A BRIEF HISTORYOF

THE NOVEL

GENERAL PARAMETERS OF THE NOVEL

O GENRE: Fiction: NarrativeO STYLE: ProseO LENGTH: Extended (beyond novella)O PURPOSE: Mimesis: Verisimilitude“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

Term came into use end of 18th century

Traditional NovelO Unified and plausible plot structureO Sharply individualized and believable

charactersO Pervasive illusion of reality

Where did it come fromO Drama and Poetry – 2 ancient formsO Public demandO Expansion of middle class – literacy and

financialO High interest in auto/bio, journals,

diaries, memoirsO Alexander Pope – “The proper study of

mankind is man.”O Departs from allegory and romance –

verisimilitude

VerisimilitudeOa semblance of truthOrecognizable settings and characters in real

timeOwhat Hazlitt calls, “ the close imitation of men

and manners… the very texture of society as it really exists.”

ONovel emerged when authors fused adventure and romance with verisimilitude; heroes that were not supermen but ordinary people, often, insignificant nobodies. 4th hour

OMimesis – imitation of human actions in lit and art

Narrative Precursors to the Novel

OHeroic EpicsGilgamesh, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Mahabharata, Valmiki’s Ramayana, Virgil’s Aeneid, Beowulf, The Song of Roland

OAncient Greek and Roman Romances and NovelsAn Ephesian Tale and Chaereas and Callirhoe,, Apuleius’s The Golden Ass

OOriental Frame TalesThe Jataka, A Thousand and One Nights

O Irish and Icelandic SagasThe Tain bo Cuailinge, Njal’s Saga

Narrative Precursors to the NovelO Medieval European Romances

Arthurian tales culminating in Malory’s Morte Darthur

O Elizabethan Prose FictionNashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller, Deloney’s Jack of Newbury

O Travel AdventuresMarco Polo, More’s Utopia, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Voltaire’s Candide

O Novelle Boccaccio’s Decameron, Moral TalesBunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progess,

The First NovelsO The Tale of Genji ( Japan, 11th c. )by Lady Murasaki

ShikibuO Don Quixote ( Spain, 1605-15) by Miguel de CervantesO The Princess of Cleves (France, 1678) by Madame de

LafayetteO Robinson Crusoe (England, 1719) , Moll Flanders (1722)

and A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) by Daniel DeFoeO Defoe – founder – dominant theme, realism, middle class

perspective, claimed fiction as factO Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (England, 1740-1742) by

Samuel RichardsonO Richardson – novel of character – complex and complete

human beings, works were moral preachmentsO Joseph Andrews (England, 1742) and Tom Jones

(1746)by Henry FieldingO Fielding first to openly write novelsO Both books contain parts that attempt to define novel

Types of NovelsO Picaresque O Epistolary O Sentimental O Gothic O HistoricalO Psychological O Realistic/Naturalistic

O Regional O Social O AdventureO MysteryO Science FictionO Magical

Realism

Ming Literature

Development of the novel

O Arose from traditions of Chinese storytelling

O Written in commoner’s languageO Divided into chapters at points

where storytellers would have stopped to collect money

O Classics of Chinese literature:O Water Margin, 16th c. – band of

outlawsO Romance of Three Kingdoms, 16th c. –

historical novelO Monkey: Journey to the West, 16th-

17th c.

Don Quixoteby Miguel de Cervantes

(1547-1616)O First European novel: part I

- 1605; part II - 1615O A psychological portrait of

a mid-life crisisO Satirizes medieval

romances, incorporates pastoral, picaresque, social and religious commentary

O What is the nature of reality?

O How does one create a life?

The Rise of the English Novel

O The Restoration of the monarchy (1660) in England after the Puritan Commonwealth (1649-1660) encouraged an outpouring of secular literature

O Appearance of periodical literature: journals and newspapersO Literary CriticismO Character SketchesO Political DiscussionO Philosophical Ideas

O Increased leisure time for middle class: Coffee House and Salon society

O Growing audience of literate women

Daniel DefoeO Master of plain prose and

powerful narrativeO Reportial: highly realistic

detailO Travel adventure: Robinson

Crusoe, 1719O Contemporary chronicle:

Journal of the Plague Year , 1722

O Picaresques: Moll Flanders, 1722 and Roxana

Picaresque NovelsO Derives from Spanish picaro: a rogueO A usually autobiographical chronicle of a rascal’s

travels and adventures as s/he makes his/her way through the world more by wits than industry

O Episodic, loose structureO Highly realistic: detailed description and

uninhibited expressionO Satire of social classesO Contemporary picaresques: Saul Bellow’s

Adventures of Augie March; Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

Epistolary Novels

ONovels in which the narrative is told in letters by one or more of the characters

OAllows author to present feelings and reactions of characters, brings immediacy to the plot, allows multiple points of view

O Jane Austen’s Pride and PrejudiceOPsychological realismOContemporary epistolary novels: Alice Walker’s

