Chapter XV

The Movement of Modern

Literature – 2

O

UT OF the period of dominant objective realism what
emerges with the strongest force is a movement to quite
an opposite principle of creation, a literature of pro-
nounced and conscious subjectivity. There is throughout the
nineteenth century an apparent contradiction between its pro-
fessed literary aim and theory and the fundamental unavoid-
able character of much of its inspiration. In aim throughout,
— though there are notable exceptions, — it professes a strong
objectivity. The temper of the age has been an earnest critical
and scientific curiosity, a desire to see, know and understand the
world as it is: that requires a strong and clear eye turned on the
object and it would seem to require also as far as possible an
elimination of one’s own personality; a strongly personal view
of things would appear to be the very contrary of an accurate
observation, for the first constructs and colours the object from
within, the second would allow it to impress its own colour and
shape on the mind, — we have to suppose, of course, that, as the
modern intellect has generally held, objects exist in themselves
and not in our own consciousness of them. Goethe definitely
framed this theory of literary creation when he laid it down that
the ideal of art and poetry was to be beautifully objective. With
the exception of some of the first initiators and until yesterday,
modern creation has followed more or less this line: it has tried
to give either a striking, moving and exciting or an aesthetically
sound or a realistically powerful presentation, — all three meth-
ods often intermingling or coalescing, — rather than a subjective
interpretation; thought, feeling, aesthetic treatment of the object
are supposed to intervene upon and arise from a clear or strong
objective observation.