The Vanishing Subject: Empirical Psychology and the Modern Novel

Author(s): Judith Ryan

Source: PMLA, Vol. 95, No. 5 (Oct., 1980), pp. 857-869
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461762
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 JUDITH RYAN

The Vanishing Subject: Empirical Psychology

and the Modern Novel

early as 1884, and Ernst Mach, in his controver-

sial Analyse der Empfindungen 'Analysis of
I Sensations' (1886), were turning once again to
ideas originally developed in the eighteenth cen-
T HE TRANSITION between the late nine- tury by the British empiricists Locke, Berkeley,
teenth century and the twentieth, and one Hume.2
of These philosophers had subscribed
the most fascinating in literary history,
to the view that mind has its source in empirical
experience and manifests itself only in sensa-
continues to be the subject of debate on a variety
of fronts. As writers moved away fromtions of the world around. But if mind, as Hume
realism
and naturalism, emphasis on the subjective in particular had claimed, was simply a collec-
mediation of reality in literary presentation in-combination of ideas and impressions,
tion and
creased. This development was not so not much a
an entity in itself, what were the implications
clean break, however, as a realization of for
tenden-
more modern concepts, such as "conscious-
cies already implicit in nineteenth-centuryness," "self," and "subjectivity"? These ques-
litera-
ture.1 While naturalism, especially, was tions,pri-
which were some of the principal ones the
marily concerned with developing the nineteenth-century
greatest empiricists addressed, also
possible objectivity of presentation, itshad
reflec-
considerable relevance for prose fiction.
I should like to show in this essay how a
tions on the practicability of this aim inevitably
forced it to take into account (however number
margin- of writers took up these issues through
ally) the role played by the author-perforce a
their contacts, direct or indirect, with empirical
limited subjective mind. Thus Zola modified hisOf course, the interaction between lit-
thought.
definition of naturalism as "un coin de la na- erature and philosophy, especially in this case, is
ture" 'segment of nature' with the pendant an"vu
extremely subtle relation that cannot be
par un temperament" 'seen by an individual viewed as a matter of simple causality. In fact,
mind,' and the German naturalist Arno Holz ex- the personal connections between a number of
pressed his formula for art as "nature minus thex."
writers and philosophers of the period sug-
Their very attempts to minimize the filtering gest that the influences were reciprocal: both
effect of the author's subjectivity drew attention,
literature and philosophy had reached a point
paradoxically, to a basic problem inherent in where
fic- long-held tenets needed to be rethought.
The practical advantage, for my argument, of
tional representations of reality. It is not surpris-
ing, then, to see their successors address the empiricism as the starting point is simply
taking
question of subjectivity in a more overt form,
that in empiricism we find conceptualized what
literature enacts in a less abstract mode. Focus-
emphasizing in both theory and practice the sub-
stantial limitations that the restrictedness of the
ing the issue this way enables us to trace a liter-
subjective mind places on dispassionate observa-ary development hitherto relatively unobserved:
tion.
a movement away from narration through the
But in the same period, the latter decades ofmedium of a specific subjective mind to a tech-
the nineteenth century, new theories were being nique in which, as Virginia Woolf puts it, "the
advanced that cast doubt on the discrete identity world is seen without a self."3
of the subject itself. Psychologists such as Wil- The empirical psychologists were responsible
liam James, in articles that began to appear asfor unmasking the fictitious division into subject
857

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858 Empirical Psychology and the Modern Novel
and object, world and self: they recognized the diffusing the sensations and perceptions de-
dependence of our concept of self on the prin- scribed and dissociating them to some degree
ciple of intentionality; they explored the rela- from both protagonist and narrator.
tionship between the actual discontinuity of Empirical psychology interacted with modern
sense perception and our imagined view of it as literature through two main focuses: first, Wil-
an uninterrupted flux; they showed the inter- liam and Henry James, whose relationship was
penetration of what we commonly believe to be responsible for channeling empirical thought
discrete; they stressed the equal importance of into the English and American novel, and sec-
thought and things. Reduced to its basic tenet, ond, Ernst Mach and his followers in Vienna
empiricism states that all we can know are sense and Berlin, whose influence on the course of the
impressions, thoughts, and feelings, bundled to- German and Austrian novel was even more
gether as "elements" (Mach's term) of our total overt. Although literary developments in the
view of things. The "self" is merely a pragmati- English-speaking and German-speaking coun-
cally convenient category of thought. Woolf's tries were essentially discrete, the psychologies
phrase "the word seen without a self," by elimi- that helped produce them were connected by the
nating the observing "self" but not the actual act interchange between William James and his
of observing, aptly describes the literary equiva- German counterparts. The similarity of the con-
lent of this "elementaristic" view. The move- clusions reached by novelists in the two tradi-
ment her own work underwent from Mrs. Dal- tions can be accounted for not only by these
loway to The Waves parallels the general
writers' common base in empiricism but also by
movement of literature in the broader period their confrontation with an author who raised
that concerns us here. A preoccupation with the hackles of the empirically schooled through
perception and with the expression of perceptionhis very reliance on the concept of self-James
in its various modalities characterizes the entire Joyce. The challenge that Joyce laid before his
period; perception looses itself by degrees from contemporaries had the catalytic effect of pro-
its personal anchoring and becomes increasingly voking them to ask themselves how they could,
disembodied. Whereas aestheticism adheres to on the one hand, emulate his technique while, on
Altenberg's tag "Wie ich es sehe" 'How I see it'
the other hand, remaining true to empirical prin-
(my italics), Woolf vociferously attacks the
ciples. In taking issue with Joyce, they were able
predominance of the "damned egotistical self."4 to clarify their own ideas about appropriate
We shall see other writers, notably Alfred D6b- forms of narrative presentation. We return to
lin and to a lesser extent Henry James, move this point in more detail later.
similarly from narration through a limited sub-Despite a rapid succession of apparently dis-
jectivity to a more "elementaristic" presentation.parate styles, the development of the novel in
In other words, they began to develop a style this in period represents an ever more secure inte-
which subjectivity is dissolved and "world" and gration of the empirical impulse, with its twofold
"self" are reduced to a loosely associated bundle emphasis on perception and the "elements" of
of elements-a style in which things and sensa- perception. This development involved a move
tions have equal valency within the entire com- away from the world-weariness typical of the
plex. This view was difficult to transfer into turn of the century, an attitude that nourished
narrative, especially in the light of an inherent critical misconceptions of what the empiricists
were trying to say. When the empiricists gave
intransigence of language itself, its subject-predi-
cate structure. "Elementaristic" narration thus equal weight to perceptions of "real" and imag-
cannot be identical with a specific mode, suchinary as objects, they were by no means maintain-
interior monologue (which presupposes an ex- ing that the world is but an illusion. Again and
periencing subject), although it may contain
again they pointed out that inquiry into the "re-
fragments of interior monologue, along with ality" of anything other than sensory perceptions
other narrative modes, as part of its collection of
is vain or at least inaccessible to empirical exam-
"elements." Most of its practitioners attempt ination;
to but they did not intend to imply, as
create the illusion of the "world seen without a many understood them to do, that world and self
self" by interweaving different techniques, thusare nonexistent.5 While the "metaphysicists"-

