DIY History | Transcribe | Scholarship at Iowa | The Ethical Tendency of the English Novel by Helen M. Harney, 1897 | The Ethical Tendency of the English Novel by Helen M. Harney, 1897, Page 17

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The Ethical Tendency of the English Novel by Helen M. Harney, 1897

The Ethical Tendency of the English Novel by Helen M. Harney, 1897, Page 17

the newer work outweighs that in the older. In England, the novel with a purpose began its course with Miss Edgeworth and she showed that the facts and analysis of real life, afford better materials for instructive and even for amusing fiction, than imaginary character and improbable adventures. She executed the most delicate and difficult office of moral fiction with greater ability and skill tan any of her predecessors or contemporaries; yet all she has done, is but the type and shadow of what Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward has done. During the early part of the present century the movement towards purposive fiction did not make much headway, its place was taken by the purposive poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats; but as the century advanced, gradually fiction began to think and to teach, instead of merely amusing.
Disraeli in "Sybil" anticipated our modern
14.

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the newer work outweighs that in the older. In England, the novel with a purpose began its course with Miss Edgeworth and she showed that the facts and analysis of real life, afford better materials for instructive and even for amusing fiction, than imaginary character and improbable adventures. She executed the most delicate and difficult office of moral fiction with greater ability and skill tan any of her predecessors or contemporaries; yet all she has done, is but the type and shadow of what Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward has done. During the early part of the present century the movement towards purposive fiction did not make much headway, its place was taken by the purposive poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats; but as the century advanced, gradually fiction began to think and to teach, instead of merely amusing. Disraeli in "Sybil" anticipated our modern 14.