His writings are
all interesting, terse, precise, and truthful, but lack the glow that
comes with a sympathetic and spiritual outlook on life. Zola says of
him: ".... a Latin of good, clear, solid head, a maker of beautiful
sentences shining like gold...." He chooses a single incident, a few
characteristics and then moulds them into a compact story. Nine-tenths
of his stories deal with selfishness and hypocrisy.
Tolstoi wrote: "Maupassant possessed genius, that gift of attention
revealing in the objects and facts of life properties not perceived by
others; he possessed a beautiful form of expression, uttering clearly,
simply, and with charm what he wished to say; and he possessed also
the merit of sincerity, without which a work of art produces no
effect; that is he did not merely pretend to love or hate, but did
indeed love or hate what he described."
GENERAL REFERENCES
_Inquiries and Opinions_, Brander Matthews.
"A Criticism," _Outlook_, 88:973-976.
"Greatest Short Story Writer that Ever Lived," _Current Literature_,
42:636-638.
COLLATERAL READINGS
_Happiness_ (Odd Number), Guy de Maupassant.
_The Wolf_, Guy de Maupassant.
_La Mere Sauvage_, Guy de Maupassant.
_The Confession_, Guy de Maupassant.
_On the Journey_, Guy de Maupassant.
_The Beggar_, Guy de Maupassant.
_A Ghost_, Guy de Maupassant.
_Little Soldier_, Guy de Maupassant.
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