The morning call., 1893-11-05
MODERN FRENCH LITERATURE.

The article which NJ. Paul Bourget has
contributed to the Forum on the moral
evolution now pending in French ltera-
ture is not satisfactory. Il is very alb
struse, and not very clear. 1t reads as If
the writer had not firmly grasped his sub
ject before he put pen to paper.
He states that the novels OF the first
decade of the present French republic
neglected the phenomena of spiritual life
to concentrate their force On the manifes-
tations of average life, whereas the novels
Of the present day occupy them selves with
exec ptional situations, complex personali-
ties and subtle cases of conscience. With
the advent of the second empire, money
took the place of passion as the motive of
dramatic composition. Simuitane Olsly
the searching and scientific analysis of
sensation which is found in BaZac, and
the anatomical physiology of Haubert,
gave the quietus to the school of common
sense inauguTated by Angler and Pausaud,
and founded a new postivst school bot
toned on realism. From this NJ. Bourget
declares that there has been a reaction,
which is spiritual in its nature, and in
clines the writers of the day rather to
dboiS &c bHc cOuls
actual tangible features of daily life.
This may all be so. But literature
must be judged by its leaders. and even
NJ. BOurget will not deny that The present
leader of fiction in France is Emile Zola.
whose masterpiece, the career of the Rou-
gon Macquart family. certainly belongs
rather to the realistic school than to the
spiritual school When M. Zola began that
great work he set himself the task o paint
ing various classes Of French society with
absolutely Photographic exactness. He
had subordinate purpose; it was to dem
onstrate the heTedity OF weakness. vice.
baseness and crime. But if, as NJ Bourget
says. the realistic school makes letters the
disciples of painting while the spiritual
school likeDs the writer to the musician,
ZOla must certainly be classed as the most
realistic of all Tealists. His novels are
series of pictures painted with the breadth
of Michael Angelo and the minuteness of
Meissonnier. When in order to make his
picture accurate he had TO introduce de-
tails which are offensive to good taste. he
did not shrink from doing so. He had un-
dertaken TO paint men and things as they
were. and he aid so at any sacrifice. Natur-
ally his reputation has suffered. He has
atoned for his brutal realism by exclusion
from the Academy; but he has depleted
France and the French people during the
empire and the early republic with such
anatomical exactness that the future his
torau of the period will have to tread in
his footsteps.
IT may be. as NJ. Bourget says. that
Sc hool of psychologists is rising in France
who are going to bury the remains Of the
realists in the graves where the romantic
school of George Sand and Dumas lies
pntombed. But it is hardly fair to count
Renan and Taine and Msupassant among
its founders. The two first had mastered
some Of the mysteries of the human soul;
but in their books they considered it in its
relations to real life. No modern Frenchman
has anatomized human feeling more keenly
than Balzac, yet it would not be just to
class him as a psychologist and nothing
more. Again it may be that The rising
generation of FTenchmen are disturbed by
"a conviction that the agnostcism of SCI
ence is not adequate TO the creation of use
full energies and does not respond to the
prevailing ardentand sorrowful anguish in
religious problems" But if there is any
such anguish 1t has not manifested itself
by outward and visible signs. Nor, In
deed. could it be logically expected to de-
velop in a society whose favorite author at
the moment is NJ. CatulIe Mendez.