Transcript Slide 1
“THE NOVEL” An Introduction… CONTENTS Novel Beginnings… In which the discussion turns to the origins of the novel and what came before this venerable genre. Romance Your author turns her attention to one of the celebrated precursors of modern fiction and the companionability between novel and Romance Fact and Fiction The dangerous world of fictitious fact-making is considered, the darker side of novelistic creativity explored Novel Readers To you, dear reader, we will turn our attention but do not be afraid your character will remain un-besmirch’d …Novel Endings As our journey draws to an untimely close we will ponder our travels thus far and consider the paths that await us NOVEL BEGINNINGS… Long prose fiction in Classical form Medieval prose Amatory fiction Experimental fiction Writing that has no name: “histories”, “romances”, “adventures”, “lives”, “memoirs”, “fortunes & misfortunes” “This kind of Writing, which I do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our Language” (Henry Fielding) ROMANCE It [Joseph Andrews] differs from the serious Romance in its Fable and Action in this; that as in the one these are grave and solemn, so in the other they are light and ridiculous: it differs in its Characters, by introducing Persons of inferiour Rank, and consequently of inferiour Manners, whereas the grave Romance, sets the highest before us; lastly in its Sentiments and Diction, by preserving the Ludicrous instead of the Sublime (Fielding, on Joseph Andrews). Immensely popular in 17C England and France Immensely long Lavish, and expensive texts Set in the distant past and in exotic places FACT AND FICTION Novels are of a more familiar nature; Come near us, and represent to us Intrigues in practice, delight us with Accidents, and odd Events, but not such as are wholly unusual or unprecedented….Romances give more of Wonder, Novels more delight. (William Congreve, preface to Incognita, or Love and Duty Reconciled 1692). Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605 / 1615) A book which exposed the ridiculous and outdated nature of Romance writing, replacing it with realism and fidelity to everyday contemporary experience (replacing knights with windmills). FACT AND FICTION this story differs from most of the modern performances of this kind, though some of them have met with a very good reception in the world: I say, it differs from them in this great and essential article, namely that the foundation of this is laid in truth of fact, and sot he work is not a story, but a history. (Daniel Defoe, Roxana; or, the Fortunate Mistress) I have often said that History in general is a Romance that is believed, and that Romance is a History that is not believed; and that I do not see much difference between them. (Horace Walpole, Letters, vol. 15) NOVEL READERS Advances in print technology Lapse of the print licensing laws Cheap books and leisure time Luxury goods – books as status symbols ‘Circulating libraries’ – widening participation Subject matter and content – accessibility Public readers – coffee houses Private readers – domestic activity Move away from province of small, elite group of privileged readers to a bourgeois reading public CONTROLLING READERS Too much reading and knowledge could be dangerous, culturally and politically subversive Critics of the novel expressed concern for the young in particular A disreputable, ‘suspect’ genre – commercial literature written by hacks Novel reading was an activity that would inevitably lead to criminal behaviour Could readers really distinguish between their “real” lives and the “fictional” versions of themselves represented in novels? WOMEN READERS The novel was particularly dangerous for women Novels gave women access to those aspects of life that they were conventionally shielded from (politics, travel, sex) Novel reading could take place in private (in the closet or in the garden) The novel could stimulate the imagination and offer freedom such books lead to a false taste of life and happiness….they represent vices as frailties, and frailties as virtues….they engender notions of love as unspeakably perverting and inflammatory….almost all leave the female readers with this persuasion at best, that it is their business to get husbands at any rate, and by whatever means (James Fordyce, Sermons to Young Women, 1766) …NOVEL ENDINGS Commitment to “realism”, to depict life through fiction Contemporaneity, concerning recent events Credibility and probability, telling believable stories Familiarity of setting, London or Britain Rejection of existing or conventional plots, writing something new Focus on a central individual, proper names and non-allegorical characters Self-conscious novelty, writing in a “new” genre