But, as it is, we can satisfy our craving for knowledge of life
only by extending our social world through fiction. Fiction may teach
us, edify us, make us better men--it may serve all these purposes
incidentally, but its prime purpose as art is to provide us with new
objects for social feeling and knowledge.
The interest which we take in fictitious action is also like that which
we take in real action. The same emotions of desire for the attainment
of a goal, suspense, hope, fear, excitement, curiosity and its
satisfaction, joy, despair, are aroused. And we have a need to
experience these emotions at high pitch greater than our everyday lives
can satisfy. Our lives are seldom adventurous all over; there are
monotonous interludes with no melody, offering us little that is new
to learn. Our love for war and sport shows that we were not built
organically for humdrum. Now literature helps to make up for this
deficiency in real life by providing us with adventures in which we
can participate imaginatively, and from which we can derive new
knowledge. If real life did supply us with all the intense living that
we demand, we might not care to read, although the love of adventure
grows by feeding, and many an active man revels in tales which simulate
his own exploits.
It follows that the novelist should imitate life, yet at the same time
raise its pitch. The realists imitate life deliberately, and we measure
their worth by their truth, but they select the intense moments.
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