The Historical Context of Modern Literature 1789-1914

As I studied James Joyce to prepare for the next chapter of Harold Kaplan’s book, I realized that I need to at least mention the historical context of modern literature. This background is not included in The Passive Voice. Kaplan probably assumed his readers would be familiar with it, but the missing political and social history was crucial for my own understanding. I suspect its importance will become more clear as we continue with this study.

Kaplan on James Joyce: It’s time to Scrutinize the Critic

I was somewhat sympathetic to Kaplan when I read his critique of Gustave Flaubert. This may be partly due to the fact that when Kaplan criticizes Flaubert he defends Emma Bovary. So, I didn’t start with a negative opinion of Flaubert, but I didn’t feel the need to defend him either. However, I am having second thoughts about Kaplan’s approach when it comes to James Joyce. In Kaplan’s defense, I will begin this article by saying something about the spirit in which he offers his analyses.

Kaplan had misgivings about his approach to The Passive Voice. He acknowledged that it may have been overly ambitious to analyze literature from the point of view of a single perspective or theory. However, he remained committed to the project.

But we see what we can see, one pair of eyes at a time. We must write criticism with the intensity and absorption of the literary imagination itself, with its love for qualities and authentic forms. We must also leave the impression that the world is larger than the glass through which we look at it, close as that may bring us to what is so complicated and alive. (Kaplan, Forward, The Passive Voice, p. x)

The Historical Context of Modern Literature

On the other hand, to be fair to both Flaubert and Joyce they wrote their novels in turbulent times. Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was published in 1856. Most of Joyce’s novels were written during and after World War I. Finnegan’s Wake was published in 1939. The societies of both men were transformed by events that took place during this period. The most influential event that comes to my mind in reading Joyce is World War I, but this period had far too many influential events for comfort. This article is a summary of the relevant points. I chose the source cited below for this summary because it seems to relate events more closely to the progress of modern literature.

Romanticism

The article mentioned in the preceding paragraph is found in the Enclyclopedia Britannica. According to Jacques Barzun and Judith Eleanor Herrin, the ideas of Romanticism were influential during the half century from 1789 to 1914. As these ideas were being deployed, political minds, both inside and outside of ‘Romanticist culture’, were trying to settle the legacy of The French Revolution. The authors have listed several great issues that fueled the passions of the various parties or groups involved.

First on their list is the fulfillment of the revolutionary promise of political liberty for all of Europe. Many outbreaks took place between 1815 and 1848 in the defense of this promise. These outbreaks were successful in France and England, but not in central and eastern Europe, which were under the repressive system of Klemens von Metternich. Metternich was the foreign minister of the Austrian Empire from 1809 to 1848.

The maintenance of territorial arrangements was second on Barzun’s and Herrin’s list of great issues. To this end, Metternich worked to keep the treaties of the 1815 Congress of Vienna intact. This assured that the boundaries linking or separating national groups to dynastic interests would remain intact, which was in direct opposition to the fight for liberty.

Nationalism Versus Liberalism

Metternich’s struggle was part of an effort to promote nationalism over liberalism. It was not successful in 1830s Europe, except for in Belgium. However the nationalists’ failure only increased their determination. This led to endless agitation, especially in Germany and Italy.

Everyone who favored liberalism joined together to work for independence. However, there were various liberal groups and they were divided among themselves. For example, they had different ideas about future political states. In addition, workers were pushing for a fully democratic Parliament and put additional pressure on the liberals. These groups together formed the coalition that hoped to defend liberalism. On the other side were the groups who wanted to restore systems of monarchy, religion, or aristocracy. The conflict resulted in a catastrophe for European culture.

The Search for Stability Versus the Search for the Final Revolution

1848 to 1852 were years of war, exile, deportation, betrayals, coups d’état, and summary executions. These years shattered everything, including the heart and will of survivors. It made their former hopes seem ridiculous.

There were two different responses to this state of affairs: one side began the search for stability; the other side searched for the final revolution that would usher in the good society. Unfortunately for both sides, no single idea had won out. Nationalism had won in some places but not in others. The same was true for liberalism. Some systems seemed to collapse even as a few of their demands were honored. Two examples are English Chartism and socialism. And although there was peace, war was a constant threat. Subversives threatened the bourgeois and tried to kill royal heads of state. At the same time, industry and urbanization spread their familiar miseries.

Flaubert Was There

The result was that ‘the mind of Europe’ suffered. To make matters worse, many established or emerging artists and thinkers had been killed or torn from their homes or deprived of their livelihood. In this atmosphere, the first phase of Romanticism ended. Flaubert was there. He described its end in his masterpiece, Sentimental Education (1869).

