Literature of the world : an introductory study . a disciple of Flau-bert, with whom in his earlieryears he was in intimate touch,and whom he always regardedas his master in the art of com-position. Maupassant in hisyoung manhood gave himselffreely to the zest of life with an energetic and eager abandon, but little by little he became op-pressed by the terrible nearness and mystery of death and by thefutility of struggle against the vague but relentless forces of life. Thepessimism of these years deepened finally into the insanity whichoverhung the closing years of his short career. He was an
Literature of the world : an introductory study . a disciple of Flau-bert, with whom in his earlieryears he was in intimate touch,and whom he always regardedas his master in the art of com-position. Maupassant in hisyoung manhood gave himselffreely to the zest of life with an energetic and eager abandon, but little by little he became op-pressed by the terrible nearness and mystery of death and by thefutility of struggle against the vague but relentless forces of life. Thepessimism of these years deepened finally into the insanity whichoverhung the closing years of his short career. He was an adherentof the Naturalistic school, but achieved a compactness, lucidity, andappropriateness of style to which Zola and the Goncourts never at-tained. Hishalf-dozennovels,among them Une Vie (A Life),Mont-Oriol, Pierre and Jean, and Fort comme la Mort(Strong as Death), present life as a tragic and hopeless tangle offrustrated hope, disillusion, futile effort, accident, and misunder-standing. The same pessimism colors his two hundred or more short. GUY DE MAUPASSANT 244 LITERATURE OF THE WORLD stories, though perhaps in somewhat lesser degree. He is commonlyregarded as the greatest modern master of the short story. A few ofhis important stories in this form are ^Mademoiselle Fifi, Lararure (The Necklace), La Ficelle (The Piece of String),Clair de Lune (Moonlight), Petit Soldat (Little Sol-dier), The Heritage, and Yvette. Lafcadio Hearn says ofhim that he has the art of creating emotion in the readers mindby suppressing it altogether in the narrative—a power which hecalls the supreme art of Realism. Quite apart from the Naturalistic current stand the highlywrought descriptive novels of Julien Viaud, who wrote under thepen name of Pierre Loti—especially Mon Frere Yves (MyBrother Yves), Madame Chrysanthemum, and Le PecheurdIslande (The Iceland Fisherman). His volumes of travel,particularly in oriental lands, are unsurpassed in varied range ofdescriptive effect. Historians and Cr
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookpublisherbosto, bookyear1922