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 Judith Ryan 859

and certain more practical souls as well- gaps in our observational field, and of acting
mounted a virulent attack on the empiricists, the with sovereign disregard for what James recog-
turn-of-the-century poets frequently took em- nized to be the actual "narrowness of conscious-
piricism for a confirmation of their own sense of ness."7

lassitude and insubstantiality and echoed its It is fascinating to see how close Henry James
imagery and phraseology in their writings. Hof- comes to his brother's understanding of the
mannsthal's Lord Chandos adopted that position psychology of perception. In The Art of Fiction
in his well-known letter, Ein Brief [des Lord (1888) he formulates the equivalent of the em-
Chandos], to which I return at a later point. The pirical position: "If experience consists of im-
more vigorous years immediately following this pressions, it may be said that impressions are
phase led to a revaluation of empiricist thought experience, just as (have we not seen it?) they
and to the gradual discovery of its potential for are the very air we breathe."8 In putting it this
constructing a new and different whole from the way, Henry espouses a view that William later
world it had apparently fragmented. The area in came to term "radical empiricism":
which this cohesion is found and the means by
which it is re-created vary from one writer to To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit
another and become modified by impressionism into its constructions any element that is not di-
and expressionism in quite divergent ways. rectly experienced, nor exclude from them any
element that is directly experienced. For such a
philosophy, the relations that connect experiences
II must themselves be experienced relations, and any
kind of relation experienced must be accounted as
One formal modification was the continuing "real" as anything else in the system.
refinement of that literary technique which was (Radical Empiricism, p. 42; James's italics)
most interesting to the empiricists, what is com-
monly called "stream-of-consciousness" narra- One can scarcely imagine a closer description of
tion. The term is usually used to mean any kind the epistemological rationale behind Henry
of interior monologue that presents a character's James's novels. It accounts, in particular, for the
subvocal thoughts in an apparently illogical se- emphasis in the novels on the process by which
quence of continuous associations. For the pur- the mind comes to "know" what it can only par-
poses of this paper, however, it seems desirable tially perceive by reconstructing and completing
to avoid confusion by restricting the term to the the incomplete image. The minute detail in
sense intended by its originator, William James, which James reports his characters' experience is
and using "interior monologue" to designate the the attempt at completeness that his brother de-
narrative technique of which the associative mands from "radical empiricism," the prohibi-
train of thought is a specific subvariety.6 tion against excluding "any element that is di-
A paradox became evident quite early in the rectly experienced." The connections made by
psychological investigation into the phenomenon the experiencing mind, the way in which it fills
of consciousness. William James devoted con- out the gaps in its bundles of observations, oc-
siderable discussion to the dual aspect of con- cupy the same level of validity as the perceptions
sciousness. He showed that consciousness, while themselves: the connections may not be "real"
actually no more than a bundle of oftenindis- the common sense of the term, but "any kind
parate and discontinuous sensory perceptions, of relation experienced must be accounted as
"does not appear to itself chopped up in bits" 'real' as anything else in the system." In this
but seems, rather, a single continuous stream sense-the
in- one to which the novels clearly sub-
terpreted by the perceiving mind as identical scribe-what Lambert Strether and Maisie
with what the mind imagines to be the "self" Farange piece together about the relationships of
(Principles of Psychology, p. 239). We are con- the lovers they are observing is as real as wha
ever these relationships might be "in actuality
stantly in the process of re-creating this continu-
ity, of making connections between ourselves But James does not, as this account mig
yesterday and ourselves today, of filling outseem the to suggest, always narrate through a sin

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860 Empirical Psychology and the Modern Novel
subjective mind. Frequently, he also attempts to
present simultaneous "fields of consciousness"
(William James's term) through the lens of a
single reconstructing "Intelligence."9 If we con-
trast James with Kafka for a moment, we may
say that James's interest lies, not in demonstrat-
ing the inaccessibility of a possibly nonexistent
totality beyond the restrictions of consciousness
(as Kafka repeatedly does), but in revealing the
process by which the restricted consciousness
struggles to construct a pragmatic unity in the
world it perceives and, by implication, in itself
as well. Kafka presents consciousness in the
third person to draw attention to this very re-
strictedness. James's third-person technique has
perception and intuition, but she is not intel-
lectually precocious. The amplification provided
by Henry James's "commentary," as he calls his
translation of Maisie's experience, is thus a
technique for expressing what lies on the periph-
ery of the character's consciousness. In other
words, James gives us both the "impressions"
that are "the very air we breathe" and the shift-
ing relations in which they are granted coherence
by the perceiver-and presents these impres-
sions in the minuscule displacement of his own,
more finely tuned verbalizations. The narrator's
psychological observation is extremely close to
the characters' presumed self-perception but
subtler and richer.

