Also Read
In the eighteen-nineties, the English novel was for a time affected by the aesthetic movement which was inspired by Walter Pater and completed by Oscar Wilde. Hedonism and intense pleasure of the moment are the creeds of aesthetic philosophy. In its artistic side, the basic principles are "Art for Art's sake' and 'all art is immoral". Art and through art only we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence". Fastidiousness in style and naturalism are what the writers of this movement cultivated. The influence of Baudelaire, Flaubert and Zola was strong on the writers of this movement.
 |
| George Moore |
A Scrupulous concern with style and naturalism in presentation characterises the Irish novelist George Moore (1852-1933). He was the product of The Fin-de siecle Movement. A Mummer's Wife (1885) is the first novel in English to exemplify fully the Zola pattern in tracing the slow degeneration of an actor's wife. In its unsentimentally honest picture of lower class life and its minute depiction of sordid experiences, Esther Waters (1894) has been declared as the first truly naturalistic novel in English. The influence of Huysmans is paramount in Evelyn Innes (1898). The conflict between music and faith becomes a major theme. The Brook Kerith is a rational interpretation of the confused evidence of Christianity presented with artistic simplicity and tenderness. In Heloise and Abelard (1921) Moore told the story of the famous Liaison and its sequel with a wealth of detail. Abelard's 'Love is enough' was a congenial starting point for Moore's sensualist philosophy. Daphnis and Chloe and Aphrodite in Aulis are Pagan stories retold with charm and simplicity.
George Moore autobiographical studies - The Confessions of a Young man, Memories of my Dead Life (1930) and Hail and Fare-well are informed by literary egoism. Moore read French authors and was influenced by them. For him, the novel is contemporary history, an exact and complete reproduction of the social surroundings of the age in which we live.