. . . I went off to a life of lonely poverty . . .
And in that life, in anguish, listening, brooding,
I heard from far-off the murmur of the divine music coming like a
turning tide back to me . . .
The story ends here, after the author has attained the haven of his first book, Songs for the New Age.
In an appendix, Mr. Oppenheim discusses the problem of form as it applies to his present work. He finds that the tendency of the realistic novel has gradually been leading closer to the material of the author’s life; in other words, gradually becoming a mere “thinly disguised autobiography.” Mr. Oppenheim claims that the natural consequence is that we give over the thin disguise and write frankly of ourselves. It is certainly gratifying to see an author who can examine the basis of his work, although in the present instance one might dispute the cogency of his conclusion on the grounds that the increasing necessity which realism finds in thinly disguising the life of the artist points simply to the imminent bankruptcy of realism. In fact, looking beyond the novel to the realistic movement as a whole, we find that even at the opening of the century intense realism led not to autobiography, but to symbolism. The reason for this is that realism, by putting man face to face with facts per se, awakens over again his primitive need for animism, or correspondences; since man is constitutionally averse to the sterility of mere facts, and when they are placed before him in all their barrenness he must immediately make something else of them. (On the other hand, if realism has gone off into symbolism, it could be claimed for Mr. Oppenheim that he is leading it into teleology, at least giving it the added significance of getting us somewhere.)
The real objection to the frankly autobiographical “fiction” is that the mere editing of one’s accidental experiences offers so little opportunity for an imaginative aggressiveness, a sense of line, mass, organization, and the like. At the very start the emphasis is placed on information rather than presentation, and as such belongs either to journalism or Wednesday prayer meetings, but not to art. Auto-biographical, certainly . . . since the artist employs only that which derives from his experiences; but the gods of Lord Dunsany are as immediately connected with experience as any photograph of an Eleventh Avenue beanery.
Since The Mystic Warrior is dedicated to Whitman, one finds oneself almost automatically ranging the two poets alongside of each other and comparing their methods of attack. Whitman began with a more spontaneous gluttony, a will to devour which was active even before meeting the object to be devoured. Thus, as soon as he came upon it, he could cast it into his belly without so much as a questioning glance. With Mr. Oppenheim these processes have been reversed. He begins by seeing things, examining them very carefully, and all but throwing them away entirely. Then at the last moment he remembers the obligation of gluttony which is part of his ars poetica, and gobbles them down almost as ravenously as the master.
For the fact is that Whitman, the genial voice of an aggressive, an expanding America—the earlier and less tarnished phase of our imperialism, that is—slashed into his material so recklessly that he has left his disciples with nothing but protest for a subject. The elation of the broad axe is gone, although a group of epigons remains which is bent on recovering this elation. While retaining an unmistakably Whitman technique, they have gone over almost as a body to Freud for material, since he seemed to offer some possibilities of new territory, less physical than Whitman’s, of course, though satisfying the same yearning. But I doubt whether we have as yet discovered the formula for making synthetic artists' insight. The psychoanalytic teachings, centering as they do about a set of systematized inhibitions, chain the artist’s attention almost exclusively to the shedding of these inhibitions. In a great measure, therefore, he begins with his interpretations of life prescribed for him, and with a strict education as to what he must look for; it is no wonder that his methods also are frequently adopted. Just how much farther the intrusion of psychology into art will go it is hard to say. There is at least one promising young poet and critic I know of, however, who will no longer allow psychoanalysis to be mentioned in his home.
Modifying the Eighteenth Century
Casanova’s Homecoming by Arthur Schnitzler. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. Privately printed for subscribers only
The Dial, December 1921, 707–710
There is one species of poet who, if he quarrels with his mistress in the morning—supposing that poets still possess such lovely baggage—writes a poem that day on quarrelling with his mistress; whereas, if he had been awakened by a piano playing next door, he would have composed some Variations on Being Awakened by a Piano. In a much broader way, Schnitzler’s procedure has about it something analogous to this. Since as a much younger man, that is, Schnitzler wrote Anatol and Reigen, as an older man he writes Casanova’s Homecoming. If this method succeeds, which it seems to have done in Schnitzler’s case, the artist must have one highly consoling thought as he looks back over the range of his productions: he has made the world observe with interest the milestones of his own personal journey.
Casanova himself, belonging to a rather more glorious century, and one which could not go sour on the scientific dethronement of man, found the meditation of his earlier fougues an occupation of such a delightful nature that he simply could not help retailing them for everyone. For, as he explains in his capacity as a somewhat facile philosopher, the joys of his past are still with him because he can live them again in his memory, whereas the pains are no longer operative since he is so conscious of their being gone. But then, Casanova was not particularly interested in the Orphic, that peculiar pudency which was to capture the following century and which manifested itself in the tendency to qualify to the point of disintegration, to behold with a divided attitude, thus feeling ashamed. He was content with his facile philosophy.
The comparison is inevitable, since in Casanova’s Homecoming Schnitzler sees so markedly nineteenth century an ending for so eighteenth century a celebrity. Where Casanova himself—if we take him at his word—found a perfect satisfaction in recalling an adventurous past which he could no longer duplicate—Schnitzler sees the chevalier broken and hideous, stripped of human dignity, and at fifty-three manoeuvring to prolong those pleasures which he had accepted with confidence fifteen years earlier. He reduces the adventurer by a series of final qualifications, when he has lost the very essence of his glory; he imagines Casanova as an old man trying to carry off an existence which sits well with a much, younger man.
Casanova is decidedly moth-eaten. What money he gets comes for the most part from petty gambling. He has two suits, one for everyday and one “for occasions.” At this point he meets an old school friend, Olivo, who insists that Casanova come stay with him for a few days on his estate. There is a young woman here, Marcolina; Casanova forthwith becomes pre-occupied with this Marcolina exclusively. She, however, is completely neglectful of his prestige; she treats him with a mixture of politeness and indifference which turns to something like revulsion when he makes a few tentative moves. Also, there is Lorenzi, a young lieutenant whom Casanova suspects of being in love with her, perhaps successfully.
Sneaking out at dawn, to see if he can catch sight of Marcolina in her room, he finds the shutters closed and barred. But after a time there is a noise; dropping behind a bench, Casanova spies Lorenzi taking leave of her. His desire for Marcolina becomes intense, almost a necessity. . . . Schnitzler next centres his attention on getting Lorenzi into a gambling debt, which in a moment of beau geste, of the old feudal honour, Lorenzi claims he will redeem the following morning. But he has no money, and is leaving for war the next day. Casanova, who has won the thousand ducats that Lorenzi needs, in what is perhaps the most skilfully executed portion of the story, makes Lorenzi a strictly business proposition: he will give Lorenzi the money if Lorenzi pledges his word that he will arrange to have