an entirely different intent, one that is much Still, in spite of James's "amplification," his
more closely related to the empiricists' attempt translation of experience differs from certain
to provide an analysis of the act of perception more familiar modes. The narrator does not

itself. He continually verbalizes experiences that "psychoanalyze" the characters-translating

his characters cannot themselves put into words. them into terms entirely foreign to their own
Maisie is an excellent example of this technique, thoughts-or impute motivations to them from
as James observes in his preface to What Maisie his position outside them. By the same token,
Knew: James does not accept the value that earlier
novelists placed on impassionate or "objective"
observation but tries to have as his narrator a
Small children have many more perceptions than
they have the terms to translate them; their vision person sympathetic and sensitive to the experi-
is at any moment much richer, their apprehension ences recorded. This narrator is the "right reflec-
even constantly stronger, than their prompt, their
tor" he refers to in his preface to The Princess
at all producible, vocabulary. Amusing therefore
Casamassima, the person who is "capable of
as it might at the first blush have seemed to restrict
feeling in the given case more than another what
myself in this case to the terms as well as to the
experience, it became at once plain that such an is to be felt for it, and so serving in the highest
attempt would fail. Maisie's terms accordingly play degree to record it dramatically and objectively"
their part-since her simpler conclusions quite de- (Art of the Novel, p. 67). It has been pointed
pend on them; but our own commentary constantly out that although James uses the term "objec-
attends and amplifies.1' tive," he does not understand it in the same way
as the French naturalists had;1l indeed, this
In deliberately avoiding the disconnected in- preface is best read as a debate with his prede-
terior monologue later to be used, for example, cessors on the issue of dispassionate presenta-
by Joyce in the opening chapter of Portrait of tion in the novel. James notes that the "great
the Artist and substituting his own verbalizations chroniclers" always used some kind of reflector,
of what Maisie "knows" but cannot even sub- always "placed a mind of some sort-in the
vocally express, James shares his brother'ssense
rec- of a reflecting and coloring medium-in
ognition of the subtle range and shadings of
possession of the general adventure"; but he jus-
consciousness, whose content is exhausted nei-
tifies his own demand for an especially finely
tuned receptor by reference to the "degrees of
ther by what one can verbalize nor by the appar-
ent focus of one's attention. Whereas Stephen
feeling" that correspond, in his system, to the
Dedalus' baby thoughts must be presumed moredegrees of attention that his brother had written
about in Principles of Psychology (Art of the
or less identical with the baby language repro-
Novel, pp. 67, 62). Only a highly sensitive
duced at the beginning of the Portrait, Maisie's
medium,
insights are subtler than the linguistic range of in other words, could capture the nu-
a young girl would allow: she may have unusual
ances of peripheral consciousness.

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 Judith Ryan 861

The manner in which James's observers par-into a group of impressions . . . in the mind of
tially subsume the feelings and perceptions ofthe observer"); the restricted nature of con-
others into their own observational fields is a sciousness ("the whole scope of observation is
dwarfed into the narrow chamber of the individ-
further reflection of empiricism, with its break-
ual mind"); and the concern for the individual
ing down of the subject-object barrier. The
double-lens structure that we have described as "moments as they pass."13 But it reduces these
operating in such novels as What Maisie Knew insights to the perennial observation that matter
and The Princess Casamassima-the sensitive is impermanent, and it does not attend to the
narrator observing a limited consciousness-can operations of consciousness itself. Thus aestheti-
be expanded infinitely, as in The Goldencism Bowl,
can be regarded as a precursor of empiri-
where the narrative focus is transferred from cism's impressionistic aspect, without empiri-
Amerigo to Maggie and their perspectives are cism's pragmatic underpinnings.
constantly modified by Fanny Assingham. If we
compare this multiperspectivism with that of
later novels, such as Faulkner's The Sound and III
the Fury, we can readily see the difference be-
tween the two methods. Faulkner presents hisPater's counterparts in Germany thought simi-
larly, but some of them, in contrast to Pater,
characters' monologues in the first person, while
James narrates throughout in the third person were directly influenced by empiricism. Ernst
(see Cohn, p. 77); and, more important for this Mach was the prime formulator of a psychologi-
study, where Faulkner has several characters re-cal movement that was restricted primarily to
Vienna
late the same set of events from entirely discrete but was known to a lesser degree,
points of view, James works with overlapping, through his pupils and associates, in Berlin as
well. Hermann Bahr's treatise "Dialog iiber das
constantly shifting focuses. Thus opposing views
Tragische" 'Dialogue on the Tragic' (1904)
on the autonomy of consciousness and self
underlie the differing techniques. represents one of the first pertinent treatments of
There are two points to be made about Mach's psychological theories by a writer of lit-
erature, and Bahr's earlier essay "Die Uberwin-
James's method in its relation to empirical
thought. First, James sees consciousness notdung as des Naturalismus" 'Beyond Naturalism'
(1891) provided the essential transition, for
discrete (i.e., confined to a particular subject)
but as fluid and unbounded. Second, he shows German-speaking writers, between naturalism
intentionality to be the constitutive feature and
of aestheticism.14 Other writers, chiefly the
consciousness: he emphasizes less the content Austrians
of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Arthur
Schnitzler, also figured prominently in this
perception than the act itself as a reciprocal rela-
tionship between the perceiver and the thing
phase. Mach's theories gave rise to two conflicts
in these years: the debate between the meta-
perceived. James never tires of demonstrating
the extent to which self is identical with what the physicians and the empiricists and the attacks on
self perceives, is in fact created by the very act Mach for what was falsely thought to be his ten-
of perceiving. In stressing both aspects James dency to nihilism and solipsism.15 The former
gives a more complex account of consciousness, argument need not concern us here, but the lat-
one that is truer to the full implications of em-ter gives evidence of a duality in the aestheticist
pirical psychology, than do such contemporaries movement in general. Discovering that the enti-
as Pater and his followers.12
ties "world" and "self" could no longer be said
In the aestheticists' "world without self," to exist as such, the young poets either gave
world and self have merged, leaving nothing but themselves up to despair or succumbed to the
the sheer flux of impressions; in James's world, hope of a momentary fusion; impressions were
the self constructs itself from the impressions it either too manifold to be controlled or expressed
receives and the relations it experiences. To be or else so fleeting that they had to be savored as
sure, Pater's discussion of "impressions" bears privileged moments before they passed. Hof-
many of the hallmarks of empiricism: the dis- mannsthal expresses both these views in the
solution of fixed entities ("each object is loosed Lord Chandos letter, in which the disintegration

