Limits of the Novel: Evolutions of a Form from Chaucer to Robbe-Grillet 9781501742064

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Limits of the Novel Evolutions of a

from Omuccr

to

Form

RohhcGrillct

Limits of the Novel Evolutions of a

from Chaucer

DAVID

I.

to

Form

Rohhc-Grillct

GROSSVOGEL

Cornell Paj^crlacks

Cornell University Press ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright

©

1968

by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a re-

view, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in

any form without permission

lisher.

in writing

from the pub-

For information address Cornell University 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca,

New

York

Press,

14850.

First published 1^68 First printing, CorJiell Paperbacks, i^ji

Quotations from Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea, translated by

Lloyd Alexander, Copyright

©

1964

New

by

Directions

Publishing Corporation, reprinted by permission of Directions Publishing Corporation. Quotations from

genious Gentleman

Don

Quixote de

la

New

The

In-

Mancha, Volumes

and II, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, translated by Samuel Putnam, Copyright 1949 by The Viking Press, Inc., reprinted by permission of The Viking Press, Inc. I

International Standard

Book Number

0-8014-9115-0

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-16381

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY VAIL-BALLOU

PRESS, INC.

Per John L' inter o libro invece di tante note

Acknowledgments

The

following authorizations to quote are herewith ac-

knowledged: James Joyce,

A

Portrait of the Artist as a

Young Man, copyright 1944 by Viking

Press, Inc.

(also

Jonathan Cape Ltd, for the Executors of the James Joyce Estate,

and the Society of Authors), and Ulysses, copy-

by Random House, Inc.; Franz Kafka, The by Willa and Edwin Muir, copyright © 1957 by Alfred A. Knopf Incorporated; Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Fast, translated by C. K. Scott right

1946

Trial, translated

Moncrieff and Frederick A. Blossom,

copyright

1941

by Random House, Inc.; Alain Robbe-Grillet, The Erasers, translated by Richard Howard, copyright © 1964 by Grove Press, Inc., For a New Novel, translated by Richard Howard, copyright © 1965 by Grove Press, Inc., and The Voyeur, translated by Richard Howard, copyright © 1958 by Grove Press, Inc.; and Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, edited by James A. Work, copyright 1940 by The Odyssey Press, Inc. Grateful thanks are also extended to the John Simon

Guggenheim Foundation authors.

for time to read

some of

these

Acknowledgmeiits

via

And

because they demonstrated

best reader

is

my

contention that the

perforce a critic (though he

helpful friend),

my

Professors Robert

deepest appreciation to

M. Adams,

may

my

also

be a

colleagues:

Dalai Brenes, Paul de

Man,

Jean-Jacques Demorest, Neil Hertz, Jean Parrish, Karl-

Ludwig

Selig,

Michael Shinagel

cero and Judith

S.

— and especially John Frec-

Herz. Qui a'nne bien corrige

bieji.

D. Ithaca,

New

York

November ipSj

I.

G.

Contents

Introduction

i

1

The Novel and

2

Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde

3

Cervantes:

Don

4

Lafayette:

La Princesse de Cleves

5

Sterne:

6

Kafka: The Trial

160

7

Proust: Revie7nbrance of Things Fast

189

8

Sartre:

9

Joyce and Robbe-Grillet

ID

the Reader

Tristra?n

6

44

Quixote

74 108

Shandy

136

Nausea

The Novel

as Ritual:

226 256

Defoe's Crusoe and

Dostoevski's Idiot

300

Books Cited

324

Index

337

vx

Limits of the Evolutions of a

from Chaucer

to

Novel Form

RohhcGrillct

Introduction

Pero usai

di dire tra

i

miei amici, secondo

la

sen-

tenzia de poeti, quel Narcisso convertito in fiore essere della pittura stato inventore: la

pittura fiore d'ogni arte, ivi tutta

cisso viene a

proposito.

Che

che

intent

sia

Nar-

con

arte quella

fonte?

