The Literary Methods of the Goncourts

Abstract

Estimates of the work of the Goncourts have varied considerably. While the majority of critics have treated the inseparable brothers as one man, a few writers such as Jules Lemaître and A. de Pontmartin have insisted on drawing a distinction between these literary Siamese twins. To the minds of these critics, the novels due to the pen of Edmond alone were vastly inferior to those produced in collaboration with Jules. Among the host of critics who do not feel that a difference is discernible in the talents of the two brothers, there is further diversity of opinion. Sainte-Beuve, a friend of the Goncourts, freely recognizes their merits as collectors of notes, books, and engravings, and would grant at least that their novel Sœur Philomène appears to be drawn from life. For Emile Zola, the authors are admirable in their descriptions of human beings as related to environment. Ferdinand Brunetière finds that the Goncourts, while pretending to follow nature in the minutest detail, unconsciously illustrate the excesses of Romanticism, in their exclusive attention to the abnormalities of human nature. Paul Bourget would emphasize their determinism, which has exerted a noteworthy influence upon Alphonse Daudet and Emile Zola. A large number of critics have, of course, given special consideration to that obvious lack of organization in the work of the Goncourts which is due to their use of note-books.