The novel

• Its predecessors were antique classical epics and knightly

or courtly romances.
• In the first half of the 18th century, novels were called
"histories" or "lives".
• Claims to be referring to the life of a really existing person
and to be a realistic representation, a truthful picture of
reality (but really is a fiction of reality).
• This is a break with the idealistic stylisation of reality in
the romantic tradition, the fairy-tale-like atmosphere of
courtly romances.
 Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

realism
rcumstantial re
circ

male world

For
For publishing
publishing the
the pamphlet
pamphlet TheThe
Shortest
Shortest Way
Way with
with the
the Dissenters
Dissenters
(1703),
(1703), Daniel
Daniel Defoe
Defoe was
was placed
placed in
in the
the
ly eeddiititioonn ooff
arly
an eear
an pillory.
pillory. Defoe’s
Defoe’s pamphlet
pamphlet satirized
satirized the
the
RRo sonn CCru
inso
obbin ruso soee intolerance
intolerance of
of the
the Church
Church ofof England
England
toward
toward Dissenters
Dissenters at
at that
that time.
time.
source:
source: MSN
MSN Encarta
Encarta
 Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)
• The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders
(1722)
• The full titles tell something about the content; Moll was
written in the tradition of whore biographies. 
• Defoe was born as the son of a London butcher named
Foe.
• At that time, all those holding religious beliefs which were
not Anglican were called Dissenters. Defoe and his father
belonged to a Presbyterian group, to the Calvinists. With
this background he wrote the satire "The Shortest Way
with the Dissenters".
 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719) – 1

In the next place, I was at a great loss for candle; so that as

soon as ever it was dark, which was generally by seven-a-
clock, I was obliged to go to bed. I remembered the lump of
bees-wax with which I made candles in my African
Adventure, but I had none of that now; the only remedy I
had was, that when I had killed a goat, I saved the tallow, and
with a little dish made of clay, which I baked in the sun, to
which I added a wick of some oakum, I made me a lamp; and
this gave me light, tho' not a clear steady light like a candle.
 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719) – 2

When I was come down the hill to the shore, as I said above,
being the S.W. point of the island, I was perfectly confounded
and amazed; nor is it possible for me to express the horror of
my mind, at seeing the shore spread with skulls, hands, feet
and other bones of humane bodies; and particularly I
observed a place where there had been a fire made, and a
circle dug in the earth, like a cockpit, where it is supposed
the savage wretches had sat down to their inhumane
feastings upon the bodies of their fellow-creatures.
I was so astonished with the sight of these things, that I
entertained no notions of any danger to my self from it […]
 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719) – 3

[…] for a long while; all my apprehensions were bury'd in the

thoughts of such a pitch of inhuman, hellish brutality, and
the horror of the degeneracy of human nature; which,
though I had heard of often, yet I never had so near a view of
before; in short, I turned away my face from the horrid
spectacle; my stomach grew sick, and I was just at the point
of fainting, when nature discharged the disorder from my
stomach, and having vomited with an uncommon violence, I
was a little relieved, but cou'd not bear to stay in the place a
moment; so I gat me up the hill again with all the speed I
cou'd, and walked on towards my own habitation.
 Genres
• Island Literature/Robinsonades –
a whole new genre: e.g. Robert M.
Ballantyne, The Coral Island (1857);
William Golding, Lord of the Flies
(1954, 20th-century version of The
Coral Island); J.M. Coetzee's Foe
(a postmodern rewriting of Defoe's
famous novel).
• Puritan Spiritual Autobiography
The hero passes through the stations
1. Fall from grace – 2. Revelation –
3. Conversion – 4. Atonement: Stephen Alcorn,
"Moll Flanders"
e.g. Moll Flanders. (1985)
 Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)
Pamela

Joseph Highmore,
illustration for
Pamela (1743/4)
source: Oakland University

psycho
cholo icaall processes
loggic

female perspective

Samuel Richardson
title page of the source: University of Düsseldorf
1742 edition of
Pamela male ari
arissto
toccra
raccyy vs. female middl
source: University of
e class
ddle
Michigan
 Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)