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862 Empirical Psychology and the Modern Novel
of experience is the starting point and the brief perceives the psychiatrist's stance toward the
illumination afforded by absorption in momen- patient as essentially disinterested and nonana-
tary experience is a subsequently emerging trans- lytical, and he stresses again and again that
figuration. The two aspects combine in Hof- psychiatry should not presume beyond the mere
mannsthal's description of the poet as one who observation of external behavior.17 Similarly,
"savors" the very things that threaten to over- the novelist should refrain from imputing to a
whelm the self, who creates out of the oppres- fictional character a specific, consistent psycho-
sive multiplicity of phenomena the vision that logical makeup and from claiming any ability to
gives them unity. For Hofmannsthal, the poet is give a complete account of a character's motiva-
a seismograph, existing only in the manifold im- tion. What is inaccessible to empirical observa-
pressions from which "he takes his color"; yet at tion should remain beyond the domain both of
the same time it is the poet who is able, miracu- the psychiatrist and of the novelist. In his re-
lously, to hold the complexity of elements to- quirements for the structure of the modem
gether.16 Similarly, characters in Schnitzler's novel, Doblin, like the empiricists, emphasizes
plays and stories and in the early works of Her- the separateness of each individual moment,
mann Broch and Robert Musil vacillate between thus connecting the new "elementarism" with
negative and positive interpretations of empiri- traditional epic theory ("Der Bau des epischen
cism's abolition of the subject-object barrier. AtWerks," Aufsiitze, pp. 103-32).
times the characters drift aimlessly through a
random chain of impressions and experiences; at
times they surrender rapturously to the sensa- IV
tions of the moment. In his dramas, Schnitzler
renders the impressionistic nature of conscious- Instead of adducing specific evidence of em-
ness by means of a discontinuous scenic tech- pirical and pragmatistic thought in the works of
nique; in his short stories, he employs interior Broch, Musil, and Doblin,18 I should like to
monologue to combine perceptions, feelings,examine the consequences of this interrelation-
words, and subvocal thoughts. Broch and Musil,ship for the development of the psychological
in comparison, gradually evolved a style that and social strata of the novel, on the one hand,
weaves in and out between dispassionate obser-and for the development of narrative technique,
vation and an inside view of the characters' per- on the other. Both aspects relate to what we
ceptions. The crisis brought on by insights simi- have already seen in Henry James and carry it a
lar to those of the empiricists is shown to be one stage further, paving the way for our discussion
both of knowledge and of identity, and those of Virginia Woolf. Furthermore, these aspects
experiencing it find little comfort in Ernst
taken together may help to bring out the nature
Mach's or Hermann Bahr's pragmatic conclu- of the literary transition we are attempting to
sion that we may as well continue to act by the define.
categories of "world" and "self," since the only All three novelists-Broch, Musil, and D6blin
alternative is total resignation. -refer directly or indirectly in their own writ-
In contrast with these Viennese authors, whoings to the psychological novels of French nat-
had come into direct contact with empiricism uralism and German realism. The embryonic
either by attending Mach's lectures or by study- awareness, in these movements, of a subjective
ing his writings, Alfred Doblin was subject to acomponent in narration-the "temperament" of
less direct influence through his studies in Berlin.Zola or the narrative mediation of Fontane19
Carl Stumpf was lecturing in Berlin at the time, -was developed by the twentieth-century novel-
and it was there that Robert Musil wrote his
ists and given a new basis in empiricism. In
dissertation on Mach under Stumpf's guidance; the process, the novelists uncovered the di-
but I know of no evidence that D6blin actually lemma, already adumbrated by the naturalist
attended Stumpf's courses. Nevertheless, the movement, that empirical thought presents for
psychiatric training D6blin received was prag-the novelist. Limited-point-of-view technique-
matistically oriented, as his essays on psychol-
narration through a clearly nonomniscient sub-
ogy in the novel make abundantly clear. Hejective mind-was the ultimate result of the

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 Judith Ryan 863

epistemological observation that there is no veri- tended, as they developed, to move from the
fiable reality beyond what is subjectively ex- pure subjectivism of a limited narrative perspec-
perienced. As the empiricists had pointed out, tive to a more complex technique embracing
however, the concept of subject as "self" is at both the subjective sense of "self" and the objec-
best a convenient term of primarily pragmatic tive unmasking of this delusion. Thus D6blin
value. The self only imagines itself to be discrete progresses from restricted-perspective narration
and continuous, whereas in fact it is as fluid and in Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine 'Wad-
discontinuous as the moments that constitute it. zek's Struggle with the Steam Turbine' to a
It is no more than an "accustomed nexus of constructivist, multiperspective presentation in
sensory perceptions" (Mach, p. 19), as random Berlin Alexanderplatz. Musil gives us essentially
as any other grouping of "elements." Noveliststhe adolescent protagonist's own point of view
could thus choose, on the one hand, to (somewhat
present modified occasionally from the dis-
their material through a single subjectivity, with
tance of a later vantage point) in Die Verwirr-
all its inherent delusions and misapprehensions,
ungen des Zoglings Torle/3 (Young Torless) and
though in selecting this method they might movesun-to more ironic and less individually char-
wittingly appear to subscribe to the concept acterized
of narration in Der Mann ohne Eigen-
self as a definable entity. If, on the other schaften
hand, (The Man without Qualities). Broch's
they employed dispassionate observation, they
trilogy Die Schlafwandler (The Sleepwalkers)
would have to avoid implying the validity of an imitates this progression (which
deliberately
objective view or (from the technical angle) an as a development of modern thought
Broch sees
omniscient narrator. Both Fontane andinHenry general) in its shift from Pasenow's single
James partially sidestep this problem by virtu- in the first volume to the composite
perspective
ally eliminating auctorial comment through long of points of view in the third vol-
juxtaposition
stretches of conversation between characters. ume. More and more, the "elements" of these
Fontane's reliance on this technique was some-novels begin to resemble Mach's description of
thing of a novelty in German realism, especially world and self: "Eine zusammenhangende Masse
within his chosen genre, the historic novel von Empfindungen, nur etwas starker im Ich
(Demetz, p. 22); James, as is well known,zusammenhangend"
made 'a single mass of sensations,
the technique a vital part of his theory ofonly novelsomewhat more strongly cohering in the
writing. self' (Mach, p. 24, n. 1). Thus, like free-floating
None of these approaches provided the com- particles, the "elements" appear sometimes
plete answer to the problem of presenting both more, sometimes less related to the perceiving
the subjective continuity and the actual discon- self. Sometimes the narrator is identical with this
tinuity of reality as viewed by empiricism. Some elementaristic perspective and sometimes he
of the most successful responses lie, however, in shares the point of view of the perceiver; at
certain irresolvably ambiguous works: James's times he merely approximates the perceiver's
The Turn of the Screw and The Sacred Fount view, while at other times he diverges from it
(to name but two)2" and Musil's story "Tonka" entirely.
are examples of this category. James uses the The need of these novelists to reintroduce a
image of the two faces of a medal or the two narrator distinct from the perceiving subject is
figures in the carpet to describe writing that mir- puzzling, especially in the light of the pains the
rors a dual view of reality. When critics produce naturalists had taken in earlier novels to mini-
clashing and mutually exclusive interpretations mize the filtering effect of the narrator's essen-
of such thoroughgoing ambiguities in literature, tially extraneous point of view.21 One might
they merely illustrate the epistemological point surmise that as trained psychiatrists or psychol-
the works attempt to demonstrate. ogists the three writers habitually took up the
But total ambiguity is a tour de force difficult observer's posture; but in terms of literary his-
to sustain. We cannot retain two images on the tory, this argument does not suffice. Why would
retina at the same time; we must perforce vacil- three such novelists rise simultaneously to prom-
late between them. The three novelists of Ger- inence in the German-speaking world were there
man modernism with whom we are concerned
not something else behind the development of

