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NOVEL (from novellus, diminutive of L...

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NOVEL (from novellus, diminutive of See also:

Lat. nevus, new; through the See also:Italian novella) , the name given in literature to a study of See also:manners, founded on an observation of contemporary or See also:recent See also:life, in which the characters, the incidents and the intrigue are imaginary, and, therefore, " new " to the reader, but are founded on lines See also:running parallel with those of actual See also:history. r. With the word novel is identified a certain adherence to the normal conditions of experience. A novel is a sustained See also:story which is, indeed, not historically true, but might very easily be so. It is essentially a See also:modern See also:form of literature—that is to say, it makes its See also:appearance when the See also:energy of a See also:people has considerably subsided or has taken purely civic forms, and is ready to contemplate and to criticize pictures See also:drawn from conventional manners. The novel has been made the vehicle for See also:satire, for instruction, for See also:political or religious exhortation, for technical See also:information; but these are See also:side issues. The See also:plain and See also:direct purpose of the novel is to amuse by a See also:succession of scenes painted from nature, and by a See also:thread of emotional narrative. It was not until the 18th See also:century that it began to be a prominent See also:factor in See also:literary life, and not until the 19th that it took a See also:place in it which was absolutely predominant. The novel requires, from those who are content to be only fairly proficient in it, less intellectual apparatus than any other See also:species of See also:writing. This does not militate against the fact that the greatest novelists, always a small class, produce See also:work which is as admirable in its See also:art as the finest See also:poetry. But the novel adapts itself to so large a range of readers, and covers so vast a ground in the See also:imitation of life, that it is the unique See also:branch of literature which may be cultivated without any real distinction or skill, and yet for the moment may exercise a powerful purpose. 2.

Classical Antiquity.—The place held by the novel in antiquityroffers interesting analogies with its position in modern times. It was See also:

Voltaire, in his Pyrrhonisme de l'histoire, who set the See also:fashion of calling the Gyropaedeia a novel, but it is probable that See also:Xenophon, in composing this See also:great work on the See also:education of See also:Cyrus, had a purpose that was didactic and See also:historical rather than imaginative. The See also:vogue of the novel really began in Alexandrian times, when social life was so far settled in tradition that the See also:pleasure of reflecting on reality had definitely set in. In the 2nd century B.C. a certain See also:Aristides wrote, in six books, the Milesiaka, which was probably the beginning of the modern novel. These Tales of See also:Miletus, the See also:town in which Aristides lived, are lost, but from existing imitations of them in See also:Greek and Latin we can gather that they consisted of humorous and sarcastic episodes of contemporary life. There seems to be See also:good See also:evidence that the bulk of these novelettes, and of the tales which followed them, dealt mainly with the adventures of lovers. In the and century A.D. See also:Lucian preserved for us invaluable pictures of the life in which he moved: his See also:Lucius or the See also:Ass and his True History are fantastic and extraordinary See also:fictions in which the nature of the novel is not unfrequently approached. But a Syrian See also:Christian, See also:Heliodorus, See also:bishop of Tricca in the 4th century, may claim to have come much closer to it in his Aethiopica, which has the unique merit of being a perfectly pure love story, in which the marvellous is not absolutely banished, but in which on the whole the solid structure of experience is preserved. In the 6th century, as is supposed, a Greek who is called See also:Longus (Abyyos), but of whose life nothing is known, wrote the voluptuous See also:pastoral story of See also:Daphnis and Chloe, which is far See also:superior to all other remnants of Greek fiction which have come down to us, and which is the only one of them which can strictly be called a novel. In Latin literature, the See also:Golden Ass of See also:Apuleius is manifestly a See also:translation of a lost Greek See also:book, to which Lucian also was indebted. It is probable that in the great See also:age of See also:Roman literature See also:prose fiction was cultivated, but we should be limited to pure conjecture as to its See also:scope, if we did not possess a fragment of a work which is absolutely invaluable to the See also:comparative student of literature.

If the Satyricon of See also:

