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Rise of English Novel
Introduction:In the eighteenth century the years after the forties witnessed a wonderful efflorescence of a
new literary genre which was soon to establish itself for all times to come as the dominant literary form.
Of course, we are referring here to the Englishnovel which was born with Richardson'sPamela and has
been thriving since then.When Matthew Arnold used the epithets "excellent" and "indispensable" for theeighteenth century whichhad little of good poetry or drama to boast of, he was probably paying it due homage for its gift of thenovel. The eighteenth century was the age in which the novel was established as the most outstanding andenduring form ofliterature. The periodical essay, which was another gift of this centuryto Englishliterature, was born and died in the century, but the novel was to enjoy an enduring career. It isto the credit of the major eighteenth-century novelists that they freed the novel from the influence andelements of high flown romance and fantasy, and used it to interpret the everyday socialand psychological problems of the common man. Thus they introduced realism, democratic spirit, andpsychological interest into the novel the qualities which have since then been recognized as the essentialprerequisites of-every good novel and which distinguish it from the romance and other impossible stories.Reasons for the Rise and Popularity:
Various reasons can be adduced for the rise and popularity of the novel in theeighteenth century.
The most important of them is that this new literary form suited the genius and temper of the times.
The eighteenth century is known in English social history for the rise of the middle classes consequent
upon an unprecedented increase in the volume of trade and commerce. Many people emerged from the
limbo of society to occupy a respectable status as wealthy burgesses. The novel, with its realism, its
democratic spirit, and its concern with the everyday psychological problems of the common people
especially appealed to these nouveaia riches and provided them with respectable reading material. The
novel thus appears to have been specially designed both to voice the aspirations of the middle and low
classes and to meet their taste. Moreover, it gave the writer much scope for what Cazamian calls "morality
and sentiment"-the two elements which make literature "popular." The decline of drama in the eighteenth
century was also partly responsible for the rise and -ascendency of the novel. After the Licensing Act of
1737, the drama lay moribund. The poetry of the age too-except for the brilliant example of Pope's work
was in a stage of decadence. It was then natural that from the ashes of the drama (and, to some extent, of
poetry, too) should rise the phoenix-like shape of a new literary genre. This new genre was, of course, the
novel.Before the Masters:
Before Richardson and Fielding gave shape to the new form some work had already been done by
numerous other writers, which helped the pioneers to some extent. Mention must here be made of Swift,
Defoe, Addison, and Steele. Swift inGulliver's Travels gave an interesting narrative, and, in spite of the
obvious impossibility of the "action" and incidents, created an effect of verisimilitude which was to be an
important characteristic of the novel. The Coverley papers of Addison and Steele were in themselves a
kind of rudimentary novel, and some of them actually read like so many pages from a social and domestic
novel. Their good-humoured social satire, their eye for the oddities of individuals, their basic humansympathy, their lucid style, and their sense of episode-all were to be aspired after by the future novelists.
Defoe with his numerous stories likeRobinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, andRoxanashowed his uncanny
gift of the circumstantial detail and racy, gripping narrative combined with an unflinching realism
generally concerned with the seamy and sordid aspects of life (commonly, low life). His lead was to be
followed by ' numerous novelists. Defoe's limitation lies in the fact that his protagonists are
psychologically too simple and that he makes nobody laugh and nobody weep. But his didacticism was to
find favour with all the novelists of the eighteenth, and even many of the nineteenth, century. Some call
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Defoe the first English novelist. But as David Daiches puts it inA Critical History
ofEnglish Literature,Vol. II, whether Defoe was "properly" a novelist "is a matter of definition of terms."The Masters:
Between 1740 and 1800 hundreds of novels of all kinds were written. However, the real "masters"
of the novel in the eighteenth century were four-Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. The rest of
them are extremely inferior to them. Oliver Elton maintains: "The work of the four masters stands high,but the foothills are low." The case was different in, say, the mid-nineteenth century when so many
equally great novelists were at work. Fielding was the greatest of the foursome. Sir Edmund Gosse calls
Richardson "the first great English novelist" and Fielding, "the greatest of Englishnovelists." Fielding may
not be the greatest of all, but he was certainly one of the greatest English novelists and the greatest
novelist of the eighteenth century.Elizabethan ProseIntroduction:
The Elizabethan age has well been called a "young" age. It was full of boundless vigour, re-
awakened intellectual earnestness, and unfettered, soaring imagination. The best fruits of the age are
enshrined in poetry in which all these elements can be befittingly contained. In poetry there are
restrictions of versification which exerted some check on the youthful imagination and vigour of theElizabethans. Consequently,Elizabethan poetry is very great. But prose does not admit of any restrictions,
and the result is that Elizabethan prose is as one run amuck. Too much of liberty has taken away much of
its merit.During the fifteenth century, Latin was the medium of expression, and almost all the important
prose works were written in that language. It was in the sixteenth century, particularly in its later half,
that the English language came to its own. With the arrival of cheap mass printing English prose became
the popular medium for works aiming both at amusement and instruction. The books which date
from this period cover many departments of learning. We have the Chronicles of such writers as Stowe
and Holinshed recapturing the history of England, though mixed with legends and myths. Writers like
Harrison and Stubbs took upon themselves the task of describing the England not of the past but of their
own age. Many writers, most of them anonymous, wrote accounts of their voyages which had carried them
to many hitherto unknown lands in and across the Western Seas. Then, there are so many "novelists" who
translated Italian stories and wrote stories of their own after the Italian models. There are also quite a few
writers who wrote on religion. And last of all there is a host of pamphleteers who dealt with issues of
temporary interest.Though the prose used by these numerous writers is not exactly similar, yet we come across a
basic characteristic common to the works of all: that is, the nearness of their prose to poetry. "The age,"
says G. H. Mair, "was intoxicated with language. It went mad of a mere delight in words. Its writers were
using a new tongue, for English was enriched beyond all recognition with borrowings from the ancient
authors, and like all artists who become possessed of a new medium, they used it to excess. The early
Elizabethans' use of the new prose was very like the use some educated Indians make of English. It was
rich, gaudy and overflowing, though, in the main, correct." A. C. Ward observes in Illustrated History of
English Literature, Vol. I: "Our modern view of prose is strictly and perhaps-too narrowly practical andutilitarian or functional. Prose, we hold, has ajob to do and should do it without fuss, nonsense, or
aesthetic capers. It should say what it has to say in the shortest and most time-saving manner, and there
finish." But we find Elizabethan prose far from this commonly accepted principle. It is colourful, blazing,
rhythmic, indirect, prolix, and convoluted. Rarely does an Elizabethan prose writer call a spade a spade.The-prose works of the Elizabethan age fall into two categories:(i) Fiction(ii) Non-Fiction.
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Let us consider them one by one.FICTION
The fiction of the age of Elizabeth is generally "romantic" in nature in the sense that it is of the
kind ofromance. Many forms of fiction were practised in the age. Some important forms and their
practitioners are as follows :(i) The romances of Lyly-, Greene, and Lodge(ii) The pastoral romance of Sir Philip Sidney(iii) The picaresque novel of Nashe(iv) The realistic novel of Delony.