HISTORY
OF NOVEL
‘The
Periodical Essay’ and ‘NOVEL’ these two new genres are emerged in the 18th
century Both of these forms, especially ‘Novel’, caught the spirit of the
eighteenth century as the age of intellectual, sentimental and realistic plane
and tried to instruct the readers. Today novel is the most dominant literary
genre.
What
is a Novel?
A
Novel is a relatively long narrative fiction which describes intimate human
experiences normally in a prose form.
The
present English word ‘novel’ is
derived from the Italian ‘novella’, meaning ‘new’.
Novel
as a literary genre has a history of about two thousand years.
The
early precursors of novel:
A collection
of tales known as Greek Romances dating from the second to sixth century may
top the list. Though novel in the modern era usually makes use of a literary
prose the earlier threads of the genre can be found in Virgil’s Ecologues or
Malory’s ‘Morte De Arthur’ or Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’.
Ø Lady
Murasaki Shikibu’s ‘Tale of Genji’ (1010) - the world’s first novel.
Ø The
first European novel -‘Don Quixote’ by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes which
was published in two parts between 1605 and 1615.
In the 18th
century,
the appearance of newspaper and
magazines attracted a large number of readers from the middle class.
After 1740, Novel originated as
the literary form in England. Increase in trade and commerce, along
with the Industrial Revolution, gave rise to the middle class. A class of
people had emerged to occupy an elite status. The realistic picture of everyday
life and problems of common people depicted in the novels appealed to the newly
educated class and was regarded by them as respectable reading material.
Thus, novel as a form appeared to have been designed for both-to voice the
aspirations of the middle and lower classes and meet their longings.
The advent of machines provided
time to the newly formed educated middle class to indulge in reading and
discussions about the books. Drama and poetry were the two literary forms that
were fading away. Novel was the combination of some features of drama and poetry;
some new more features were added. It became the prominent form in the
eighteenth century by encompassing the social, political and cultural
happenings and scientific progress.
‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ by John Bunyan (1678) and ‘Oroonoku’
by Aphra Behn (1688) initiated the plenteous and colourful tradition of English
novel and was followed by Daniel Defoe ( Robinson Crusoe, Mall Flanders), and
Jonathan Swift (‘Gulliver’s Travels’ - a famous satire). Other major novelists
of 18th century
are Samuel Richardson, (‘Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded’ and ‘Clarissa,’ both
epistolary novels), Henry Fielding, Lawrence Sterne and Tobias Smollett. The
tradition was enriched by many other stalwart novelists such as Charles
Dickens, Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Horace Walpole, Thomas Hardy,
Willkie Collins and H.G. Wells. The 20th
century is marked by the modern topics and innovative styles
and techniques and widened angles of the views by the novelists like E.M.
Forster, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, George Orwell, Graham Greene,
D.H. Lawrence, William Golding and Anthony Burgess. They
widened the circumference of the genre by writing political, social,
psychological and other modern issues in their novels. There are immigrant
authors like Salman Rushdie (India), V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad), Kazuo Ishigura
(Japan) and many others.
The
contribution of women novelists: The novel of manners ‘Evelina’ by Frances Burney, Gothic
novels by Ann Radcliffe, a novel based on Science of the age ‘Frankenstein’ by
Mary Shelley are landmark novels. Jane Austen has been ruling over the minds of
the people through her novels. Bronte sisters Emily and Charlotte have created
their own place by their incomparable works ‘The Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Jane
Eyre’. Mary Ann Evans alias George Eliot wrote the novels reflecting
psychological insight. Virginia Woolf is the pioneer of the Stream of
Consciousness technique in English novel. Agatha Christie created her own place
by writing many novels based on crime. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are the
evergreen detectives created by her. Harper Lee, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison
and Alice Walker have elevated the tradition further to prosperity.
Indian Scenario :
‘Rajmohan’s Wife’, by Bankim
Chandra Chattopadhyaya serialized in ‘The Indian Field’ is the first novel in
English written by an Indian.
Mulkraj Anand, R.K. Narayan and
Raja Rao were the major trio who prevailed in the period after that.
Novelists like Anita Desai,
Nayantara Sahgal and Arun Joshi and Manohar Malgaonkar uplifted and revolutionized
Indian English novel through their works.
Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth and Upamanyu
Chatterjee ameliorated the Indian novel in English by adding new features to
it. Recent years have witnessed the dazzling performance by Indian novelists
like Salman Rushdie, Arvind Adiga, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and
Kiran Nagarkar. The tradition of Indian English novel, since its inception, has
registered a marked shift exhibiting global concerns.
Novella:
Novella, the
word originated from the Italian word ‘novelle’, is a type of narrative prose
fiction which is shorter than a full length novel and longer than a short
story. It is a short narrative, often satiric or realistic in tone. It usually
focuses on one incident or issue with one or two main characters and takes
place at a single tradition. Some of the famous novellas in English are -
• ‘The Heart of
Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad
• ‘The Turn of
the Screw’ by Henry James
• ‘Billy Budd’
by Hermann Melville
• ‘Death in
Venice’ by Thomas Mann
• ‘Seize The
Day’ by Saul Bellow
•
‘Pearl’ by John Steinbeck
Elements of Novel/ Novella
There are six elements essential of
‘Novel’ or “Novella’.
1. Theme
2. Plot
3. Character
4. Setting
5. Conflict
6. Language / Style:
Types of Novel
1. Realistic Novel
2. Picaresque Novel:
The word ‘picaresque’
is originated from the Spanish word ‘picaro,’ which means a rogue.
3. Historical Novel:
4. Epistolary Novel:
The word ‘epistolary’
derives from the Latin word ‘epistola,’ which means a letter. The epistolary
novel is that in which the writer presents the narrative through a series of
correspondence or other documents.
5. Gothic Novel:
The novels that include
terror, mystery, horror, thriller, supernatural, doom, death or decay or
haunted buildings are called the Gothic novels.
6. Autobiographical Novel
7. Allegorical Novel
8. Utopian/ Dystopian Novel:
Utopia is an imaginary
community or society possessing the ideal qualities.
9. Psychological Novel
10. Stream of Consciousness Novel:
Stream of consciousness
is a phrase coined by William James in his treatise ‘Principles of Psychology.’
(1890).
11. ‘Bildungsroman’ Novel:
The German word
‘bildungsroman’ indicates growth.
In
the first half of the 20th
century a cult
of ‘pulp magazines’ became popular in which
fantastic fiction for the general entertainment of the masses was printed on
the cheap pulp paper. The pulp fiction era provided a building ground for the
detective novels and science fiction.
Science fiction
is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as
futuristic setting, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time
travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often
explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations. ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelly (1823)
is considered the first novel
based on science and technology. The genre flourished in the
second half of the 19th century
Detective
fiction is a subgenre of crime
fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective-either
professional or amateur-investigates a crime, often a murder.
