What is a Novel?

by abdo Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:58 am

What is a Novel?
E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel cites the definition of a Frenchman named Abel Chevalley: "a fiction in prose of a certain extent" and adds that he defines "extent" as over 50,000 words.
There are three possible points of emphasis in prose fiction. Each point can be emphasized in either a long or a short narrative.
Point of Emphasis Short Form Long Form
abstract theme fable allegory
plot anecdote romance
character short story novel
As you can see from the above table, the novel is one form of an extended fictional prose narrative. It differs from allegory (which functions to teach some sort of moral lesson) and romance (with its emphasis on spectacular and exciting events designed to entertain) in its emphasis on character development.
The novel, however, arises from the desire to depict and interpret human character. The reader of a novel is both entertained and aided in a deeper perception of life's problems.
The roots of the novel come from a number of sources:
• Elizabethan prose fiction
• French heroic romance--vast baroque narratives about thinly disguised contemporaries (mid-17th century) who always acted nobly and spoke high-flown sentiment
• Spanish picaresque tales--strings of episodic adventures held together by the personality of the central figure; Don Quixote is the best known of these tales.
The word "novel" (which wasn't even used until the end of the 18th century) is an English transliteration of the Italian word "novella"--used to describe a short, compact, broadly realistic tale popular during the medieval period (e.g. The Decameron).
The novel deals with a human character in a social situation, man as a social being.
The novel places more emphasis on character, especially one well-rounded character, than on plot.
Another initial major characteristic of the novel is realism--a full and authentic report of human life.
The traditional novel has:
• a unified and plausible plot structure
• sharply individualized and believable characters
• a pervasive illusion of reality
How Did the Novel in English Come to Be?
There was a public demand for the novel. With the expansion of the middle class by the middle of the 18th century, more people could read and they had money to spend on literature.
There was already a high interest in autobiography, biography, journals, diaries, memoirs. Alexander Pope's dictum that "The proper study of mankind is man" led to increased interest in the human character.
The early English novel departs from the allegory and the romance with its vigorous attempt at verisimilitude and it was initially strongly associated with the middle class, their pragmatism, and their morality.
Pamela, (I, 1740; II, 1741) by Samuel Richardson, is usually considered the first fully-realized English novel.
Major 18th Century Novelists in English
DANIEL DEFOE
Sometimes called the founder of the modern English novel, Defoe established:
• a dominant unifying theme with a serious thesis
• convincing realism (through an almost-journalistic first-person narrative)
• a middle class viewpoint
Major Works:
• Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• Moll Flanders (1722)
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Richardson created the novel of character.
Whereas Defoe's characters too often seem to be simply fighting their way out of circumstantial dilemmas, Richardson's characters are complete and complex human beings.
Major Works
• Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (I, 1740; II, 1741): story told through a series of letters
• Clarissa (1747-48)
HENRY FIELDING
Defoe claimed his fiction to be fact; Richardson considered his works moral preachments.
Fielding is the first to unashamedly and forthrightly write novels.
Fielding's two major works, Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749), both contain essays constituting the initial English attempt to define and explain the novel as a literary genre.
JANE AUSTEN
Though not an 18th century novelist, Austen has more in common with the novelists of the 18th century than she does with the novelists of the early 19th century.
Austen is the greatest English novelist of manners.
Restricting herself to the society of landed gentry, Austen is a miniaturist; the feminine Augustan.