• Like Defoe middle-class background, but Anglican Church,

son of a carpenter.
• Pamela, Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740, his first novel)
• Clarissa Harlowe (1747-48), Sir Charles Grandison (1753/54) 
• Richardson is known as the founder of the English epistolary
novel or "novel of letters".
• Narrating "I" and experiencing "I", the former and the later self.
• Interest in inner psychological process.
• "If you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience
would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself.  But you
must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only
giving occasion to the sentiment." attributed to Samuel Johnson
 Samuel Richardson, Pamela
"I'll see them all," said he, "down to this time, if you have written so
far, or, at least, till within this week." – "Then let me go up to see
them," said I, "and see what I have written, and to what day to show
them to you, for you won't desire to see every thing." – "But I will,"
replied he. [...] "Why, Sir," answered I, "I have sometimes hid them
under the dry mould in the garden; sometimes in one place,
sometimes in another; and those in your hand were several days
under a rose-bush in the garden." – "Artful slut!" said he, "what's this
to my queen? Are they not about you?" – "If," said I, "I must pluck
them of my hiding-place behind the wainscot, won't you see me?" –
"Still more and more artful," said he. "Is this an answer to my
question? I have searched every place above, and in your closet for
them, and cannot find them; so I will know where they are. Now,"
said he, "it is my opinion they are about you; and I never undressed a
girl in my life; but I will now begin to strip my pretty Pamela, and I
hope I shall not go far before I find them."
 Samuel Richardson, Clarissa Harlowe
MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
Friday, June 30.
I am ruined, undone, blown-up, destroyed, and worse than annihilated,
that's certain! – [...] It is certainly as much my misfortune to have fallen in
with Miss Clarissa Harlowe, were I to have valued my reputation or ease,
as it is that of Miss Harlowe to have been acquainted with me. And, after
all, what have I done more than prosecute the maxims by which thou
and I and every rake are governed, and which, before I knew this lady, we
have pursued from pretty girl to pretty girl, as fast as we had set one
down, taking another up; – just as the fellows do with their flying-
coaches and flying-horses at a country-fair – with a Who rides next! Who
rides next! (p. 969 f.)


 Lovelace is Clarissa's antagonist and the villain of this novel.

 Multi-facetted view of reality
 Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
comic novevels
with a moralilisstic
enddiinng Henry Fielding,
from an engraving
of a portrait by
Sir Joshua Reynolds