Petronius was not an isolated phenomenon—and it is highly improbable that this was the See also:case—then the See also:Romans of the Neronian See also:epoch understood to the full the See also:secret of how to produce in prose a satirical, not to say cynical, study of manners in fiction. The Satyricon is not less skilfully managed than such later novels as Gil See also:Bias or Peregrine See also:Pickle, and it is of the same class. From the extent of the See also:principal See also:episode which has been preserved, it is supposed that this novel was not a See also:short See also:tale of intrigue, but was a sustained See also:record, drawn up with careful and lengthy observation of manners, for the single purpose of entertainment. Unfortunately this extraordinary work remains not merely solitary in its class, but itself a fragment. In See also:early Christian times, such books as The Shepherd of See also:Hermas, and the productions of See also:Palladius and of See also:Synesius, indistinctly testified to a certain appetite for prose fiction. 3. Italian.—It was in See also:northern See also:Italy that the novel of modern See also:Europe (both the literary type and the name) came into existence. A collection of tales, called Il Novellino or See also:Cento novelle antiche (although only 66 of the 10o survive), was composed at theend of the 13th century, and started this class of literature in Europe. These See also:anonymous stories are of extraordinary diversity, chivalrous, mythological, moral and scandalous. The See also:medieval view of See also:women and priests and peasants is found in its full development, and there is something of the realistic reflection of customs which was to flourish later in a whole class of fiction. The earliest Italian novelist whose name is connected with his writings is See also:Francesco da Barberino (1264–1348), whose Documenti d'Amor were first published in 164o. He was followed by the celebrated Giovanni See also:Boccaccio, who wrote his Filocopo about 1339 and the Decameron some nine years later.

Of his disciples the most eminent was Francesco See also:

Sacchetti (1335-1400), a Florentine. Sacchetti's Trecente novelle, which remained in MS. until the 18th century (1724), are ironical and realistic studies of the life around him in See also:Tuscany. To Giovanni Fiorentino is attributed a collection of 50 tales, called Il Pecorone, printed first in 1558, but written in 1378. See also:Shakespeare was indebted to one of these stories for the See also:plot of The See also:Merchant of See also:Venice. A great name in the See also:evolution of See also:European fiction is that of Tommaso Guardato, called Masuccio (1415?-1477?) ; he was a native of See also:Salerno, and was the first of the See also:south Italian novelists. Masuccio imitated no one; his conceptions and his observations are wholly his own. His Novellino, printed at See also:Naples in 1476, is divided into five books, each containing ten stories. These See also:deal satirically with the three favourite subjects of the age—namely, jealous husbands, unfaithful wives and debauched priests. He was followed in this, as well as in his vivacity, by See also:Antonio Cornazzano (1431?-15oo?), an inhabitant of See also:Piacenza, who wrote Italian with much greater purity than Masuccio, but less vigour. His stories were frequently reprinted, under the See also:title of Proverbii. Of the novels of Giovanni Brevio (1480?–1562?) only five have been preserved, but these are of unusual merit. We then reach Matteo See also:Bandello (148o-1561), See also:long the most famous of all the Italian novelists, whose Novelle, first issued in 1554, were eagerly read in all parts of Europe; they are 214 in number.

After Bandello the decline of the Italian novella is evident. Francesco Maria Molza (1489–1544), whose stories appeared in 1547, was a See also:

rival to Bandello, and has been preferred to him by several modern critics. The Ragionamenti d'Amor (1548) of Agnolo See also:Firenzuola (1493–1545) was the work of a poet writing in richly embroidered prose. After Firenzuola the great school of Italian story-tellers declined. There was no more novel writing of any importance in Italy until the See also:close of the 18th century, when an admiring study of See also:German literature produced the romances of Alessandro Verri (1941–1816) and Ugo See also:Foscolo (1978–1827). The first Italian novelist of merit in recent times, however, is Alessandro See also:Manzoni (1785–1873), whose I Promessi Sposi (1825) enjoyed an unbounded popularity. Manzoni had a See also:troop of imitators, but no rivals. In the See also:fourth See also:quarter of the 19th century Italy produced some very brilliant and See also:original novelists, in particular Giovanni See also:Verga (b. 1840), See also:Matilda See also:Serao (b. 1856) and Gabriele d'See also:Annunzio (b. 1863). 4.

See also:

France.--In the 14th century, when Italy was already proceeding in a modern direction, France was satisfied with See also:ancient tales of Fierabras or See also:Les Quatre fils d'Aynon, which were nothing but epics told in rambling prose. It was not until about 1450 that the anonymous Quinze joies du mariage showed the See also:French to be influenced by the Italian See also:discovery of the novelette of manners. The author of this extraordinary work was perhaps See also:Antoine de la See also:Sale who seems certainly to have written the whole of the Cent nouvelles nouvelles, imitated from Boccaccio and Sacchetti. This bud of realistic fiction, however, was immediately nipped by the romances of See also:chivalry, of See also:Spanish extraction, which were only destroyed by the vogue of See also:Don Quixote. The translation of Montalvo's celebrated Amadis de Gauie enjoyed at this See also:time an extraordinary popularity. The See also:habit of telling tales freely in prose was not, however, formed in France until after 1500. Bonaventure Desperiers (d. 1544) was the author of the Cymbalum mundi, and of Nouvelles recreations, See also:mordant satires and See also:gay stories. Probably to this age also belongs the semi-fabulous Beroalde de Verville, who is supposed to be the author of a collection of facetious anecdotes and conversations, Le Moyen de Parvenir. These, and other experiments in fiction, See also:lead us up to See also:Rabelais, whose magnificent See also:genius adopted as its mode of address the See also:chain of See also:burlesque prose narratives which we possess in Gargantua and Pantagruel, recording the See also:family history of a See also:race of See also:giant See also:kings, but his See also:influence on the novel is insignificant. It was See also:half a century later that, in the romantic pastoral of Astree, published in 1610, France may be said to have achieved her first See also:attempt at a novel. This famous book was written by Honore d'See also:Urfe; revival.

