To Charles Mauron...

These are some lectures (the Clark lectures) which were delivered under the auspices of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the spring of 1927. They were informal, indeed talkative, in their tone, and it s...

This lectureship is connected with the name of William George Clark, a fellow of Trinity. It is through him we meet today, and through him we shall approach our subject. Clark was, I believe, a Yorksh...

We shall all agree that the fundamental aspect of the novel is its story-telling aspect, but we shall voice our assent in different tones, and it is on the precise tone of voice we employ now that our...

Having discussed the story⁠—that simple and fundamental aspect of the novel⁠—we can turn to a more interesting topic: the actors. We need not ask what happened next, but to whom did it happen; the nov...

We now turn from transplantation to acclimatization. We have discussed whether people could be taken out of life and put into a book, and conversely whether they could come out of books and sit down i...

“Character,” says Aristotle, “gives us qualities, but it is in actions⁠—what we do⁠—that we are happy or the reverse.” We have already decided that Aristotle is wrong and now we must face the conseque...

A course of lectures, if it is to be more than a collection of remarks, must have an idea running through it. It must also have a subject, and the idea ought to run through the subject too. This is so...

With prophecy in the narrow sense of foretelling the future we have no concern, and we have not much concern with it as an appeal for righteousness. What will interest us today⁠—what we must respond t...

Our interludes, gay and grave, are over, and we return to the general scheme of the course. We began with the story, and having considered human beings, we proceeded to the plot which springs out of t...

It is tempting to conclude by speculations as to the future of the novel, will it become more or less realistic, will it be killed by the cinema, and so on. Speculations, whether sad or lively, always...

Le Roman Anglais de Notre Temps. By Abel Chevalley, (Oxford University Press, New York.) ↩ I have touched on this theory of inspiration in a short essay called “Anonymity.” (Hogarth Press, London.) ↩ ...