Art and Reality

263 and whole, in all of its multiple facets, provide extraordinary ancillary materials for the study, mainly literary, but otherwise as well, of what we may term Victorian Civilization. The range is broad, the intertwinings made clear. Let us salute Dyos, Wolff, and their contributors for a monumental, though not marmoreal, survey, both useful and beautiful, of the realms of Victoriana. The expense ($85.00) is a sad necessity; a perusal is not! Hahnemann Medical College Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV Philadelphia 5. Art and Reality Paul Goetsch, Die Romankonzeption in England 1880-1910 (Heidelberg : Carl Winter UniversitStsverlag, I967). DM 68". In dealing with the concept- of the English novel between 1880 and I9IO, Professor Goetsch does not set out to attempt a systematic presentation of the critical and theoretical tenets that were prevalent in the criticism of that period. The very multiplicity of interpretations of the necessary relationship between art and reality precludes a satisfactory exploration of a common theoretical basis of all the concepts discussed by critics and writers. What Prof. Goetsch does is to present, historically and descriptively , the changes in the interplay between art and reality. In doing so he examines the critical discussion of this topic in twenty-one important magazines of the period (cf. p. 14) and the theories of eleven outstanding authors which are very often much more daring and progressive than those of the critics. He also analyzes the novels of these authors in order to determine the quality of the reality presented in them. By thus measuring their specific degree of approximation to reality, Prof. Goetsch gathers additional information about their concepts of the novel and the writers' idea of the possibility, desirability, and quality , of the transformation of reality. In his introduction, Prof. Goetsch briefly but ably sketches the well-known factors which justify the historian examining the period to define it as a self-contained historical unit. He hints at the social and political changes of the time and at the philosophical and religious movements that slowly eroded the idealistic Victorian concept of reality which had asserted an ideal harmony underlying all the seeming disorder of surface events as experienced by the common man. Changes in the educational system enlarged the groups of potential readers and thereby contributed to the discussion about the aims of novel-writing and the target-groups to which individual authors addressed themselves . The gradual loss of belief in an objective order and the various responses of the major writers of the time finally 264· converged in a growing subjectivation in the representation of reality. This modern element slowly, almost reluctantly, replaced traditional Victorian concepts of reality, and by I9IO it won the days the subsequent emergence of authors like James Joyce, D. H, Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf testifies to the event. The basic assumption presented in the introduction to this book, that the concept of the novel can only be described accurately by ascertaining the specific quality and kind of its approximation to reality presupposes a very definite notion of what this reality was like. It is in this respect that this otherwise thorough and comprehensive work leaves something to be desired. Prof. Goetsch's presentation of contemporary reality, both social and intellectual, is rather sketchy. This certainly does not invalidate his critical judgments, but it does lessen the impact of his analyses of individual authors. Their characteristic attempts at interpretation of their contemporary world would have stood out in bolder relief if that world had been dealt with somewhat less summarily. As for literary ambience, on the other hand, Prof. Goetsch does not overlook the importance of the influence of French naturalism and Russian realism on the debate in England. Even though he deals somewhat briefly with these two important factors (his discussion of their influence on individual English authors not excluded), he convincingly demonstrates that the importance of French naturalism as an influence has often been overrated. The full impact, for example, of Zola's theory and practice did not bring about a wholesale conversion among English novelists to the principles of monistic determinism. The vehement discussion of and reaction against naturalism after George Moore's early imitation served just as much to...