7/29/2019 Rise of English Novel
1/3
Rise of English Novel
Introduction:In the eighteenth century the years after the
forties witnessed a wonderful efflorescence of a
new literary genre which was soon to establish itself for all
times to come as the dominant literary form.
Of course, we are referring here to the Englishnovel which was
born with Richardson'sPamela and has
been thriving since then.When Matthew Arnold used the epithets
"excellent" and "indispensable" for theeighteenth century whichhad
little of good poetry or drama to boast of, he was probably paying
it due homage for its gift of thenovel. The eighteenth century was
the age in which the novel was established as the most outstanding
andenduring form ofliterature. The periodical essay, which was
another gift of this centuryto Englishliterature, was born and died
in the century, but the novel was to enjoy an enduring career. It
isto the credit of the major eighteenth-century novelists that they
freed the novel from the influence andelements of high flown
romance and fantasy, and used it to interpret the everyday
socialand psychological problems of the common man. Thus they
introduced realism, democratic spirit, andpsychological interest
into the novel the qualities which have since then been recognized
as the essentialprerequisites of-every good novel and which
distinguish it from the romance and other impossible
stories.Reasons for the Rise and Popularity:
Various reasons can be adduced for the rise and popularity of
the novel in theeighteenth century.
The most important of them is that this new literary form suited
the genius and temper of the times.
The eighteenth century is known in English social history for
the rise of the middle classes consequent
upon an unprecedented increase in the volume of trade and
commerce. Many people emerged from the
limbo of society to occupy a respectable status as wealthy
burgesses. The novel, with its realism, its
democratic spirit, and its concern with the everyday
psychological problems of the common people
especially appealed to these nouveaia riches and provided them
with respectable reading material. The
novel thus appears to have been specially designed both to voice
the aspirations of the middle and low
classes and to meet their taste. Moreover, it gave the writer
much scope for what Cazamian calls "morality
and sentiment"-the two elements which make literature "popular."
The decline of drama in the eighteenth
century was also partly responsible for the rise and -ascendency
of the novel. After the Licensing Act of
1737, the drama lay moribund. The poetry of the age too-except
for the brilliant example of Pope's work
was in a stage of decadence. It was then natural that from the
ashes of the drama (and, to some extent, of
poetry, too) should rise the phoenix-like shape of a new
literary genre. This new genre was, of course, the
novel.Before the Masters:
Before Richardson and Fielding gave shape to the new form some
work had already been done by
numerous other writers, which helped the pioneers to some
extent. Mention must here be made of Swift,
Defoe, Addison, and Steele. Swift inGulliver's Travels gave an
interesting narrative, and, in spite of the
obvious impossibility of the "action" and incidents, created an
effect of verisimilitude which was to be an
important characteristic of the novel. The Coverley papers of
Addison and Steele were in themselves a
kind of rudimentary novel, and some of them actually read like
so many pages from a social and domestic
novel. Their good-humoured social satire, their eye for the
oddities of individuals, their basic humansympathy, their lucid
style, and their sense of episode-all were to be aspired after by
the future novelists.
Defoe with his numerous stories likeRobinson Crusoe, Moll
Flanders, andRoxanashowed his uncanny
gift of the circumstantial detail and racy, gripping narrative
combined with an unflinching realism
generally concerned with the seamy and sordid aspects of life
(commonly, low life). His lead was to be
followed by ' numerous novelists. Defoe's limitation lies in the
fact that his protagonists are
psychologically too simple and that he makes nobody laugh and
nobody weep. But his didacticism was to
find favour with all the novelists of the eighteenth, and even
many of the nineteenth, century. Some call
7/29/2019 Rise of English Novel
2/3
Defoe the first English novelist. But as David Daiches puts it
inA Critical History
ofEnglish Literature,Vol. II, whether Defoe was "properly" a
novelist "is a matter of definition of terms."The Masters:
Between 1740 and 1800 hundreds of novels of all kinds were
written. However, the real "masters"
of the novel in the eighteenth century were four-Richardson,
Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. The rest of
them are extremely inferior to them. Oliver Elton maintains:
"The work of the four masters stands high,but the foothills are
low." The case was different in, say, the mid-nineteenth century
when so many
equally great novelists were at work. Fielding was the greatest
of the foursome. Sir Edmund Gosse calls
Richardson "the first great English novelist" and Fielding, "the
greatest of Englishnovelists." Fielding may
not be the greatest of all, but he was certainly one of the
greatest English novelists and the greatest
novelist of the eighteenth century.Elizabethan
ProseIntroduction:
The Elizabethan age has well been called a "young" age. It was
full of boundless vigour, re-
awakened intellectual earnestness, and unfettered, soaring
imagination. The best fruits of the age are
enshrined in poetry in which all these elements can be
befittingly contained. In poetry there are
restrictions of versification which exerted some check on the
youthful imagination and vigour of theElizabethans.
Consequently,Elizabethan poetry is very great. But prose does not
admit of any restrictions,
and the result is that Elizabethan prose is as one run amuck.
Too much of liberty has taken away much of
its merit.During the fifteenth century, Latin was the medium of
expression, and almost all the important
prose works were written in that language. It was in the
sixteenth century, particularly in its later half,
that the English language came to its own. With the arrival of
cheap mass printing English prose became
the popular medium for works aiming both at amusement and
instruction. The books which date
from this period cover many departments of learning. We have the
Chronicles of such writers as Stowe
and Holinshed recapturing the history of England, though mixed
with legends and myths. Writers like
Harrison and Stubbs took upon themselves the task of describing
the England not of the past but of their
own age. Many writers, most of them anonymous, wrote accounts of
their voyages which had carried them
to many hitherto unknown lands in and across the Western Seas.
Then, there are so many "novelists" who
translated Italian stories and wrote stories of their own after
the Italian models. There are also quite a few
writers who wrote on religion. And last of all there is a host
of pamphleteers who dealt with issues of
temporary interest.Though the prose used by these numerous
writers is not exactly similar, yet we come across a
basic characteristic common to the works of all: that is, the
nearness of their prose to poetry. "The age,"
says G. H. Mair, "was intoxicated with language. It went mad of
a mere delight in words. Its writers were
using a new tongue, for English was enriched beyond all
recognition with borrowings from the ancient
authors, and like all artists who become possessed of a new
medium, they used it to excess. The early
Elizabethans' use of the new prose was very like the use some
educated Indians make of English. It was
rich, gaudy and overflowing, though, in the main, correct." A.
C. Ward observes in Illustrated History of
English Literature, Vol. I: "Our modern view of prose is
strictly and perhaps-too narrowly practical andutilitarian or
functional. Prose, we hold, has ajob to do and should do it without
fuss, nonsense, or
aesthetic capers. It should say what it has to say in the
shortest and most time-saving manner, and there
finish." But we find Elizabethan prose far from this commonly
accepted principle. It is colourful, blazing,
rhythmic, indirect, prolix, and convoluted. Rarely does an
Elizabethan prose writer call a spade a spade.The-prose works of
the Elizabethan age fall into two categories:(i) Fiction(ii)
Non-Fiction.
http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/12/elizabethan-prose.htmlhttp://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/12/elizabethan-prose.htmlhttp://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/12/elizabethan-prose.html
