Novel as a Literary Genre

The Online Encyclopedia Britannica has defined the novel as fiction prose narrative of a considerable length and with certain complexity that deals with human experience imaginatively, normally through a series of connected events thus involving a group of people in a certain setting.

Margaret Anne Doody in her book on the history of novel titled as “The True Story of the Novel” (1996) gives a very broad definition of the novel. According to her, a novel would be considered a novel if:

• It is a fictional work,
• It is written in a prose form, and,
• It is of an appropriate length.

In other words, one loose definition of the term “novel” identifies the “literary genre” as represented or exemplified by works such as the novels of Jane Austen. The problem is that the novel is similar to other related genres in many ways. For example, the novel is quite similar to ‘short story’, ‘romance’ and even ‘epic’. There are elements of poetry, dramatic monologue, pastoral, satire, history, elegy and tragedy etc. Moreover, the most commonly used phrase about the ‘novel’ i.e., ‘considerable length’ is even misleading.

Origin of Novel

The term “novel” has been derived from the Italian word “novella” which means “something new”. The novel as a fiction genre is very closely built on the art and skills of storytelling. If we consider the features of storytelling as a permanent part of the ‘novel’ then it is something which existed for many centuries in various cultures and civilizations of the world.

The tradition of oral story-telling is as old as the history of man and his culture. The emergence of the novel as a literary genre is, one way or the other, connected to the tradition of storytelling found in ancient cultures and religions. There are critics who have related this trend of storytelling to the stories of prophets and saints as given in holy books and scriptures. While exploring the history of prose narrative, Margret Anne Doody (1996) has highlighted the features of Greek fiction and has located story-telling popularly existing at the time of Christ.

Difference Between Epic and Novels

Many experts consider the novel and the epic resembling each other in many ways. For example, Claude Levi-Strauss, Northrop Frye, Ian Watt, Georg Lukacs, and Michael McKeon have defined ‘the novel’ as a developed form of the epic. Others have highlighted various differences between these two genres. According to such views,

• The epic is the recounting of the larger-than-life events and actions of heroes and heroic characters whereas the novel is like a kind of newspaper showing everyday stories of common people from the common society. Thus the idea is that the characters and actions of the novel are particular individuals and their everyday actions rather than mythic supernatural elements.
• The epic might be written in poetic form whereas the novel is supposed to be written in the form of prose fiction.
• the epic, in its classical form, has gods and goddesses as part of the supernatural machinery to assist the heroes in their grand battles but the novel mostly has plain realistic setting carrying human realism in its specific contexts.

In other words, the novel may very much be an epic in its scope, for example, War and Peace by Tolstoy or Les Miserables by Hugo which deal with grand conflicts such as war and revolution but it is certainly concerned with smaller and more particular issues and triumphs of particular and flawed individuals.

Now, the novel is known as a work of prose fiction representing some aspects of human life and it is of a book length in size. In the novel, there are heroes who are practitioners, writers, detectives, agents, travelers and they are of an individual look unlike the nobles of the epic (such as that of Milton’s Paradise Lost).

While it is true that the English novel was introduced in the 16th century which expanded its popularity in the 17th and the 18th centuries, the novel as a kind of literature existed much earlier in different countries and continents and, of course, in different forms.

Development of Novel

The Spanish term ‘picaresque’ was derived from ‘picaro’ meaning a ‘rogue’. In such a tale, the hero is a rascal or rogue who goes on his adventures and leads his life mainly by his humor and wits.

Professor J. Paul Hunter, an expert of early English fiction at the University of Chicago, has contributed to the discussion on the 18th century context from which the English novel emerged and on the definition of the novel as genre of literature.

Hunter presents the following characteristics of novel:

• Contemporaneity: novels are supposed to have the features of contemporaneity, and these tend not be set in remote times and places.
• Familiarity: the setting, the context and the overall world presented in a novel is that of a recognizable everyday world.
• Rejection of traditional plots: unlike some great writers such as Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare, novel writers tend not to reuse already existing stories. They create the ‘novel’ stories of their own.
• Individualism: novels focus more on individual or specific subjectivities and innumerable forms of viewing the world around.
• Coherence: in novels the narrative element is very important which unites the whole of the story.
• Self-conscious innovation: in 18th century this was probably one of the main traits of novelists that they had a very strong sense that they were really doing something new.

In Elizabethan age, the idea of the novel grew more and more until it became definite. Most of the fiction of this age was either romantic or didactic in nature. For example, Sidney’s ‘Arcadia’ is a heroic romance of chivalry. Greene’s ‘Pandosto’ and Lodge’s ‘Rosalynde’ are considered purely romantic fiction. Similarly, a didactic stain also ran through the writings of Francis Bacon, John Lyly, Thomas More.

Rise of Novel in 17th Century

In the beginning of the 17th, burlesque and picaresque tales started emerging on the scene of the English literature. The English novel took a very new shape under the influence of the French and Spanish novelists. The French romances greatly influenced early English fiction. In England, romances are now known as the heroic (chivalric) romances of the 17th century. These heroic romances were completely removed from everyday real life. Later on Aphra Behn and several other male and female writers cultivated a new form of prose fiction. Being very realistic in nature, it preserved the true sides of human life. Among the most important writers of the 17th century, were these big names Cervantes, Aphra Behn and John Bunyan.

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Rise of Novel in 18th Century

The 18th century is the major milestone in the history of the novel as literary genre. It is regarded as the real beginning of the English novel for many genuine reasons to be highlighted in this section. The book that contributed most to establish the conventional story of the novel’s emergence in the 18th century Britain is Ian Watt’s ‘The Rise of the Novel’ (1957). Watt argues that “the lowest common denominator of the novel genre is its formal realism” exhibited by the 18th century.

Most of the experts regards the Eighteenth century as the period of the birth of the novel and its subsequent progress and development as a genre. Having adequate literary predecessors including John Bunyan, Aphra Behn, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Malory, Cervantes, Boccaccio and many other writers of the 17th century, the 18th century writers availed this great opportunity to advance their experiment further and take the novel to the level as a literary genre.

Moreover, the increase in literacy ratio, rise in the middle class, industrial revolution, and coming up of mobile libraries created such a favourable situation for the rise of the novel. This new form of literature namely the novel which developed from the heroic romance and started depicting the pragmatism and morality of the middle class people and representing the realistic view of human life.

The novel undoubtedly enjoyed its highest level of fame and popularity during the Eighteenth century. The major authors of the century namely Defoe, Fielding, Sterne and Richardson contributed significantly to the development of the English novel. Defoe is considered as the first great English novelist who not only introduced new techniques in realism but used them creatively in his novels. His novel ‘Robinson Crusoe’ is thus considered as the first great English novel showing the realistic picture of life. Some critics consider it as the first ‘modern’ novel considering its modern features. In short, Defoe created his novels with features of genuine modern novel. Some critics, on the basis of the elements of adventures and crime so prominent in his works, are of the view that these works should be classed as romances and not as novels.

Samuel Richardson was another great name among the first novelists of the 18th century. He gave the novel many new things which were greatly appreciated. It is said that the novel as a popular genre began with ‘Pamela’ by Richardson (written in 1740). Written in ‘letters style’, it was the first true novel that appeared in any literature. The novel is basically the story of a virtuous maid-servant who successfully resisted the advances of her master and is subsequently rewarded by the proposal of marriage by him. His another work, ‘Clarissa’ also caught up suddenly the attention of his readers. Thus Samuel Richardson successfully introduced sentimentality into English novel and popularized it as a literary genre.

The 18th century is regarded as the golden age of the novel. In this age, there were four novelists of great genius. They include Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne and Tobias Smollett. With them the novel reached its highest point of glory. For their great work, they are better known as “The Four Wheels of Novel”. Among them, Fielding is called the ‘father’ of the English novel. His ‘Joseph Andrews’, ‘Tom Jones’, ‘Jonathan Wild’, and ‘Amelia’ are considered great novels. He is well known for his theory of novel, characterization, realism and craftsmanship. Richardson was well known for his sentimentality and realism. Smollett certainly widened the scope of the novel and by introducing some new elements to it. His ‘Humphry Clinker’ is taken among very popular English novels.

Critics believe that the rise of the novel during the 18th century was a result of major steps seen by the century including the democratic movement, the spread of education thus increasing the number of readers, the appearance of newspapers and magazines developing the people’s habit of reading, and the emergence of the new prose style and the decline of the English drama. These things made way forward for the 18th century novel to flourish and develop. Thus in the 18th century, the novel reached at its climax.

Factors that Influenced the Rise of Novel

Industrial Revolution

Industrial revolution was certainly one of the major reasons which contributed to the rise of the novel during the 18th century. With the development in industries, when people could do more work and on faster speed with the help of machinery, they were able to get more time for rest and leisure time during which people resorted to reading novels. Similarly, the printing press were available for bulk production of multiple copies at quite cheaper rates. By the virtue of economical books available, even low-income people were able to buy and read novels unlike in their past when only aristocrats had this reading facility. Moreover, printing press created varieties of reading materials such as magazines, newspapers, novels and books for the people to enjoy. Thus, the newspapers and magazines helped people develop their habit of reading which ultimately led to their reading of novels.

Middle Class

One major result of industrial revolution during the 18th century was the rise of middle class society. This growth in industries brought about unprecedented corresponding progress in trade and commerce. The common people were gradually becoming wealthy with more purchase power and even poor people were being able to raise their financial status. This emerging new class with additional middle class status, like traditional landlord class, were in demand of new books to read and enjoy. There was a high demand for acquiring education and be able to read.

Commercial Fiction

Commercial printing houses also had an important role in promoting the novel as a new genre. Moreover, as another advantage of Industrial Revolution was giving members from the lower classes new reasons and riches to drop their old friends, was bringing them affordable books to enjoy. This was certainly the result of the production of commercial novels through printing houses. As it went by, and after the book industry noticed the greatly increasing public demand for English novel, it certainly upgraded the printing infrastructure and increased the output in cities like Edinburgh, London and Dublin. This was a direct impact of the account of 18th century technological advances in printing.

Features of 18th Century Novels

The novelists of the 18th century mainly bought out realism. The novels were instrumental to explore and represent the realities of the society. The authors used authentic and reliable stories in their books imitating the real life of the people.

The use of the first-person narrative technique by the then novelists created the element of realism making their stories sound more reliable and authentic. In addition, unlike the heroic romances, characters in the novels were ordinary common men and women with settings familiar to their readers. Further, the focus of the protagonist or hero was given on middle class people with everyday characteristics. In certain cases, the purpose of the novel was mainly to promote virtuous characters among people just as Richardson did (in his novel, Pamela). In other cases, authors such as Swift and Smollett used satire and allegory to point out the vices in their society.

Henry Fielding popularized epic novels. Samuel Richardson the novel written with an epistolary style and based on sentimental feelings. Daniel Defoe worked on making the novel a realistic picture of human life. Jonathan Swift contributed to satirical and philosophical novel in his stories. Laurence Sterne was very successful with experimental novel. Thus, 18th century novelists gave the novel a brand-new look of the time and found fresh avenues. They showed flexibility in writing novels without having to follow the long-established traditions set by classical writers. It certainly was an age of revolution and experimentation of writing novels.