Stendhal showed that, without any of the charms in spite of its absurdities it is full of See also:

talent, and succeeds, for of See also:style, and relying exclusively upon See also:minute psychological the first time in the history of French narrative, in depicting observation, the record of a human life could be made enthrall-individual See also:character. D'Urfe was followed, with less originality, ingly interesting. See also:Alexandre See also:Dumas, under the direct influence by Marin Le See also:Roy de See also:Gomberville (1600–1674), who was the author of See also:Sir See also:Walter See also:Scott, allowed his tropic See also:imagination to revel and of a Mexican See also:romance, Polexandre, and by Gombauld (1570? 1666), the author of See also:Endymion (1624). These were fictions of interminable adventures, broken by an See also:infinite number of episodes; they seem tedious enough to us nowadays,, but with their refinement of See also:language, and their See also:elevation of sentiment, they fascinated readers like Madame de See also:Sevigne. To Gomberville, who has been called the Alexandre Dumas of the 17th century, succeeded Mdlle de See also:Scudery (1607–1701), who preserved the romantic framework of the novel, but filled it up with modern and See also:familiar figures disguised under ancient names. Her huge romans d clef, tiresome as they are, form the necessary stepping-See also:stone between Astree, in which the novel was first conceived, and La Princesse de See also:Cleves, where at last it found perfect expression. Meanwhile, the elephantine heroic romances were ridiculed by See also:Charles See also:Sorel in his Francion (1622) and Le Berger extravagant (1628). Later examples of a realistic reaction against the pompous beauty of Gomberville and Scudery were the Roman conzique (1651) of See also:Scarron and Le Roman See also:bourgeois (1666) of Furetiere. All these, however, were See also:mere preparations. The earliest novelist of France is See also:Marguerite de la Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette (1634–1693), and the earliest genuine French novels were her Princesse de See also:Montpensier (1662), and her far more important Princesse de Cleves (1678). Madame de La Fayette was the first writer of prose narrative in Europe who portrayed, as closely to nature as she could, the actual manner and conversations of well-bred people.

To show that she was capable of writing in the old style, she published, with the help of Segrais, in 1670, a Zayde, which is in the Spanish manner affected by Mdlle de Scudery. It was long before the See also:

peculiar originality of the Princesse de Cleves was appreciated. Meanwhile La See also:Fontaine, in 1669, published a See also:fine romance of See also:Psyche, partly in See also:verse, and See also:Fenelon, in 1699, his celebrated Telemaque. The influence of La Bruyere on the novelists, although he wrote no novels, must not be overlooked. But the Princesse de Cleves remained the solitary novel of moral See also:analysis when its author died and the 17th century closed. The successes of Alain Rene Lesage seemed to be wholly reactionary. His realistic novels, Gil Blas and Le Diable boiteux, depended upon their comic force, their See also:picaresque vivacity, rather than upon the sober study of See also:average human character. But See also:Marivaux (1688–1763) took up the psychological novel again, and produced in Marianne (1731) and Le Paysan parvenu (1735) See also:analytical stories of Parisian manners and character which were wholly modern in form. If Marianne was deliberate, the exquisite Manon Lescaut (1731), by the See also:Abbe See also:Prevost d'Exiles (1697–1763), was almost an See also:accident; but, between them, these simultaneous See also:works started the French novel of the analysis of emotion. The brilliant stories of Voltaire, which began with Zadig and included Candide, hardly belonged to this See also:category; they are rather satires and diversions, in which class must also be placed the fashionable boudoir novels of See also:Crebillon fzls, La Morliere and others. But the See also:English See also:taste, exemplified mainly by See also:Richardson, See also:Sterne and See also:Fielding, prevailed, and its effect was seen again in the imperfect novels of See also:Diderot and See also:Rousseau. The Nouvelle Heloise and the Emile of the latter are not skilfully constructed as stories, but they See also:mark the starting-point of the novel which aims at familiarising the public mind with great ideas in an attractively romantic form.