The Color Purple; Nick Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine; Kalisha Buckhannon’s Upstate

Fathers of the English Novel

O Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1747-48) O EpistolaryO SentimentalO Morality tale: Servant

resisting seduction by her employer

O Shamela (1741) Joseph Andrews (1742), and Tom Jones (1749)O Picaresque protagonistsO “comic epic in prose”O Parody of Richardson

Samuel Richardson1689-1761

Henry Fielding1707-1754

Jane Austen and the Novel of Manners

O Novels dominated by the customs, manners, conventional behavior and habits of a particular social class

O Often concerned with courtship and marriage

O Realistic and sometimes satiricO Focus on domestic society

rather than the larger worldO Other novelists of manners:

Anthony Trollope, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Margaret Drabble

Gothic NovelsO Novels characterized by magic, mystery and horrorO Exotic settings – medieval, Oriental, etc.O Originated with Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764)O William Beckford: Vathek, An Arabian Tale (1786)O Anne Radcliffe: 5 novels (1789-97) including The Mysteries

of Udolpho O Widely popular genre throughout Europe and America:

Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland (1798) O Contemporary Gothic novelists include Anne Rice and

Stephen King

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

1797-1851OInspired by a dream in reaction to a

challenge to write a ghost story

OPublished in 1817 (rev. ed. 1831)

OA Gothic novel influenced by Promethean myth

OThe first science fiction novel

Novels of Sentiment; Emerging Romanticism

O Novels in which the characters, and thus the readers, have a heightened emotional response to events

O Connected to emerging Romantic movementO Laurence Sterne (1713-1768):

Tristam Shandy (1760-67)O Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832):

The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)O Francois Rene de Chateaubriand (1768-1848): Atala

(1801) and Rene (1802)O The Brontës: Anne Brontë Agnes Grey (1847) Emily

Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847), Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)

O James Fenimore Cooper – The Last of the MohicansO Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter, House of Seven

GablesO Melville – Moby Dick

The BrontësCharlotte (1816-55), Emily (1818-48), Anne (1820-

49)

O Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre transcend sentiment into myth-making

O Wuthering Heights plumbs the psychic unconscious in a search for wholeness, while Jane Eyre narrates the female quest for individuation

portrait by Branwell Brontë of his sisters,

Anne, Emily, and Charlotte (c. 1834)

Historical Novels –

Victorians, tooO Novels that reconstruct

a past age, often when two cultures are in conflict

O Fictional characters interact with with historical figures in actual events

O Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) is considered the father of the historical novel: The Waverly Novels (1814-1819) and Ivanhoe (1819)

Realism and Naturalism

O Middle classO PragmaticO Psychological O Mimetic artO Objective, but ethicalO Sometimes comic or

satiricO How can the individual

live within and influence society?

O Honore Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, George Eliot, William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Leo Tolstoy, George Sand

O Middle/Lower classO ScientificO SociologicalO Investigative artO Objective and amoralO Often pessimistic,

sometimes comicO How does society/the

environment impact individuals?

O Emile Zola, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Hardy, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser

Social RealismO Social or Sociological novels deal with the nature, function

and effect of the society which the characters inhabit – often for the purpose of effecting reform

O Social issues came to the forefront with the condition of laborers in the Industrial Revolution and later in the Depression: Dickens’ Hard Times, Gaskell’s Mary Barton; Eliot’s Middlemarch; Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath

O Slavery and race issues arose in American social novels: Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 20th c. novels by Wright, Ellison, etc.

O Muckrakers exposed corruption in industry and society: Sinclair’s The Jungle, Steinbeck’s Cannery Row

O Propaganda novels advocate a doctrinaire solution to social problems: Godwin’s Things as They Are, Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

Charles Dickens

1812-1870

O Include varieties of poor people in his novels - brought the problems of poverty to the attention of his readers:

O “It is scarcely conceivable that anyone should…exert a stronger social influence than Mr. Dickens has…. His sympathies are on the side of the suffering and the frail; and this makes him the idol of those who suffer, from whatever cause.” Harriet Martineau

O The London Times called him "pre-eminently a writer of the people and for the people . . . the 'Great Commoner' of English fiction."

O Dickens aimed at arousing the conscience of his age. To his success in doing so, a Nonconformist preacher paid the following tribute: "There have been at work among us three great social agencies: the London City Mission; the novels of Mr. Dickens; the cholera."

The Russian NovelORussia from 1850-1920 was a period of social, political,

and existential struggle. OWriters and thinkers remained divided: some tried to

incite revolution, while others romanticized the past as a time of harmonious order.

OThe novel in Russia embodied these struggles and conflicts in some of the greatest books ever written.

OThe characters in the works search for meaning in an uncertain world, while the novelists who created them experiment with modes of artistic expression to represent the troubled spirit of their age.

