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XXIII.—The Development of Brief Narrative in Modern French Literature: A Statement of the Problem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Brief narrative, at first thought, connotes the abridged fiction of low grade with which American magazines are now saturated; but as soon as the term is used to cover the whole field in modern literature, it calls to mind a genre which, under various names, has risen to a position of dignity in many places in the world and has worthily engaged the attention of literary historians, particularly in America and in Germany.
The chief features in the development of the form in the United States and England have been discussed at length, and there is now a definitive record, with abundant bibliographical apparatus, of its evolution. Poe is looked upon as the pioneer, and his perpetually quoted definition (1842) has set a standard for the majority of the practitioners of the art in the English language. The form suggests, for America, such experts as Hawthorne, Bret Harte, and Henry James; in England it does not gain the attention of writers of the first magnitude until near the end of the century, in the persons of Stevenson and Kipling.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1917
References
1 Cf. Brander Matthews, The Philosophy of the Short-Story, New York, 1901; H. S. Canby, The Short Story, New York, 1902; Bliss Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction, Boston, 1902; C. S. Baldwin, American Short Stories, New York, 1909; H. S. Canby, The Short Story in English, New York, 1909; C. A. Smith, The American Short Story, Boston, 1912.
2 Heyse and his predecessors in the theory of the Novelle, Frankfurt, 1915.
3 Clayton Hamilton, Materials and Methods of Fiction, New York, 1908, p. 173.
4 Cf. a list of these in my article on Balzac and the Short-Story, Modern Philology, xii, p. 72, note 2.
5 The Narrative Art of the Old French Fabliaux, Kittredge Anniversary Papers, Boston, 1913.
6 Vol. iv, p. 111. D'Alembert continues: “On dit les fables de Lafontaine, les contes du même auteur, les contes de Madame d'Aunoy, le roman de la princesse de Clèves. Conte se dit aussi des histoires plaisantes, vraies ou fausses, que l'on fait dans la conversation. Fable, d'un fait historique donné pour vrai, et reconnu pour faux; et roman, d'une suite d'aventures singulières réellement arrivées à quelqu'un.”
7 Id., ibid. The definition is not written by Diderot, but provided by him as editor. It goes on: “La fable est souvent un monologue ou une scène de comédie; le conte est une suite de comédies enchaînées les unes aux autres. Lafontaine excelle dans les deux genres, quoiqu'il ait quelques fables de trop, et quelques contes trop longs.”
8 Nouveau dictionnaire pour servir de supplément aux dictionnaires des sciences, etc., Paris, 1776, iv, p. 569. The article is to be found, enlarged and revised, in Marmontel's Eléments de Littérature (Œuvres complètes, Paris, 1818, xii, pp. 521 ff.).
9 Op. cit., p. 77. Professor Matthews points out indeed that “there is little doubt that Poe felt it [the difference], even if he did not formulate it in set terms.”
10 Cf. Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 40-41.
11 An article published the same year in the Bibliothèque universelle des Romans (Paris, Lacombe, octobre, 1776, p. 11) refers to “le genre des Nouvelles ou petits Romans.” And in the preceding year the Discours préliminaire of this collection (juillet, 1775, p. 21) affirms that both contes and nouvelles are “Romans abrégés.” I find no suggestion of any distinction at this period between conte and nouvelle.
12 In the initial paragraph Marmontel presents his philosophy of the conte: “Le conte est à la comédie ce que l'épopée est à la tragédie, mais en petit, et voici pourquoi: l'action comique n'ayant ni la même importance, ni la même chaleur d'intérêt que l'action tragique, elle ne saurait nous attacher aussi longtemps lorsqu'elle est en simple récit. Les grandes choses nous semblent dignes d'être amenées de loin, et d'être attendues avec une longue inquiétude; les choses familières fatigueraient bientôt l'attention du lecteur, si au lieu d'agacer légèrement sa curiosité par de petites suspensions, elles la rebutaient par de longs épisodes. Il est rare d'ailleurs, qu'une action comique soit assez riche en incidents et en détails, pour donner lieu à des descriptions étendues et à de longues scènes.” This and other remarks in the article should be thoughtfully considered in the light of whatever information may later be gathered as to the status of brief narrative in Marmontel's period.
