introspection is discovered in George Eliot by such words as "memory," " "consciousness,” "self-questioning," and "rumination"; though language itself, viewed as audible sound, is not introspective. 124. Types of Style. A fairly determinate combination of qualities, characteristic of a certain source, kind, or medium of expression, may be called a type. Types may be based on forms of art-e.g. architectural, literary; on kinds of literature-e.g. novelistic, epic; on rhetorical forme.g. descriptive, narrative; on schools or periods in artistic history-e.g. pseudo-classical; on nationality, race, or individuality. Style is the immediate expression of an individual mind, but the individual is always modified by the thought and feeling of social groups, and is representative of human nature in general. Some critics incline to limit the study of style to the first of these values, but the wider view appeals to those interested in the social meaning of art. Some types of style having particular association, in various degrees, with the history of fiction, are the Euphuistic, picaresque, Rabelaisian, heroic, and naturalistic. Such broad types as the last, and the sentimental, pastoral, romantic, and realistic, may be studied with sole reference to the novel, but they are really general æsthetic types, and are often more profitably examined as such. 125. Value of Style in the Novel. Style in the first sense given in Section 121 is worth careful study in any great or widely representative novel; in the other and narrower meanings, style is a very variable value in fiction. On the whole, the novel has not been characterized by such adequacy or conscious control in the details of expression, as the drama, epic, or short story. The length of the novel and its amorphous nature are somewhat antagonistic to perfect, sustained correspondence of language with delicate shades of thought and feeling. Such intensive ideals of style, æsthetic or psychological, as those of Poe or Professor Raleigh,1 require the short story rather than the novel for satisfactory embodiment. The frequent mention of the laborious apprenticeship of Maupassant and the strenuous efforts of Stevenson, possibly indicates the rarity of such stylistic conscience in the field of fiction. The value of style varies greatly in different national literatures, as well as in individuals. In the main, French and Italian fiction are of more eminent excellence, in this respect, than English or German. The numerous inconsistences in Cervantes, Rabelais, and Scott are well-known. If Robinson Crusoe was really intended to be allegorical, Defoe has not clearly impressed this idea upon the reader of the first and second parts. Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola do not adequately carry out in practise their ideals of realism. In longer works, a frequent cause of imperfect style is radical change of plan or extended interval during the course of composition. Compare Don Quixote, Gil Blas, Joseph Andrews, Waverley, and Wilhelm Meister. Spielhagen traces the tangled structure of Middlemarch largely to the change of conception after the novel was begun, and emphasizes the necessity and difficulty of keeping a single point of view throughout a work.2 Among novels in which style is of exceptional importance are Atala, Taras Bulba, La Peau de Chagrin, Il Trionfo della Morte. Perhaps d'Annunzio is the greatest living stylist in the domain of the novel. 1 See his monograph on Style. & Technik des Romans; Der Held im Roman. |