Abstract

The title of this book by the late Joyce Cary suggests that some theory of the relations between art and reality will be propounded. Such in fact is the case, but it is not a theory of aesthetics in the comprehensive sense—nothing so rigidly ambitious as Maritain’s book on Creative Intuition. This book is based on the Clark Lectures for 1956 and on some Oxford lectures on the novel given in 1952. It is the kind of very English book which Continental aestheticians tend to despise—the general theory so loosely jointed together, the analogies drawn between the arts so superficial, the many lacunae left gaping in the structure. If however one shares the English critical tradition it will certainly be found a more meaningful book than a flock of the other kind.