CHIVALRY James Branch Cabell Author
- nuovo livroISBN: 2940015488746
IntroductionFew of the more astute critics who have appraised the work of JamesBranch Cabell have failed to call attention to that extraordinarycohesion which makes his very latest novel … mais…
IntroductionFew of the more astute critics who have appraised the work of JamesBranch Cabell have failed to call attention to that extraordinarycohesion which makes his very latest novel a further flowering of theseed of his very earliest literary work. Especially among his laterbooks does the scheme of each seem to dovetail into the scheme of theother and the whole of his writing take on the character of anuninterrupted discourse. To this phenomenon, which is at once a fact andan illusion of continuity, Mr. Cabell himself has consciouslycontributed, not only by a subtly elaborate use of conjunctions, byrepetition, and by reintroducing characters from his other books, but byactually setting his expertness in genealogy to the genial task ofdevising a family tree for his figures of fiction.If this were an actual continuity, more tangible than that fluidabstraction we call the life force; if it were merely a tirelessreiteration and recasting of characters, Mr. Cabell's work would have anunbearable monotony. But at bottom this apparent continuity has no morematerial existence than has the thread of lineal descent. To insistupon its importance is to obscure, as has been obscured, the epic rangeof Mr. Cabell's creative genius. It is to fail to observe that he hastreated in his many books every mainspring of human action and that histhemes have been the cardinal dreams and impulses which have in themheroic qualities. Each separate volume has a unity and harmony of acomplete and separate life, for the excellent reason that with theconsummate skill of an artist he is concerned exclusively in each bookwith one definite heroic impulse and its frustrations.It is true, of course, that like the fruit of the tree of life, Mr.Cabell's artistic progeny sprang from a first conceptual germ--In thebeginning was the Word. That animating idea is the assumption that iflife may be said to have an aim it must be an aim to terminate insuccess and splendor. It postulates the high, fine importance of excess,the choice or discovery of an overwhelming impulse in life and aconscientious dedication to its fullest realization. It is the qualityand intensity of the dream only which raises men above the biologicalnorm; and it is fidelity to the dream which differentiates theexceptional figure, the man of heroic stature, from the muddling,aimless mediocrities about him. What the dream is, matters not atall--it may be a dream of sainthood, kingship, love, art, asceticism orsensual pleasure--so long as it is fully expressed with all theresources of self. It is this sort of completion which Mr. Cabell haselected to depict in all his work: the complete sensualist inDemetrios, the complete phrase-maker in Felix Kennaston, the completepoet in Marlowe, the complete lover in Perion. In each he has shown thatthis complete self-expression is achieved at the expense of all otherpossible selves, and that herein lies the tragedy of the ideal.Perfection is a costly flower and is cultured only by an uncompromising,strict husbandry.All this is, we see, the ideational gonfalon under which surge theromanticists; but from the evidence at hand it is the banner to whichlife also bears allegiance. It is in humanity's records that it hasreserved its honors for its romantic figures. It remembers its Caesars,its saints, its sinners. It applauds, with a complete suspension ofmoral judgment, its heroines and its heroes who achieve the greatestself-realization. And from the splendid triumphs and tragic defeats ofhumanity's individual strivings have come our heritage of wisdom and ofpoetry.Once we understand the fundamentals of Mr. Cabell's artistic aims, it isnot easy to escape the fact that in _Figures of Earth_ he undertook thestaggering and almost unsuspected task of rewriting humanity's sacredbooks, just as in _Jurgen_ he gave us a stupendous analogue of theceaseless quest for beauty. For we must accept the truth that Mr. Cabellis not a novelist at all in the common acceptance of the term, but ahistorian of the human soul. His books are neither documentary norrepresentational; his characters are symbols of human desires andmotives. By the not at all simple process of recording faithfully theprojections of his rich and varied imagination, he has written thirteenbooks, which he accurately terms biography, wherein is the bitter-sweettruth about human life. Digital Content>E-books>Juv Young Readers>Juv Young Readers>Juv Fiction PB, SAP Digital >16<