Leon Battista Alberti,

The

ove di

tu essere dipi-

dirai

gniere, altra cosa che simile abracciare ivi superficie del

gia,

la storia

and methodology of

Della pittura

this essay are simple:

they assume that the reader's response to the fiction of a novel will depend, according to the extent of tication,

on

belief or appreciation.

They assume

his sophis-

further that

more primitive response which becomes eventually esthetic commentary; that the first response supposes commitment, the latter detachment; that the first ingests the work of art through a form of osmosis, while the second turns it into a phenomenal object. And lastly, this theory relies on the heresy that the writer, however apbelief

is

a

will

not be

may

be of

his reader's esthetic appreciation,

satisfied until

he has reached the reader beyond

preciative he

Introduction

2 that appreciation, until he has

become

that reader's truth.

But before examining the impUcations of between writer and reader, one must

human

the

read:

first

this interaction

be

satisfied that

instinct involves an urge to write or a

need to

since both activities suppose self-consciousness

awareness of

defines and situates

self that

mentary attempts

In the beginning, there are

manifests

man

to

itself

widespread

as are the

propitiated.

But

form danger

is

as

—more

many

gods.

When

all

for.

nature

primarily as threat, gods are as

evidences of danger that must be

man

achieves control and the multi-

reduced to those refractory questions that

will continue to elude him, pluralism

nature speaks to

man with one

oneness to his need not

becomes pantheism:

voice, responding with

to feel

associated with the godhead.

A

its

incomplete. Notions of

transcendency, unity, circularity, timelessness

sees his

rudi-

must be accounted

at self-situation

— an

come

to be

victim of irrationality,

man

peace and fulfillment in control: against chaos, he

opposes logos. For him order supposes the imposition of the

mind upon

can

exist

the erratic or nonminded, for such a reality

only in

his

mind. Aristotle establishes

within the control of a superior mind the realization of the thought of

God, but of

exercises himself only in contemplation. This

nature fect is

all

is

a

all

—God's: a

nature

nature

God

is

that

means that

form of perfection (a conclusion that will afcome) and God is perfect: he

art for centuries to

an essence whose absolute purity

and self-defining thought.

act;

The God

he

is

the

is

denoted by

mind

of Aristotle might be a

being the most lofty attribute of lute assertion), but a

man and

man without

his single

that thinks about

man his

(thought

only abso-

the god-creating short-

comings of man.

These considerations have

a relevancy to the literature

Introduction

man

that

level, the

5

devises for himself.

But

more

a

superficial

fortunes of his divinities also suggest a symbolic

analogue for

his art.

Art

first

appears as a

But

identify and particularize nature. carries

at

him beyond

as

way his

surfaces, he first represents

for

him

to

exploration

through

fa-

mihar equivalents that for which he no longer has an apparent image.

he

Once he

feels akin to a

god

dwells at the heart of the mystery,

—and

when

the godlike sense

in

is

him, nature need not serve as a pretext or as a symbol for his representations; he assumes the proud

and

his representations

end, his gesture is

is

become

worthy of

his

name of poet

guaranty of truth. In the

like that of Aristotle's

none more lofty or more

activity

a

significant,

concern or

it

God:

since there

becomes the only

definition.

A poet like Valery keeps returning to the image of Narcissus; for

him,

all

and

art stems from,

is

contained within,

the poet's need to elucidate his creation. Since Narcissus

was perfect beauty, he knew the perfection of

that

which

the water reflected. His contemplation, since he

was

a per-

fect artist, could have self in his act

no

lesser object:

One

of creation.

he immobilized him-

day, as an

tempted to comprehend the perfection of

moved

into his reflection;

it

was then

artist,

he

his creation

that the gods

at-

and

drowned

him.

As

the

God

of Aristotle turns into pure thought think-

ing about thought, pure art becomes for the pure

self-commentary that defines him

artist

the

in his creative gesture:

The poem by Mallarme starts Platonic ladder. The Idea is the

action and creation are one. at the first

rung of the

only formulation worthy of the poet.

