Realism

248 Korg shows great range and depth in comparing characters, themes, and devices of novelists, while giving only the scantiest attention to the theater of the 1890's. Among other novels, THE ODD WOMEN and THE WHIRLPOOL would have provided valuable comparisons to the representation of unhappy marriages in current dramas. In his concluding pages, Korg gathers the themes and patterns from his discussions of the novels and formulates his final judgment of Gissing's talent and accomplishment. In fewer than ten pages that deserve a careful reading, and not a hasty sampling or summary, Professor Korg renders a critical appreciation that deserves to stand with the appraisals by WeIlis, Thomas Seccombe, and Frank Swinnerton, Gissing's best critics at the start of the century. Loyola University (Chicago) Joseph J. Wolff 4. Real ism DOCUMENTS OF MODERN LITERARY REALISM. Ed by George J. Becker. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P, 1963- $8.50. Professor Becker's collection of documents bearing on one significant development in modern prose fiction has some similarity to two other collections published a year ago: Eugene Current-Garcia and Walton R. Patrick's REALISM AND ROMANTICISM: AN APPROACH TO THE NOVEL and Howard E. Hugo's ASPECTS OF FICTION: A HAND BOOK (both reviewed in ELT, Vl: 2 [19631, 124-25). Mr. Becker's book is in its inclusions and in its introductory chapter far superior to the Current-Garcia and Patrick volume; it is more limited in scope than Hugo's book but in quality as excellent as I reported the Hugo collection to be. In its over 600 pages, it has the advantage of treating a narrower subject more thoroughly; it includes about 46 essays of varying length, most of them in full. It has the disadvantage of being priced rather too high to serve readily as one of perhaps a dozen texts normally used in a course in the novel from, say, 1880 on or in a course dealing with the literary movements which dominated English, American, and Continental literature from about the mid-19th century to about World War II. However, this volume should be on the reserve shelf for any course in English, American, or Continental fiction since about 1880. In content Hugo's book and Becker's book overlap only slightly. Both use passages from Flaubert's CORRESPONDENCE, but Becker gives more passages and generally fuller ones; both use passages from different works by George Eliot; both use passages from Zola's LE ROMAN EXPERIMENTAL, but Becker gives two extended essays and also includes the preface to the first volume of the RougonMacquart series; both give passages from different works by James; both include items by De Maupassant, but Becker uses a less often reprinted one; both use E. -M. De Vogue's preface to LE ROMAN RUSSE, but Becker adds the "Manifesto of Five Against LA TERRE"; Becker reproduces more of Tolstoy's "Guy de Maupassant" (1894) than Hugo; and both give passages by Malcolm Cowley, although from different works. Very few selections, even for the same authors, are identical. These two books, in fact, remarkably complement each other. Hugo's book covers more "aspects" of 249 the novel and gives passages from works representative of a longer period; Becker's book treats in depth the realist-naturalist movement only and, except for earlier items in the first section ("The Impulse Toward Realism"), emphasizes the period from I87O on. Immersed in research on George Moore as I am, It Is perhaps not unnatural for me to be disappointed that one of Moore's prefaces or reviews is not Included In either Becker's or Hugo's book. Moore was very much involved in the English real Ist-natural i st movement; Moore was, like Arthur Symons, Edmund Gosse, and a few others, a significant transmitter of French literature into England. Perhaps Moore's "My Impressions of Zola" (1894) or, In Its later revised form, "A Visit to Medan"; his review of L1OEUVRE or LE REVE; his preface to PIPING HOT or to THE RUSH FOR THE SPOIL; or his essay on Balzac might have been Included. Similarly, Hardy's "Candour in English Fiction" might also have found a place In...