The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-10-26
"REAL|SM" VERSUS "R0MAT|CISM"
Controversy Between Two Schools of Fiction Revived
by Visit of English Novelist to America
Dickens Centenary in 1912
ev ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

eY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.
Arnold Bennett, the English novel
ist referred to the other day, is telling
us all about it according to interviews
in metropolitan papers.
And he rehearses the whole case OF
romanticism versus realism. He says
maybe these ideas are new to Ameri.
ca.
Simple Bennett!
This age long controversary has
been batted back and forth in Ameri-
ca until 1t is dog-eared and frayed
round the edges.
Has not our greatest apostle of real
ism, w. ID. Howells,-novelist, essay.
list, poet-held the boards for years
and acclaimed from monthly maya
zines, notably Harper's and the At
lantic, for the cold, unrelenting eX-
pose of life's obscurest secrets, Its
hardest facts, it's most unpalatable
truths as against the maunderings of
the romanticists
Bennett, despite his sailing as near
the wind as l dare"-as he boldly
states he does in his novels-is naive
and ingenious.
And all this discussion invariably
ends in RELOCATING Dickens and
Thackeray to the dump-heap of obliv-
ion and doddering sentimentalism and
the elevation of Fielding. Jane Aus
ten and George Moore to the pill
nacle of dazzling Immortality.
Bennett says this.
Howells said it long ago and far
better than Bennett can ever hope to.
OF Fielding-nothing may here be
said save that he was one Of the first
English writer's of fiction to recog-
nize the value of depicting on the
printed page, life as 1t is. Fielding is
great. but incomparably vulgar.
OF Jane Austin--nothing may be
said save that she was genius and
wrote through the medium Of mag
nifying glass. She was great, but
with the exquisiteness of refinement.
But why George Moore:-A mod
ern English novelist whose output is
of the drcariest description unrelieved
by the white light of genius nor to be
excused on the plea of mastery depic-
ton of some things as they are.
Why is realism" interpreted to
mean all the darker phases of human
intercourse.
Isn't Beauty just as seemingly real
as the Hideous?
Why isn't sunset as realistic as a
murder trial?
Is bed of roses less visible than a
cess-pool?
Isn't child, all rose-colored dimples
and smiling naivete, just as real an
object as harpy Keeling along the
streets?
What is meant by "realism?" AS
used in denoting an artistic medium
in literature, painting, music-or, in
deed in life.
According to Mr.. Arnold Bennett and
his school realism" means discussing
with more or less freedom sex rela-
lions and all the resultant complex
ties.
What is real" and what is not?
Can you swear to anything?
One day you see a human entity
called "a person" This man or wo-
man, old or young, you have lived in
the same house with all your life, per-
haps. Every day and every day you
go in and out and back and forth
and are in constant, visible contact.
Suddenly a day dawns. A day that
seems like any other day. You expect
things will be just the same. You
don't expect it-you simply don't think
about it.
And before the day is over that 9TH
er person, a being who stood up
right, moved, talked, laughed, ate
performed all the functions of life
is stretched prone, motionless, still,
terrible. You put him in black box
and stick him in the mold.
He disappears forever. Vanishes
as utterly as if he had never been.
There is nothing so ghostly as our
is Lafcadio Hearn
quoted
What are we?
What is real?
To say that one thing or phase or
is more realistic" than an
other is to say that which is impossi-
BILE.
Reduced to the dregs-- nothing is
real. Life is vision.
In this long quarrel between the ex-
ponents of realism" and romantic
ISM" however. it is sometimes diff
cult to exactly understand the classifi-
cations.
Thackeray, now.
Why is Thackeray not as realistic"
as George Moore.
Could any fictional character be
tipped off with more merciless drag
ging a way of every concealment than
was Becky Sharpe, Thackeray's femi-
nine masterpiece?
Does Esther Waters George
Moore's piece de resistance in the
way Of heroine produce any greater
effect of "realism?"
II Dickens was melodramatic,
and at times, admittedly
q sentimentalist, doesn't that make
his expose of certain social institu.
tons any the less real:
The truth is that the hold q writer
Of fiction has upon a public has moth
ing to do with realism" and roman
ticism."
Dickens and Thackeray we're CON-