SOURCE: "Flaubert and French Realism," in Studies from Ten Literatures, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925, pp. 3-20.

In the following essay, Boyd surveys the history of French Realism from the writings of Balzac to those of his contemporaries in the 1920s.

The connotations of the word "realism" in French literature are varied. In its later developments realistic literature presented a considerable problem, and a constant source of irritation to the guardians of the academic portals to Fame. Wherefore, these gentlemen exercised a remarkable ingenuity in the art of evasion and denial, which is responsible very largely for the diversity of opinion as to what realism is, and when it made its appearance in France. When challenged by modern realism they evaded the issue by asserting that it was not modern, and by denying that it was realistic. Thus, as every text-book will show, it was seriously argued that "the real...