The term-Novel

 The word ‘novel’ was not used until the end of the 18th
century
 An English transliteration of the Italian word ‘novella’-
French word- nouvelle
 Used to describe a short, compact, broadly realistic
tale popular during the medieval period
eg. Boccaccio’s Decameron
 The desire to depict and entertain the human
character
 Deeper perception of life & its problem
 Definition
The Shorter Oxford  Plot- What happens in
Dictionary defines a the story
novel as  Characters-Who is
“a fictitious prose involved in what
narrative of happens in the story
considerable length, in  Point of view- how the
which characters and story is told
actions representative  Setting- When & where
of real life are the story takes place
portrayed in a plot of  Novelist’s criticism-the
more or less interpretation or
complexity”. philosophy of the writer
 Hybrid genre
The novel
 is the loosest form of literary art
 encompasses many different sub-genres
 is always in search of a definition
 battled with other genres from the very
beginning
 Very effective medium of the portrayal of
human thought and action
 Often contains letters, dialogues, narration,
poetry etc.
 The precursors of novel
 Medieval European Romances Arthurian tales
culminating in Malory’s Morte D Arthur
 Prose romances
John Lyly-Euphues,The Anatomy of wit(1578)
Robert Greene- Pandosto(1588)
Thomas Lodge- Rosalynde(1590)
Philip Sidney- Arcadia(1590)
 Thomas Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller(1594)
 Deloney’s Jack of Newbury(1626)
 John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)
The novel

The rise of the novel

The increase of the reading public in the Augustan Age was due to

the growing the individual’s the practice of

importance trust in his own reason and self-
of the middle class abilities analysis

Most readers were They used to borrow books

middle-class women from circulating libraries

Only Connect ... New Directions

 Major types of novel
 Epistolary
 Picaresque
 Experimental
 Novel of manners
 Sentimental
 Gothic
 Historical
 Social Realism
 Psychological- Stream of consciousness
 Epistolary novel
 Novels in which the
narrative is told in
letters by one or more
of the characters
 Allows author to
present feelings and Samuel Richardson,
reactions of characters (1689-1761)
 allows multiple points  Pamela (1740)
of view  Clarrisa (1748)
 Psychological realism
 Picaresque Novel
 Derives from Spanish picaro: a rogue
 A usually autobiographical chronicle of a rascal’s travels
and adventures as s/he makes his/her way through the
world more by wits than industry
 Episodic, loose structure, usually a first person narrative
 Cervantes- Don Quixote(1605), the first modern European
novel
 Daniel Defoe- Robinson Cruisoe(1719)& Moll Flanders
(1722)
 Lacked in character development-advanced the narrative
side
 Masters of picaresque novel
 Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
Shamela (1741)
Joseph Andrews (1742)
Tom Jones (1749)
 Sir Walter Scott -‘the father of
English Novel’
Tobias Smollett(1721-1771)
Roderick Random (1748)
Peregrine Pickle(1751)
• Markedly different in his
humor
• Realistic style & wry sense
of humor
• The comedic misadventure
of unscrupulous vagabond
 Experimental novel (meta-novel)
Laurence Sterne(1713-1768)
Tristram Shandy 1759- in nine volumes
 One of the greatest comic novels in English
 Rambling plot
 Meddling and maddening third person narrator
 Digressions as important as main plot
 A forerunner for many modern narrative devices
 stream of consciousness
 self-reflection
 modernist and postmodernist writing
 Sentimental novel
 A heightened emotional response to events
 Self-indulgence and elevated feeling
 Conventional situation, stock characters & rhetorical
devices
 Oliver Goldsmith- The Vicar of the Wakefield
 Emotion is touted as superior to reason
 Extremely moral & didactic
 Gothic novel
 Magic, mystery & horror
 Exotic setting- medieval, oriental etc
 Horace Walpole’s Castle of Ortanto(1764)
 Guise of a translated lost manuscript on the day of
wedding
 Fantastic romance
 Blended two kinds of romance- the ancient and the
modern
 Historical novel
 Novels that reconstruct a past age, often when two
cultures are in conflict
 Fictional characters interact with historical figures in
actual events
 Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832),the father of the historical
novel:
The Waverly Novels (1814-1819)
Ivanhoe (1819)
Evokes the atmosphere of a vanished era
 Social realism
 Social or Sociological novels deal with the nature,
function and effect of the society which the characters
inhabit – often for the purpose of effecting reform
 Social issues came to the forefront with the condition
of laborers in the Industrial Revolution and later in the
Depression: Dickens’ Hard Times, Gaskell’s Mary
Barton; Eliot’s Middlemarch; Steinbeck’s Grapes of
Wrath
 Slavery and race issues arose in American social
novels: Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 20th c. novels by
Wright, Ellison, etc.
Stream of Consciousness novel
 Narration that mimics the ebb and flow of thoughts of
the waking mind
 Uninhibited by grammar, syntax or logical transitions
 A mixture of all levels of awareness – sensations,
thoughts, memories, associations, reflections
 Emphasis on how something is perceived rather than
on what is perceived
 James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf,
Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner
 Stream of Ulysses-
Consciousness

the master piece
 written in a number of
differing literary styles,
ranging from internal
monologue to first-person
speculation to question-
and-answer
 During the twenty four
hours of narrative time, the
characters move through
their day in Dublin,
interacting with a stunning
variety of individuals
James Joyce Virginia Woolf
1882-1941 1882-1941
The Dubliners To the LightHouse
Portrait of an Artist The Waves
Ulysses Mrs. Dalloway
Finnegan’s Wake Orlando