The essential difference between novel and romance lies in the conception of characterization. The romancer does not attempt to cr...eate "real people" so much as stylized figures which expand into psychological archetypes. It is in the romance that we find Jung's libido, anima, and shadow reflected in the hero, heroine, and villain respectively. That is why the romance so often radiates a glow of subjective intensity that the novel lacks, and why a suggestion of allegory is constantly creeping in around the fringes. Certain elements of character are released in the romance which make it naturally a more revolutionary form than the novel. The novelist deals with personality, with characters wearing their personae or social masks. He needs the framework of a stable society, and many of our best novelists have been conventional to the verge of fussiness. The romancer deals with individuality, with characters in vacuo idealized by revery, and, however conservative he may be, something nihilistic and untamable is likely to keep breaking out of his pages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What every artist should try to prevent is the car, in which is our civilized life, plunging over the side of the precipice--the e...xhibitionist extremist promoter driving the whole bag of tricks into a nihilistic nothingness or zero.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The rebel can never find peace. He knows what is good and, despite himself, does evil. The value which supports him is never given... to him once and for all--he must fight to uphold it, unceasingly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the... Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious. Indeed, a strong relish for physical philosophy has, I fear, tinctured my mind with a very common error of this age--I mean the habit of referring occurrences, even the least susceptible of such reference, to the principles of that science.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »