THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

Historical ContextHistorical ContextAfter the turbulent years of the 16th and 17th century, 18th

century came as a relief. After the Stuarts, a succession of Protestant kings rules Britain. However, a monarch would never again influence arts and culture in manner of Elizabeth I. The power in the state shifts towards Pariliament, and the social standards and taste are dictated by the middle class.

This literary period was influenced by the neoclassical trends from the continent, and the translations of classic Greek and Roman poets.

The 18th century is often called ‘The Age of Reason’. Literature was dealing with reason, not feelings, and a comfortable town life was preferred to the wild nature.

A shift from poetry and drama towards the novel.According to the taste of the constantly rising middle

class.

The Augustan Age (1700-1745)The Augustan Age (1700-1745)In prose, the earlier part of the period was

overshadowed by the development of the English essay. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's The Spectator

established the form of the British periodical essay -the detached observer of human life who can meditate upon the world without advocating any specific changes in it.

The English novel, first emerging in the Restoration, developed into a major literary form.

The novel would benefit indirectly from a tragedy of the stage, and in mid-century many more authors would begin to write novels.

In this period many new prose forms and genres began:

Dr. Samuel Johnson published the first English dictionary in 1755.

His friend James Boswell recorded his life in Life of Johnson, one of the first biographies in English.

Edward Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the first great historical work in English.

Oratorical prose (speeches)Epistolary prose (letters)Mid-18th century – flourishing of the novelSamuel Richardson – Pamela, ClarissaHenry Fielding – Joseph Andrews, Tom JonesTobias Smollet – Roderick Random Laurence Sterne – Tristram ShandyOliver Goldsmith – The Vicar of Wakefield

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667 – 1745)

The greatest prose writer of English classicism; a great humorist and a savage satirist.

Capable of pure fun, but there is a core of bitterness in him which revealed itself finally as a mad hatred of mankind.

He still strove to do good for his fellow-men, especially the poor of Dublin where he was Dean of St. Patrick’s.

His "savage indignation" resulted in devastating attacks on his age in A Tale of a Tub (1704), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729).

A Tale of a Tub – a parable of three forms of Christianity in England. A story of three brothers – Jack (Calvin), Martin (Luther; Protestantism) and Peter (st; Catholic Church) – and what they do with their inheritance (Christian religion).

Gulliver’s Travels – 4 books: A Voyage to Lilliput – a shrunken human race, "not six

inches high" (15 cm), and its concerns – so important to Lilliput – become shrunken accordingly. It makes fun of mankind, especially England and English politics. Lilliput and Blefuscu are permanently at war because of differences over the correct way to eat a boiled egg – from the rounded end according to the Blefuscudians, or from the sharp end according to the Lilliputians. The supporters of the differing views were called "Big-endians" and "Little-endians." The story is a parody of the European nations, particularly England and France, who were in Swift's view constantly at war over 'trivial' matters + satirizes the dispute between Catholics and Protestants.

A Voyage to Brobdingnag – land of the giants (72 feet; 22 meters). Tiny Gulliver sees human deformities magnified to a feverous pitch; horror of the human body.

A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan – makes fun of useless, absurd and impractical inventions.

A Voyage to the Country of Houyhnhnms – horses with rational souls and highest moral principles are contrasted with the filthy, depraved Yahoos, who are really human beings. Swift’s hatred of man reaches its climax; the powerful and horrible moment when Gulliver reaches home and cannot bear the touch of his wife – her smell is the smell of a Yahoo and makes him vomit.

DANIEL DEFOE (1660-1731)

Middle-class tastes were reflected in the growth of periodicals and newspapers, the best of which were the Tatler and the Spectator produced by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele . The novels of Daniel Defoe, the first modern novels in English, owe much to the techniques of journalism. They also illustrate the virtues of merchant adventure vital to the rising middle class. Indeed, the novel was to become the literary form most responsive to middle-class needs and interests.

A journalist. He had things to say and wanted to say them clearly.

Journal of the Plague Year – (Dnevnik iz godine kuge).

Most remembered for his novels he wrote later in life. The intention of these works is that the reader should regard them as true, not as fictitious.

Moll Flanders (1722) – we seem to be reading the real life-story of a “bad woman”, written in the style appropriate to her. A fictionalized autobiography of a prostitute and a thief. Defoe demonstrates his knowledge of English social and economic life.

Robinson Crusoe (1720) – the story of a castaway sailor based on the account of Alexander Selkirk. Realistic approach: Told in the first person as if it were Robinson’s personal story; amassing facts, details. A stranded sailor who manages to reproduce in nature the material and moral pattern of the civilization he left behind. A success story – a man who is triumphant owing to his hard work, diligence, physical and mental abilities not owing to his origins (noble family).

The Age of Sensibility (The Age of Johnson) – 1745-1784SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784). Often

referred to simply as Dr Johnson, is one of England's best known literary figures: a poet, essayist, biographer, lexicographer and a critic of English Literature. Between 1745 and 1755, Johnson wrote perhaps his best-known work, A Dictionary of the English Language. The rise in literacy and the declining cost of printing demanded clearer standards in spelling, meaning and grammar. Well known for his wit and aphorisms – preserved for us in the Life of Johnson (1791) by his friend James Boswell.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761)A professional printer who took to novel-writing

when he was fifty. He liked to help women with the composition to their love letters and was asked by a publisher to write a volume of model letters for use on various occasions. He was inspired to write a novel in the form of a series of letters (epistolary novel), a novel which should implant a moral lesson in the mind of his readers (he thought of these reader primarily as women). This novel was Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, which describes the assaults made on the honour of a virtuous housemaid by an unscrupulous young man. Pamela resists clinging tightly to her code of honour and her reward is, ultimately, marriage to her would-be seducer. Criticism: virtue = commodity to be sold to the highest bidder.

HENRY FIELDING (1707-1754)Parodies of Pamela – Shamela, Joseph Andrews Joseph dismissed from service because he will not let

his employer, Lady Booby, make love to him. He takes the road to the village where his sweetheart lives, meets Parson Adams – strange adventures on the road, meeting rouges, vagabonds and tricksters of all kinds. Picaresque novel (Spanish – picaro = rouge) –

Fielding’s masterpiece Tom Jones – picaresque elements – theme of journey – and ‘mock-epic’, largeness of the conception, but not Homeric characters. Charming, ordinary and likable characters, Tom Jones and Sophia Western. A rich variety of characters, a sweeping view of society, shrewd moral observations. Boisterous humour, good sense, vivid characterization.

Other significant novelistsLaurence Sterne - a unique perspective on the

impossibility of biography (the model for most novels up to that point) with Tristram Shandy,

Tobias Smollett improved on the picaresque novel with Roderick Random

Each of the above mentioned novels represents a formal and thematic divergence from the others.

Each novelist was in dialogue and competition with the others

The novel established itself as a diverse and open-formed genre

Most of the 18th century novels are regarded as ‘classics’ today.

End of 18th centuryDuring the Age of Sensibility, literature reflected the

worldview of the Age of Enlightenment (or Age of Reason) – a rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues that promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress.

This extreme rationalism and skepticism naturally led to a reaction, which would evolve to the Romantic movement. Some literary works showed increased emphasis on instinct and feeling, rather than judgment and restraint. A growing sympathy for the Middle Ages during the Age of Sensibility sparked an interest in medieval ballads and folk literature. Ann Radcliffe's novels would embody all of this.

Gothic Novel a genre of literature that combines elements of both

horror and romance. generally believed to have been invented by the English

author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel.

Gothic Revival architecture – rejects the clarity and reason in the same way and focuses on intense feelings and atmosphere.

he ruins of gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations

Features of Gothic novel:mystery, terror, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses.

Stock characters: villains, tyrants, bandits, maniacs, Byronic heroes, persecuted maidens, femmes fatales, demons, ghosts, etc.

Anne Ratcliffe was the pioneer of the Gothic Novel. The majority of her work tends to involve innocent, but heroic young women who find themselves in gloomy, mysterious castles ruled by even more mysterious barons with dark pasts.

The Romance of the Forest Most famous novel, The Mysteries of

Udolpho - considered the ultimate Gothic Novel of the late 18th century.