헨리 제임스의「소설의 기술」: 프랑스 사실주의의 수용과 비판

Abstract

This paper discusses Henry James's acceptance and criticism of French realism in 'The Art of Fiction'(1884). Some Jamesian critics regard 'The Art of Fiction' as "a manifesto of aestheticism" or as an essay written under the direct influence of French realism. It is true that we can find not a few influences of French realism in his essay. Under its influence James discusses the position of the novel as a higher form of art, the unlimited freedom of novelists, and the criticism of didacticism (or the confusion of art and morality). Even James's major theory of the novel as a "representation of life" is suggested under the influence. But these relations of influence are nothing but a superficial affair. James's true strategy lies in undermining their own weaknesses and suggesting his own theory of the novel by using their terms. Thus, the significance of 'The Art of Fiction' lies in his assertion that "the air of reality" or truth to life cannot be achieved through the naturalistic imitation of life but through the "selection whose main care is to be typical, to be inclusive." This is the true base on which he can criticize the suffocating dullness or flatness of French realism which describes exactly only some confined ranges of reality. James's true intelligence as a critic can be found in his suggestion that the creativity of art is the creativity of life itself, as F. R. Leavis says.