Samuel Butler Up to Date

17. SAtTUEL BUTLER UP TO DATE By Lee E. Holt Three different types of reaction characterize many of the recent minor evaluations of the works of Samuel Butler. We gather from the first group of critics that Butler's work was once important but that it is weak and dead for us now. As an illustration of this, we find a much more favorable discussion of Butler in the original edition of THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE1 than in THE CONCISE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY,2 in which THE ViAY OF ALL FLESH is described as "revolting." "The-book has been highly praised-by certain writers and it has influenced some of them, not altogether for the good," this volume tells us0 "It has never taken a place in the affection or esteem of the common reader." But if this is true, we wonder, how explain the fact that reprints of THE ViAY OF ALL FLESH still continue to come from the press, with large numbers of copies sold? The Harkness bibliography3 lists 37 editions, not counting reprints, and 13 of them have been published since I94O0 EREViHON has had even more editions—39 through 1945. A second group of critics shows its disdain for Butler by simply ignoring him even when he should be treated. Typical of this group are the essayists of THE REINTERPRETATION OF VICTORIAN LITERATURE4 who refer to him only once, and then as an eccentric. Joseph Warren Beach only mentions Butler in the Craig A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, merely saying that "with Hardy, George Moore,'Gissing, and Butler the spirit of jovial cheerfulness fades out of English fiction," and comparing him with G.B.S. as a master of slight of hand.5 Sean O'Faolain in his THE VANISHING HERO,6 John McCormick in his CATASTROPHE AND BKGINATION, ' and H.G. Woods in his BELIEF AND UNBELIEF SINCE 18508 skip over Butler entirely though Butler's work is important to the theses of these books. The 1949 BBC Third Program Broadcasts on IDEAS AMD BELIEFS OF THE VICTORIANS9 made no mention of Butler. A third group-of critics flatly damn Butler, Typical of this group is Jerome Hamilton Buckley, who in his THE VICTORIZJi TEMPER says that "the average English child of the fifties and sixties was actually accorded a deeper sympathetic understanding than childhood had known at any earlier time in the history of modern civilization" and calls Butler a liar for saying otherwise, υ These are mere straws in the wind, We must pass on to more substantial work, the real weather vanes. A major weakness in the recent important studies of our author is, I feel, their failure to rise to the challenge of Butler's intellectual brilliance . Their authors do not realize how closely they themselves often verge on the ridiculous. It is a simple fact that we moderns take ourselves too seriously to be able to do justice to this particular gifted Victorian. "Π12 I feel quite certain that both P.N. Furbank"1-1- and Philip Henderson, authors of recent book-length studies of Butler, like'their subject: they themselves tell us so, in no uncertain terms. Henderson says, "It is-my delight in the personality of Butler that is responsible for the present book," and Furbank condemns Malcolm Muggeridge's study of Butler, THE EARNEST ATHEIST,l·? because it does not explain Butler's genius. But after following through the sometimes effective analysas of Henderson and Furbank, the reader feels disappointed, for the essential Samuel Butler is not there. He has escaped them, slipped his way through their discussions, Editor's Note: This report was presented orally and informally at the meeting of the Conference on English Fiction in Transition in New York City, 29 December 1958. 18. and gone. Furbank, like Muggeridge whom he took to task, hasn't explained Butler's genius. Henderson hasn't succeeded in sharing with us his delight in Butler's personality. Indeed, if we hadn't known Butler already through his work, Henderson 's book would have made us dislike him. A sense of humor is, I think, the key. We live in an analytical age, and analysis is fitting and...