illustration
for Tom
Jones
Albert Finney as Tom Jones in the 1963
movie. The film received ten Academy
Assignment for Joseph Andrews
Award nominations and won four
(from the autograph now in the
Oscars, including Best Picture.
South Kensington Museum)
 Henry Fielding (1707-1754) – 1
• Schooling: public school in Eaton, University of
Leiden in the Netherlands.
• An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews
(1741, short "Shamela"; parody)
• Here, the Squire is called Booby (booby =
"Einfaltspinsel", idiot)
• It is Fielding's achievement to have done a lot
for the recognition of the novel as a literary genre;
his definition of the novel is "a comic epic poem in
prose".
• Joseph Andrews (1742)
 Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews – 1
PREFACE
As it is possible the mere English Reader may have a different Idea of
Romance with the Author of these little Volumes; and may
consequently expect a kind of Entertainment, not to be found, nor
which was even intended, in the following Pages; it may not be
improper to premise a few Words concerning this kind of Writing,
which I do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our
Language.
The Epic as well as the Drama is divided into Tragedy and Comedy.
Homer, who was the Father of this Species of Poetry, gave us a Pattern
of both these, tho' that of the latter kind is entirely lost; which Aristotle
tells us, bore the same relation to Comedy which his Iliad bears to
Tragedy. And perhaps, that we have no more Instances of it among […]
 Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews – 2
[…] the Writers of Antiquity, is owing to the Loss of this great
Pattern, which, had it survived, would have found its
Imitators equally with the other Poems of this great Original.
And farther, as this Poetry may be Tragic or Comic, I will not
scruple to say it may be likewise either in Verse or Prose: for
tho' it wants one particular, which the Critic enumerates in
the constituent Parts of an Epic Poem, namely Metre; yet,
when any kind of Writing contains all its other Parts, such as
Fable, Action, Characters, Sentiments, and Diction, and is
deficient in Metre only; it seems, I think, reasonable to refer
it to the Epic; at least, as no Critic hath thought proper to
range it under any other Head, nor to assign it a particular
Name to itself.
 Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews – 3
The poor Wretch, who lay motionless a long time, just began
to recover his Senses as a Stage-Coach came by. The Postillion
hearing a Man's Groans, stopt his Horses, and told the
Coachman, "he was certain there was a dead Man lying in the
Ditch, for he heard him groan." "Go on, Sirrah," says the
Coachman, "we are confounded late, and have no time to look
after dead Men." A Lady, who heard what the Postillion said,
and likewise heard the Groan, called eagerly to the Coachman,
"to stop and see what was the matter." Upon which he bid the
Postillion "alight, and look into the Ditch." He did so, and
returned, "that there was a Man sitting upright as naked as
ever he was born."–"O J-sus," cry'd the Lady, "A naked Man!
Dear Coachman, drive on and leave him." […]
 Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews – 4
[…] Upon this the Gentlemen got out of the Coach; and
Joseph begged them, "to have Mercy upon him: For that he
had been robbed, and almost beaten to death." "Robbed,"
cries an old Gentleman; "Let us make all the haste
imaginable, or we shall be robbed too." A young Man, who
belonged to the Law answered, "he wished they had past by
without taking any Notice: But that now they might be
proved to have been last in his Company; if he should die,
they might be called to some account for his Murther. He
therefore thought it adviseable to save the poor Creature's
Life, for their own sakes, if possible; at least, if he died, to
prevent the Jury's finding that they fled for it. He was
therefore of Opinion, to take the Man into the Coach, and
carry him to the next Inn." The Lady insisted, "that he should
not come into the Coach. That if they lifted him in, she […]
 Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews – 5
[…] would herself alight: for she had rather stay in that Place
to all Eternity, than ride with a naked Man." The Coachman
objected, "that he could not suffer him to be taken in, unless
some body would pay a Shilling for his Carriage the four
Miles." Which the two Gentlemen refused to do; but the
Lawyer, who was afraid of some Mischief happening to
himself if the Wretch was left behind in that Condition,
saying, "no Man could be too cautious in these Matters, and
that he remembred very extraordinary Cases in the Books,"
threatned the Coachman, and bid him deny taking him up at
his Peril; "for that if he died, he should be indicted for his
Murther, and if he lived, and brought an Action against him,
he would willingly take a Brief in it."
 Henry Fielding (1707-1754) – 2

• Tom Jones (1749)

• In Fielding's novels, the relation between
appearance and reality is reversed.
• The apparently virtuous reveal themselves as
villains, while the apparently vicious reveal
themselves as good at heart and charitable.
• Truth is found out in the end. The world of false
appearances treacheries collapses.
 Tobias Smollett (1721-1771)
"I think for my part
art one half ooff the
nna
ation is mad—an and the ootthher not
very sound. d.""