It will

always remain

within his sight and forever elude his grasp, since he

endowed with but one of

the divine attributes

is

—God's

vision. In his attempt, his necessary frustration describes

Introduction

4 the form of the eternally missing Idea;

tensed between the reahty from

and the

flight

Ideal, the

contrives a

poem taking

is

Azure, the Pure Whiteness, the

Absolute, which, whatever

The

it

which the poet

termed, he cannot

it is

painter discovers that the object he

is

attain.

copying be-

comes on his canvas another object, the statement of pig-

No

ments, of their thickness, their areas, their relations.

how

matter

faithfully he tries to submit his painting to

its

object-model, the canvas will always be a thing of colors,

and

shapes,

and

reality

that

And

lines of his

making;

his authorship. Is

its

truth

is its

phenomenal

he then not justified in creating

phenomenal evidence without the pretext of

a

model?

not the musician answerable only to a structure com-

is

posed of the tones he has created and the

harmonic forces

—"presentation"

tion," to use the expression of

The drama and

stress

of these

rather than "representa-

W. J. Ong?

^

the novel follow a similar development,

but because they mediate reality for someone besides the author, their self-commentary also takes into account the

presence of the one in

sumes

its

whom

that mediated reality as-

ultimate definition. During the seventeenth cen-

tury, Corneille writes Vlllusion coviique in anticipation of

Pirandello, Ghelderode, Genet,

dev^elopment

is

the

within an action that

by contriving

a play

whose

questioning of the spectator's part is

itself

dramatic commentary.

And

when the novel can no longer tell a simple tale, it becomes the mode that notes the indifference of its reader and finds the new dimensions of its fiction in the relation of that reader to the author through the object between them.

The God

of Aristotle, being a god, could limit his

self-

was

suf-

definition to thought thinking about thought. It ficient:

^The

no more

is

expected of

Barbarian Within, p.

33.

a

god for

whom

desire

is

Introduction

j

equivalent to deed. But man, no matter

remains frustrated in

his doing.

what

his vision,

His attempts are tragic and

magnificent; they measure his limitation and his utmost

grandeur.

God

cannot not do; but, dying,

hind him the imperishable evidence of art.

x\nd to speak for him in

his desire

an immortal thing and absolute: pure itself. It is

single

man

leaves be-

his frustration

and

art

—

his

his vision, it is

commenting upon

the one redemption of man's mortality and his

triumph over the immortals.

1

The Novel and the Reader

Because the definition

than

of art exists in a public domain,

The

artifact

is

metaphor

a

stands for something else

which

fore, ultimately, a thing,

though

varies according to

phor, the artifact

moment

is

its

assessment

is

it

also a sign:

comes into being

it

is

thus, in

the point of

the creation of

many

ways, the outcome of the concritic,

view of the

creator and beholder.

artist,

the artifact must

a truth of

which the

art-

himself possessed, a sense so strong as to compel

expression.

Minor

may

result in pleasant pro-

ductions but will not involve the conscious ciently to define to

its

urges, such as the desire to play, to have

fun, to decorate, and the like,

power

at the

exists also in the eye of the beholder. Its

from the impelling sense of

ist feels

is

objective tangibility

ontological mode. Being a meta-

frontation between artist and

result

—something that — and there-

recalls

its

of interpretation; the object

someone, but

From

it

its

more

generally dialectical and depends on

is

itself.

work

him through

make such

his

work

definition, will

suffi-

artist

and, lacking the

not allow him to de-

fine his artifact as art.

Viewed

in this light,

the artist

is

the poet,

he 6

who

The Novel and makes, and

is

the Reader

7

not unlike God, that other creator.

Still,

there appears to be at least one significant difference be-

tween the poet and

God

tion:

has no

God

in their respective acts of crea-

model from which he proceeds and must

be incontrovertibly an originator, whereas clear to

what extent the poet

The

agent.

bivalence, is

and independent

evincing already an uncomfortable am-

if

we

leave out of account the opinion that the

primarily a copyist with nature as his model. Al-

though such poets are not less

not always

question has been of interest for some time, the

earliest speculation

poet

a free

is

it is

imitator

as derivative as Plato's (the

whose very models turn out

hap-

to be imperfect

copies themselves), they hardly suggest comparison with a life-breathing

ment of

God. They remain timid even

their emancipation.

who

Horace,

ing that "Painters and poets

[.

