Trace the Development

of the English Novel

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Introduction
The novel originated in the early 18th century after the Italian word "novella," which was
used for stories in the medieval period. Its identity has evolved and it is now considered to
mean a work of prose fiction over 50,000 words. Novels focus on character development
more than plot. In any genre, it is the study of the human psyche.

The Beginning
The ancestors of the novel were Elizabethan prose fiction and French heroic romances, which
were long narratives about contemporary characters who behaved nobly. The novel came into
popular awareness towards the end of the 1700s, due to a growing middle class with more
leisure time to read and money to buy books. Public interest in the human character led to the
popularity of autobiographies, biographies, journals, diaries and memoirs.

English Novels
The early English novels concerned themselves with complex, middle-class characters
struggling with their morality and circumstances. "Pamela," a series of fictional letters written
in 1741 by Samuel Richardson, is considered the first real English novel. Other early
novelists include Daniel Defoe, who wrote "Robinson Crusoe" (1719) and "Moll Flanders"
(1722), although his characters were not fully realized enough to be considered full-fledged
novels. Jane Austen is the author of "Pride and Prejudice" (1812), and "Emma" (1816),
considered the best early English novels of manners.

Novels in the 19th Century

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elements — properly belong in this category. In the last decades of the century,
however, a shift toward realism occurred. Mark Twain's Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1883), a revival of the picaresque novel, is romantic in its
Mississippi River setting but realistic in its satirical attack on religious
hypocrisy and racial persecution.

By the end of the century Henry James had brought his moral vision and powers
of psychological observation to the novel in numerous works, including The
Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Spoils of Poynton (1897), and The Ambassadors
(1903). These novels are not only masterpieces of realism but also — in their
carefully crafted form, experimental point of view, and superb style — supreme
examples of the novel as a literary genre. A lesser figure, William Dean
Howells, realistically portrayed a marriage and divorce in A Modern Instance
(1882) and the newly rich classes in The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885).

Victorian Novels
The novel became established as the dominant literary form during the reign of
Queen Victoria of England (1837-1901). Victorian novelists portrayed middle-
class, virtuous heroes responding to society and learning wrong from right
through a series of human errors. Sir Walter Scott published three-volume
novels and ingeniously made them affordable to the general public by making
them available for purchase in monthly installments. This marketing tactic lead
to the writing innovation of sub-climaxes as a way to leave readers wanting
more each month. Notable Victorian authors include Charles Dickens,
considered the best English Victorian novelist, who wrote "A Christmas Carol"
(1843) and Lewis Carroll, (Charles Ludwidge Dodgson), who wrote "Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland" (1864) and "Through the Looking -Glass "(1871).

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Realism and Naturalism
The rise of industrialization in the 19th century precipitated a trend toward
writing that depicted realism. Novels began to depict characters who were not
entirely good or bad, rejecting the idealism and romanticism of the previous
genre. Realism evolved quickly into naturalism which portrayed harsher
circumstances and pessimistic characters rendered powerless by the forces of
their environment. Naturalist novels include "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852) by
Harriet Beecher Stowe, which was a major catalyst for the American Civil War;
"Tom Sawyer" (1876) and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1885), the
latter of which is considered the great American novel written by Mark Twain
(Samuel Langhorne Clemens).

Modern Novels
The 20th century is divided into two phases of literature - modern literature
(1900-1945) and contemporary literature (1945 to the present), also referred to
as postmodern. The characters in modern and contemporary novels questioned
the existence of God, the supremacy of the human reason, and the nature of
reality. Novels from this era reflected great events such as the Great Depression,
World War II, Hiroshima, the cold war and communism. Famous modern
novels include "To The Lighthouse" (1927) by English novelist and essayist
Virginia Woolf; "Ulysses" (1921), by Irish novelist and short story writer James
Joyce; "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1929), the most famous World War I
anti-war novel by German novelist and journalist Erich Maria Remarque and
"The Sound and the Fury" (1929) by American novelist and short story writer
William Faulkner , which depicts the decline of the South after the Civil War.

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Postmodern Novels
Realism and naturalism paved the way into postmodern surrealistic novels with
characters that were more reflective. The postmodern novel includes magical
realism, metafiction, and the graphic novel. It asserts that man is ruled by a
higher power and that the universe cannot be explained by reason alone.
Modern novels exhibit a playfulness of language, less reliance on traditional
values, and experimentation with how time is conveyed in the story.
Postmodern novels include: "The Color Purple" (1982) by Alice Walker; "In
Cold Blood" (1966) by Truman Capote; the non-fiction novel "Roots" (1976) by
Alex Haley; "Fear of Flying" (1973) by Erica Jong; and the leading magical
realist novel, "A Hundred Years of Solitude" (1967) by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez.

Conclusion:
The question of the relationship between history and fiction had been a pressing
one in discussions of English prose fiction at least since the end of the sixteenth
century when Sidney wrote his Apology for Poetry. From Sidney's day down to
at least the early eighteenth century, the discourse of history featured certain
elements of practice that suggested that fictional material would be tolerated
even within putatively “scientific” historical discourse or that fiction could be
used as a means of historical representation. These elements of practice
included sharp polemic; traditional material tolerated within historical texts
despite its fabulous character; gossip and hearsay; rhetorical battles with other
historians; the taste for strange things; the habit of telling history from the point
of view of a far from disinterested individual; and the capacity of certain
historical texts to press against the boundary between history and fiction. Thus
the seventeenth century was indeed, as Michael McKeon has argued, a time of

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“categorial instability,” and this unsettled state of affairs was reflected in both
fictional and historical discourse. I have shown that in the course of his career
as a writer Defoe produced works that participated in both of these discursive
formations, arguing, more specifically, that in presenting works initially situated
within the discourse of history he came to have a revolutionary impact upon
fictional discourse. As a result, Defoe's narratives played a key part in that
series of developments that eventuated in a shift in the horizon of expectations
of early modern readers that pointed toward the emergence of a discourse of the
novel.

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References:

Mayer, Robert. Conclusion - History and the Early English Novel.

“Novel: The Nineteenth Century.” Infoplease, Infoplease,

Stefan, Tracy. “History of the Novel.” Pen and the Pad, 10 Jan. 2019,
penandthepad.com/history-novel-6305937.html.