A Psychological Counter-Current In Recent Fictio

Name: A Psychological Counter-Current In Recent Fiction
Author: William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells’ Psychological Counter-Current in Recent Fiction is a collection of essays that explore the psychological aspects of literature. Howells examines the works of authors such as Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Edith Wharton, and discusses how their works reflect the psychological state of their characters. He also looks at the influence of psychology on the development of the modern novel. Howells argues that the psychological elements of literature are essential to understanding the characters and their motivations. He also examines the use of symbolism and imagery in literature, and how these elements can be used to convey psychological states. Finally, Howells looks at the role of the reader in interpreting psychological elements in literature.

By William Dean Howells · First published 1920 · Genre: Psychological Fiction, Literary Fiction, Realism · 9 chapters · 7,162 words

First lines

No one in his day has done more to popularize the romanticism, now decadent, than Mr. Gilbert Parker; and he made way for it at its worst just because he was so much better than it was at its worst, because he was a poet of undeniable quality, and because he could bring to its intellectual squalor the graces and the powers which charm, though they could not avail to save it from final contempt. He saves himself in his latest novel, because, though still so largely romanticistic, its prevalent effect is psychologistic, which is the finer analogue of realistic, and which gave realism whatever was vital in it, as now it gives romanticism whatever will survive it. In "The Right of Way" Mr. Parker is not in a world where mere determinism rules, where there is nothing but the happening of things, and where this one or that one is important or unimportant according as things are happening to him or not, but has in himself no claim upon the reader's attention. Once more the novel begins to rise to its higher function, and to teach that men are somehow masters of their fate. His Charley Steele is, indeed, as unpromising material for the experiment, in certain ways, as could well be chosen. One of the few memorable things that Bulwer said, who said so many quotable things, was that pure intellectuality is the devil, and on his plane Charley Steele comes near being pure intellectual. He apprehends all things from the mind, and does the effects even of goodness from the pride of mental strength. Add to these conditions of his personality that pathologically he is from time to time a drunkard, with always the danger of remaining a drunkard, and you have a figure of which so much may be despaired that it might almost be called hopeless. I confess that in the beginning this brilliant, pitiless lawyer, this consciencelessly powerful advocate, at once mocker and poseur, all but failed to interest me. A little of him and his monocle went such a great way with me that I thought I had enough of him by the end of the trial, where he gets off a man charged with murder, and then cruelly snubs the homicide in his gratitude; and I do not quite know how I kept on to the point where Steele in his drunkenness first dazzles and then insults the gang of drunken lumbermen, and begins his second life in the river where they have thrown him, and where his former client finds him. From that point I could not forsake him to the end, though I found myself more than once in the world where things happen of themselves and do not happen from the temperaments of its inhabitants. In a better and wiser world, the homicide would not perhaps be at hand so opportunely to save the life of the advocate who had saved his; but one consents to this, as one consents to a great deal besides in the story, which is imaginably the survival of a former method. The artist's affair is to report the appearance, the effect; and in the real world, the appearance, the effect, is that of law and not of miracle. Nature employs the miracle so very sparingly that most of us go through life without seeing one, and some of us contract such a prejudice against miracles that when they are performed for us we suspect a trick. When I suffered from this suspicion in "The Right of Way" I was the more vexed because I felt that I was in the hands of a connoisseur of character who had no need of miracles.

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A Psychological Counter-Current In Recent Fiction is listed on Textopian as an essay by William Dean Howells, dated 1920 CE.

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Work type: Essay
Author: William Dean Howells
Date: 1920 CE
Language: English
Genres: Psychological Fiction, Literary Fiction, Realism, Romance
Length: 7,162 words
Structure: 9 chapters, 204 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)

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Genres

Psychological Fiction — The title of the book suggests that it is a psychological exploration of recent fiction.
Literary Fiction — William Dean Howells is a renowned literary author, so this book is likely to be a work of literary fiction.
Realism — William Dean Howells is known for his realistic writing style, so this book is likely to be a work of realism.
Romance — William Dean Howells is known for writing romantic stories, so this book may contain elements of romance.