.

.]

equal right in hazarding anything,"

is

in the state-

begins

by

assert-

have always had an considerably

less as-

"but not so far that savage

sertive in the next breath:

should mate with tame, or serpents couple with birds,

lambs with tigers"

who must with

have been familiar with centaurs, or

less

at least

should have resisted such animal-pairing

griffins,

perhaps

{Ars Poetica, 9-13). That Horace,

when one

surprising

grifRn derives

its

familiar categories

is

considers that the very

symmetrical supernaturalism from two

—the

lion

and the

the supernatural are natural enough:

eagle.

The

parts of

even though called

upon

to fashion the poet's wildest fancy, they are orig-

inally

found

in nature.

The

poet's

a subversion of nature, but nature

freedom is still

may

consist in

the ultimate ref-

erence.^ Admittedly, one of the reasons why Horace rejects these couis that tame should not associate with savage. If a lamb and a tiger are brought into such a combination, what is known of

1

plings

Limits of the Novel

8

Such commonsensical madness was not poet too far

afield.

But there have

God by

placed the poet nearer to

more

also

likely to lead the

been those

relating his inspiration

closely to a divine source than to one that

nature) equally apparent to

all.

who

was

(like

Believing as he did in an

all-

informing intelligence, the Neoplatonist could situate the poet, cially

if

he

felt

kindly disposed toward him, in an espe-

privileged position.

For

Plotinus,

the world soul

Nous) which emanated from the One or Absolute Being. Since man's soul was in touch with the world soul, there was no need for Plotinus' poet to be deceived, like Plato's, by imperfect replicas of flowed from

this intelligence (the

the Idea, and Plotinus substituted for Plato's artist (limited

by misguided concern with the example of Phidias,

many

a

who

bed made by

a carpenter)

fashioned a god

er,

but the fact remains that even

earth,

fact,

gods). Plato had failed to mention whether his car-

penter had a better appreciation of essences than

some

(in

celestial

as

his paint-

imperfect copies of

couch, beds are relatively plentiful here, on

whereas gods go to some pains not to appear

as

It followed that must have "wrought the Zeus upon no model among things of sense but by apprehending what form Zeus must take if he chose to become manifest to sight" {Enneads, V, viii, I).

promiscuously.

Phidias

Plotinus refers presumably to the giant statue at

which was considered

Olympia

to be the masterpiece of Phidias.

each inhibits the effect of the other, and instead of two threats adding their individual awesomeness to the eeriness of their combination, an unwieldy and self-canceling object is produced, whose effect is comic. This comic effect depends, however, on a prior recognition of, and familiarity with, the component parts (against which the unnatural coupling operates). Still, it is not expected that a zoologist would be awed by even a griffin. He is more likely to

be incredulous

or, at the

very

best, interested.

The Novel and There

the Reader

p

no surviving piece of statuary that can be

is

with certainty to that

cribed

as-

though certain

sculptor,

other pieces, such as the Dionysus from the eastern pedi-

ment of the Parthenon (now in the British Museum), show a perfection of form in male and female shapes such as

is

tautologically attributed to Phidias.

statue in the Olympieion, our reference

says of

it:

"The image

worth

is

other images except

all

Rome:

the

For the

colossal

Pausanias,

is

who

seeing. It surpasses in size

colossuses

at

Rhodes and

made of ivory and gold, and considering the workmanship is good" {Description of Greece, I,

it is

size the xviii, 6).