The moral purpose is equally evident in the famous See also:

Paul et Virginie of Bernardin de St See also:Pierre. It was less didactically See also:present in Mme de See also:Stael's Del phine (1802) and Corinne (1807), where the misinterpreted woman of genius, so often depicted since, is first introduced to French novel-readers. It was not, however, until about 183o that the novel began to be one of the See also:main channels of imaginative writing in France, and the development of this See also:kind of fiction was one of the main features of the romantic See also:riot in brilliant chains of See also:adventure. The imaginative novel was admirably conceived by See also:George See also:Sand. But it was See also:Balzac who filled See also:canvas after canvas with the astounding intensity of life itself, and who insisted with irresistible force that the See also:function of the novel is to draw a consistent and unprejudiced picture of humanity under the See also:strain of a succession of probable passions. This has been clearly comprehended by the See also:host of later French novelists, whose record cannot be traced here, to be the function of the novel, as Mme de La Fayette invented it, as Marivaux and Prevost See also:developed it, and as George Sand and Balzac finally laid down its See also:laws and settled its See also:borders. Certain See also:dates, however, must be recorded in the briefest record of the evolution of the French novel, and 1856 is one of these; in that See also:year Gustave See also:Flaubert published Madame Bovary, a work in which the rival realistic and romantic tendencies are combined with a mastery that had not been approached and has not since been equalled. Another is 1871, when See also:Zola began to See also:roll out the enormous canvas of Les Rougon-Macquart. Yet another in 188o, when See also:Boule de suif first revealed in See also:Maupassant a novelist whose creations were not merely amusing and striking, but absolutely convincing and logical. 5. English.—If we take no heed of See also:translations of Latin stories, such as those from the Gesta Romanorum, we may say that the beginning of prose fiction in See also:England is Le Mork d'See also:Arthur, of Sir See also:Thomas See also:Malory, finished in or about 1470, and printed by See also:Caxton in 1485. The great merits of this writer were that he got rid of the medieval See also:burden of See also:allegory, essayed an See also:interpretation of the human See also:heart, and invented a lucid and vigorous style of narrative.

But his book became, as See also:

Professor W. See also:Raleigh has said, " the feeder of poetry rather than of prose," and it gave no inkling of the methods of the modern novel. The same may be said of such versions of the See also:Charlemagne Amadis and Palmeria cycles of romances as Huon of See also:Bordeaux, published by See also:Lord See also:Berners, perhaps in 1535, and innumerable others. It was the novella of Italy from which the English novel first faintly started. Between 156o and 158o versions of the Italian novelists became exceedingly popular in England. See also:Paynter in introducing the tales of Bandello and Straparola struck the true novelist's See also:note by offering them not as works of morality or edification, but " instead of a merry See also:companion to shorten the tedious toil of weary ways." The appreciation of these Italian stories led to the See also:composition of the Euphues of See also:Lyly (1579), a book of great See also:interest and merit, which has been called " the first original prose novel written in English." This is somewhat to exaggerate, since Euphues is rather a work of elegant See also:philosophy than a narrative. Lyly had many imitators, See also:Munday, See also:Greene, Dickenson, Barnabe See also:Rich, See also:Lodge, See also:Nash and others, who formed a school of prose fiction which was not without a certain romantic beauty, but which possessed as little narrative vigour as possible. To compare a story written by Sacchetti in 1385 with one written by Greene in 1585 is to perceive that not merely had no progress been made towards the modern novel, but that a great deal of ground had been lost. The genius of the Elizabethan age See also:lay in the direction of lyrical and dramatic poetry, not of prose fiction. The See also:absence of the comic See also:element in Elizabethan romances is very marked. M. See also:Jusserand has claimed a peculiar merit in this and other respects for the See also:Jack See also:Wilton of Nash (1594), which, as he points out, is the earliest English example of picaresque literature.

During the reign of the heroic romances in France, their vogue violently affected the English book-See also:

market. The huge stories of Calprenede and Gomberville were imported, and translated and imitated to the exclusion of every other species of prose fiction, between 1645 and 167o. The long-winded books of Mdlle de Scudery, especially See also:Cassandra and The Great Cyrus, were read so universally in England as to leave their See also:stamp on the See also:national manners. Of original English romances, written in competition with the French masterpieces of tenderness and chivalry, the Parthenissa of Lord See also:Orrery (1654) is the best known. The first definite stand against these Gallicized romances was made by two dramatists, Aphara See also:Behn and See also:William See also:Congreve. Congreve's Incognita (1692) is remarkable for its See also:light raillery and See also:humour, and perhaps deserves as well as any 17th-century composition to be called the earliest novel in English. The stories of Mrs Behn have the merit of a romantic simplicity of narrative, but they are dull and devoid of art. But the novel still lingered, unwilling to make its appearance in England, and its place was taken during the age of See also:Anne by the labours of the essayists. So rich is the character See also:painting, so lively the touches of social See also:colour in the Spectator and Tatter, that these See also:periodicals have, by enthusiastic critics, been styled brilliant examples of prose fiction. But it is obvious that in the delightful essays of See also:Addison and See also:Steele there was no attempt made at construction, that the sustained evolution of characters was not essayed, and that even in the studies of Mr Bickerstaff's See also:Club anything like a plot was studiously avoided. Yet these are all essential characteristics of the novel, and until they make their appearance in English literature we must not say that the secret has been discovered. Very near to the See also:mystery, if he did not quite grasp it, was See also:Daniel See also:Defoe, who introduced into his narrative a minute and See also:rude See also:system of realistic observation, by way of giving an impression of truth to it.

