Excerpt from The Life Work of Henri Rene Guy De Maupassant, Embracing Romance, Comedy Verse, for the First Time Complete in English
I have no intention of pleading here for the novel that follows. On the contrary, the ideas that I am going to try to express deal with the criticism of that description of psychological study which is shown in "Pierre and Jean," as well as with novels in general. I am not the only writer to whom one particular reproach is addressed every time he brings out a new book. In the midst of eulogistic phrases, I regularly find the following from the pen of the same critic: "The greatest defect of this book is that it is not, properly speaking, a novel." I might reply in the same terms: "The greatest defect of the writer who does me the honor to review me is that he is not a critic."
What, in fact, are the earmarks of a critic?
It is necessary that, without bias, without preconceived notions, without ideas of any "school" or special regard for any one class of artists, he should comprehend, distinguish, and explain the most opposite tendencies and the most contrary temperaments, and admit and accept the most diverse efforts of art.
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