Thus, the apprehension which Phidias had of

human being was

to be

a supra-

conveyed through the huge

size of

the statue, far exceeding that of any mortal; the costly and exotic materials used in lastly,

its

making

though Pausanias appears

—ivory

less

and gold; and

affected at this point

than one might have hoped, the grace and noble bearing of

an ideal

human

figure: here

is

datum indeed

familiar

—the

which allows human cognition. So wrought "upon no model among at least a part of its effect from mat-

crafted artifact and that

the Zeus supposedly things of sense" seeks ter

and the material world of the senses which Plotinus be-

lieved to be at the source of

Even the idealized more convincing dederives from the imperfect

all

evil.

beauty of the statue that attempts

a

human limitations human body. The myths that examined

parture from

the

many

aspects

of Zeus's divinity forces a more drastic break between the reader's awareness of

carnations of the god

an all-consuming that

human

—such

and the various

possibility as a

brilliance. Still

it

must be remembered

—changes

even these were metamorphoses

more recognizable form,

in-

golden shower, a swan, or

for even a

god must

from

retain

a

some

;

Limits of the Novel

10

human

essence

Difficult as

of an

if

it

he

may

is

apprehended by a human.^

be to vouch for the divine inspiration

by pointing

artist

to be

to his material achievements,

at least equally difficult to

account for artistry on the sole

On

basis of its imitative excellence.

would appear of

the face of things,

that for Aristotle, mimesis

Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the lyre in most of their forms, are tion

modes of imitation"

ing to Aristotle,

is

all

{Poetics,

2)

.

habit, imitate

medium of

concep-

same, accord-

true of the plastic arts, painting, and

"There are persons who, by conscious

singing:

and of the

flute

The

and

also

in their general I,

it

the foundation

is

Comedy

"Epic poetry and Tragedy,

all art:

it is

art or

mere

and represent various objects through the

colour and form, or again

by

the voice"

(I,

4)

moreover, "even dancing instates character, emotion, and action" tion

liest

5).

The

reasons are that "the instinct of imita-

implanted in

is

learns

(I,

man from

childhood" (IV, 2), one

through imitation, and since "to learn gives the

pleasure" (IV, 4), imitation

For

effective imitation,

ceptible reality

is

live-

pleasurable.

the external forms of a per-

must be observed:

there must be nothing irrational"

"Within the action

(XV,

7

—instead of

irra-

Wheelwright and others give supernatural as a translation) for example, the deus ex machina has no place in the action. For a similar reason, tragedians keep to real names because only "what is possible is credible" (IX, 6), and the iambic is used by them because it is, "of all meational,

;

sures, the

most colloquial" (IV,

Moral and didactic 2

Phidias

may

14).

benefits ensue

from such

have been more aware of the human dimension of

his divinities than Plotinus

cared to admit.

equally unreliable accounts of the sculptor's ultimately

imitation.

condemned

One life

of the several,

says that he

was

for impiety because he included the portrait

of Pericles, as well as his own, on the shield of yet another epic statue of his that of the goddess Athene.

—

The Novel and The most

the Reader

important of the

structure of incidents, shows

or misery according to their

between tates

six

aspects of tragedy,

and serious poetry

trivial

pleasure people get

contemplating ring" (IV, 5)

it,

the

how men achieve happiness actions. One may distinguish in that the latter imi-

"noble actions, and the actions of good

The

7).

ii

from

men" (IV,

a painting "is, that in

they find themselves learning or infer-

—since

"the most beautiful colours, laid on

confusedly, will not give as

much

pleasure as the chalk

outline of a portrait" (VI, 15). Still,

the

concerned though he

is

with the object of the

imitation, Aristotle finds himself

ist's

work

of art

the example of

itself is

good

an object. Tragedians must follow

portrait painters

ducing the distinctive form of the

which

is

true to

life

art-

acknowledging that and "while repro-

make

original,

a likeness

and yet more beautiful" (XV,

That beauty, within the

art

8).

form, becomes a matter of or-

ganic concern; for example, "beauty depends on magni-

tude and order" (VII, 4), and the function of the poet

not to relate what happened, but "what possible according to the

(IX, i).

