The genre of the novel appeared first in the 18th century with “Robinson Crusoe” (1719), Which featured several characteristics: a plain style, business-like to convey a world of commerce and middle-class life (people who had to work for a living) -> in this time a new kind of commercial society was taking place and the novel was its reflection -> realistic and secular -> life no longer organized in relation to God/religion like in the 17th century -> the very name “Kreutznaer” (meaning “the fool of the cross”) becomes Crusoe, losing a religious echo* and signifying a change in terms of class, social mobility, family and possessions -> story about someone making their way in the world rejecting the secure life of the father and the established order of society, advancing also materially through individual resources. [*There is still a worrying drift away from religion which means founding a new notion of identity and this generates anxiety, but also in the question of patriarchy in the relationship between Crusoe and his father but also with God the father (assessing independence).] Robinson Crusoe tells the story of a man being shipwrecked on an island, finding a companion in Man Friday, building a community and becoming a leader. there is a recurrent image in the fear of being swallowed by the sea (fear of being overwhelmed by chaos, of guilt, sexual anxiety or punishment), but also being drawn by it (restless, moving, like the individual in the era of growing trade and expansion) -> Crusoe building an economy through his resources and his management of men (becoming a leader of social discipline also through punishment). Implication of racial and colonial superiority -> Crusoe names the newcomer Man Friday, imposes his language and religious beliefs. Defoe’s second novel “Moll Flanders” (1722) describes the effects of this new economy again but also the complications, contradictions and limitations -> a young woman wants to make her way in life, she starts as a servant but her employers son makes her pregnant, she then has to fend for herself by stealing and selling her body, at the end adopting a religious tone -> gap between morality and the conduct of survival in this commercial society. Moll gets married but she must negotiate a role for herself in a male-dominated society. Defoe also wrote poetry, political pamphlets, economic and history works etc. -> new class of people that needed to be written into existence to affirm its presence among society.
Aphra Behn, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Tobias Smollett
New mercantile and commercial culture taking shape. Before Defoe, we had Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko” in the 17th century (1688) -> story of Oroonoko, the grandson of an African king who is in love with Imoinda, the daughter of the King's general. She is taken to the king’s harem and when he finds out that she’s in love with his grandson he sells her into slavery, while Oroonoko is captured by an English slaver. Oroonoko encourages the slaves to escape but he gets flogged. Accepting their hopeless fate, Oroonoko kills Imoinda, then he wants to kill himself too, but he gets imprisoned and executed. Defoe established a range of concerns that will become central in the genre of the novel (a relatable story), Behn narrates an exotic story belonging to the “imperial romance” (genre focusing on the relationship btw the English and other races, on the body and how it is a commodity that can be bought and sold, and the conduct of a “civilised” society towards the abuse of the human body). “Robinson Crusoe” includes episodes of cannibalism, but the English novel is essentially domestic-based (Britain as setting and focus on events within a family home). Samuel Richardson wrote “Pamela” (1740), “Clarissa” (1747-8), “Sir Charles Grandison” (1753- 4). Pamela can be described as a comedy where there is a servant girl who resists the advances of her employer and eventually becomes his wife (happy ending); Clarissa is a tragedy: story of a beautiful young woman encouraged by her family to marry a rich neighbor called Solmes, while at the same time being pursued by a rake called Lovelace. She decides to run off with Lovelace, but she is imprisoned in a brothel where he drugs and rapes her. She escapes but she can't come to terms with what she experienced and dies (also Lovelace dies in a duel with Clarissa's cousin). Pamela is about someone making her way in the world, even if there is a predatory male her fate is in her hands, because eventually there is financial prosperity and domestic security -> reward of the heroine with accommodation in civilized society through marriage BUT -> implication that Richardson recognizes that a woman that cannot have a career has to trade her physical attributes while resisting the knowledge that she is a commodity. Clarissa acknowledges the complexity of a woman's position in the marriage market but here the feelings and psychology of the characters are highlighted (also Lovelace’s, who is caught between the desire for seduction and revulsion at his own moral corruption) -> decreasing importance of the church -> individuals made their own choices. Other writers chose to ignore the existence of individual inward complexity -> Henry Fielding wrote “Shamela” (1741), a direct parody of Pamela featuring a heroine who manipulates her honor to secure a husband. in Fielding’s novels he resisted the new way of looking at life, ignoring the conflicting elements within the mind and letting people be judged based on general social or moral truths, defending traditional views and values -> “Tom Jones” (1749), starts with Tom being found as a baby by Squire Allworthy, then he falls in love with his niece Sophia Weston, then he starts a relationship with Molly Seagrim who gets him expulsed from the Squire’s house. He leaves for London and begins an affair with Lady Bellaston. At the end it’s discovered that Tom is the son of Allworthy’s sister Bridget and therefore hair to the estate and now he can marry Sophia -> Main character assumes the place that’s his by right in the traditional order (there are a series of sexual escapades but they have no psychological or moral implications for the characters -> traditional comedy: people can go astray but everything will sort itself out in the end). Another novel is “Tristram Shandy” (1759- 67) by Laurence Sterne, which Analyzes the narrative conventions in the story taking interest in human psychology while also constructing a new way of thinking -> autobiography of Tristram with a disruption of the linear pattern, starting before Tristram's birth, many digressions, out of sequence chapters, innovative uses of black pages when a death occurs, deconstruction of how novels narrate people's lives BUT cult of sensibility, focus on emotions and their importance in building civilized society. Tobias Smollett, a Scotsman, wrote “Roderick Random” (1748) -> Roderick qualifies as a surgeon's mate but lacks money for the bribe that could secure him a Commission in the Navy, he is seized by a press gang and forced into service as a common sailor but becomes the surgeon’s mate on the ship. returning to England he is shipwrecked and then robbed but eventually he meets a wealthy trader, Don Roderigo, who turns out to be his father -> story about a young man setting out on a journey and making his way in life (like Robinson Crusoe) but the ending gives the journey a circular shape -> voyage not necessary. use of the picaresque: form of narrative in which the hero wanders and falls into traps -> no interest in the hero’s state of mind but in the harsher aspects of mercantile economy in the 18th century, brutality (also of medical treatment), inhumanity, corrupt authority, appalling living conditions, focus on tensions in the social construct and no offer of a sense of national unity, also apparent in the violence and rage of the language.