Realism and Realpolitik

The ‘immediate sequels’ of Romanticism were Realism and Realpolitik. The dominant feeling behind these movements was that hope itself was an error. They were both rooted in a distrust of man’s imagination. This was combined with a sense of fatigue that made romanticist thinking seem foolish. The conclusion: it is necessary to stay close to the real.

Marx, Darwin and Scientific Materialism

Scientific Materialism is the influence under which Marx and his followers chose the word ‘scientific’ for their brand of socialism. They said it was a science because it was based on the laws of history. According to Marx, the advent of the socialist state would result from the interaction of things (classes, means of production and economic necessity). Earlier socialism was in contrast to this belief. It had been dependent on the will of thinking men.

The search for certainty swung back to science itself, which gave up its former vitalism and joined the materialistic mid-century. Darwin’s advocacy of natural selection was in line with this way of thinking because it provided a mechanical means for the march of evolution. Unfortunately, its subsequent permutations led to social Darwinism and eventually to a loss of faith in the permanence of the ‘real’. Marx demonstrated this when he taught that consciousness and culture were illusions floating above the reality of economic relations.

Did Victorian Morality (and Darwinism) Save the World From a Nervous Breakdown?

One begins to wonder why the world is not more chaotic that it is. This article argues that the real world and its sense of permanence and structure survived amid all of these doubts thanks to Victorian morality. This applied to the Continent as well as Britain. There were critics and dissenters who scorned the conformity, called the religion a sham and viewed respectability as hypocrisy, but the front held. And although it might seem counterintuitive to contemporary nationalists, the Victorians lived side-by-side with Darwinism.

Darwinsm and the machine analogy continued to be influential in this Victorian world. It fostered the belief that if man could fashion and improve machines, he could improve his own society. The rationale went something like this: since evolution had been ‘proved’ perhaps social and political progress could take place by the same gradual process. This brought Europe to accept democracy as inevitable.

Where Does this History Leave Our Study of Modern Literature?

So where does this leave our study of modern literature? First, I think it explains why we seem able to criticize the schools of modern literature in such a detached way. As bleak as its progression seems, that world doesn’t really own us. Or does it? We can’t forget that those historical realities are still present beneath the surface, biding their time. When we feel nostalgic for the New Deal world of the 1950s for example we are just scratching the surface of the real.

I don’t think Kaplan ever forgot this history. And he apparently suspected that his own work would be subject to analysis and criticism. I would argue that criticism of the critic is not only allowed, it is required.

One Question

The main question that comes to mind considering Kaplan’s approach is to what degree the authors and artists of that period were responsible for promoting the bleak atmosphere in which they were working. This question is unavoidable because Kaplan identifies their powerful influence and provides a merciless analysis of personal traits that may have motivated them. He is a literary critic after all.

On the other hand, these authors were practicing their art in the only way they could, as participants and observers of their times. To be clear, we can’t hope to answer this question about the artist’s responsibility, but it’s important to ask it.

Conclusion and Assignments: Read the Rest of the Britannica Article to Prepare; Read the Works of James Joyce Listed Below

This has been a summary of the Britannica article so I recommend that you read it more carefully to prepare for our study of James Joyce. The last section deals specifically with Realism in the Arts and Philosophy.

As for the works of Joyce, the following works are found in the introductory pages of Kaplan’s critique of James Joyce:

• Ivy Day in the Committee Room
• The Sisters
• Araby
• The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Ulysses

Kaplan calls The Portrait of the Artist ‘the necessary introduction to [Joyce’s] great work’, but he says the others are important as well.

Everything Joyce wrote before were exercises and lessons for himself and the reader to prepare them for the task of Ulysses. Joyce’s theme is the world, but in the total effort to conceive it, like a god creating a world, he first has to account for the creation of himself. (Kaplan, p. 45)

All of these stories, except for The Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses, can be found in The Dubliners¹ along with 12 other short stories. It can be purchased from Barnes and Noble for around ten dollars. I recommend reading the print versions of Joyce. I don’t think the same enjoyment can be derived from the Audible versions. He uses a lot of dialogue and stream of consciousness, and the narration tends to make one’s mind wander.

A Warning

I hope this doesn’t ruin Joyce for anyone, but I had the distinct impression that I should warn readers who are dealing with mental health issues to skip some of the chapters of The Portrait and Ulysses. The word jingles might be disorienting for someone in the wrong state of mind.

1. James Joyce, The Dubliners, Union Square & Co. LLC, New York, 2024 ↩︎

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