The naturalists of fiction are realists and something more. They profess to derive from Stendhal through Balzac and Flaubert. That is to say, they adopt the analytic method and devote themselves chiefly to the study of char acter. But they go further and object to the processes of art. According to them, literature, to be strictly 'scientific,' is comparable not with painting or drawing. but with anatomy and dis section. It is worth our while to observe that the so-called realistic and then the naturalistic school rose with, or after, the great rise of ex perimental science in the early years of the nineteenth century. Yet few genuine scientists would admit the scientific pretensions of the most conscientious realists or naturalists; for, even when their science is not imaginary or the work of dabblers, it is necessarily perverted or modified so as to give a continuous picture of life. No biologist. psychologist. or any other scientist, save the linguist, would think of look for trustworthy observations in the works of realistic or naturalistic novelists. Unfor tunately, too, the extreme realistic school, and later the naturalistic writers, sought their ma terial in the baser walks of life, for they found little in the humdrum existence of decent mediocrity wherewith to stir their readers. True. some realists asserted that `truth' (meaning their observations) is never dull, and it must be confessed that the Goncourts combined to 'report' with extraordinary interest, and often charmingly, many scenes which at first blush would be called dull and unsuggestive; but this result was achieved by dint of talent, which found a hundred new thoughts in relations and presented them with skill. lf, however, we were to gather statistics from the more modern realistic school, especially in the Romanic coun tries, we should almost certainly find that the school called realistic has dealt rather slander ously with the national life. It has dwelt on freakish or morbid themes and has made its ap peal to the beast in man. On the other hand, it has served to awaken readers to the falsehoods or to the fatuous aspects of the romantic and ideal istic schools. But there are no hard and fast boundaries. Zola is often romantic; Victor Hugo is often realistic. Realism is a tendency in authorship and not a definite province in litera ture. This observation may be verified by perus ing the works of Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert.
Maupassant, the Zola, and Daudet in France, of Verga, Fogazzaro, and (labriele d'An nunzio in Italy, of Valdes and Galdos in Spain. of Hauptmann and Sudermann in Germany. of Tolstoi's later work, and of Ibsen and Bji;rnsen in Scandinavia. In England the later realists had their greatest representatives in Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot. Here again it may be said that the most consistently realistic of these, George Eliot, was closely affiliated with experimental scientists. just as was the ease in France. But English realism was never extreme. It has not wallowed; it has not treated its ficti tious personages with the cynical scorn of the French school. It has had no Zola to be repu diated by his 'master' Taine. Realism, however, took a firm foothold in England. Thackeray and George Eliot have been followed by George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, and George Moore, and by W. D. Howells in the United States, in whom is many a romantic touch. but also imaginative common sense, decency, gentleness, and an agree able absence of those scientific pretensions which once roused the smiles or the indignation of scientific men in France and elsewhere.
Those whom we are wont to reckon in the realistic school are novelists or tellers of short tales. Their object ostensibly is to observe, an alyze. and describe the actions of others, or their thoughts as uttered, or it may he only as implied. This condition requires imagination; for frag mentary manifestations in other beings must be supplemented by the experiences of the author in order to make a continuous narrative. It now we turn to the diarist and the autobiographer. we shall find that realistic portrayal is not thus hampered; for the diarist and the autobiographer find a ready-made continuity in their own ex perience. Fancy is not a necessary factor of their art. Hence Pepys is a realist of the first order; so, too. is Benventrto Cellini: nor need we wonder that the French realistic school dis covered a prototype, if not a pattern, in Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Consult: Zola, Le Roman exp&imental (Paris, 1880) ; id., Les Romaneiers naturalistes (Paris, BSI) ; Chandler, Romances of Roguery (New York, 1899) ; Brunetiere, Lc roman naturaliste (Paris, 1892) ; Cross. Development of the English Novel (New York, 1899). See articles on the various authors cited; also NOVEL and 1:011. TICIsM.