1.

The eighteenth century is the first period in which literacy rates, printing, and
the production of paper made reading a truly popular occupation. What effects
do you think this had on the English novel?

Novel as a literary genre enjoyed the highest level of glory in the 18 th century.
Because of the conditions for the rise of the novel:
 the economic changes:
- advances in the technology of printing in the earlier centuries,
- the breaking down of the patronage system characteristic of the Renaissance.
 Cultural changes:
- philosophical rationalism: emphasis on sense perceptions and individual pursuit of
truth
- neoclassical stress on literature as educational tool (Pope's dictum "The proper study
of mankind is man“): increased interest in the human character
 Social changes:
- expansion of the middle class as the reading public: spread of newspaper, circulating
libraries
- need for a new popular literary genre (middle-class people wanted to identify with the

the major effects on the English novel were:

1.The authors namely Defoe, Richardson, Fielding and Sterne influenced the writers who came after
them in writing this kind of literary genre.

2, personal behaviour and public opinion,