Quotes from "An Introduction to the English Novel: Volume I (Defoe to George Eliot) & Volume II (Henry James to the Present)" by Arnold Kettle
I.
"Tender little parasite"
"Prose arises later as science gradually supercedes magic and conscious control replaces instinctive emotion. Prose is a later, more sophisticated use of language than poetry precisely because it presupposes a more objective, controlled and conscious view of reality." (Pg 37)
II.
"If life escapes his clutches it is because he cannot bring himself or his main characters to participate fully and sympathetically in life as it actually is." (Pg 95)
"‘Middle-brow’ literature –not to beat about the bush—is inferior literature adapted to the special tastes and needs of the middleclass and of those who consciously or not adopt the values of that class. It may be inferior for any number of reasons—every bad book has its own particular quality of badness—but to come within the category of ‘middle-brow’ it must maintain, whatever its particular brand of inferiority, certain properties sacred to the bulk of readers of the more superior lending-libraries. Though permitted to titillate with the mention and even the occasional vision of the unmentionable, it must never fundamentally shake, never stretch beyond the breaking-point, certain secure complacencies. It is worth making this point because it would be quite wrong to see ‘middle-brow’ literature as merely qualitatively mediocre, better than bad literature but worse than good. Its distinctive feature is not its quality but its function." (Pg 96)
"Tender little parasite"
"Prose arises later as science gradually supercedes magic and conscious control replaces instinctive emotion. Prose is a later, more sophisticated use of language than poetry precisely because it presupposes a more objective, controlled and conscious view of reality." (Pg 37)
II.
"If life escapes his clutches it is because he cannot bring himself or his main characters to participate fully and sympathetically in life as it actually is." (Pg 95)
"‘Middle-brow’ literature –not to beat about the bush—is inferior literature adapted to the special tastes and needs of the middleclass and of those who consciously or not adopt the values of that class. It may be inferior for any number of reasons—every bad book has its own particular quality of badness—but to come within the category of ‘middle-brow’ it must maintain, whatever its particular brand of inferiority, certain properties sacred to the bulk of readers of the more superior lending-libraries. Though permitted to titillate with the mention and even the occasional vision of the unmentionable, it must never fundamentally shake, never stretch beyond the breaking-point, certain secure complacencies. It is worth making this point because it would be quite wrong to see ‘middle-brow’ literature as merely qualitatively mediocre, better than bad literature but worse than good. Its distinctive feature is not its quality but its function." (Pg 96)
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