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864 Empirical Psychology and the Modern Novel
their narrative techniques? Of the three, Broch perceptions, we need to examine our own,
deals at greatest length with the issue of what he equally important perceptions as outside ob-
calls "der Erzahler als Idee" 'the narrator as servers. We must be forced, like true empiricists,
idea,'22 a phenomenon incorporated partly inaccount of our own perceptions, feelings,
to take
the shifting perspective we have alreadyand de-
judgments even as they are apprehending
scribed and partly in the mysterious figure
FranzofBiberkopf's. The social criticism that is
Bertrand, who seems to orchestrate muchthe
ofbook's
the central aim makes this act the more
other characters' actions. The introduction of imperative.
Bertrand as a "superior" (and mostly invisible) Something similar happens in Musil's Der
figure indicates that Broch has moved beyond Mann ohne Eigenschaften. Like Biberkopf, the
psychotic Moosbrugger is said to think "in-
the purely empirical position where all elements
have equal valency. I believe that Broch's Pla-wardly and outwardly" at the same time; that is,
tonism, of which this is but one example, is he a recognizes no demarcation between his own
contradiction he was not able adequately mind to and outside reality.23 Ulrich, in pondering
Moosbrugger's case, simultaneously adopts the
think through. It is typical, however, of a trend
of the time, the tendency to seek something madman's point of view and reflects on it from
more cohesive behind the disparate "elements" the vantage point of his own thought categories;
of empirical reality. we, as readers, perceive Ulrich both from within
Doblin's use of an explicit, commenting,
and from a standpoint of ironic detachment set
choruslike narrator in Berlin Alexanderplatz isupa by the narrating voice. The multiple layers of
consciousness employed by Musil, as by Dbblin
different thing again. This narrator superstratum
differs strikingly from the techniques of Joyce and Broch, accurately mirror the concerns of
and Dos Passos, the two novelists who had ex- empirical psychology while they provide an
erted the greatest impact on his conception answer
of to the naturalist formulas of Zola and
Holz, whose modifying terms "temperament"
Alexanderplatz. Why did he feel the need to go
beyond the interior monologues of Ulysses, on
and "minus x" imply only a minuscule displace-
the one hand, and the dispassionate if often
ment.

ironically contrasting chapter preludes of Man-These techniques have significant implications

hattan Transfer, on the other? (Since U. S. A.,
for the concept of self. Whereas realism had pos-
with its "Camera's Eye" and "Newsreel" sec- ited the self as a knowable, definable entity, re-
tions, postdates Berlin Alexanderplatz, it is not
flected in consistency of characterization, em-
relevant to this argument.) The rationale for pirical psychology unmasked this concept as a
Doblin's reintroduction of the narrator lies, delusion. If the self is not bounded, internally
presumably, in his concern to establish a new consistent, or more or less stable at its core, then
type of naturalism that would both continue action cannot be said to stem from character, nor
what he felt to be the "interrupted course" of can character "develop" in the customary sense.
late nineteenth-century naturalism (Aufsiitze, p. Events must be presented more as a random
145) and develop it in terms more appropriate chain than as a logical progression, and if things
to his own social activism. As in Arno Holz's cohere at all, they must do so only because the
Papa Hamlet, D6blin's depictions of his mind
pro- cannot deal with them without positing re-
tagonist present a minutely detailed account lations,
of however fictitious. What the naturalists
understood as determinism now appears as a
the character's every action and reaction. These
are given from a fluctuating perspective thatkind
in- of inexplicable automatism-sometimes the
cludes both interior monologue and a third- source of comic effects, as in Biberkopf, Esch
person view quite close to, but not identical(of Die Schlafwandler), or Moosbrugger. But, in
with, the protagonist's own view. In Berlin addition, the mass of sensations in which this
Alexanderplatz this method directly reflects peculiarly insubstantial self is contained changes
Franz Biberkopf's unstructured "self" and its helps
complexion when it is no longer restricted to
us to recognize the self's intentional relationship
the natural world, as it was in turn-of-the-century
to the city through which the character moves.aestheticism. Once social concerns are taken up
Yet, while we must participate in Biberkopf's again more overtly (as they had been by the

