Arnold Bennett and the Desire for France

Abstract

It is common knowledge that Arnold Bennett was profoundly influenced in his development as a novelist by his acquaintance with French literature, and that he consciously or unconsciously imitated French models.¹ This generalisation, like most common knowledge, calls for some qualification. One might expect that Bennett’s known familiarity with all things French, and his long residence in France, would lend authority to the images of France that appear in his fictional works; and, of course, vice versa. It is probable also that his immense success as a novelist and as a critic served in some measure to enhance the reputation of the French realists and naturalists who were his cheerfully acknowledged models and whose names recur so frequently in his critical writings; they in turn acted as guarantors of his status as a serious writer. There are the makings of a pair of neat critical tautologies here. I hope, however, to avoid the vicious circle in the present context, where I shall be primarily concerned not with Bennett’s use of French sources and the general influence on his work of French models, but with the view of French literature, art and civilisation that he projected for an English audience in his critical writings, and with the (not always congruent) presentation of French life and manners in his fictional works.