This exactitude he combined with a survival of the old picaresque method, the result being those See also:

strange and entertaining works See also:Colonel Jack (1722) and See also:Roxana (1724). Still closer he came to See also:positive success in the immortal narrative of See also:Robinson Crusoe, in which the See also:fascination of the desolate See also:island was first worked up in English. 6. Not even yet had the English novel been invented. It came into the See also:world in 1740 from the unconscious hands of See also:Samuel Richardson (1689–1761), who had See also:hit upon the notion that morality might be helped and See also:young persons of inexperience protected by the preparation of a set of letters exchanged between imaginary persons. The result was Pamela: or Virtue Rewarded, a book which is in every strict sense the earliest English novel. It has even a claim to be considered the earliest European novel of the modern kind, for the See also:assumption of French See also:criticism that Richardson borrowed his ideas and his characters from the Marianne of Marivaux is not supported by evidence. There is no See also:reason to suppose that Richardson met with the name of Marivaux earlier than 1749. At all events, it would seem to be certain that, whether in France or England, the fourth See also:decade of the 18th century saw the spontaneous conception of this " new species of writing." The name of the heroine of Richardson's book was See also:Miss Pamela See also:Andrews, and the second English novel was Fielding's See also:Joseph Andrews (1742), which started as a mere burlesque of Pamela, but proceeded upon admirably original lines of its own, ina study of the humours and manners of See also:con-temporary See also:country life. Fielding rejected the epistolary artifice of Richardson, and told his story in a straightforward narrative, broken indeed by arguments and ejaculations which See also:bound the new novel to the old See also:essay of the Spectator type. The creative force of Fielding filled the pages of this book with a See also:crowd of vividly-presented characters, and this marked a step in advance, for Richardson's practice was to concentrate minute See also:attention upon only one or two figures. It was from Richardson that the next important fiction came, in the shape of the long-drawn tragedy of Clarissa (1748).

But a third great novelist was now at work; in 1748 appeared the See also:

Roderick See also:Random of See also:Smollett, and here we have neither the sculptural manner of Richardson nor the busy world of Fielding's See also:realism, but a comic impression founded on an artful employment of emphasis and exaggeration. Smollett gives us neither breathing statues nor a crowd of men and women, but a See also:gallery of " freaks," arranged with great art, indeed, but exhibited in such a way as to expose not their likeness but their nnlikeness to the See also:common stock of humanity. It is very important to note this curious divergency between the three great writers, because they exemplified the three classes into which almost all subsequent novels can with more or less ease be divided. The next move was made by Fielding, who in 1749 published his Tom See also:Jones. Starting with the pungent horror of See also:hypocrisy ever before him, Fielding constructs a fragment of the world in which men and women are seen, without exaggeration, plying their daily trades under the See also:eye of an impartial observer who can penetrate to their secret motives. This was a great advance, and a still greater one was the sustained skill with which the author conducted the plot, the interwoven See also:series of the actions of his characters. It may almost be said that until the publication of Tom Jones no novel with a real plot had been conceived in English. The rivalry of the great novelists of this time was of See also:signal help to them, and there can be no question that the astounding richness of Tom Jones stirred Smollett to the exercise of increased energy in Peregrine Pickle (1751), a coarse and See also:savage book, illuminated by brilliant flashes of humour. A better, because a tenderer and truer study of life was Amelia, which Fielding published in the same year; yet most readers have found this novel a little languid after Tom Jones. But if the ideal of life depicted in it was quieter and sadder, it was perhaps for that very reason more in See also:harmony with the facts of life. Now Richardson, who had long been silent, reasserted his mastery of epistolary analysis in the huge History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753), in which, as its admirers claimed, " all the recesses of the human heart are explored and its whole texture unfolded." Richardson had scarcely been affected by the experiments of his contemporaries, of the very nature of which he affected to be ignorant, and the result is that in his third and last novel he depends entirely on qualities which he had already developed, and owes nothing to the discoveries of others. 7.