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 Judith Ryan 865

naturalists), the inchoate sensory impressions, The publication of Joyce's Ulysses brought
now often derived from life in the city, turn from this issue to a head. Among novelists who re-
an alternately exhilarating and oppressive mass sponded to Joyce, Virginia Woolf was perhaps
to a confining and confusing web. The adversary the most in tune with the spirit of empiricism,
relationship between the individual and soci- even though she does not appear to have been so
ety24 that is almost crucial to socially concerned immediately influenced as the German novelists.
literature can no longer apply directly to a char- However, she much admired Henry James and
acter who is constituted as a conglomeration of his subtle rendering of consciousness and vision,
sense impressions. The mistake made by so and-as her Monday or Tuesday (1921) indi-
many of these protagonists (Biberkopf and Esch cates-she was already working toward her own
are both good examples) is that they still at- form of impressionism. In the famous passage
tempt to see the relationship in the traditional from her essay on Joyce, she describes her own
way. If characters are not entities and cannot view of life as "not a series of gig-lamps sym-
properly develop as such, then the concept of metrically arranged; but a luminous halo, a semi-
social change is also placed in question. This is transparent envelope surrounding us from the
one of the reasons that Biberkopf's sudden beginning of consciousness to the end" ("Mod-
transformation and conversion at the end of ern Fiction," p. 212). This formulation, taken
Berlin Alexanderplatz are so problematic;
together with her observation that Joyce's
Broch, unlike Doblin, takes care to show how method is "centred in a self which, in spite of its
little his similar hero, Esch, changes. The prob- tremor of susceptibility, never embraces or cre-
lems I have sketched illustrate the increasing ates what is outside of itself and beyond" (p.
strains placed in this period on a strictly empiri- 215), indicates the two-pronged nature of her
cal representation of reality. Empiricism virtu- critique. One part joins with the empiricists in
ally burst its own seams. their attack on the concept of self; the other part
goes beyond them by postulating a "halo" con-
sciousness. Woolf's concept of "moments of
V being," which she examines in her autobiograph-
ical essays,26 is closely linked to the "halo"
As empiricism filtered into literature, another idea, but an exploration of those "moments"
problem intimately connected with the new con- and of the comparison they invite with Joyce's
cept of the individual emerged-the presentation "epiphanies" is far beyond the scope of this
of what William James had termed the "stream
paper. I concentrate instead on the conflict be-
of consciousness." As we have seen, James by
tween the presentation of consciousness and the
dissolution of self.
no means intended to imply a unity of the "self"
but merely to indicate the form taken by theIf Woolf had little knowledge of Machian or
unity that self ascribes to itself. Although he
Jamesian psychology, she nonetheless had some
viewed the actual discontinuity of self as impor-
indirect contact with related ideas through the
tant epistemologically, he was concerned with Bloomsbury group's emphasis on the paramount
how consciousness seemed to itself, and, as heimportance of "certain states of consciousness"
pointed out, "consciousness does not appear to and its interest in G. E. Moore's analysis of
itself chopped up into bits." Yet we have seen mind.27 Heavily transmuted by aestheticism,
that Henry James never attempts to render this concern with mind as essentially evanescent
"consciousness streaming."25 He and the Ger- helped connect Woolf's own beginnings in the
wake of Walter Pater with a more original type
man writers (with the exceptions of Schnitzler in
of impressionism. Evidence can be seen in her
his stories and Broch in Der Tod des Vergil [The
Death of Vergil]) do not present consciousness development as a novelist and, most clearly, in
as an unbroken continuum. And Henry James's the contrast between her technique and that of
her predecessor Dorothy Richardson, from whom
complete avoidance of first-person interior mono-
logue and the German writers' evident reluc-
she claimed to have learned something about the
narrative rendering of consciousness.28 For
tance to use it exclusively result directly from the
abolition of the traditional concept of self. Richardson, consciousness was a "central core,

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866 Empirical Psychology and the Modern Novel
a luminous point" that remained essentially sta- novelists we have discussed. With James, con-
ble throughout a character's development;29 the sciousness is ever-attentive, focused, constantly
concept made it possible for her to create a observant of its own most minute sensations and
unique impressionistic bildungsroman in Pil- thoughts. Broch and Musil are also concerned
grimage. Richardson was not, however, entirely with the thought content of the mind, although
innocent of psychological empiricism: she had they pay much more attention than James does
read William James, and the progress of her to those areas where thought blurs into feeling
multivolume Pilgrimage was affected by the im- and irrationality. Virginia Woolf was fascinated
portant review of its first volume that William by states of consciousness in which, as Lily
James's student May Sinclair wrote in 1915 Briscoe puts it, "it was one's body feeling, not
(Introd., Pilgrimage, I, 3-8). But however one's mind" (p. 265), and she turned increas-
closely individual passages in Richardson's ingly to this more diffused variety of conscious-
novel series approach empirically derived im- ness in her later works. Her narration began to
pressionism, they still share that dependence on take place through the medium of a "nameless
the "egotistical self" to which Woolf had ob- spirit" that asserts the indivisibility of world and
jected in Joyce. Woolf's understanding of con- self (Naremore, p. 76). Here she comes very
sciousness was different. In effect, the con- close to the concept of the "narrator as idea"
sciousness through which her novels are developed independently by Broch, although the
narrated is less bounded by individuality than is Platonic element in Broch's system of thought is
the consciousness in Richardson or Joyce. lacking (a distinction rendered the more signifi-
As she moved from Mrs. Dalloway to To the cant because Dorothy Richardson also sub-
Lighthouse, consciousness became more disem- scribed to the view that reality coheres in a kind
bodied, less tied down to a specific personality, of ultimate mystical unity).
and essentially subsistent in sensory impres- Virginia Woolf's most clearly impressionist
sions.30 To be sure, the flow of a single charac- work is her novel The Waves, whose disem-
ter's thoughts and perceptions still dominates To bodied choric interludes trace the progress of the
the Lighthouse. But Woolf continually stresses sun over the sea in the course of a single day.
the intentionality of Lily Briscoe's impressions. Readers have generally understood these pas-
What lies outside "herself," symbolized by Mr. sages as masterful impressionistic prose poetry.
Ramsay's trip to the lighthouse, becomes, para- More problematic are the voices of the six
doxically, synonymous with her "self"; like characters as they narrate, in formal alternation,
Hofmannsthal's chameleonic poet, Lily Briscoe the stories of their lives from childhood to old
takes her color from the sense impressions she age. Segments from each phase of their lives,
absorbs. Toward the end of the novel, this trans- told in moment-by-moment detail in the present
lucency of "self" turns into momentary self-loss tense and from their separate points of view, re-
as she struggles to maintain conventional subject- produce in full the intertwining of thought and
object boundaries and achieve "the razor-edge feeling, impression and response. Woolf's prose
of balance between two opposite forces; Mr. catches both the flux and the luminous moments
Ramsay and the picture" (p. 287).'3 At this within the flux and always emphasizes the inten-
point she becomes aware of "moments when one tionality of the subject. The characters do not
can neither think nor feel"; "and if one can nei- exist as characters in the ordinary sense; they
ther think nor feel, where is one?" (p. 288). live in the very impressions they recite. They sep-
Significantly, her conclusion that Mr. Ramsay arate and fuse, until we finally become aware of
must have reached the lighthouse derives from how arbitrary the line is that distinguishes one
the dissolution, not the clarification, of percep- character from another, both in the characters'
tion: "For the Lighthouse had become almost own minds and in ours. As Bernard works on

invisible, had melted away into a blue haze" (p. Byron at university, he reflects, "How strange
308). The boundary between subject and object, to feel the line that is spun from us lengthening
thought and perception, has totally dissolved. its fine filament across the misty spaces of th
Here is an important shift away from Henry intervening world" (p. 64). The characters see
James, and a distinction from most of the other themselves connected by a fine mesh into an in