The

poet that "even is

none the

[dramatically]

law of probability or necessity"

original definition of mimesis has

siderably expanded

he

is

if

when

is,

been con-

Aristotle concludes about the

he chances to take an historical subject,

less a

poet; for there

is

no reason

why some

events that have actually happened should not conform to the law of the probable and possible, and in virtue of that

them he is their poet or maker" (IX, 9). would appear then that the poet's truth, even though originally derived from an existing model and patterned upon that model, becomes in its formulation a new entity with a truth of its own. If mimetic perfection were adequate to convey the artist's vision, the artifact would quality in It

need only to afford recognition through

itself

of a truth

Limits of the Novel

12 that

external to

is

it

("Ah, that

viewer of a portrait painting

he!" exclaims Aristotle's

is

[ IV,

5

]

)

.

But

if

in the process

of imitation, the imitative object becomes distinct from that

which

it is

imitating, then

its

appreciation and recog-

nition require other criteria (such as the aforementioned

standards of proportion, harmony, organic necessity), and

must be sought within the

these criteria

The he

artifact itself.

of the viewer turn that to which

critical faculties

responding into an object. But "since the objects of

is

men

imitation are

in action" (II, i),

it

follows that the re-

sponse of the viewer will be forever dual, as will be the artifact itself, a part of

man

whose truth must be found in fails to distinguish between

its

and other

because he supposes that the

arts

tion of each

is

the same

in that

all

hu-

plastic

evidence. Aristotle

human

asser-

intend to commit the

noncritical part of the viewer, reader, or spectator: "Pity is

aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfor-

tune of a

man

like ourselves'''';

and able to recognize himself

^

unless the viewer

willing

in the object of the artist's

cannot commit himself to

imitation, he

is

it

other than

criti-

cally.

And

so the expression of the artist's vision

becomes

a

subject of contention between the artist and his public.

Even though mines

its

3

2.

XIII,

that vision

expression,

Our

if

italics. It is

is

the impelhng force that deter-

simple mimesis

is

not sufficient for

not altogether clear to what extent pity

We

can be bestowed on a fiction unless it too is "like ourselves." assume that the objects of both our pity and fear must be "like ourselves" and that it is their dramatic circumstances that will de-

termine whether pity or fear will be elicited. It is in this sense that the Aristotelian motions of pity and fear should be interpreted: they represent the utmost extent to which the viewer can be

drawn

into, or repulsed by, the artifact to

has committed himself.

whose human truth he

The Novel and

the Reader

new

understanding,

its

75

new means who is now con-

points of reference and

by

of coercion must be sought

the artist

cerned, not only with the form of his creation, but also

with the ways

can be fashioned so

it

commit the

as to

reader to a reality that transcends the form. For those use words as their medium, and

more

who

particularly, written

words, the contest involves an author whose strategy

to

is

entice his reader into giving his reality to the author's fic-

same reader (especially

tion and the

who

sophisticated),

aware of

thor's creation

This

human impulse

the au-

and hear stories. If, according to the some writers, poetry came before prose

to tell

first

stead of an idea

man

utterance of

—

phrased an emotion

the latter depending for

a store of verbal

story-telling

by being

whom

detachment by the reader departs from the

interpretation of

on

a critic for

an analyzable object.

is

critical

because the

he considers himself

the author's strategy

resists

and thus remains

it,

if

symbols

—

it is

at least

its

in-

formulation

equally true that

closely related to the development of the

is

social structure: structure supposes continuation

and con-

tinuation implies history; the tribe preserves

definition

through

was

ritual rote, part of

—what

in the past

tification for

it

which

is

ivas being a

its

the telling of

major part of

what

it

its jus-

continuing to be. In that sense, the Iliad and

the Aeneid are the distant and sophisticated echoes of a ritual

clan.

whose purpose was once

The danger

to preserve the

form of

a

of listener alienation through critical dis-

tance can scarcely have been a matter of concern at such

an early time.

If historical

man

develops as does the child,

the substance of the ritual tale conjured for

its

listeners a

nearly visible reality and a sense of immediacy. According to

Simon O.

Lesser's preliminary formulation,

start [stories] are

completely

real. It is

"At

the

the capacity to dis-

— Limits of the Novel

/^

between

tinguish

fiction

and

which must be

reality

sume for narration its

ac-

One may asthat reason that the tale itself was a much balder than the complex form into which it grew when

quired" (Fiction ajid the Unconscious,

p. i).

more

authors found the need to attach a

sceptical audi-

ence.

