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An Introduction to The Æsthetics of Literary Portraiture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Christian N. Wenger
Christian N. Wenger*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

Despite the myriad studies of literature in print, a comprehensive æsthetics of literary portraiture remains still unavailable. In the following mere introduction to the subject I propose to state a principle whereby to explain the beauty of fictional personages; to devote attention chiefly to a discussion of the ontology of such personages, giving a thumbnail historical sketch of this ontology; and to conclude with a cursory glimpse into the functions of such portraiture.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , June 1935 , pp. 615 - 629
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1935

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References

1 Other major divisions of the subject, such as the Ecology of Fictive Beings, Methods of Auctorial Portraiture, Varieties of Beauty in Literary Portraits, and Aesthetic Judgments of the Beauty of Dramatis Personae, will necessarily be excluded from present consideration.

2 For representative evidence see Aristotle, Poetics, tr. S. H. Butcher (London: Macmillan & Co., 1907), p. 11, Boileau, The Art of Poetry, in The Poetical Treatises of Horace, Vida, and Boileau, by A. S. Cook (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1892), p. 192, Gustav Gruener, “The Genesis of the Characters in Lessing's ‘Nathan der Weise’,” PMLA, vii, 2 (1892), 77, and W. S. Maugham, “How I Write Short Stories,” S.R.L. (July 28, 1934).

3 For two notable items from a mass of evidence consult Henry James, The Real Thing and Other Tales (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1922), and E. H. Wright, “Reality and Inconsistency in Shakespeare's Characters,” in Shakesperian Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1916), p. 372.

4 Cf. Gilbert Murray, Ancient Greek Literature (New York: Appleton & Co., 1927), pp. 170–177.

5 For a discussion of the views expressed in this and the foregoing sentence see W. T. Stace, The Meaning of Beauty (London: Richards & Toulmin, 1929), pp. 238 and 239.

6 Consult, on this matter, A. C. Bradley, Shakesperian Tragedy (London: Macmillan & Co., 1922), p. 13; A. B. Faust, “The Problematic Hero in German Fiction,” PMLA, xvi, 1, n.s. ix, 1 (1901), 92–98, and William Troy, “Stephen Dedalus and James Joyce,” Nation (Feb. 14, 1934), p. 188.

7 W. T. Stace, op. cit., p. 43.

8 W. T. Stace, op. cit., p. 49.

9 Cf. Robert Browning, “Paracelsus,” Browning's Complete Works (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1895), pp. 12–48, and the reference to Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann, in W. H. Van Der Smissen, Goethe's Faust (New York: Dutton & Co., 1926), Preface, p. xv.

10 Actual people who have beautiful characters and some few similar phenomena would be exceptions.

11 Compare this with the analysis of Proust's method by William Troy in his Proust in Retrospect, Symposium ii, 3 (July, 1931), 387–389, and with Justin O'Brien's similar analysis in Some Recent Proustiana, ibid., pp. 392–395.

12 Cf. D. H. Parker, The Principles of Æsthetics (Boston: Silver, Burdett & Co., 1920), pp. 68–69.

13 Quoted in a review of Mr. Eastman's Art and the Life of Action, with Other Essays (New York: Knopf, 1934), by H. S. Canby, S.R.L. (Nov. 3, 1934), p. 255.

14 For a varied selection of witnesses to this fact see Gwendolen Murphy, A Cabinet of Characters (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), Introduction, pp. v–viii; E. C. Baldwin,“The ‘Character’ in Restoration Comedy,” PMLA, xxx, 1, n.s. xxiii, 1 (1915), 64—78; D. L. Clark, Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance (Columbia University Press: 1922), pp. 80–82; and A. A. Jack, Essays on the Novel (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1897), p. 224.

15 Herbert Read, “Personality in Literature,” Symposium, ii, 3 (July, 1931), 299.

16 Quoted by Herbert Read, op. cit., p. 299.

17 Also quoted by Mr. Read, op. cit., p. 299.

18 Compare this principle with Browning's regulative ideas, for a discussion of which see my study, The Æsthetics of Robert Browning (Ann Arbor: George Wahr, 1924), p. 56.

