The Form of the Novel In Conversation with Ian Watt

Questions for the Paper What are the formal characteristics of the novel and what are their effects? How can we enter into a conversation with Watt and Levine? Make Claims: – About the workings of the novel’s “formal realism” – About the way it represents human experience, perception, or consciousness

So far in Watt’s argument… What is the origin and function of the novel’s “formal realism”? “…the novel arose in the modern period, a period whose general intellectual orientation was most decisively separated from its classical and mediaeval heritage by its rejection – or at least its attempted rejection – of universals” (12). “The various technical characteristics of the novel described above all seem to contribute to the furthering of an aim which the novelist shares with the philosopher – the production of what purports to be an authentic account of the actual experiences of individuals” (27).

So far in Watt’s argument… “…the novel arose in the modern period, a period whose general intellectual orientation was most decisively separated from its classical and mediaeval heritage by its rejection – or at least its attempted rejection – of universals” (12). “The various technical characteristics of the novel described above all seem to contribute to the furthering of an aim which the novelist shares with the philosopher – the production of what purports to be an authentic account of the actual experiences of individuals” (27). “Formal Realism”: the “technical” means by which writers made their work appear to be an “authentic account” of modern, individual experience. What does it mean to “authentically” represent experience? How does the novel’s form represent the insights (and problems) of this “modern period”?

So far in Watt’s argument… “Formal Realism”: the “technical” means by which writers made their work appear to be an “authentic account” of modern, individual experience. INDIVIDUALISM – “the character is to be regarded as though he were a particular person and not a type” (20). – “The novel’s plot is also distinguished from most previous fiction by its use of past experience as the cause of present action” (22). – Focus on perception, choice, experience: “life lessons” of individuals presented in a biographical mode.

Levine! “Formal Realism” also reflects the problems that individualism poses for ideas of meaning, representation, and narrative! “the struggle inherent in any ‘realist’ effort – the struggle to avoid the inevitable conventionality of language in pursuit of the unattainable unmediated reality” (249). “Realism further complicated itself because in continuing alertness to the secret lust of the spirit to impose itself on the world… it is always on the verge of another realism: the recognition that the reality it most adequately represents is a subtly disguised version of its own desires” (250).

“Unjust! – unjust!” said my reason, forced by the agonizing stimulus into precocious though transitory power; and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression – as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die. What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question – why I thus suffered; now, the distance of – I will not say how many years, I see it clearly. (29)