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On Realism and GenreAuthor(s): Robert ScholesSource: NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Spring, 1969), pp. 269-271Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1344937

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C r i t i c a l E x c h a n g e

On Realism and Genre

ROBERTSCHOLES

The points at issue between Mr. Pritchard and myself can be brought to a usefulfocus around one key phrase in his review of The Fabulators [NOVEL,Winter,

1969]. It appears twice in this short review and seems to constitute for Mr. Pritch-

ard a kind of touchstone for fictional excellence. He approves of novels that con-

vey "the reek of the human." To me this phrase suggests a set of attitudes that

might loosely be called naturalistic. It suggests an assumption that life is mainlya matter of "reeks"-a rather nasty affair that can be documented through the

rendering of physical sensations. Now I would argue that the humanity of our

great works of fiction has never resided primarily in their documentation of sensa-

tions or physical details. This is a useful but minor dimension of the story-teller'sart. But the greatest fictions of all ages have derived their value from the way that

in them certain highly individualized characters and situations have also func-

tioned as "types" with a validity beyond their context. All great fiction has been

allegorical in the sense that the instances presented in it reverberate in a more gen-eral world of types. In the work of the masters of realistic fiction these types have

been mainly psychological and sociological, and these writers have schooled us

to see "reality" in their realistic way. But now realism has become a system of per-

ceptual conventions which prevents us from seeing our existence clearly, and

which can be exploited mechanically by inferior writers to trigger stock responses

in unthinking audiences. We encounter a "reek"-and we say, "O, yes, that's hu-

manity," or "that's life." Until a new master of fiction comes along and shows us

that truth and humanity have really ebbed away from conventional realism.

I have, in a way, been paraphrasing or re-stating the view of realism developed

by Harry Levin in the opening chapters of The Gates of Horn, but I would pushthat view farther than I believe Mr. Levin does. It seems to me that the whole phe-nomenon known as realism has been governed for some centuries by empiricalassumptions and attitudes about the nature of reality, and that these assumptionsare now beginning to lose their force just as the theological assumptions that gov-

erned what Auerbach called "figural realism" lost their force with the waning ofthe Middle Ages. We are at an ideological watershed, with a great view backwardand nothing but fog ahead. In this fog I believe I see in the writers I have calledfabulators the way toward a new reality, a new truth. Works like The Lime Twig,The Unicorn, and Giles Goat-Boy help me to understand and feel myself and my

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NOVEL SPRING 1969

world. That is why I spent fully half my book in a detailed explicative study of just

those three books. In The Nature of Narrative Robert Kellogg and I tried to en-courage a view of realism as one valid kind of fiction among others. In the theory of

modes and genres that I sketched out recently in NOVEL [Winter, 1969] my aim

was to present a useful conceptual framework for the study of fiction that

would not cut its students off from fictional possibilities and values which the sys-

tem itself does not foresee. If in The Fabulators I took certain figures in the fog to

be seers and prophets, who turn out merely to be abominable snowmen, then time

will show me up. But meanwhile I don't think anyone has the right to assume infal-

libility on behalf of his own taste in these matters. I have studied my subject with

some energy and diligence. I think I have earned the right to my enthusiasms. I

await the judgment of time calmly and respectfully.

I suspect a good deal of confusion may result from Mr. Mills's use of the term

"genre critics" [in NOVEL, Winter, 1969] to designate a group that I would call

"culture critics." I wish (naturally) that he had not used the term, since I think of

myself (at times) as a "genre critic" and yet share many of his objections to the

criticism he discusses. He calls his straw men "genre critics" because they abuse

the terms "novel" and "romance." On precisely the same grounds I would argue

that these men are not practicing generic or modal study as I understand them.

That will be my first point of response. My second will be to suggest how a propergeneric criticism should relate to the kind of structural study of American fiction

advocated by Mr. Mills. My third will be to essay a modal generalization about

American fiction, relating it to the scheme I presented in my essay on fictional po-

etics in NOVEL.

