A (Ridiculously) Short History of
the Novel
Early Prose Narratives
• Boccaccio’s Decameron (1351-1353)
• Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (c. 1469)
• Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote (1605)
English Novel
• Initially, distinction between novel
and so-called "romance" or
allegory
– “Romance of the Rose,” other
medieval tales of gallantry and
royalty
– “Pilgrim’s Progress” (allegory)
• “The Novel is a picture of
real life and manners, and of
the time in which it is
written. The Romance, in
lofty and elevated language,
describes what never
happened nor is likely to
happen.”
Clara Reeve, The
Progress of Romance, 1785
Until late in the 18th Century . . .
• Crudely defined as:
– tales shorter than traditional romances
– a plot of love and intrigue
Aphra Behn
• Oroonoko (1688)
• Prolific writer of plays and
other texts
• First woman writer to make
a living from her writing (in
addition to much else . . .)
Daniel Defoe
• In Robinson Crusoe (1719) and
Moll Flanders (1722), he
establishes many of the
conventions of the English novel
– a dominant unifying theme with a
serious thesis
– convincing realism (through an
almost-journalistic first-person
narrative)
– a middle class viewpoint
Samuel Richardson
• In Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1747) he
establishes the psychological study of a
character within the novel.
Henry Fielding
• Arguably first pure “novelist” (Defoe posed
his as histories, Richardson as moral parables)
• Tom Jones contains internal essay on the
definition of the English novel
Jane Austen
• JANE AUSTEN
• more in common with the novelists of the
18th century than early 19th century.
• novelist of manners.
• Pride and Prejudice (c. 1812) etc.
Ian Watt, The Rise of the English Novel
• Philosophical background of the novel
– Descartes and Locke, truth discovered by the
individual through his or her senses. Individual
apprehension of reality.
• individualist, innovating reorientation
Ian Watt, The Rise of the English Novel
• Rejection of traditional plots
• independence from traditional notions of the
"universality" of human nature and human rituals.
• Self-consciousness about innovation and
novelty.
Ian Watt, The Rise of the English Novel
• Particularity
– Specificity in setting
– Character development
• Emphasis on personality of character, consciousness
through duration in time: interpenetration of past and
present self-awareness.
• Manifests itself most strongly in characterization and
presentation of background.
Ian Watt, The Rise of the English Novel
• Adaptation of the prose style to give an
illusion of complete authenticity
– "The previous stylistic tradition for fiction was not
primarily concerned with the correspondence of
words and things, but rather with the extrinsic
beauties which could be bestowed upon
description and action by the use of rhetoric." (28)
Formal “Realism”
• "The narrative method whereby the novel
embodies this circumstantial view of life may
be called its formal realism; formal, because
the term realism does not here refer to any
special literary doctrine or purpose, but only
to a set of narrative procedures which are so
commonly found together in the novel, and so
rarely in other literary genres, that they may
be regarded as typical of the form itself.“ (32)
J. Paul Hunter: Before Novels
•
•
•
•
Believability
Familiarity
Individualism, subjectivity
Object of identification (“relatability”)
J. Paul Hunter: Before Novels
• Coherence and unity of design
• Inclusivity digressivenes, fragmentation.
• Fielding in Tom Jones: "I intend to digress,
through this whole History as often as l see
Occasion: Of which I am myself a better Judge
than any pitiful Critic whatever" (1. ii. 37)
Why the “rise of the novel”
•
•
•
•
•
Restoration of monarchy (post-Puritan)
Appearance of periodicals
Rise of middle class
Leisure time for middle class
Growing audience of literate women
Deception . . .
• Each novel asks you to enter a world
– For most early novels, this was a problem of
verisimilitude (Richardson, Defoe as “discoverers”
of the narrative . . .)
– Realism “is the form that seeks to merge itself so
thoroughly with the world that its status as art is
suppressed” (Eagleton, 10)
– This convention is later played with (Sterne’s
Tristram Shandy), undermined, and ultimately
ignored.
Oroonoko
I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this Royal Slave,
to entertain my reader with adventures of a feigned hero,
whose life and fortunes fancy may manage at the poet's
pleasure; nor in relating the truth, design to adorn it with
any accidents but such as arrived in earnest to him: and it
shall come simply into the world, recommended by its own
proper merits and natural intrigues; there being enough of
reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the
addition of invention.
I was myself an eye-witness to a great part of what you will
find here set down; and what I could not be witness of, I
received from the mouth of the chief actor in this history,
the hero himself . . .
Robinson Crusoe
• Full title: The Life and Strange Surprising
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York.
Mariner; who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all
alone in an uninhabited Island on the coast of
America, near the Mouth of the Great River of
Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by
Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but
himself. With An Account how he was at last
as strangely deliver'd by Pirates. Written by
Himself.
Preface to Clarissa
Different persons, as might be expected, have been of different
opinions, in relation to the conduct of the Heroine in
particular situations; and several worthy persons have
objected to the general catastrophe, and other parts of the
history. Whatever is thought material of these shall be taken
notice of by way of Postscript, at the conclusion of the
History; for this work being addressed to the public as a
history of life and manners, those parts of it which are
proposed to carry with them the force of an example, ought
to be as unobjectionable as is consistent with the design of
the whole, and with human nature.
Basic Questions to ask when
reading a novel . . .
• Who is telling the story? Does this shift? If so,
why? How does this affect my understanding
of the events being described?
•
What is the narrative POV? How does this
affect my understanding of the events being
described? Why might the author have
chosen this POV over another?
Speaker
•
What kind of speaker are we given?
Omniscient? Limited? Young/old? How does
their diction inflect or demonstrate (or
undermine) their understanding of the events
being described?
Setting
•
Where are the events of the novel set? Is
there any symbolic aspect that might be
reinforcing some the themes (hint: there
almost always are . . .) Geographic?
Historical? Temporal?
•
Can I make a list of the most important
locations in the text? How are they
connected, if at all?
Symbolism
•
What are some of the major symbols that
the novel develops to reinforce its themes?
(things, people, places etc.)
The "world" of the novel
•
What sort of world is the author asking us
to enter? Is it "realistic" in the sense that it
conforms to a popular understanding of an
objectively "shared" world?
• Does it willfully violate some of our
expectations about what is “normal” or
“real”? To what purpose might it be doing so?
Repetition/Patterns
• What’s repeated? Phrases? Settings?
Ideas/philosophical positions? Characters?
Actions? (etc.)
• Novels as symbolic system where meaning
accumulates through repetition and
resonance.