satiric –
pessimistic – and
nkkind
ppiiccttuurree of maan
George Cruikshank,
image for The Adventures
of Roderick Random Tobias Smollett
source: Wikipedia –
(London, 1831) The Free Encyclopedia
(Clark Library collection)
 Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) – 1
• A Scotsman, Smollett went to the University of Glasgow to
study medicine, but did not take a degree. Later, he was
apprenticed to two Glasgow doctors.
• He took part in a catastrophic expedition to Columbia as an
assistant doctor on board the Man of War HMS Chichester.
• He married local beauty & heiress, Anne Lascelles, and died
in 1771, buried near Leghorn (Livorno), Italy. 
• Roderick Random (1748); Peregrine Pickle (1751)
• The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753)
• Model for the picaresque novel Roderick Random was
the French Gil Blas (1715-1735).
• Many of Smollett's characters are reminiscent of caricatures
or the satiric paintings of William Hogarth (1697-1764).
Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random – 1
She dreamed, she was delivered of a tennis-ball, which the
devil (who, to her great surprize, acted the part of a mid-wife)
struck so forcibly with a racket, that it disappeared in an instant;
and she was for some time inconsolable for the loss of her off-
spring; when all of a sudden, she beheld it return with equal
violence, and enter the earth, beneath her feet, whence
immediately sprung up a goodly tree covered with blossoms,
the scent of which operated so strongly on her nerves that she
awoke. The attentive sage, after some deliberation, assured my
parents, that their first-born would be a great traveller, that he
would undergo many dangers and difficulties, and at last return
to his native land, where he would flourish with great
reputation in happiness. – How truly this was foretold, will
appear in the sequel.
Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random – 2
But how was I surprized, when I beheld the formidable captain in
the shape of a little thin creature, about the age of forty, with a
long withered visage, very much resembling that of a baboon,
through the upper part of which, two little grey eyes peeped: He
wore his own hair in a queue that reached to his rump, which
immoderate length, I suppose, was the occasion of a baldness that
appeared on the crown of his head, when he deigned to take off
his hat, which was very much of the size and cock of Pistol's.
Having laid aside his great coat, I could not help admiring the
extraordinary make of this man of war: He was about five foot and
three inches high, sixteen inches of which went to his face and
long scraggy neck; his thighs were about six inches in length, his
legs resembling spindles or drum-sticks, two feet and an half, and
his body, which put me in mind of extension without substance,
engrossed the remainder; so that on the whole, he appeared like a
spider or grashopper erect, and was almost a vox & preterea nihil.
Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random – 3
At length the happy hour arrived, I flew to the place of rendezvous,
and was conducted into an apartment, where I had not waited ten
minutes, when I heard the rustling of silk and the sound of feet
ascending the stairs: My heart took the alarm, and beat quick, my
cheeks glowed, my nerves thrilled, and my knees shook with
exstasy! I perceived the door opening, saw a gold brocade
petticoat advance, and sprung forward to embrace my charmer.
Heaven and earth! how shall I paint my situation, when I found
Miss Sparkle converted into a wrinkled hag turned of seventy! I
was struck dumb with amazement, and petrified with horror! This
ancient urganda perceived my disorder, and approaching with a
languishing air, seized my hand, asking in a squeaking tone, if I was
indisposed. Her monstrous affectation compleated the disgust I
had conceived for her at first appearance; and it was a long time
before I could command myself so much, as to behave with
common civility: At length, however, I recollected myself and […]
Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random – 4
[…] pronounced an apology for my behaviour, which, I said,
proceeded from a dizziness that seized me all of a sudden. My
hoary Dulcinea, who, no doubt, had been alarmed at my
confusion, no sooner learned the cause to which I now ascribed it,
than she discovered her joy in a thousand amorous coquetries,
and assumed the sprightly airs of a girl of sixteen. One while, she
ogled me with her dim eyes, quenched in rheum; then, as if she
was ashamed of that freedom, she affected to look down, blush,
and play with her fan, then toss her head that I might not perceive
a palsy that shook it, ask some childish questions with a lisping
accent, giggle and grin with her mouth shut, to conceal the ravages
of time upon her teeth, leer upon me again, sigh piteously, fling
herself about in her chair to shew her agility, and act a great many
more absurdities that youth and beauty can alone excuse.
 Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) – 2
• This grotesque element is reminiscent of the novels of Ch.
Dickens.
• Humphry Clinker (1771): A journey is shown: Wales – Bath –
London – Scottish Highlands and back via Glasgow – Carlisle –
Manchester – Wales; the travellers: Matthew Bramble (a country
gentleman from Wales), Tabitha (his sister), Lydia Melford (his
niece), Jeremy (his nephew), Winifred Jenkins (the maid),
Humphry Clinker who is picked up from the street in the course
of the journey.
• Union of England and Scotland in 1707
• This novel combines different traditions of narration: picaresque,
travelogue, epistolary novel.
• In Smollett's novels, the picaresque tradition of narration reaches
a new climax and perfection. His novels also point forward to the
Gothic novel, to the historical novel of Walter Scott, and also to
the comic novels of Charles Dickens in the 19 th century.
 Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)
Tristram Shandy, the first
modern novel

low comed
edyy

title page of
Tristram Shandy,
vol.2 Laurence Sterne
source: University of source: Brooklyn College, English Dept.
Sydney Library
frontispiece of vol.3 by W. Hogarth
Theories of Association:
source: Cambridge University Library
1. John Locke – by custom
2. David Hume – by resemblance
 Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)
• "Enfant terrible" among the English novelists of the
18th century
• "Master of tragicomedy"
• Born in Clonmel/Tipperary (Ireland); parsonage in
Sutton-in-the-Forest; friend John Hall-Stevenson; castle
in Saltburn-by-the-Sea (Yorkshire); 1741: married
Elizabeth Lumley; 1768: seriously ill, died at early age of 55
• Tristram Shandy (1759: Vol. 1+2; 1760: Vol 3+4; 1761:
Vol. 5+6; 1767: Vol. 7-9)
• The Sermons of Mr. Yorick (1760)
• A Sentimental Journey (1768; trip through France and Italy).
 Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy – 1
I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them,
as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded
what they were about when they begot me; had they duly
considered how much depended upon what they were then
doing; – that not only the production of a rational Being was
concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and
temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast
of his mind; – and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even
the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from
the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: –
Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and
proceeded accordingly, – I am verily persuaded I should have
made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which
the reader is likely to see me.
 Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy – 2
Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind
up the clock? – Good G–! cried my father, making an
exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the
same time, – Did ever woman, since the creation of the world,
interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was
your father saying? – Nothing. (p.35 f.)