13 Œuvres complètes, iii, pp. ix-xvi. Two items in this preface seem to contain in embryo theories afterwards evolved in Germany. The view of Spielhagen that brief narrative by its nature is not adapted to dealing with the development of character, is already suggested in Marmontel's remark (xiii-xiv): “Il est des caractères qui, pour être présentés dans toute leur force, exigent des combinaisons et des développements dont un conte n'est pas susceptible…” And the device later conceived by Tieck of having as a turning point in a Novelle an event simple and likely to happen any day, yet, in the circumstances, of special consequence, is foreshadowed in the statement (p. xiv): “A la vérité des caractères j'ai voulu joindre la simplicité des moyens, et je n'ai guère pris que les plus familiers. Ainsi un serin me sert à détromper et à guérir une femme de l'aveugle passion qui l'obsède; ainsi, quelques traits changés à un tableau réconcilient deux époux… .”
14 Œuvres complètes, vi, p. 1.
15 Other stories of this order are le Mari sylphe and les Rivaux d'eux-mêmes. In many cases, on the other hand, the promise of the method is not realized. Cf. the story called Heureusement, wherein, Marmontel explains (vol. iii, p. x), he tried “de faire voir à quoi tient le plus souvent la vertu d'une honnête femme, et combien sa faiblesse doit la rendre indulgente pour les fautes mêmes qu'elle a su éviter.” The result is merely a string of anecdotes, of instances where a lady nearly succumbs to temptation. Observe also that in his definition of conte Marmontel selects, as examples of stories with a “tendance commune,” Joconde and la Fiancée du roi de Garbe (referring presumably to La Fontaine's versions of these), narratives which have no more unity than Heureusement. That is to say, in these cases Marmontel did not carry his definition to its possible consequences.
16 Œuvres complètes, iv, pp. 243-244.
17 Completed in 1806 but not published until 1816. Cf. RLR, 1898, p. 229.
18 Adolphe, Paris, 1864, pp. 29-30 (Préface de la troisième édition).
19 Cf. Professor Lanson on the composition of Adolphe: “Rien de plus classique que ce roman à deux personnages, où les sobres indications de cadre et de milieu laissent la crise morale s'étaler largement” (Histoire de la littérature française, Paris, 1908, p. 978).
20 Cf. Lovenjoul, Histoire des œuvres de Balzac, Paris, 1888, p. 256.
21 Vol. i, p. 15. Balzac had apparently not read Adolphe at this time (cf. Le Breton, Balzac, Paris, 1905, p. 76), for he adds that “dans ce genre, Caleb Williams, le chef-d'œuvre du célèbre Godwin, est, de notre époque, le seul ouvrage que l'on connaisse… .” Constant also was acquainted with Caleb Williams, but seems to have been more interested in the author's political theories than in his fiction (cf. RLR, 1898, p. 210).
22 Canby, Study of the Short Story, New York, 1913, p. 45. Cf. Lauvrière, Poe, Paris, 1904, p. 646: “L'énergique laconisme de la nouvelle avait été porté par Mérimée à un haut degré de perfection avant que Poe qui en profita peut-être ne l'eût remis en vogue.”
23 Op. cit., Intro., p. 34.
24 At the commencement of Gautier's literary career, in 1831, stands a story, la Cafetière, which in conception if not in execution is quite comparable to the Poe type, and between this date and 1836 there are four others which may be said to approach the short-story and which offer interesting and conclusive evidence that during this period of five years Gautier was advancing, consciously or not, toward the form finally achieved. Cf. Onuphrius; Omphale; the story of a youth and a grisette inserted in Sous la table; and the story without name published by Lovenjoul, Histoire des œuvres de Théophile Gautier, Paris, 1887, vol. i, pp. 8-11. The last two are little more than amplified anecdotes, but they have the short-story stamp.
