The Rise of the Novel in Europe

The Romance vs. The Novel

Earlier Prose Narratives: The Romance 1. a medieval tale dealing with heroes of chivalry, of the kind common in the romance languages: the Arthurian romances 2. the literary genre of such works 3. A work of fiction dealing with events remote from real life

Realism in the Renaissance Elizabethan Tragedy: “the idea of destiny…is more broadly conceived and more closely linked to the individual character than in antique tragedy” Shakespeare ( ): “treats noblemen, princes and kings, statesmen, commanders and antique heroes tragically…This separation of styles in accordance with class appears more consistently in him than in medieval works of art and literature” “Spanish realism is decidedly more popular, more filled with the life of the people than English realism of the same period.” -Auerbach, Mimesis

Cervantes and Don Quijote (1605) “Almost everything before [Cervantes] appears limited, conventional, or propagandistic in comparison…we have to consider the older tradition of the romance of adventure and its renewal through Boiardo and Ariosto, but no one before him had infused the element of genuine everyday reality into that brilliant and purposeless play of combinations.” Assertion of the novel against the romance: “Don Quijote read too many romances of chivalry and they deranged his mind.” -Auerbach, Mimesis

Readers Middle Ages: reading as an activity of an elite Invention of the printing press (Germany, 1436) leads to increase in availability of pamphlets, books, signs, etc. Number of people who can read increase

Readers Glorious Revolution (1688): Catholic king James I overthrown. Protestants William and Mary replace him. Establishment of a bill of rights and parliament. Beginning of a parliamentary democracy. 18th Century: The rise of cheap newspapers with serialized novels in them brings more readers who are not part of an elite group.

The Novel in 18th C. England “a break with old fashioned romances” “realism as the defining characteristic which differentiates the work of eighteenth century novelists from previous fiction” - Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel

The Novel in 18th C. England “the historical importance of Defoe and Richardson…depends on the suddenness and completeness with which they brought into being what may be regarded as the lowest common denominator of the novel genre as a whole, its formal realism.” - Ian Watt

Realism and the Novel in 18th C. England “the realism of the novels of Defoe, Richardson and Fielding is closely associated with the fact that Moll Flanders is a thief, Pamela a hypocrite, and Tom Jones a fornicator” “[The novel] attempts to portray all the varieties of human experience, and not merely those suited to one particular literary perspective: the novel’s realism does not reside in the kind of life it presents but in the way it presents it.

Realism and the Novel in 18th C. England “The novel’s serious concern with the daily lives of ordinary people seems to depend on two important general conditions: that society must value every individual highly enough to consider him the proper subject of serious literature; and there must be enough variety of belief and action among ordinary people for a detailed account of them to be of interest.” - Ian Watt

Realism and the Novel in 18th C. England “modern society is uniquely individualist in these respects…[because of] the rise of modern industrial capitalism and the spread of Protestantism, especially in its Calvinist or Puritan forms.” - Ian Watt

Realism and the Novel: An Opposing View “Romance and Novel are one.” - Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel, 1996.

Realism and the Novel : An Opposing View “Romance and Novel are one.” “A work is a novel if it is fictional, if it is in prose, and if it is of a certain length.” - Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel, 1996.

Realism and the Novel : An Opposing View “Romance and Novel are one.” “A work is a novel if it is fictional, if it is in prose, and if it is of a certain length.” “The Anglo-Saxon tradition has exhibited constant anxiety that fiction should adhere to the criteria posed by ‘realism’.” - Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel, 1996.

Realism and the Novel : An Opposing View “Romance and Novel are one.” “A work is a novel if it is fictional, if it is in prose, and if it is of a certain length.” - Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel, 1996.

Realism and the Novel : An Opposing View “Romance and Novel are one.” The French word for novel is “roman,” in German is “der Roman,” and in Italian is “il romanzo.” - Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel, 1996.

Realism and the Novel : An Opposing View “Romance and Novel are one.” The French word for novel is “roman,” in German is “der Roman,” and in Italian is “il romanzo.” “The Novel as a form of literature in the West has a history of about two thousand years.” - Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel, 1996.

Realism and the Novel : An Opposing View The French word for novel is “roman,” in German is “der Roman,” and in Italian is “il romanzo.” “The Novel as a form of literature in the West has a history of about two thousand years…[It]was produced in antiquity by…writers who came from the Near East and Africa…It is the product of contact between Southern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa…We can assume the possibility of story and style filtering in from the Balkans and the Celtic lands in the West, from Persia and India in the East, frrom the Sudan and Kush and Katanga in the South. - Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel, 1996.

The Novel in 18th C. England: Daniel Defoe “Defoe…expressed the diverse elements of individualism more completely than any previous writer.” - Ian Watt

The Novel in 18th C. England: Daniel Defoe “Defoe…expressed the diverse elements of individualism more completely than any previous writer.” Defoe was raised as a Puritan. Puritanism: tendency towards the democratisation of the moral and social scale.” - Ian Watt

The Novel in 18th C. England and Daniel Defoe “Defoe…expressed the diverse elements of individualism more completely than any previous writer.” Defoe was raised as a Puritan. Puritanism: “tendency towards the democratisation of the moral and social scale.” The Protestant Work Ethic and increasing secularization - Ian Watt

Defoe and Economic Individualism “Defoe…expressed the diverse elements of individualism more completely than any previous writer.” “All Defoe’s heroes pursue money.” They have no important family ties and act as individuals for their own benefit. - Ian Watt

Defoe and Economic Individualism “Defoe…expressed the diverse elements of individualism more completely than any previous writer.” “All Defoe’s heroes pursue money.” They have no important family ties and act as individuals for their own benefit. Romance is secondary. Relationships are based primarily on economics, rather than love or other sentiments.” - Ian Watt

Economic Individualism and Robinson Crusoe (1719) Crusoe leaves England on a ship to America looking for economic opportunity. Is shipwrecked. Much of the book discusses how he survives: how to find food, build a house, domesticate animals, etc. - Ian Watt

Economic Individualism and Robinson Crusoe (1719) Human relationships: No women/romantic relationships. Master/servant relationship: Crusoe meets an island dweller, makes him his servant, names him Man Friday, teaches him some English, and puts him to work. - Ian Watt