1. "Novel" and "romance" are terms used in modal criticism. They are very

loose, non-discriminating designations of fictional tendencies, and, as used by a

modal critic like Northrop Frye, they are not mutually exclusive terms. Dickens and

Hawthorne, for example, produced works in which both novel and romance tend-

encies can be found. Clearly, then, the terms "novel" and "romance" will not serve

as mutually exclusive categories into which we can stuff all English and American

fiction, respectively, of the nineteenth century. Nor will they take us very far into

the understanding of any particular work of fiction.

2. Mr. Mills calls for a study that will discover the nature of and causes for the

"uniqueness" of American fiction. This is a tall order, partly because causes must

be divided among individual psyches, social conditions, and generic traditions-to

name only the most obvious areas. It is a tall order also because a "uniqueness"shared by all the disparate works of nineteenth-century American fiction may be

a concept unachievable almost by definition. For American fiction as a whole we

may talk about tendencies; in specific works we should expect to find uniqueness.The role of generic criticism in these endeavors should be to separate generic"causes" from the other kinds so that a work's culturally determined qualities andits unique achievements may be seen more clearly. A rough illustration may helphere.

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ROBERT SCHOLESIA RESPONSE

Generic traditions involve the transmission of a "model" of structures and atti-

tudes from author to author over a period of time. The "model" tends to un-

dergo modifications with each reincarnation, these being most noticeable when

it crosses temporal or cultural barriers. For example: seventeenth-century Spanish

picaresque becomes neo-classicized in the hands of Le Sage in eighteenth-centuryFrance, sentimentalized by Smollett in England, and finally is adapted to specialAmerican conditions by Twain in Huckleberry Finn. The uniqueness of Twain's

work can be seen most clearly in terms of the way it alters the traditional model, as

Twain acquired it from Smollett and/or such other relevant sources as the genericcritic can discover. In Twain's novel, then, we should be able to see distinctly Amer-

ican cultural phenomena impinging on the picaresque model with interesting re-sults. The "peculiar"American institution of Negro Slavery adds a new dimension

which reinvigorates the whole tradition. The presence and the situation of Jim in

that novel introduce what Auerbach would call a "tragic and problematic" dimen-

sion to the work. Twain himself, who made that esthetic and ethical choice, is of

course the immediate cause of the achievement, but American history is an en-

abling cause. Thus, generic criticism can lead us to places where cultural and es-

thetic criticism can be most efficiently brought to bear.

3. Finally, can a generic or modal critic say anything useful and true about

such a loose and baggy entity as American fiction? Perhaps not, but I will try to do

so, and in such a way as to save such validity as may actually reside in the formu-lations of the "genre critics" whom Mr. Mills has criticized. Using the schematic

diagram of modes presented in my essay on fictional poetics as a way of seeingthe historical evolution of narrative, it is possible to say this about American fiction

in relation to others. In post-Enlightenment and post-revolutionary France, where

historicism and positivism established themselves most thoroughly, the older ro-

mantic and satiric tendencies of fiction were drawn into a closer relationship than

in any other country. This was certainly a contributing cause to the early and thor-

ough development of the realistic novel in France.But whatever the cause, certainly

few critics would deny that fictional realism developed earlier and more exten-sively in France than in any other country. The difference in tendencies that so

many critics have pointed to as separating American from English fiction, then,can be seen as much the same difference that separates English from French fiction

in the same period. In French fiction the fusion of romantic and satiric modes is

most complete. In England, until George Eliot, a noticeable separation into comicand sentimental modes persists. In America romantic, tragic, and picaresque modesendure and flourish with only slight infusions of realism. No wonder we had a

vigorous naturalistic movement almost without a genuine realism (pace lovers of

Howells). Our fiction was poised at precisely the place where a fusion of tragic

and picaresque attitudes could be effected.That, at any rate, is how this genre critic would initiate a discussion of the

unique tendencies of American fiction in terms of fictional modes.

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