Historical novel

The historical novel is a genre of literature whose story is set during a period that
predates the author's own time, often by a significant number of years.
A historical novel generally involves substantial research by the author
concerning details of the period. The genre became widely popular during the
19th century Romantic period, advanced by great novelists such as Sir Walter
Scott.

The purpose of the historical novel extends beyond that of entertainment, though

many excel at this in their own right. Authors have often intended to deliver a
message, advance a cause or ideology, or popularize history and present a time
period to the public; none of these intentions is necessarily exclusive of the
others. Historical novels are commonly set during eventful periods in human
history, depicting a conflict or a transitional moment in time. Some historical
novels span a lengthy duration and may include many accurate details about the
past.

A prominent example of a historical novel that deals with the notion of time is
Mika Waltari's The Egyptian, published in 1945. First written in Finnish, The
Egyptian is set during the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaton, more than 3,000 years
ago. The novel is centered on a fictional character, Sinuhe, the personal
physician to the pharaoh, who recounts the tale of the pharaoh's decline and fall.
The tale also parts from Egypt and describes Sinuhe's extensive travels
throughout the ancient world. Published immediately following World War II,
Waltari's novel was intended to explore the violence and brutality of the human
condition and to imply that this has changed little from ancient to modern times.

The legendary Greek conqueror Alexander the Great has been depicted in
numerous works of literature. Nikos Kazantzakis's Alexander the Great, written in
the 1940s, is one modern example intended primarily for a younger audience.
Kazantzakis was already a prominent author and philosopher by the time he
penned the novel. Alexander the Great is a flattering depiction of the hero from a
Greek author with a sense of pride in Greek history. However, Kazantzakis does
not entirely succumb to glorification of the hero, presenting his faults and human
qualities as well. The modern reader can thus relate to an ancient heroic figure.

The intention of delivering a powerful message through a classic work is

exemplified by Henryk Sienkiewicz's historical novel Quo Vadis: A Narrative of
the Time of Nero. Published in 1895, Quo Vadisis the Polish author's most famous
work. The story is centered on a romance between a Roman patrician (Marcus
Vinicius) and a young Christian woman (Lygia) at a time when Christians faced
violent persecution by the Roman authorities. The novel conveys a strongly
Christian message, implicit in the title as well as in the vivid depictions of
Christian martyrdom. Sienkiewicz received the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1905. Quo Vadis has withstood the test of time, having been adapted to several
film interpretations.

Popular interest in the time of imperial Rome and the birth of Christianity is
evident by the reception of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1880. The author, Lew
Wallace, was an American Civil War general, politician, and novelist. The book
has been acclaimed for its accurate descriptions of the Holy Land of 2,000 years
ago, though Wallace had never set foot there. Set during the reign of
Tiberius, Ben-Hur is a tale of a Jewish aristocratic named Judea Ben-Hur who is
falsely accused of murder by a Roman officer, Messala. Like Quo Vadis, the story
deals with a pivotal moment in time as Christianity emerges within the Roman
Empire. Ben-Hufs exceptional popularity helped to make the historical novel a
popular literary and cinematic genre in the United States.

The author of Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott, is often credited as the father of the
historical novel. Scott's 27 historical novels established the standard structure of
the genre and greatly influenced later writers. His interest in the European Middle
Ages is reflected in Ivanhoe, published in 1819. The story is set in 12th-century
England during the time of King John. Ivanhoe is not only a tale of chivalry,
combining fictional characters and actual events, but also a critique of the
persecution of Jews in England. Ivanhoe helped to rekindle popular interest in the
Middle Ages during the 19th century.

Leo Tolstoy deviated from the conventional novel with War and Peace, published
as a series between 1865 and 1869. This ambitious story is set during the
Napoleonic period and specifically during the Russian campaign. The Russian
author spurned the “great man” paradigm of history in favor of capturing the
daily human struggles during warfare. As such a human, Napoleon does not fare
well in Tolstoy's depiction, whereas the personal interactions within Russian
society form the narrative. This notion of “history from below” is central to
Tolstoy's understanding of time and the movement of events.

Perhaps the most significant antiwar novel written is Erich Maria Remarque's
1929 classic All Quiet on the Western Front. Remarque's novel was timely; it was
published in German during the interwar period. The novel is set during the First
World War and is narrated by a young German soldier, Paul Baumer, who is
engaged in the infamous trench warfare emblematic of the conflict. Baumer
experiences the horrors of war and comes to recognize the deception of blind
nationalism. The novel breaks sharply from the traditional portrayal of warfare
over time, in which it has generally been glamorized. So powerful is the message
in All Quiet on the Western Front that the novel was banned as subversive by the
Nazi party in 1933.

A host of other distinguished novels could be added to this list. All of the
aforementioned historical novels have film adaptations, which have also
contributed to the popularity of the genre. Historical novels continue to connect
readers to the past and to the passage of time.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”

So begins A Tale of Two Cities, with one of the most celebrated opening lines in
literature. What’s often forgotten is how the sentence ends. (It is, to be fair, an
extremely long sentence.) Written in 1859, the novel is set during the French
Revolution. Having described the extraordinary contrasts of that time, Dickens
continues: “in short, the period was so far like the present” that the “noisiest
authorities” seemed interested in it merely for comparison with their own age.