With this book, the first great See also:

group of English novels comes to a close, and we may observe that in these eight stories everything is to be found, in germ if not in full evolution, which was during the next century and a half to make the abundant out-put of the English novel prominent. New forms, above all new subjects, were to present themselves to the imagination of capable See also:British novelists, but the starting-point of every experiment was to be discovered in the ripest work of Richardson, Fielding and Smollett. Their influence was See also:manifest in the writings of the second school of English novelists, in whom, however, several interesting varieties of subject and treatment were discovered. The Tristram Shandy (1759–1766) of Sterne, is the most masterly example in English of a humour which goes direct to pathos for its most " sentimental " effects, and of the kind of loosely-strung, reflective fiction which is hardly a narra. tive at all. Neither Tristram Shandy nor A Sentimental See also:Journey (1768) can properly be included among novels. In Rasselas (1759) Dr See also:Johnson showed that the new kind of writing could be used to give entertainment to a See also:sermon and in this he was to have a multitude of followers. In Chrysal (1760) Charles See also:Johnstone (d. ',Soo) showed that the picaresque romance could still exist, tinctured by the newly-found art of the novelist. In The See also:Castle of See also:Otranto (1764) See also:Horace See also:Walpole adapted the methods of the novelist to a pseudo-historical theme of horror and romance, and prophesied of Walter Scott. In The See also:Vicar of See also:Wakefield (1766) See also:Goldsmith was indebted to most of his immediate predecessors, but fused their qualities in an See also:amalgam of See also:gentle wit and delicate sweetness and conversational brevity which has made his one loosely-constructed novel a foremost classic of our literature. Thus, in the one quarter of a century which divides Pamela from The Vicar of Wakefield, English novel-writing was See also:born, See also:grew into full maturity, and adopted its adult and final forms. 8.

During the See also:

remainder of the 18th century, little or nothing was done to extend the range of prose fiction in England, but one or two of those departments of novel-writing which had already been invented were developed and adapted to changing taste. In particular, the rapid increase of reticence and refinement in conversation made such a novel in letters as Smollett's See also:Humphrey See also:Clinker (1771) repulsively coarse to women of delicacy, who were charmed on the other See also:hand with the Evelina of Frances See also:Burney (1978). These two typical books are composed on the same See also:plan, yet essentially a whole age lies between the former and the latter. What has been called " the novel of the See also:tea-table " now came into existence, and the 18th century was about to close in mediocrity, when its See also:credit was partially saved by a development of Horace Walpole's romance of terror in the vigorous and sensational narratives of Anne See also:Radcliffe (1764-1823), whose Mysteries of Udolpho appeared in 1794. The same year saw the publication of See also:Caleb See also:Williams, in which William See also:Godwin (1956-1836) evolved a tragic theory of politics. A finer study than either of the works just mentioned, although not truly a novel, was the gorgeous and sinister Vathek (1786) of William See also:Beckford, an See also:oriental tale of horror. In all these books there existed an element of See also:grotesque mingled with romantic colour, which announced the coming revival. 9. The two See also:schools here indicated, and they may be roughly de-fined as the school of the Tea-Table and the school of the Skeletonin-the-See also:Cupboard, did not, however, betray their real significance until the second decade of the 19th century, when after several unimportant efforts, they developed into the novel of psycho-logical satire and the romance of historical imagination. Two writers, the greatest who had yet attempted to address English readers through prose fiction, almost simultaneously came forward as the protagonists in these two See also:spheres of work. Jane See also:Austen published Sense and Sensibility in 1811, Walter Scott Waverley in 1814. These were epoch-making dates; in each case a new era opened for the countless readers of novels.

The firs-named writer, all exactitude, See also:

conscience and literary art, worked away at her " little See also:bit (two inches wide) of See also:ivory" ; the other, with bold and flowing See also:brush, covered vast spaces with his stimulating and See also:noble compositions. It is, however, to be noted that the See also:isolation in which we now regard these great writers— a solitude a deux only broken in measure by the presence of Miss Maria See also:Edgeworth—is an See also:optical delusion due to the veils of distance. The bookshops from 1810 to 182o and onwards were thronged and glutted with novels, many of them infinitely more successful, as far as sales were concerned, than the most popular of 1vfiss Austen's works. The novels of Miss Austen were written between 1996 and 181o, although published from 1811 to 1818; those of Sir Walter Scott date from 1814 (Waverley) to 1829 (Anne of Geierstein). Practically speaking, no additions were made to the See also:formula of the social novel or of the historical romance, to the study of national manners, that is to say, from the satirical or from the picturesque point of view, until a quarter of a century later. lo. The next artist in prose fiction whose force of invention was sufficient to start the novel on wholly fresh tracks was born See also:forty years later than Scott. This was Charles See also:Dickens, whose Pickwick Papers (1836) marks another epoch in novel writing. His career of prodigal See also:production ceased abruptly in 187o, by which time it had long been obvious that he was the See also:pioneer of a great and diverse school of novelists, all born within the second decade of the century. Of these See also:Thackeray was not really made obvious until Vanity See also:Fair (1849), nor See also:Charlotte See also:Bronte till Jane See also:Eyre (1847), nor Mrs See also:Gaskell till See also:Mary See also:Barton (1848), nor George See also:Eliot till See also:Adam See also:Bede (1859). The most noticeable point on which the five illustrious novelists of the Early Victorian age resembled one another and differed from all their predecessors, was the sociological or even humanitarian character of their writings. All of them had projects of moral or social reform close at heart, all desired to mend the existing See also:scheme of things.

