Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in subsequent chapters of this book. The book concerns the attempts made by the great nineteenth-century novelists to stir the reader's visual imagination - to make him picture the people and places described. Criticism of the novel has in general been pretty remote from the practicalities of writing fiction. The novelist must come to terms with the requirements and limitations of his medium, and with the probable expectations and responses of his readers. Imaginative intensity on the author's part by no means guarantees 'solidity of specification'. Most teachers of creative writing will have encountered the student who carries in his head a scene powerfully real to him, but proves quite unable to communicate it. Art students analyse and copy famous works partly in order to develop their own creative skills.