From Eliza Haywood to Mary Shelley
Novels in this century reflected the tensions between commercial economy that was exploiting people and how society was starting to establish new standards of polite behavior -> Refined standard of the emerging middle class and idea of human conduct -> Eliza Haywood moved from picaresque to domestic narratives of upper middle-class life. A common motif in the new fiction of the 18th century was the respectability of the middle class defined by stating the difference from the villainous upper class. Other novelists were Frances Sheridan, Charlotte Lennox, Fanny Burney. This latter wrote “Evelina” (1778), “Cecilia” (1782) -> both novels feature a main character trying to negotiate a position for herself in the dynamic and cruel Society of late 18th century, who wants to fulfill herself but at the same time must keep a ladylike decorum. Burney wants to help construct a social code of civilized values for a commercial society dominated by male values -> Through the cult of sensibility in the new domestic order which had no place for traditional masculine aggression, male personality was softened and refined -> Henry MacKenzie wrote the sentimental novel “The man of feeling” (1771) about Harley setting off to find his fortune but being vulnerable by nature he is duped by scoundrels and cheats. However, he must be admired for his gentleness and sympathy for others. similar novels: Samuel Richardson’s “Sir Charles Grandison”, Sterne’s “a sentimental journey” (1768) which simultaneously mocks and celebrates this sentimental behavior. these novels have an emphasis on finer feelings, moral stance and they stray away from the world and reality -> similar to gothic fiction popular from the 1760s to the 1820s (plot dealing with mystery and suspense, fantastic and supernatural, cruelty and terror: H. Walpole, C. Smith, Ann Radcliffe, M.G. Lewis, Fanny Burney’s “The Wanderer”, reflecting also on the French Revolution with a tyrannical regime, oppressed victims and punishment for transgression). Mary Shelley wrote “Frankenstein” (1818), about victor Frankenstein inventing a monster who is benevolent but is loathed and feared eventually turn in its good nature to hatred and destroying its creator and his bride -> two realities, the public one dominated by language and law, and the private one, secret and incommunicable, existing outside society and language (monster and his creator). Gothic novels of the early 19th century focus on characters excluded from or clashing with society (often linked with feminism), society is examined from the outside and challenged by the outside and conflicted individual.
Walter Scott and Jane Austen
Romantic period: from 1780 to 1820, many dissenting voices. Scott was a popular novelist and poet, in 1814 he published “Waverley” (Scottish based novel). His novels deal with the time of change, with social formations clashing, with transition (especially from an aggressive masculine culture to a more restrained and feminized culture), with the changes imposed by the English in the traditional, clan-based fighting life of the Scots. Jane Austen focuses on the relationships of everyday life of a small group of people in the property-owning middle class. Polite voice of polite society with wit and teasing irony -> “Emma” follows the development and moral growth of the heroine, she lives with her father and their governess who leaves to marry neighbor Mr. Weston, and Emma acts as a matchmaker making a protégée of Harriet Smith. George Knightley, a friend of the family, disapproves of Emma's manipulative behavior. Emma believes that she is in love with Mr. Weston's son Frank Churchill, but eventually realizes that she always assumed Knightley would marry her, and when she finds out that Frank is already engaged, she re-examines her conduct and decides to behave better, and eventually marries Knightley -> Emma matures from being vein and insensitive to behaving according to the code of conduct of polite society -> seemingly a static writer, Austen actually writes in the Industrial Revolution, where this house-based order of life was falling apart. In “Emma” the social hierarchy stays intact, and Austen defends the position of people who used to be social newcomers against a new wave of social newcomers, but she's also anxious in the way she shows how one social formation is under threat and yielding to another -> social and economic transition -> apparent also in “Mansfield Park”: Bertram family, Fanny Price, Lady Bertram's niece, goes to live with the family and becomes friend with Edmund Bertram, but his sisters Maria and Julia want to humiliate her. While Sir Bertram is away in the West Indies, Mansfield Park is visited by Henry and Mary Crawford, and they push the sisters to become less restrained; Maria marries Mr. Rushworth and then elopes with Henry Crawford, Julia also elopes. Mary then convinces Edmund not to become a clergyman and he marries Fanny -> Mansfield Park represents an old way of life under threat both from outside and inside, but the Bertram family doesn't have the energy to defend it against the Londoners Henry and Mary Crawford -> sexual restraint collapses, forces of change too powerful to be controlled.
