SURVEY OF THE BRITISH NOVEL

IN THE 18TH CENTURY

 Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
Richard Steele (1672-1729)
The Spectator (1711-1712) – periodical essay
Spectator Club stands for all the most important professions of the time: Sir Roger De Coverley (village nobleman), Sir Andrew Freeport (rich merchant), Will Honeycomb representative of the London society, Captain Sentry (representative of the military), Clergyman (priest), Lawyer (legal system)

Addison and Steele created new English prose, functional and rational, clear and free of rhetorical decorations and detached from the language of poetry
DANIEL DEFOE (1660-1731)
Robinson Crusoe (1719)
- begetter of the British novel;
- dispenses with the heroic themes and ornate
style;
- focuses on the everyday life of the ordinary
middle-class people, and
- uses simple, direct fact-based style
• Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
• Gulliver Travels (1726)
- greatest world satirist;
- targets of Swift’s satire:
British monarchy, Houses of Parliament,
courts;
corrupted society;
wars and armaments,
human nature (physiology, mental set)
• Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)
• Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded (1740)
• Clarissa Harlowe (1747-1748)
• Sir Charles Grandison (1754)
- begetter of the British novel
- the 18th century novelistic subgenres that he introduces:

epistolary novel (novel in letters)

sentimental novel (relies on the emotional response

both from the readers and characters, focuses on scenes of distress
and tenderness and advances emotions rather than action:
- appears as a reaction to the rationalism of the Augustan Age
and as a result of the cult of sensibility
 The cult of sensibility refers to the late 18th
century social conventions of the genteel society
that relied heavily on the exaggerated expression
of emotions. The mannerisms of sensibility were
highly genderized: women showed sensitivity
through crying, blushing, and fainting in reaction to
situations. Feminine weakness was approved of
because it was thought to improve the manners of
men, and at the same time it rationalized
subordination of women
- presents characters from the inside focusing
on their psychological states;
- precursor to the modern psychological novel;
- influenced Jane Austen, George Eliot, and the
modernists Henry James, Virginia Woolf and
James Joyce
• Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
Joseph Andrews (1742) a picaresque novel
Tom Jones (1749) a picaresque novel
Amelia (1751) – sentimental note
- introduces the picaresque novel (18th c. satirical novelistic subgenre from the Spanish
word “ pícaro“ standing for ”rogue” or ”rascal”) which depicts in realistic and often
humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives in the
corrupt society using his wits (this novelistic subgenre influenced modern literature);
- Dispenses with the romanticized or similarly stylized presentation of the world and
follows Defoe’s tradition contributing further to the trend of realism in the British
novel through the depiction of everyday and banal activities and experiences, and
- Defines the novel as “a comic epic poem in prose” thus initiating the theory of fiction
Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) – a Scottish poet and author
Roderick Random (1748) – a picaresque novel
Peregrine Pickle (1751) (a picaresque novel in which he introduces sentimental
elements and humorous characters, suchas the retired sailor Hawser
Trunnion)
Humphrey Clinker (1771) - a picaresque novel written in the epistolary form but
without a deep psychological portrait of the characters
- uses colloquial language (sailor jargon and nautical terms);
- Introduces narrative experiments;
- depicts the maritime adventures and the cruel reality of the life at sea,
contributing further to the trend of realism in the British fiction, as well as
the urban and provincial life in England in the middle of the 18 th c.;
- Introduces humorous characters and speech (mattermoney);
- Influenced Dickens with his grotesque characters
• Lawrence Sterne (1713-1768) – Anglo-Irish novelist
• Tristram Shandy (1760-1767) (Trismegistu – Tristram)
• A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768) – a sentimental novel
which focuses on the personal moods and feelings of the author;
• rejectsts all the rules of epic narration and does not give account of the events in
the chronological order, but introduces the understanding of time as a relative
notion (objective and subjective time);
- Deliberately distorts composition and focuses on digressions to the extent that
one is not sure if there is a main story at all;
- brings trivialities to the fore (hobby-horse);
- Under the influence of Lock introduces associations of ideas;
- Stresses the private life of thoughts and feelings, that is, the individualized world
of the characters in which the chance governs all;
- Considered to be a precursor to the stream-of-consciousness novel by V. Wolf
and J. Joyce
Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774)- an Anglo-Irish
novelist
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) a sentimental
novel, but also a novel with picaresque
elements and humorous characters conveying
social protest;
- Continues the trend of the English sentimental
novel