Real life is a confused medley of impressions of people and
events, a mixture of the important and the unimportant, the
consequential and the inconsequential, with no evident pattern. Of
this, literary art is the _verklartes Bild_. It is not because,
in literature, men are happier and nobler that life seems superior
there; but because its outlines are sharper, its design more
perspicuous, the motives that sway it better understood. It has the
advantage over life that a landscape flooded with sunshine has over
one shrouded in darkness.
The way the literary artist builds up the ideal social world of fiction
follows closely the method which we all employ in constructing the
real social world. In real life we start from certain perceived acts
and utterances, to which we then attach purposive meanings, and between
which we establish relations. The process of interpretation is so rapid
that, although strictly inferential in character and having imagination
as its seat, it seems, nevertheless, like direct perception. As we see
people act and hear them talk, it is as if we had a vision, confused
indeed, yet direct, of their inner lives. And yet, as we have insisted,
the real social world is constructed, not perceived.
The literary artist, unless he calls dramatic art to his aid, cannot
present the persons and acts of his story; he can only describe them
and report their talk. Description must take the place of vision, a
recorded conversation the place of a heard one.
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