172
STEVEN MARCUS
One instance of true prediction comes from Toqueville. Twenty–
five years before the event, he foresaw not only what the character
of the American poet would be but what his poetry would be like as
well.
If
an ancient doctrine of biology could be revived one might
remark that Toqueville had been privileged to examine the homun–
culus that was to become Walt Whitman. But predictions of this kind
occur about as often as works like
Democracy in America.
Toque–
ville's description of the American poet, moreover, followed directly
upon his general theory of American society and was an authentic
prediction in the sense that it took the form of an inference: certain
conditions having been observed, such and such was most likely to
be the outcome. Mr. Trilling's prediction, on the other hand, was
more in the way of a prescription, though it did not announce itself
as
one: given the present state of the novel (and the symptoms were
distressing- spasms in the prose, compound fracture of the novelistic
will, cirrhosis of the point of view), such and such
had
to happen if
the novel were to be restored to health. And like most specifics, Mr. '
Trilling's contained a considerable dosage of hope.
In one sense at least I find myself in sympathy with Mr. Tril–
ling's argument.
If
his
prediction had been fulfilled the novel today
would probably be in a much improved state, and we might all
have a more definite sense of where we are and what we are, simply
because the novelist would have been telling us- presuming he re–
tained his traditional genius for making order and sense out of chaos
and nonsense. In fact, the reverse of what Mr. Trilling envisaged has
taken place. With all due respect, with certain exceptions to be noted '
presently, and without prejudice to whomever it may concern, it may
be said that within the last fifteen years the novel almost has achieved
that curious condition of fineness which T. S. Eliot once ascribed to
the mind of Henry James: not an idea violates it. In the presence
of such chastity it may be useful to inquire into what has happened
and attempt to determine how whatever it is has come about.
The governing tendency in the novel during the last fifteen or
twenty years has, I think, been in the direction of poetry. I do not
mean by this that novelistic prose has become increasingly poetic and
less able to sustain a namltive with all its freight of events and
swiftness of movement- although this is probably true. I mean that
the novel today seems more and more to be acquiring the formal