Science fiction

Science fiction (often shortened to SF, sci-fi or scifi) is a genre of speculative

fiction, typically dealing with imaginative concepts such
as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light
travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores
the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been
called a "literature of ideas." It usually avoids the supernatural, and unlike the
related genre of fantasy, historically, science-fiction stories were intended to
have a grounding in science-based fact or theory at the time the story was
created, but this connection is now limited to hard science fiction.

Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible

worlds or futures. It is related to, but different from fantasy in that, within the
context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible
within scientifically established or scientifically postulated physical laws (though
some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation).

The settings of science fiction are often contrary to those of consensus reality,

but most science fiction relies on a considerable degree of suspension of
disbelief, which is facilitated in the reader's mind by potential scientific
explanations or solutions to various fictional elements. Science fiction elements
include:

 A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, or in a historical past

that contradicts known facts of history or the archaeological record.

 A spatial setting or scenes in outer space (e.g. spaceflight), on other

worlds, or on subterranean earth.
  Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots and
other types of characters arising from a future human evolution.

 Futuristic or plausible technology such as ray

guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers.

 Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws,
for example time travel, wormholes, or faster-than-light travel
or communication.

 New and different political or social systems, e.g. utopian, dystopian, post-

scarcity, or post-apocalyptic.

 Paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis (e.g. "The

Force" in Star Wars.

 Other universes or dimensions and travel between them.

Science fiction writers often seek out new scientific and technical developments
in order to prognosticate freely the techno-social changes that will shock the
readers’ sense of cultural propriety and expand their consciousness. This
approach was central to the work of H.G. Wells, a founder of the genre and likely
its greatest writer. Wells was an ardentstudent of the 19th-century British
scientist T.H. Huxley, whose vociferouschampioning of Charles Darwin’s theory
of evolution earned him the epithet “Darwin’s Bulldog.” Wells’s literary career
gives ample evidence of science fiction’s latent radicalism, its affinity for
aggressive satire and utopian political agendas, as well as its dire predictions of
technological destruction.

This dark dystopian side can be seen especially in the work of T.H. Huxley’s
grandson, Aldous Huxley, who was a social satirist, an advocate of psychedelic
drugs, and the author of a dystopian classic, Brave New World(1932). The sense
of dread was also cultivated by H.P. Lovecraft, who invented the
famous Necronomicon, an imaginary book of knowledge so ferocious that any
scientist who dares to read it succumbs to madness.

Great Britain as well as France experienced a flowering of creative imagination in

the 1880s and ’90s. Literary landmarks of the period included such innovative
works as Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde (1886) and H.G. Wells’s phenomenal trio of The Time Machine (1895), The
Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). Never before had fantastic
events of seeming scientific plausibility erupted right in the midst of humdrum
daily life. These works used the worldview presented by science to rip
aggressively at the fabric of Victorian reality. As the 20th century dawned, many
of science fiction’s most common themes—space travel, time
travel, utopias and dystopias, and encounters with alien beings—bore British
postmarks.

Jules Verne is often hailed as the 'father of science fiction,' because of works
such as From the Earth to the Moon and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Verne's
work has had a tremendous impact on the genre, but as we'll see momentarily,
Verne - writing in the last half of the 19th century - was not the first author to
create work identifiable as science fiction. However, he made a great contribution
to the genre by making real scientific principles and experimentation believable in
a fictional context, often so much that his works of fiction have sometimes even
inspired scientific reality, such as the submarine and lunar module.

Gothic novel

Gothic novel, European Romantic, pseudomedieval fictionhaving a prevailing

atmosphere of mystery and terror. Its heyday was the 1790s, but it underwent
frequent revivals in subsequent centuries.

Called Gothic because its imaginative impulse was drawn

from medieval buildings and ruins, such novels commonly used such settings as
castles or monasteries equipped with subterranean passages, dark battlements,
hidden panels, and trapdoors. The vogue was initiated in England by Horace
Walpole’s immensely successful Castle of Otranto (1765). His most respectable
follower was Ann Radcliffe, whose Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Italian (1797)
are among the best examples of the genre. A more sensational type of
Gothic romance exploiting horror and violence flourished in Germany and was
introduced to England by Matthew Gregory Lewis with The Monk (1796). Other
landmarks of Gothic fiction are William Beckford’s Oriental
romance Vathek (1786) and Charles Robert Maturin’s story of an Irish
Faust, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). The classic horror
stories Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and Dracula (1897),
by Bram Stoker, are in the Gothic tradition but introduce the existential nature of
humankind as its definitive mystery and terror.

Easy targets for satire, the early Gothic romances died of their own
extravagances of plot, but Gothic atmospheric machinery continued to haunt the
fiction of such major writers as the Brontë sisters, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, and even Dickens in Bleak House and Great Expectations. In the
second half of the 20th century, the term was applied to paperback romances
having the same kind of themes and trappings similar to the originals.

