dr mohit k ray

oparative Study of the Indian Poetics and the Western Poetics . New Delhi : Sarup & Sons, 2008.

E.M.W.Tillyard's The Epic Strain in the English Novel [in press]

Foreword

Tillyards's The Epic Strain in the English Novel is actually a sequel to his earlier book, English Epic and its Background towards the end of which he asserted that by the nineteenth century the course of epic changed from the traditional verse form to novel. The present book is an elaborate defence of that assertion

While he believes that “there is such a thing as the epic kind of literature” he does not believe the term “English novel” has any precise signification as a literary form. Tillyard argues that there are definite literary kinds, of which epic is one, and he proposes to define its salient features on the basis of which the novels can be clustered. One problem in the treatment of the literary kinds is , as Boileau had pointed out in Art Poetique, whether they should be classified according to the subject matter or the structure or the texture etc.There is always a distinction between the external form and the inner spirit. Tillyard argues that it is the communal or the choric quality which makes a literary work an epic. It is immaterial whether in outer form a work is a tragedy or a satire or a picaresque. It is in this sense that Robinson Crusoe is an epic, because it voices the ‘accepted unconscious metaphysic' of the middle class people. By the same criteria , Tom Jones , though claimed as an epic by the author and many critics , fails as an epic, because it “lacks sustained intensity: it does not make the heroic impression” and its hero , unlike Crusoe never turns into an Everyman .About the novels of Scott Tillyard holds that none of his novels can be called an epic although he concedes that some of his early novels form an “epic area”. In other words, they operate within a literary area, congenial for an epic, but the potentialities are not realized. The fact that the prosperity of Scotland at the turn of the centuries gave the Scotsman a sense of well-being and held them together was congenial for an epic effect Of Scott's early novels three stand out in this respect. These are Waverley , Rob Roy and the Heart of Midlothian Of the three Waverley is the richest in terms of themes, styles , intensity and diversification. But , unfortunately, the themes are not powerfully developed and thus though it reveals the data of a choric effect in its treatment of the problems of Highland and Lowland, England and Scotland “it cannot stand as an achieved epic in its own right”. The two novels that come between Waverley and Rob Roy - Guy Mannering, The Antiquity- also belong, though in a small way, to the epic area. About Old Morality Tillyard combats the current opinions and asserts: “If any

Novel of Scott should be an epic it is Old Morality ”..Yet it fails to be an epic, its amplitude notwithstanding, because of “the perfunctory way” Scott treats its hero. In Rob Roy Scott simultaneously created and expressed the feelings of the body of his countrymen” and thus “through this great comic novel he was practicing the epic mode” Tillyard considers Heart of Midlothian

Scott's greatest novel for its remarkable “geographical intensity” and as Scott's “noblest and most powerful version of the great national themes that held his mind” Although it evinces many epic qualities in parts it is the second story, the story of the Tale of Two Sisters which dominates the last third of the novel, that adversely affects the clarity of the first story , that is the story of Jeanie Deans.

In brief, according to Tillyard, although Scott had the necessary amplitude and perception of the sentiments of a large group of people his novels failed to acquire the epic stature because of the deficiency in organization and the inability to pursue his themes with sustained, conscious will.

Of Thackeray's novels Vanity Fair had the largest scope of rising to the epic stature. It has amplitude' large number of characters, leisurely movement , but Thackeray “does not animate many strata of the society – fewer than Fielding does in Tom Jones “, and, therefore, cannot be said to voice its “accepted unconscious metaphysic”. It is not an epic ; it is only a “superlative picaresque romance”. Melville's Moby Dick , though a monumental work does not interpret the “accepted unconscious metaphysic” of a group ; it is concerned only with the spirit of an individual

Of Henry James's novels only Princess Casamassimma had a chance of touching the epic but it fails mainly because of the character of the Princess herself who belongs to the great line of comic victim. And who occasionally becomes exquisitely ludicrous.

Tillyard discusses Conrad's Nostromo at great length (41 pages: longest discussion of a single novel in the book). And finds it comparable with the Homeric epics.; “ after the manner of the Iliad , it pictures not only man's private struggles with his destiny but also a whole phase of man's political and social life”. Conrad's use of history in this novel lends unique breadth and dignity to the novel and makes it an epic. Tillyard also discovers with fine original insight, some fairy tale elements in the novel : Montero , the malicious fairy; Charles Gould, the exiled prince etc. But it is a fairy tale with a tragic turn. However, Conrad's mixture of romance and fairy tale with irony reminds one of Homer's mingling of the fabulous with the actual in the Odyssey. Tillyard asserts that in Nostromo “Conrad achieved an epic in the medium of prose fiction”.

George Eliot's Middlemarch is a great work but its qualities, according to Tillyard, are not of the epic kind.; it is eminently a novel of personal relations. In contrast, in Arnold Bennet's The Clayhanger Trilogy the individual feelings are subordinated to group feelings However in spite of the orientation towards the epic the trilogy fails because of the lack of magnitude and lack of sustained seriousness. Some of the episodes may be called, at best, epic fragments. In Old Wives' Tale Bennet is able to render successfully the choric feeling of provincial Puritanism. Judged by other criteria also such as amplitude, characters, treatment of history etc. Old Wives' Tale , is an authentic epic, though it is certainly not one of the greatest works of literature.

Ulysses is a great work .It is an epoch making novel .Joyce spent seven years in writing it and dealt with a vast, almost intractable material, He drew parallels with Homer's Odyssey. Therefore the book's claim to be considered as an epic cannot be ignored. But Tillyard shows with his brilliant exegesis that the book is not an organic whole The parallels are also debatable. Tillyard points out, for example, that though Marion Bloom and Stephen Dedalus can be roughly approximated to Penelope and Telemachus, their natures are very different from the natures of their counterparts. Ulysses does not reflect any choric feeling, and most importantly it does not embody any positive faith. Hence it cannot be considered an epic.

I am sure all the students and the teachers of English literature will find Tillyard's luminous and highly insightful explorations of the epic strain in English novel, extremely interesting and immensely valuable.

Mohit K. Ray