In several of them, particularly in Dickens and Miss Bronte, the element of insubordination is extremely marked; it is present in them all; and a determination not to be content to see life beautifully, through coloured glasses, or to be content with a sarcastic See also:

travesty of it, but to realize in detail its elements of See also:pain and injustice. The novel, which had already learned tocompete with all the amusing sections of literature, became the successful rival of the serious ones also. The task of the novelist was, therefore, so far as the indication of the scope of his particular kind of art is concerned, now See also:complete. The names of See also:Anthony See also:Trollope, Charles See also:Kingsley, Charles See also:Reade, George See also:Meredith, Thomas See also:Hardy and See also:Robert See also:Louis See also:Stevenson represent, in their least challenged form, different movements in novel-writing during the second half of the 19th century; we must be content here to refer for particulars concerning them to the See also:separate See also:biographical articles. 11. See also:Spain.—Prose narrative in Spain practically begins in the 15th century with See also:chronicles and romances of chivalry, tempered occasionally and faintly by some knowledge of what had been attempted in Italy by Boccaccio. The Spanish version of Amades de Gaula, in which the romance of See also:knight errantry culminated, belongs to 1508; the lost original is supposed to have been Portuguese. This was the only book of its class which is saved from the burning in Don Quixote; it was followed by Palmerin of England. These interminable books, and a See also:hundred worse than they, occupied the leisure of 16th-century readers of both sexes. Without approaching the form of novels, they prepared the ground for novel-See also:reading. The exploration of See also:America led to the composition of monstrous tales of the New World, which generally took the form of continuations of Amades. A new thing was begun in 1554, when the anonymous picaresque romance of Lazarillo de Tormes started the story of fantastic modern adventure; this highly entertaining book has been called the 16th-century Pickwick, and Mr Fitzmaurice-See also:Kelly remarks that it " fixed for ever the type of the comic prose epic." The pastoral romance, in the hands of Jorge de Montemer (d.

1561), who wrote an insipid See also:

Diana which was popular for a while throughout Europe, took readers a step backward, away from the ultimate path of the novel. It is of interest to us, however, to note that it was in one of these " vain imaginings," in his pastoral romance of Galatea, that Cervantes approached the See also:field of fiction, in 1585. Few of his peculiar merits are to be found in this early work; he turned for the present to the composition of plays. It was not until 1604 that he returned to prose fiction by See also:printing his immortal Don Quixote, which made an epoch in the history of the novel. This book was originally intended to ridicule the already fading See also:passion for the romances of chivalry, but it proceeded much further than that, and there is hardly any branch of fiction which may not be traced back to the splendid See also:initiation of some See also:chapter of Don Quixote. In 1613 Cervantes published his twelve Exemplary Novels; these are not so well known as the great romance, and they owed not a little of their form to Italian See also:sources, but they are very brilliant. One of the best anonymous Spanish stories of the See also:period, The See also:Mock Aunt, is a type of excellence in facetious narrative of the sarcastic class; this is now commnonly attributed to Cervantes himself. No other novelist of Spain has moulded the thought of Europe, but the heroic romance which occupied so much of the attention of France in the 17th century was invented by a little-known Spanish soldier, See also:Perez de See also:Hita, who, about 1600, wrote fantastic stories about See also:Granada and the See also:Moors. The farcical romance of Fray Gerundio de Campazas, 1758, by J. F. de See also:Isla (1703-1718), competed in popularity with Gil Blas. Speaking broadly, however, Spain made no appreciable progress in novel-writing from the days of Cervantes to those of Walter Scott, when the Waverley Novels began to find such artless imitators as. Martinez de la See also:Rosa and Zorrilla.

But the first original novelist of Spain was See also:

Cecilia Bohl de See also:Faber (Fernan See also:Caballero) (1796-1877), whose La Gavieta, 1848, a study of life in an Andalusian See also:village, was the earliest Spanish novel, in the modern sense. She was followed by Valera (1824--19o4), by See also:Alarcon (1833-1891), by See also:Pereda (b. 1834), by Perez See also:Gallas (b. 1845) and by Palacio See also:Valdes (b. 1853), in whom the tendencies of recent European fiction have been competently illustrated without any striking contributions to originality. 12. See also:Germany.—The cultivation of the novel in its proper sense began See also:late in Germany. It is usual to consider that H. J. C. von See also:Grimmelshausen (1625?-1675) is the earliest German novelist; his very curious romance, Abenteuerliche See also:Simplicius Simplicissimus, was printed at Mompelgard in 1669. This is an See also:account of the adventures of a See also:simple-minded See also:fellow during the See also:Thirty Years' See also:War, and is a chain of episodes, brilliantly recorded, but hardly a novel. Early in the 18th century, an extraordinary number of imitations of Defoe's great romance were published in Germany, and these are known to scholars as the Robinsonaden.