19 Another quotation by Mr. Read, op. cit., p. 300.

20 Ibid., pp. 295, 296 and 304–305.

21 Cf. Calvin Thomas, “Literature and Personality,” PMLA, xii, 3, n.s. v, 3 (1897), pp. 308–309.

22 This description of character is from W. D. Howells, Heroines of Fiction (New York: Harper & Bros., 1901), p. 65.

23 Note, for example, the influence of Aristotle upon the Renaissance dramatists, as pointed out in D. L. Clark, op. cit., pp. 71–72.

24 The widespread contributions of Aristotle and Horace in the development of characterization are especially notable in this connection. Cf. D. L. Clark, op. cit., pp. 80–82.

26 On the portrayal of superhuman figures in literature see A. C. Bradley, op. cit., pp. 29–30 and 172–174; L. P. Smith, On Reading Shakespeare (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1933), pp. 98–99; William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespear's Plays, Collected Works (New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1902), i, 172 (a quotation from Schlegel's Lectures on the Drama); and Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones (New York: Harper & Bros., 1836), i, 330.

26 The human being, we are told, “Repeats God's process in man's due degree,” Cf. Robert Browning, op. cit., p. 421.

27 Cf. William Hazlitt, op. cit., p. 172, and L. P. Smith, op. cit., pp. 98–100.

28 “Man, therefore, is the highest subject.” Such is the dictum of Henry Fielding, op. cit., i, 331.

29 Aristotle's phrase. Cf. Poetics, op. cit., p. 55.

30 In addition to Aristotle, in the above reference, consult the views of Horace, Vida, and Boileau, in Cook, op. cit., pp. 7–23, 107–108, 144, 191–192; and Clark, op. cit., pp. 79–80.

31 Cf. E. H. Wright, op. cit., pp. 378, 380, and 383.

32 Cf. Henry Fielding, op. cit., i, 334.

33 Cf. E. H. Wright, op. cit., pp. 378–383, and W. D. Howells, op. cit., pp. 80 and 176.

34 Clifford Kirkpatrick, “ Concepts of the Newer Psychology,” in Man and His World, ed. J. H. S. Bossard (New York: Harper & Bros., 1932), pp. 367–383.

35 Consider in this connection also the transmuting figures in Strindberg's A Dream Play, tr. E. Björkman, in Plays, First Series (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912) and in Virginia Woolf's Orlando (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1928).

36 For an analysis of the dual personality in Franz Werfel's Spiegelmensch see William Rose, Men, Myths, and Movements in German Literature (London: Allen & Unwin, 1931), pp. 221–222.

37 Consult the various references to Faustian and Western Culture in Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, tr. C. F. Atkinson, 2 vols. (New York: Knopf & Co., 1926, 1928). For the page references see the index to vol ii.

38 On this somewhat loose identification of type with character see E. C. Baldwin, op. cit., p. 64.

39 This is obviously less true of universal types, such as Odysseus, for instance, than of narrowly typical ones, such as people the works of Ben Jonson and the Restoration dramas.

40 Cf. L. P. Smith, op. cit., pp. 100–102.

41 Ibid., pp. 101–104.

42 Ibid., p. 97, A. C. Bradley, op. cit., pp. 93–94, E. H. Wright, op. cit., p. 382.

43 Cf. E. H. Wright, op. cit., p. 384, and L. P. Smith, op. cit., pp. 97, 101, and 103.

44 Cf. McBurney Mitchell, “Goethe's Theory of the Novelle,” PMLA, xxx, 2, n.s. xxiii, 2 (1915), pp. 227–229.

45 Cf. Gustav Gruener, op. cit., pp. 75–82; A. C. Bradley, op. cit., p. 71; and William Rose, op. cit., pp. 227–228.

46 Cf. D. L. Clark, op. cit., p. 79, and A. S. Cook, op. cit., p. 187.

47 On these matters see the works of August Strindberg, Virginia Woolf, Eugene O'Neill, and Franz Werfel referred to on page 622 above. Marcel Proust's À la Recherche du Temps Perdu and James Joyce's Ulysses should also be consulted.

