JAMES, Henry, The Art of Fiction, Published in Longman's Magazine 4 (September 1884), and reprinted in Partial Portraits (Macmillan, 1888). http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/artfiction.html
Cette fiche de lecture existe car Todorov, dans « Les Hommes-récits », cite une phrase de cet article publié en 1884 par Henry James. Todorov accuse James d'adopter une perspective psychologisante lorsqu'il parle des personnages de roman. Todorov (greimassien lorsqu'il s'agit du personnage) plaide pour l'a-psychologisme littéraire.
James publie cet article à la suite de la lecture de M. Besant. La conférence a suscité de l'engouement, prouvant ainsi que la théorie littéraire présente un intérêt; Besant a mis en valeur des points importants concernant la fiction dont certains seront remis en question par James.
La thèse qui sous-tend tout l'article est que la fiction peut et doit être considérée comme l'un des beaux-arts. James discute les arguments servant à ridiculiser, banaliser, craindre la fiction (religion). “Too frivolous to be edifying, too serious to be diverting”. De plus, James plaide pour la liberté créatrice. La critique a souvent tendance (Besant inclus) à poser comme valeur absolue le fait d'être bon (James dira plutôt qu'il doit être intéressant). Or, d'une part la définition d'un bon roman change d'un critique à l'autre, d'autre part, ce qui est bon est posé à priori, pour tous les romans; on en fait donc des lois générales (dans un bon roman un personnage doit faire ceci, un auteur doit faire cela, etc.)
Le succès, croit James, vient à celui qui réussit à créer “the illusion of life”. Les oppositions courantes, dialogue/description, incident/description, novel of character/novel of incident n'ont pas vraiment de sens pour James, elles sont dénuées d'intérêt pour les auteurs. C'est ici qu'apparaît le passage cité par Todorov, mis en évidence par l'italique :
“There is an old-fashioned distinction between the novel of character and the novel of incident, which must have cost many a smile to the intending romancer who was keen about his work. It appears to me as little to the point as the equally celebrated distinction between the novel and the romance- to answer as little to any reality. There are bad novels and good novels, as there are bad pictures and good pictures; but that is the only distinction in which I see any meaning, and I can as little imagine speaking of a novel of character as I can imagine speaking of a picture of character. When one says picture, one says of character, when one says novel, one says of incident, and the terms may be transposed. What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? What is a picture or a novel that is not of character? What else do we seek in it and find in it? It is an incident for a woman to stand up with her hand resting on a table and look out at you in a certain way; or if it be not an incident, I think it will be hard to say what it is. At the same time it is an expression of character. If you say you don't see it (character in that-allons donc!) this is exactly what the artist who has reasons of his own for thinking he does see it undertakes to show you. When a young man makes up his mind that he has not faith enough, after all, to enter the Church, as he intended, that is an incident, though you may not hurry to the end of the chapter to see whether perhaps he doesn't change once more. I do not say that these are extraordinary or startling incidents. I do not pretend to estimate the degree of interest proceeding from them, for this will depend upon the skill of the painter. It sounds almost puerile to say that some incidents are intrinsically much more important than others, and I need not take this precaution after having professed my sympathy for the major ones in remarking that the only classification of the novel that I can understand is into the interesting and the uninteresting.”
James ne dira rien d'autres à propos du personnage; il parlera de l'imbrication du sujet (ce que l'histoire représente, le thème, l'idée) à la forme du texte, les deux étant aussi liés que le fil et l'aiguille.