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 Judith Ryan 867

visible circle; the imagery is of flowing water and tables" [p. 204]), doubts about self as a fixed
electric current. From time to time, the "circle entity ("Am I all of them? Am I one and dis-
breaks" (p. 64) as one or the other falls into tinct? I do not know" [p. 205]), and the con-
"egotistic exultation" (p. 162) and pursues a comitant "crisis of language" that cannot deal
more individual path. But it is never long before with a world devoid of both subject and object.
the boundaries fall away again and the flux takes Bernard's famous recollection, which begins
hold of the characters once more: "the still
with the question "But how describe the world
mood, the disembodied mood," Rhoda calls it, without a self?" (p. 204), explicitly re-
seen
"when the walls of the mind become transparent"
capitulates those themes. In the last analysis, all
(p. 162). that remains is the act of perception itself.
This vacillation between the bounded and the Woolf, however, did not respond to these
unbounded posed a considerable problem considerations
of in exactly the same way as the
presentation for Woolf. Where Broch and Musil
early twentieth-century German writers had.
Like them, she was aware that the conclusion to
had resolved the difficulty by fluctuating between
third-person narration and style indirect libre,
be drawn might well be a negative one, and she
Woolf presented her "world seen without a self"
phrased it, as they did too, in such a way as to
with almost pointed deliberateness, through the
embrace not merely philosophical issues but also
mouths of her six characters. The result is the
the historical position of her own epoch: "The
most peculiar feature of the novel-the first-
canopy of civilization is burnt out" (Waves, p.
person speeches that do not sound like the lan-
210). While she did not spell out the implica-
guage of real people but that nevertheless repro-
tions of this observation, she expressed a mood
duce in their own fashion the "atoms as they fall
that is clearly related to the pervasive cultural
upon the mind, the pattern ... which each sight
pessimism of the earlier phase in Germany. But
or incident scores upon the consciousness"
her reaction derived more from the spirit of
("Modern Fiction," p. 212). It would be easy Pater
to and his exhortation to enjoy the "flame-
rewrite the novel in the manner of Joyce, withlike" moments of life: "Against you I will fling
disconnected phrases and sentence fragments myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death"
suggestive of subvocal thought. If the voices (Waves, p. 211). The insights that shore Ber-
were then given in separate blocks, as in Faulk-
nard up-"those sudden transparencies through
ner's The Sound and the Fury, we would have a
which one sees everything" (p. 171)-seem the
totally acceptable "modern novel." But Woolf, obverse of empirical pessimism. The very unity
well aware of the risk she was running with inherwhich self and world appear lost can also be
peculiar technique, chose not to arrange perceived
the in a positive light, as a vital "moment
novel this way, a choice she made precisely be-
of being." Like her German counterparts Broch
cause she rejected "self."32 She was attractedand
by Musil, Woolf here leaves the empirical
the weblike structure of consciousness, its sub-
framework of thought on which she has relied
sistence in the object and its interweaving with
and introduces a phenomenon that would not
other consciousnesses. She did not aim to pre-have had this special status for the empiricists.
sent different "views" of reality that wouldTheso originally naturalistic recording of percep-
relativize one another that the reader would tions has passed into another, more mystically
need to reconstruct a hidden "reality" behind imbued
the type of impressionism.
separate prisms; neither did she seek to present The Waves, perhaps, was a point of no return.
But its technical innovations, located on the
individual minds as the "containers" of thought
relevant only because they reflect a particular
outer fringes of the readable, reveal the radical
perceiving self. The "I" that is the operative
consequences of translating empiricism into the
sphere of fiction. As an extreme example of its
word in almost every sentence of the book grad-
ually becomes transparent as Woolf uncovers kind, The Waves throws light on the other mod-
the central dilemma of the empirical standpoint.
ern novels that are grounded in the empirical
tradition. Their central dilemma is the basic in-
The problems she treats include epistemologi-
expressibility
cally based misgivings about the "reality" of the of a "world seen without a self";
outside world ("I begin to doubt the fixity of solution (albeit an imperfect one) is the
their

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 868 Empirical Psychology a and the Modern Novel
deconstruct
interwoven narrative focuses that consciousness; it is no wonder that
distinguish
them from the novels of Joyce or Faulkner, the effort, carried
who to its logical conclusion in The
still believed in a more or less autonomous self. Waves, also deconstructs the traditional genre of
William James once described consciousness as the novel.33
a "pure diaphaneity," a concept "ripe ... to be
openly and universally discarded" (Radical Em-
piricism, pp. 2-3). One line of development Smith
in College
the early twentieth-century novel is the effortNorthampton,
to Massachusetts