25 Cf. the article on Balzac and the short-story, referred to above, p. 584, note 4.
26 L'Abbé Aubain (1846) is short-story though certainly not conventional, and la Chambre bleue (1866), toute proportion gardée, suggests O. Henry.
27 Cf. Retinger, le Conte fantastique dans le romantisme français, Paris, 1909, p. 33, note. On French translations of Poe cf. also Lauvrière, op. cit., and Morris, Cooper et Poe d'après la critique française du dix-neuvième siècle, Paris, 1912.
28 Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 octobre, 1846.
29 Other instances in his work are Adieu (1830) and le Succube (1833). Cf. Gautier's Nuit de Cléopâtre (1838), le Roi Candaule (1844), Arria Marcella (1852), etc.; Mérimée's Tamango (1829), le Vase étrusque (1830), il Viccolo di Madama Lucrezia (1846), etc.
30 Romans et contes, Paris, Charpentier, p. 273.
31 Gespräche mit Eckermann, 29. Jan., 1827.
32 There are a few casual references to Goethe in Gautier's works. Cf. Histoire de l'art dramatique, Paris, 1859, i, p. 193; iv, p. 337.
33 The first story in the collection entitled l'Etui de nacre.
34 Cf. Poe's definition, Works, New York, Crowell, 1902, xi, p. 108.
35 Cf. Baldwin, op. cit. Intro., p. 34, note: “It would be interesting, for instance, to determine whether Mérimée learned anything in form from Poushkin.”
36 Cf. C. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 39-40. Gautier sometimes meets the requirements of the feuilleton system with conspicuous success, as in Avatar, where it may be argued that the restraint imposed by this method of publication induced throughout a high degree of narrative control.
37 Honoré de Balzac, Little French Masterpieces, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1903, Intro., pp. xiv-xv. Brunetière further explains the scope of the nouvelle with the statement that, in general, “all those things in life which are out of the usual run of life, which happen on its margin and are so beside yet not outside it; all that makes its surprises, its differences, its startlingness, so to speak—all this is the province of the nouvelle, bordering on that of the novel yet distinct from it. Out of the common every-day life you cannot really make nouvelles, but only novels—miniature novels, when they are brief, but still novels.”
38 Cf. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 169, especially: “The difference is merely that the novelet (or nouvelle) is a work of less extent, and covers a smaller canvas, than the novel (or roman).” Cf. Matthews, op. cit., p. 65; Baldwin, op. cit., Intro., pp. 30-31.
39 Cf. Lovenjoul, Histoire des œuvres de Balzac, pp. 32, 146, 147, 178, 183, 184.
40 Observe also that Gautier calls Spirite a nouvelle fantastique.
41 Une Passion dans le désert and la Grande Bretèche.
42 Cf., for example, Flaubert's Trios contes (published in 1877). The narrative methods in the first two, un Cœur simple and Saint Julien l'Hospitalier, are far from conventional, but, in the slight degree that ordinary terms apply, they are condensed romans. The third, Hérodias, is precisely what Brunetière would call a nouvelle.
43 Op. cit., pp. 41-42.
44 Matthews, op. cit., p. 16.
45 The relation of brief narrative to the drama has been carefully developed, in the case of the Novelle, by Spielhagen (Beiträge zur Theorie und Technik des Romans, Leipzig, 1883). The principle, enunciated by Poe for the short-story, that a peculiar totality of effect results from a single, uninterrupted presentation of a piece of literature, is applied by Strindberg to the drama, as in The Outlaw, “a single well-built act … taking an hour for its performance” (Preface to Miss Julia, Plays, second series, tr. by Björkmann, p. 107). Examination of the French field may reveal parallel resemblances. Cf., for example, the stories and the one-act plays of Villiers de l'Isle Adam.