THE RISE OF
THE NOVEL
The world
novel meant a prose fiction which was new not only because it was original but
also because it reported recent events of news. The novel portrays characters
of the novel exist within the parameters of ordinary life, and their actions
remain within the range of our everyday experience. The rise of the modern
novel in this century was due to the following factors: 1) the influence of the
philosophical realism which focused attention on the individual, who could
discover truth through his own senses and personal experience. 2) the influence
of Methodism which taught the individual, the values of everyday routine life,
the importance of work, daily activity and the possibility of saving oneself
through faith and personal effort. 3) the growth of the reading public and
particularly women readers. This growth was due partly to the diffusion of
newspapers, and partly to the increasing affluence of the middle class, which
could wow afford many and more expensive books. 4) the growing demand for novel
after the creation of circulating libraries. 5) the influence of earlier
picaresque narrative. THE REALISTIC NOVEL: the growth of the novel-reading
public brought about a series of changes both in the reader-writer relationship
and the purpose and structure of the novel itself. The writer began to write to
please his publisher, but, even more, to please a public of largely
middle-class readers. Many of the latters wanted to read about things close to
their own individual experience. Novelist began to reject conventional plots
and the ancient, classical models, and look to reality for inspiration.
Therefore, the novel became a picture of life, realistic, not only because of
what it represented. But above all for how it presented it. The elements that
characterized the 18th century realistic novel are the following: 1)
"clock time" and "physical setting" began to be used. Time and place were made
tangible through the use of precise details. 2) certain "communicating
qualities" such as colour, size, solidity, extension and number, became of
primary importance. 3) attention was focused not only on outdoor settings, but
above all on interiors. 4) characters had actual names and surnames. 5) greater
importance was given to money as a status symbol. 6) the conflict between
"bourgeois" values, "chivalric" values and the "traditional gentleman's" values
was stressed. 7) a new type of protagonist developed, practical, self-made,
self reliant who had a common sense and prudence.
FICTION:
The world fiction comes from the Latin fictio,
which means composition, pretence of invention. The main feature of novels and
short stories is that they present people, facts and situations which are
invented. In other words, they tell a story. People like stories.
THE NOVEL:
A novel is a long narrative in prose in which fiction characters and events are
represented as if they were true. The main language functions present in the
novel form are narrative, description and dialogue. Narrative tells us what
happened in the past. Description can relate to people, places, objects and
states of mind. The most common ways of presenting characters talking are
direct speech and indirect speech. But there are several variants of speech
presentation. One is free direct speech, in which the reporting clause is
omitted. And there is free indirect speech. It combines features of direct
speech, like the use of informal language and interrogative structure, and
features of indirect speech like the third person pronouns and the past tense.
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