Notes

1 A provocative and controversial recent account ofportant as the central organ through which Altenberg's
one aspect of the transition that occurred at the end of
sketches of 1896 are filtered.
the nineteenth century-the shift from aestheticism to 5 See the Introduction to Mach's Analyse der Emp-
the avant-garde-has been put forward by Peter Bur- findungen, esp. p. 9. Similar points are made by William
ger in his Theorie der Avantgarde (Frankfurt: Suhr- James in his essay "Is Radical Empiricism Solipsistic?"
kamp, 1974). The movement toward subjectivity (1905; rpt. in Essays in Radical Empiricism [London:
receives a highly sophisticated sociological analysis Longmans Green, 1912], pp. 234-43).
from Theodor W. Adorno, whose starting point is the 6 Robert Humphrey, in Stream of Consciousness in
"administered world" and the concomitant alienation the Modern Novel (Berkeley: Univ. of California
of the individual. Adorno argues that the reduction Press, 1954), gives a pragmatic definition of the term
of narration to subjectivity ultimately leads to a sense that covers the entire spectrum of its common applica-
of impotence that renders the individual so overwhelmed tion. In his view, Dorothy Richardson, Woolf, Joyce,
by the world from which he is alienated that he in and Faulkner are part of a single pattern of develop-
effect liquidates himself ("Standort des Erzahlers im ment. Lawrence E. Bowling had earlier taken a differ-
zeitgen6ssischen Roman," Noten zur Literatur [Frank- ent approach when he distinguished between "stream
furt: Suhrkamp, 1958], I, 71). This vanishing subject of consciousness" and "interior monologue," in "What
of Adorno's literary sociology is different from the Is Stream of Consciousness Technique?" PMLA, 65
epistemologically based phenomenon I deal with in (1950), 333-45. An entirely new typology has recently
this essay. Charles L. Glicksberg, in The Self in Mod- been presented by Dorrit Cohn, in Transparent Minds:
ern Literature (University Park: Pennsylvania State Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fic-
Univ. Press, 1963), attacks the problem from an ex- tion (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1978). In her
istentialist angle and treats an entirely different corpus subtle and persuasive analysis, she describes Joycean
of literature, stemming from Kierkegaard and Sartre. interior monologue as a distinctive variety of "quoted
Richard Brinkmann shows, in the conclusion of his monologue."
Wirklichkeit und Illusion (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1957), 7 William James, Psychology (1892; rpt. Cleveland:
how the relativizing of reality that had begun to take Holt, 1948), p. 217.
place in German realism through the recognition of 8 Walter Besant and Henry James, The Art of Fic-
the individual perspective gave way to a thoroughgoing tion (Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske, n.d.), p. 66.
subjectivism that in his view is characteristic of twen- 9 For an analysis of this aspect, see Richard A.
tieth-century literature (see esp. p. 327). Hocks, Henry James and Pragmatistic Thought (Chapel
2James's first discussion of consciousness, which Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1974), p. 80.
later became Chapter ix ("The Stream of Thought") 10 The Art of the Novel, ed. R. P. Blackmur (New
of his Principles of Psychology, was printed in essay
York: Scribners, 1934), pp. 145-46.
form in 1884; see Principles of Psychology (New York:
11 Ora Segal, The Lucid Reflector (New Haven:
Holt, 1890), I, 224. Mach, Analyse der Empfindungen,
Yale Univ. Press, 1969), p. 235.
5th ed. (Jena: G. Fischer, 1906), is quoted in the text
12 Hocks sees James's pragmatism as the essential
with my own translations.
distinction (p. 67). See also John Henry Raleigh,
3 Woolf, The Waves (1931; rpt. London: Hogarth,
1976), p. 204. "Henry James: The Poetics of Empiricism," PMLA,
4 Woolf, "Modern Fiction," The Common Reader 66 (1951), 107-23.
(New York: Harcourt, 1925), p. 212. According to 13 Walter Pater, Renaissance (1873; rpt. London:
Altenberg, the emphasis was to be placed on "sehe" Macmillan, 1901), pp. 235, 239.
(see Wolfdietrich Rasch, Zur deutschen Literatur seit 14Bahr, Theoretische Schriften 1887-1904 (Stutt-
der Jahrhundertwende [Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967], p. gart: Kohlhammer, 1968), pp. 33-102, 181-98.
160), an emphasis that reflects the contemporary in- 15 I treat these two conflicts in "Die andere Psy-
terest in perception; but the "ich" is nonetheless im- chologie: Ernst Mach und die Folgen," in Osterreichi-

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 Judith Ryan 869

sche Literatur gestern und heute, ed. Wolfgang Paulsen 26 Woolf, Moments of Being, ed. Jeanne Schulkind
(Bern: Francke, forthcoming). (New York: Harcourt, 1976), pp. 70-72.
16 "Die Unendlichkeit der Erscheinungen leidend zu 27 See Jean Guiguet, Virginia Woolf and Her Works
genieBen und aus leidendem GenieBen heraus die (New York: Harcourt, 1976), pp. 33-34.
Vision zu schaffen," Hofmannsthal, Gesammelte Werke 28 The designation "stream of consciousness" was
in Einzelausgaben, Prosa, II (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1951), used throughout this period (following May Sinclair's
p. 282. review of Richardson's Pointed Roofs) to refer to
17 D6blin, Aufsdtze zur Literatur, ed. Walter Muschg Richardson's technique, although Richardson herself
(Freiburg i. Brsg.: Walter, 1963), p. 16. disliked the term and condemned it roundly in her
18I do so in the paper cited above (n. 15) and in preface to Pilgrimage (ed. Walter Allen [London:
"From Futurism to Doblinism," Monatshefte (forth- Knopf, 1967], I, 11).
coming). 29 Caesar Blake, Dorothy Richardson (Ann Arbor:
19 On this subject, see Peter Demetz, Formen des Univ. of Michigan Press, 1960), p. 10.
Realismus: Theodor Fontane (Munich: Hanser, 1964), 30 James Naremore presents a highly differentiated
esp. pp. 17-28. discussion of a related point (the attenuation of Lily's
20 On ambiguity in Henry James, see Shlomith consciousness and its mediation through Woolf's voice)
Rimmon's provocative study The Concept of Ambi- in The World without a Self (New Haven: Yale Univ.
guity: The Example of James (Chicago: Univ. of Chi- Press, 1973), p. 148.
cago Press, 1977). 31 Woolf, To the Lighthouse (New York: Harcourt,
21 Adorno regards the reintroduction of a distancing 1927).
narrator in the modern novel as the sign of an inevitable 32 For reasons explained by empirical theory, I do
capitulation to "reality," which asserts itself, over fic- not agree with the view put forward by several critics
tion, as the real object of social changes that fiction (most recently by Dorrit Cohn in Transparent Minds)
can only adumbrate (p. 72). that the six voices of The Waves all emanate from a
22 On this concept, see Leo Kreutzer, Erkenntnis- single character, Bernard. True, Bernard's final reflec-
theorie und Prophetie: Hermann Brochs Romantrilogie tions provide the framework in which the relationships
"Die Schlafwandler" (Tibingen: Niemeyer, 1966). between the soliloquies are to be viewed; his insights
23 Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (Hamburg: are farther reaching than those of the other figures. But
Rowohlt, 1952), p. 246. the other voices are less inventions to "articulate his
24 See Marilyn Fries, "The City as Metaphor for the memories" (Cohn, p. 265) than overlapping fields of
Human Condition: Alfred D6blin's Berlin Alexander- consciousness from which his own voice is not "one
platz (1929)," Modern Fiction Studies, 28 (1978), and distinct."
41-64. 33 This essay was written with the assistance of a
25 Sallie Sears makes this point in greater detailgrant
in from the National Endowment for the Humani-
The Negative Imagination (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press,
ties.
1963), p. 21.

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