The Russian NovelEven beyond their deaths, the two

novelists stand in contrariety… Tolstoy, the mind intoxicated with reason and fact; Dostoevsky, the contemner of rationalism, the great lover of paradox; …Tolstoy, thirsting for the truth, destroying himself and those about him in excessive pursuit of it; Dostoevsky, rather against the truth than against Christ, suspicious of total understanding and on the side of mystery; …Tolstoy, like a colossus bestriding the palpable earth, evoking the realness, the tangibility, the sensible entirety of concrete experience; Dostoevsky, always on the verge of the hallucinatory, of the spectral, always vulnerable to daemonic intrusions into what might prove, in the end, to have been merely a tissue of dreams; ~ George Steiner in Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism (1959)

Fyodor Dostoevsky1821-1881The GamblerCrime and PunishmentNotes from

UndergroundThe Brothers Karamazov

Leo Tolstoy1828-1910The Cossacks

Anna KareninaWar and PeaceResurrection

Modernism

O “Modernism” designates an international artistic movement, flourishing from the 1880s to the end of WW II (1945), known for radical experimentation and rejection of the old order of civilization and 19th century optimism; a reaction against Realism and Naturalism

O “Modern” implies historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, loss and despair – angst -- a loss of confidence that there exists a reliable, knowable ground of value and identity.

O Horrors of WW I (1914-1918)

On or about December 1910, the world changed.” -- Virginia Woolf

Stream of ConsciousnessO Narration that mimics the

ebb and flow of thoughts of the waking mind

O Uninhibited by grammar, syntax or logical transitions

O A mixture of all levels of awareness – sensations, thoughts, memories, associations, reflections

O Emphasis on how something is perceived rather than on what is perceived

O James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner

James Joyce1882-1941

The DublinersPortrait of an Artist

UlyssesFinnegan’s Wake

Virginia Woolf1882-1941To the

LightHouseThe Waves

Mrs. DallowayOrlando

Post-ModernismO “Postmodernism” is widely used to define

contemporary (post-1970s) culture, technology and art – an age transformed by information technology, shaped by electronic images and fascinated with popular art.

O Rejects the elitism and difficulty of ModernismO Postmodernism celebrates the idea of

fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence. O “The world is meaningless? Let's not pretend that art

can make meaning then, let's just play with nonsense.”O Emphasis on reflexivity – fictions about fiction --

metafiction

-Influences on Modernism

O Industrial Revolution - social problemsO Darwin – Origin of the SpeciesO Marx – Communist ManifestoO Nietzsche – Complete freedom – “God is

Dead”O Sartre - existentialismO Freud and JungO Einstein and PlanckO WWI, WWIIO Great DepressionO Launch of Sputnik, end of ColonialismO World Communism

Magical RealismLatin American “Boom”

O “A worldwide twentieth-century tendency in the graphic and literary arts…. The frame of surface of he work may be conventionally realistic, but contrasting elements – such as the supernatural, myth dream, fantasy – invade the realism and change the whole basis of the art.” Harmon and Holman

O Latin American literary “Boom” began in the 1950s: Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jose Donoso, Mario Vargas Llosa

O “ The authors involved are resolutely engaged in a transfiguration of Latin American reality, from localism to a kind of heightened, imaginative view of what is real--a universality gained by the most intense and luminous kind of locality.” Alexander Coleman

Magical RealismPost-Colonial Literature

O An exploration of the encounter of different cultures, world views, and perceptions of reality.  What is absolutely ordinary and "real" to one culture, is "magical" to the other culture. 

O From a "Western" viewpoint, the other culture's reality is often described as superstition, witchcraft or nonsense.

O From another culture's viewpoint (Native American, African American, Eastern, African, etc.) western logic and science are viewed as "magic" or disconnected from the spiritual world. 

O The intersect of these different world views is Magical Realism.

O Magical Realism Links 

Contemporary Movements

O Post-modernO Neo-modernO Preoccupied with perception,

fragmentation, loss of belief in anything outside of self, pervasive irony

O Immediately after WWII – threat of annihilation

O 1960’s-present – social unrest and political upheaval

ModernistsO Realism –Naturalism

O Crane – Red Badge of Courage

O Norris’ OctopusO Dreiser’s AN American

Tragedy, Sister CarrieO Remarque – All Quiet on

the Western FrontO Mann – The Magic

MountainO Wharton – Age of

Innocence

O Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath

O Social CriticismO Sinclair – The JungleO Wolf – Look Homeward, Angel

O Lost Generation – ExpatsO Heminway – A Sun Also

Rises, A Farewell to ArmsO Fitzgerald

O RegionalismO Twain, London, Cather – westO Chopin, Faulkner – south

O ExistentialismO Kafka

Cont. WritersO Gordimer – O Alice WalkerO Toni MorrisonO Elie WieselO John UpdikeO Bobbie MasonO Anne Tyler

O Saul BellowO Bernard MalamudO Amy Tan

O And it moves on to

O Post Contemporary??

Think about your Reading

O What types of books have you read?O What gaps are there in your reading?O Will any books on your “want to

read” list help fill in those gaps?O Gender, Minority gaps?O What most appeals to you and why?