Later on, See also:

Wieland imitated Don Quixote, but the earliest German novel which possesses original value is the celebrated work of See also:Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1794). The still more celebrated Wilhelm Meister did not appear until 1796. A third novel, Elective See also:Affinities, was published by Goethe in 1809. Meanwhile, a very characteristic group of picturesque stories had been issued by Johann Paul See also:Richter (See also:Jean Paul) (1763-1825), destined to have a wide influence upon romantic literature throughout Europe. Purely romantic were the stories of See also:Tieck, of See also:Brentano, of See also:Arnim, of See also:Fouque, of See also:Kleist, of See also:Immermann. The German novelists of this period wrote like poets, deprived of the discipline of verse. In later times novels of high merit have been written by Gustav See also:Freytag, Wilibald See also:Alexis (1798-1871), called the German Walter Scott, See also:Laube, See also:Fontane, See also:Ebers, Jeremias Gotthelf, Berthold See also:Auerbach, See also:Spielhagen, See also:Heyse and many others, but the 19th century produced no German novelist of commanding originality. 13. See also:Russia.—In Russia alone, among the countries of central and eastern Europe, the novel has developed with a See also:radical originality. Until the second quarter of the 19th century the prose fiction of Russia was confined to imitators of Sir Walter Scott, but about the year 1834 See also:Gogol (1809-1852) began to revolt against the historico-romantic school and to produce stories in which an almost savage realism was curiously blended with the See also:Slavonic dreaminess and See also:melancholy. Since then the See also:Russian novel has consistently been the novel of resignation and pity, but wholly divorced from sentimentality. Gogol was succeeded by Gontcharor, Tourgeniev, Dostoievski, Pissemski 182o-1881) and Tolstoi, forming the most consistent and, doubtless, the most powerful school of novelists which Europe saw in the 19th century.

The influence of these writers on the See also:

rest of the world was immense, and even in England, where it was least acutely See also:felt, it was significant. That the Russians have indicated the path to new See also:fields in the somewhat outworn See also:province of novel-writing is abundantly manifest. 14. Oriental.—In a See also:primitive form, the novel has long been cultivated in See also:Asia. It was introduced into See also:China, but whence is unknown, in the 13th century, and Le Kuan-chung was the first See also:Chinese novelist. The productions of this writer and of his followers are tales of bloody warfare, or record the adventures of travellers. The novel called The Twice-Flowering See also:Plum-Trees, belonging to the 16th (or 17th) century, is a typical example of the moral Chinese novel, written with a virtuous purpose. Professor See also:Giles holds that the novel of China reached its highest point of development in The See also:Dream of the Red Chamber, an anonymous story of the end of the 17th century; this is a See also:panorama of Chinese social life, " worked out with a completeness worthy of Fielding." Prose stories began to be met with in the literature of See also:Japan early in the loth century. But the inventor of the See also:Japanese novel was a woman of genius, Murasaki no Shikibu, whose Genji Monogatari has been compared to the writings of Richardson; it was finished in 1004 and may, there-fore, be considered the See also:oldest novel in the world. This book, which is one of the great See also:classics of Japan, was widely imitated. After the classic period novel-writing was long neglected in Japan, but the humours of 17th-century life were successfully translated into popular fiction by Saikaku (1641-1693), and later by Jisho and Kiseki, who collaborated in a great number of remarkable stories. See See also:Dunlop, The History of Fiction (1816) ; Borroneo, Catalogo de' novellieri italiani (1805); Em.

Gebhart, Conteurs du moyen dge (1901) ; E. M. de Vogue, Le Roman russe (1886) ; Forsyth, Novels and Novelists of the 18th Century (1871); Bever and Sansot-Orland, tEuvres galantes See also:

des conteurs italiens (1903) ; Rivadeneyra, Biblioteca de autores espanoles (1846–188o) ; See also:Gosse, A Century of French Romance (1900—1902); G. Pellissier, Le Mouvement litteraire au XIXe sibcle (1889); Zola, Les Romanciers naturalistes (188o)', Le Roman experimental (1879); Brunetiere, Le Roman naturaliste (1883); W. Raleigh, The English No-el (1894); V. See also:Chauvin, Les Romanciers grecs et latins (1862); Fancan, Le Tombean des romans (1626). (E.

End of Article: NOVEL (from novellus, diminutive of Lat. nevus, new; through the Italian novella)

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