As

individualistic concerns begin

we may

structure,

loosen the ritual

to

suppose that lyric poetry comes into

being, the collective vision

becoming of

immediate

less

terest to the individual than the recognition

of a

more

in-

and rehearsal

private state of being. Therefore, later versions

of even the primitive tale rely, for a part of their suasion,

on the

lyric

—on an appeal

to the intimacy of the reader,

moods, yearnings, or perceptions, rather than on

in his

a

presentation of surfaces, such as a description of external events.

A

Rolajjd

may

reminder of some of the aspects of the Song of help to explain

more

precisely

what

meant.

is

In stanza ex, the chanted, self-contained lines of this asso-

nanced verse turn into the cadence of tion of the death of its

Roland

actual occurrence.

from the

field

The

—over

a

a dirge in anticipa-

thousand

thirty-line laisse

lines

before

away

turns

of battle, where the French are slaughtering

pagans by the thousands, to France, where an apocalyptic scene

is

presently described: the land

lashed

is

by

a storm

of such intensity that darkness descends at high noon.

elements conspire to achieve a landscape of doom.

The The

earth trembles; the heaviest walls, the very heavens are rent.

And

stresses in

throughout,

every

vocalization it

is

is

the

cadenced

strongly

whose

line the single assonance

the stanza's final

word

RoUant.

lament

climactic

Or

again,

the re-echoing of kisses similaires that prolongs the

agony of Roland, who, knowing to destroy his sacred

sword by

that he

striking

is

it

dying, attempts

against the rocks

The Novel and

the Reader

75

As each stanza restates the hero's agony, words repeated become the throbbing of his pain, and

of Roncevaux. the

the motion visually analyzed

is

reconstituted as intensity

within the reader.

Through {cler, halt,

a similar process, a

number of key

adjectives

douce, for example) accumulate an emotional

charge through repetition and become the core of progres-

more

sively

intense motives. "Halt sunt

li

pui" ("tall are

the mountains") endures as a somber note even though the battle

being waged on the plain, since the

is

doom

of

Ro-

land and the French gives the landscape a psychological

more important to the poem than topographical accuracy.^ Douce introduces a rare feminine term to this mascuHne epic, and once again the landscape is fashioned by thoughts about it, as the homeland ("douce France") becomes the tender personification of the past and of the good which death will now forever put aside. dimension that

Nor

is

are these the only instances of poetic

phoses that change an object into an emotion. In

between the forces of Christendom

(all

metamorthis clash

rather stylized,

except for the three heroes, Roland, Oliver, and Bishop

Turpin) and the more particularized heathens (since

must be

specific

under pain of losing

there appears the Lxxviii),

striking

trails

evil

awesomeness),

of Chernuble

figure

whose Samson-like mane

its

to the

(stanza

ground and

Ramon Menendez Pidal feels: "La description est fort mal amenee, car les mots halt sunt li pui ne conviennent pas au riant plateau de Roncevaux, fort eloigne de toute hauteur" {La Chanson de Roland et la tradition epique des Francs, trans. I.-M. Cluzel, [2d ed.; i960], p. 325); he suggests a borrowing from a former version in which Roland died in a mountain pass where "la mort douloureuse de Roland avait lieu conformement a la verite historique." But since the death of Roland is as agonized in the present form of the poem, can we not assume that the poet had to ^

make

his

work conform

to a poetic truth?

6 Limits of the Novel

1

banner to

knight of darkness

who

is

like a

is

so minded, carry the load of four pack mules.

from the

devil's

this

own

when he

can,

He

comes

country, a kingdom upon which the

dew

sun does not shine, where no wheat can grow nor

—and

where,

gather

prophetically,

very stones are

the

black. It is

perhaps not overly surprising to find poetry inform-

ing a national epic that chronicles a national disaster and

means

from

to salvage patriotic pride

of poetry

suffering.

