written language. Specific situations, plot-outlines and character-types are often of great antiquity. If separate types of fiction are narrowly defined, there are several which have all the historical interest of extinct species.

The romance of chivalry, roughly speaking, had a vogue of some two centuries. - Pastoral romance arose in the decadent period of Greek literature, was revived in the Renaissance, and practically disappeared as a type in the seventeenth century. The heroic romance became a well-defined form in the seventeenth century: its death-throes, in the next century, are described in an interesting manner in Miss Reeve's Progress of Romance.

By the "lifetime" of an individual work, one may mean general popularity, vital significance, as distinguished from mere historical interest, for the select few, or enduring reputation. In the careful study of a famous novel, it might be worth while to trace its history somewhat systematically; noting, for example, the circulation or influence for the first year, the first decade, then for each succeeding generation. A temporary revival of interest is a common phenomenon, in the history of both species and individual works.

163. Place Distribution. All the great novels have been international, not only in reputation, but in literary influence. Spielhagen considers that the exposition of a national life to the people of other nations is one of the distinguishing functions of the modern novel.1

It is not to be expected that the reception of a novel abroad will coincide with that at home. When the differences are striking, a study of their social and political causes makes an interesting part of the critical task.

Compare the treatment of Cooper, Julian Hawthorne, and Theodore Winthrop in Nichol's American Literature, with that by American

1 Technik des Romans; Das Gebiet des Romans.

critics.

"The popular literature of America is English, and the popular literature of England is American." (Senior.) — Edmond Scherer wrote of George Eliot, in 1885, "the very name of this writer . . . is hardly known among ourselves, and arouses neither memory nor interest." - Reich names Kemény as probably a greater Hungarian novelist than Jokai.

The data of translation give a convenient if imperfect basis for judging of the foreign popularity of a novel.

Of Robinson Crusoe, there were 60 known imitations and parodies in Germany before 1770. Werther was honored by 14 English translations, to 1854; 19 French, to 1865; 8 Italian, to 1857; 5 Spanish, to 1876; and has been rendered into Danish, Dutch, Hungarian, Polish, Swedish, etc. - In 1877, I Promessi Sposi had known 116 Italian editions; and had been translated 17 times into German, 19 into French, 10 into English, 3 into Spanish, and at least once into Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Swedish, etc.

164. Influence upon Literature. No single novel has attained the position of an Iliad or a Hamlet in the world of literature, or been accepted by the literary academies as a standard of excellence-perhaps Don Quixote approaches such position as closely as any prose fiction —; but innumerable novels have exerted an important influence upon literature, either directly or indirectly. The novelist has often had an effective hand in the establishment or destruction of literary fashions. He has often found strong disciples, or weak imitators; or has met a spirited reactionary movement, of which burlesque is one easily perceived phase.

The effect of a novel upon other works of prose fiction is one of the most important and readily traced lines of influence. There are certain great European novels, relatively few in number, which are recognized as the ancestors of the vast majority of lesser novels. Intimate acquaintance with these parent fictions is a long step

toward a real understanding of the history of European fiction. Of course all these novels are themselves descendants as well as ancestors, but they may be considered as founding new branches of the family.

Among such works are The Decameron, Amadis of Gaul, Montemayor's Diana, Don Quixote, Lazarillo de Tormes, Clarissa, Werther, Waverley, and Poe's short stories.

For a single national literature, Russian fiction, on account of its comparative compactness and unity, is a good field in which to study the influence of novelist upon novelist. See, for example, Turner and Merejkowski for the dynamic relations of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Turgenieff, and Tolstoi.

The development of the novel has had a large influence upon literary criticism. Many of the problems of technical analysis, of the relations of art to science and morals, etc., in current criticism, have been modified if not introduced by the vogue of prose fiction. In fact, one occasionally hears the complaint that some recent writers seem to mean, by the criticism of literature, the criticism of fiction.

Wilhelm Meister influenced the critical theory of Friedrich Schlegel. George Eliot seems to have been an important factor in determining the general critical position of Edmond Scherer. - Zola's works have shaped the discussion of realism to an almost abnormal degree. One is sometimes in danger of forgetting that realism is as old as literature, and that it is found in other arts than literature.

Many eminent novelists have themselves been critics of some noteamong them, Goethe, Thackeray, Hugo, Spielhagen, Poe, and Tolstoi. The novelists, as a class, have been liberal readers of works of fiction.

The novel has not only affected popular conceptions of history, but, as represented by the Scott school, has had an appreciable influence upon historical writing. Carlyle gave some severe criticism of the Waverley Novels, but he praised their general effect upon the interpretation of history.

165. Social Groups in General. Under ordinary conditions, a novel reaches one individual at a time, and the phenomenon of a compact social group won to a "social consent" by its influence is less common than in the case of architecture, music, oratory, or the drama.

So far as it is possible to arrive at a "détermination des catégories d'admirateurs" (Hennequin), the data may throw light upon an individual novel, and upon certain social groups. Preferences in the reading of fiction may show the unconscious nature of the reader, his real emotional and æsthetic self, which lies below the social being the world knows. Of Giddings' "types of mind" (see Section 87), the fourth is doubtless less easily influenced by fiction than the others; but when it does respond to the appeal of a novel, the response is deserving of careful study. Many persons of critical intellect, however, still take the novel with little seriousness as compared with other forms of art. The real students of the novel make a small class in any reading community.

The novel has probably had a very slight influence upon general philosophy; but now and then fragments of the interpretation of life by the novelist may have penetrated the sanctum sanctorum of the philosophers.

Coleridge notes the manner in which the conception of "love" passed from the sentimental novelists to Buffon, other French naturalists, and into Swedish and English philosophy.1

The influence of fiction upon the young and upon women has often been discussed. In early days, many novels and romances were written mainly for these social classes; but the modern realist has claimed the right to win an audience of mature men.

1 Aids to Reflection; On Sensibility.

The relation of fiction to the young was a frequent topic in late eighteenth century criticism. At the same time, there was a movement aiming to produce a better class of fictions for youthful readers.

Note the references to women readers in Euphues, The Spectator, The Rape of the Lock, Pamela, the dramas of Sheridan, etc. Rightly or wrongly, it is affirmed that woman is more likely than man to be influenced by fiction; more ready to be moved by her likes and dislikes. Nordau traces the worship of the military officer, among the women of Germany, to fiction; and declares that 'the Parisienne is completely the work of the French journalists and novelists.'1

166. Influence upon Individuals. — A novel is likely to interest the individual reader, to please or offend him in a marked degree, because it brings him face to face with other strong individuals, with social groups to which his imagination must adjust itself, and with a more or less positive interpretation of the life he himself knows, in outline if not in detail.

While the novel is not characteristically written for the "fit audience, though few," most of the great minds of Europe, at all interested in art, have left some record of their impressions of this or that famous novel. Ben Jonson requests every man in his audience to "exercise his own judgment, and not censure by contagion." 2 The fear of a critical "contagion” may sometimes drive an independent mind into fantastic revolt against the popular judgment; but the candid opinion of a single honest thinker is worth weighing, even in the criticism of a novel. It is part of that entire body of mental experiences in which the individual novel is a real element.

Gray's comments upon The Castle of Otranto and upon Ossian make interesting reading. — Samuel Johnson was a passionate lover of romance, in spite of his didactic criticism of it; and he attributed his 1 Paradoxes: The Natural History of Love; The Import of Fiction. 2 Induction to Bartholomew Fair.