Gothic literature has a long history dating back to the 18th century. Credited as
the first Gothic novel and considered one of the founding texts of the genre is
Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764. It tells the story of
Lord Manfred and the family curse that seems to arise when a stone helmet falls
on his son and kills him on the day he is to be married. The event seems to
awaken a mysterious trend of curses and mishaps that send the characters in the
novel into complete disarray.

Other famous examples of Gothic literature include The Strange Case of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula. Since the Gothic novel has branched off into
numerous sub-genres, this lesson will look primarily at the origin of the Gothic in
English literature and overview some of the classic texts that created the building
blocks for what we know as Gothic today.

Characteristics of the Gothic Novel

The term Gothic novel broadly refers to stories that combine elements from

horror and romanticism. The Gothic novel often deals with supernatural events,
or events occurring in nature that cannot be easily explained or over which man
has no control, and it typically follows a plot of suspense and mystery.

Here is a list of some common elements found in Gothic novels:

 Gloomy, decaying setting (haunted houses or castles with secret

passages, trapdoors, and other mysterious architecture)

 Supernatural beings or monsters (ghosts, vampires, zombies, giants)

 Curses or prophecies

 Damsels in distress

 Heroes

 Romance

 Intense emotions

We'll look at a few characteristics - the supernatural, madness, and romance - in

more detail in the following paragraphs, along with classic examples.

The Supernatural
 The Gothic novel arose in part out of the fact that for the English, the late 18th
and 19th centuries were a time of great discovery and exploration in the fields of
science, religion, and industry; people both revered and questioned the existence
of God or a higher power. Gothic novels allowed writers and readers to explore
these ideas through the medium of storytelling. Ghosts, death and decay,
madness, curses, and so-called 'things that go bump in the night' provided ways
to explore fear of the unknown and what control we have as humans over the
unknown.

Mary Shelley's classic tale Frankenstein, first published in 1818, offers a

powerful example of this desire to explore the unknown even as we fear it.
Frankenstein's monster is a man-made creation that eerily merges life and death;
Frankenstein constructs his creation from human body parts and imbues him
with life, which at once gives him great power and a great fear of that power
because he realizes that he's created a being that he cannot entirely control. His
fear of his own creation emerges from his recognition that he cannot ever fully
understand or control the forces of life and death, despite all of his scientific
knowledge.

Madness

The Gothic can also refer to stories involving strange and troubling events that,
while they have logical, natural explanations, seem to originate from unexpected
forces. Charlotte Bronte employs this element of the Gothic in Jane Eyre,
published in 1847. While living in Thornfield Hall as a governess, Jane frequently
hears strange noises and laughter coming from the third story of the mansion
that no one will explain, and odd things keep happening in the dead of night,
such as her master Mr. Rochester's bed catching fire and an attack on a guest.
Eventually Jane discovers that it is the work of Rochester’s mad wife

Graphic Novel

Graphic novel, in American and British usage, a type of text combining words
and images—essentially a comic, although the term most commonly refers to a
complete story presented as a book rather than a periodical.

The term graphic novel is contentious. From the 1970s, as the field of comic

studies was first emerging as an academic discipline, scholars and others have
attempted to define the word comics and to generate a critical terminology
appropriate to support that definition. The debate over so-called graphic novels
touches upon this complex situation. For many, the word comics denotes a
periodical for children, published on a weekly or monthly basis, sold at
newsstands or in speciality comic book stores, often with pages devoted to
advertising and, when intended for younger readers, competitions and puzzles. In
contrast, graphic novel is usually taken to mean a long comic narrative for a
mature audience, published in hardback or paperback and sold in bookstores,
with serious literary themes and sophisticated artwork.

However, these distinctions are somewhat spurious, as comics are found in all
shapes and formats, appeal to many different groups and age ranges,
and encompass a huge variety of genres and styles. Moreover, graphic novels are
often not original publications but rather repackaged collections of serially
published comics. While some material is produced especially for the
graphic novel market, bookshops and libraries make no real distinction, so the
term graphic novel often serves no serious descriptive purpose. It may perhaps
be more properly understood as a marketing term intended to resituate comics
for an audience uncomfortable with or embarrassed by the associations that
surround them (i.e., that a reader of comics is juvenile and subliterate). The extent
to which the term signifies a difference in style or form from comics is negligible,
but it must be noted that texts that are originally intended for publication in book
form sometimes take advantage of the possibilities for a longer narrative,
different formats, and superior paper quality, which can be seen as an argument
for preserving the distinction between comics and graphic novels.

The argument is further complicated by the fact that the supposed need for the
term graphic novel grows out of what might be considered American and British
cultural prejudices. No equivalent term is required in continental Europe or in
Japan, where the acceptance of comics as both an art form and a literary mode is
unproblematic. In Europe, and especially in France, comics, or bande
dessinée (“drawn strips”), have long been collected in high-quality albums, with
themes and styles appropriate to a mature audience. This adult comic culturehas
coexisted very comfortably with comics for children, with no supposed
contradiction in terms. In Japan a huge proportion of the population routinely
reads comics (called manga), which achieve a dizzying variety of genres and
themes. The emergence of the term graphic novel must therefore be understood
in terms of the cultural attitudes that shaped it.