• Sexual allusions, obscenities, and obsessions are generally

characteristic of Sterne's novel
• Comic debunking of obsolete theories ("learned wit");
tongue-in-cheek criticism of obsolete scholastic learning
and knowledge.
• Sterne follows the tradition of the French writer Rabelais.
 Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy – 3
My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey
merchant, but had left off business for some years, in order to
retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of –––,
was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he
did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement,
that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of
his, to which he was in truth a slave, – he had made it a rule for
many years of his life, – on the first Sunday night of every month
throughout the whole year, – as certain as ever the Sunday night
came, – to wind up a large house-clock; which we had standing
upon the backstairs head, with his own hands: – And being
somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age, at the time I
have been speaking of, – he had likewise gradually brought
some other little family concernments to the same period, […]
 Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy – 4
[…] in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out
of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pestered with them
the rest of the month.
It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure,
fell upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to
my grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas which have
no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother
could never hear the said clock wound up, – but the thoughts of some
other things unavoidably popp'd into her head, – & vice versa: – which
strange combination of ideas, the sagacious Locke, who certainly
understood the nature of these things better than most men, affirms to
have produced more wry actions than all other sources of prejudice
whatsoever.
But this by the bye. (p.38 f.)
 The Age of Sensibility
• Counter-movement to the Enlightenment, cultivation of anti-
rational ideas, of emotions and feelings suppressed by rational
and sober-minded ideas of Enlightenment.
• France: Jean Jacques Rousseau (turning back to nature).
Germany: Age of "Empfindsamkeit" in the 1770s and 80s, the
age of Goethe's Werther. 
• Tristram Shandy may be said to be the first "modern" novel of
English literary history. It is modern because Sterne's concept
of reality is based on the idea of contingency and on the
realisation that reality is so complex and comprehensive that it
cannot be included in – and concluded by – a tale.
By constantly reflecting on this impossibility, Sterne shifts the
focus of narration from the level of reality to the meta-level of
reflection about it, and in doing so anticipates characteristic
techniques and features of modern narrative art.
 The Gothic novel
In the second half of the 18th century, Illustration for
people discovered the awe-inspiring Anne Radcliffe's
aspects of nature – the neo-classical The Mysteries of
concept of the Beautiful was thus Udolpho, vol.4, p.
replaced by the Sublime. Realism was 217 (London 1830)
source: W.W. Norton
abandoned in fantastic tales set in
exotic places, attempting to induce
horror and excitement in the reader.

The Sublime,
e.g.:
Caspar David
Friedrich,
Traveller
Above the
Sea of Clouds
(1818) Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley, author of
"shilling shocker", frontispiece illustration of Frankenstein, at her desk
around 1800 the monster from the 1831 source: The University of Adelaide
source: Special edition of Frankenstein Library
Collections, Uo Virginia source: UCLA Library
Library
 The Gothic novel / Novel of Terror – 1
• Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764)
• Development in aesthetics:
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of
our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1756)
• People now discovered the awe-inspiring aspects of
nature, the irregular and steep cliffs and jagged rocks of
Alpine valleys, or the violence of a thunderstorm. The
neo-classical concept of the beautiful was thus replaced
by that of the sublime. Simultaneously, people directed
their attention to the past, the "dark" Middle Ages and
the history of one's own nation.
 The Gothic novel / Novel of Terror – 2

• William Beckford Vathek (1786)

• Ann Radcliffe The Mysteries of Udolpho (1797)
• Later: Mary Shelley Frankenstein (1818)
Also a number of female novelists (not so well-known):
• Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752)
• Fanny Burney's Evelina, or a Young Lady’s Entrance into
the World (1778)