48 Cf. McBurney Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 215–236.

49 Cf. Katherine Merrill: Characterization in the Beginning of Thackeray's Pendennis, PMLA, xv, 2, n.s. viii, 2 (1900), 246–247, and W. D. Howells, op. cit., p. 105.

50 Cf. L. P. Smith, op. cit. pp. 96–97, and A. C. Bradley, op. cit., pp. 359–362.

51 Cf. George H. Opdyke, Art and Nature Appreciation (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1932), pp. 507–516; Henry Fielding, op. cit., i, 334; William Hazlitt, op. cit., p. 192; William Troy, op. cit., pp. 385–387; and Justin O'Brien, op. cit., pp. 393–395.

52 Cf. Robert Browning, “Essay on Shelley,” op. cit., pp. 1008–1014.

53 There is notable confirmation of this point in the works of Proust and Joyce referred to in Note 47.

54 Cf. Robert Browning, op. cit., pp. 12, 49, and 74.

55 Cf. Clifford Kirkpatrick, op. cit., pp. 373–382.

56 Browning himself concedes much in this direction. Cf., for example, the Essay on Shelley, op. cit., p. 1009.

57 In addition to Browning's study of the objective and subjective in the “Essay on Shelley” see also A. A. Jack, op. cit., pp. 226–229.

58 Cf. William Rose, op. cit., pp. 237–241.

59 Cf. E. H. Wright, op. cit., p. 380, and L. P. Smith, op. cit., pp. 91–95 and 103–104.

60 Cf. Aristotle, op. cit., pp. 27, 29, and 53–57; D. L. Clark, op. cit., pp. 18, 21, 79, and 80.

61 Cf. Aristotle, op. cit., pp. 35, 57, and 107, and L. P. Smith, op. cit., pp. 91–92 and 100–101.

62 Cf. W. W. Comfort: The Character Types in the Old French, Chansons de Geste, PMLA, xxi, 2, n.s. xiv, 2 (1906), 279–434; also A. S. Cook, op. cit., pp. 9, 11, 13, 22, and 25.

63 Gustav Gruener, op. cit., p. 78.

64 Cf. Henry Fielding, op. cit., i, 334.

65 Peer Gynt is but one of many notable examples.

66 Figures done during the naturalistic interlude are exceptions. On narrow types in contemporary literature see Edith Wharton, “Tendencies in Modern Fiction,” S.R.L., x, 28 (Jan. 27, 1934).

67 Cf. L. P. Smith, op. cit., pp. 100 (footnote) and 103–104.

68 Says Ramon Fernandez, “man dehumanizes himself by excess of affectivity at least as much as by excess of rationality. …” Quoted by Herbert Read, op. cit., p. 307.

69 Cf. Justin O'Brien, op. cit., pp. 394–395, and W. D. Howells, op. cit., pp. 114, 162, and 190.

70 William Hazlitt, “On the Character of Milton's Eve,” op. cit., p. 105.

71 Cf. P. E. Wheelwright's review of Faulkner's Sanctuary, Symposium, ii, 2 (Apr., 1931), 276–281.

72 For a brief summary of Bergson's views see Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1926), pp. 497–507.

73 Cf. E. H. Wright, op. cit., pp. 382–384; L. P. Smith, op. cit., 101–103; and K. Merrill, op. cit., pp. 251–252.

74 Cf. W. T. Stace, op. cit., pp. 205–226.

75 Cf. Robert Browning, “Paracelsus,” op. cit., p. 47.

76 For relevant comment on this point by Aristotle and Sir Philip Sidney see D. L. Clark, op. cit., pp. 109 and 148.

77 Cf. A. C. Bradley, op. cit., pp. 172–174 and 282–284.