The intent man that

to speak directly to the precritical

is

exists at the level

of sensitivity and emotion:

the lan-

it is

guage through which the grandeur of abstract concepts

may

sciousness.

that

when

achieve meaning as personal perception

ture of universal scope

a ges-

enacted within the reader's con-

is

Poetry humanizes the objects and the landscape

surround Roland

at

time

a

when

his

audience

is

acquiring certain feelings and needs that he does not yet possess. In the epics that follow

man

upon the Roland,

jects of his circumstances.

in the

is

a

Guillaume, the hapless warrior

Garin de Monglane cycle, becomes increasingly

whose human dimensions

figure

level

at a

symboHc

sometimes reach the comic intensity of pathos

when

he

is

forced to carry

feeble squire

his

own

arms,

it is

his

absolutely necessary to

at least a pretense of bravery.

And

that

gether the epics grouped in the cycle of

traitor

which

—

as

too

cannot bear, except very briefly through

populated places where

a hero to

a

are unequal to the battles

he must wage and whose attempts to persist

is

it

that stands within the landscape and amidst the ob-

whom

a

wrong

and apostate, but

who

torn between his desire and

liis

which

Doon

de

has been done, in the

hour of

his

show

links to-

Mayence

who

turns

revenge

is

fear of winning.

After the social structure of the tribe has disintegrated

The Novel and and

vate and recognizable figure to self,

as

fj

become meaningless, the reader

lore has

its

the Reader

whom

or seeks at least an inference of his

may fathom and

poetry

suggest

it.

is

depersonalized

ing of deeds for which there reader no longer share a

is

—

Lacking a recog-

human

nizable projection of the reader or his

poetry, the story

is

seeks a pri-

may entrust himhuman condition

he

equivalent as

merely an account-

no doer once the hero and

common

ancestry.

personalized fiction should exist at

That such de-

appears imputable to

all

on the part of both reader and writer for a sustained mode of writing and to the emergence of a new interest in the reader an interest in pattern (to borrow a a desire

—

term which Arnold Kettle has used, slightly differently, his

in

Introduction to the English Novel). Since intensity

cannot be defined

must be limited

as duration, the effect

to short pieces or can operate only episodi-

cally in longer ones. like ourselves"

of lyric suasion

And

by

rejected

is

mitment

to an extended

lematic.^

Nor

if

the link of Aristotle's

"man

either reader or writer,

com-

form of writing becomes prob-

the Aristotelian persona a guarantee of

is

reader entrapment. For whereas poetry states the poet's truth as lyric

what

is

immediacy and the

ation of even "a

—

fiction 5 It is

tribal

legend chronicles

intended and received as objective truth, the cre-

a

game

man

like ourselves"

is

the creation of a

that proposes to the reader certain condi-

interesting to speculate

how much

may be

Christian ethics

responsible for fostering the critical distance that rejects the Aristotelian persona.

The

awareness that only

God

can create

a

human

being leads to a long-lasting suspicion of the dramatic actor who appears to be usurping the divine privilege and most likely accounts for some of the taboos against transvestites and sexual deviates,

of

whom

earlier ethics

were more

tolerant. It

is

likewise true

that the fictional character emerges only gradually, as literature

becomes something more than tic vehicle.

a representation of facts or a didac-

8

Limits of the Novel

1

which he may

tions (such as the suspension of disbelief)

or

may

not choose to accept.

about a fictional convention

becomes

tion

writer

may

and

as artifact,

is

The only the object

it is

attempt to ground

on

factual reality

which

his parafictional ties

with

reader. The writer knows that the self-distancing of reader moves him from identification to critical com-

the the

prehension and can therefore engage

his reader, in his

withdrawal, by calling his attention to the tern

—an entity that

man echo on

that fic-

that reality that the

not dependent for

is

work

its life

very

as pat-

on

a hu-

or on the affective cooperation of the reader but

his intelligence.

This

is

the allegorical

form whose com-

prehension involves the deciphering of signs

—

as

opposed

to symbolic writing that converts the reader through infra-

(sounds, rhythms)

associations

intellective

or others to

which the reader responds with his feelings rather than such as colors and nonsymbolic obhis knowledge

—

with

jects.®