Novel
A Definition and a brief history
Definition
The term 'novel' is most often used now to describe the codex form of a story, most often fiction, and considered of greater length than any short story, spanning to epic lengths.
Given the definition by Merriam-Webster, in the second term (the first being of the derivative adjective describing something new)
"novel" consists of a rather base delineation:
"..
- Main Entry:
- 2novel
- Function:
- noun
- Etymology:
- Italian novella
- Date:
- 1639
1 : an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events 2 : the literary genre consisting of novels
"
History
The novel, in it's most recognizeable form, came about with the rise of the
moveable type printing press beginning in 1439, a Latin typeface permanent adaptation of the Chinese movable type methods. Beforehand, most texts were equated to the value of a whole farm because of the work required to create but one text.
Such technology, however simple in modern perspective, created a whole new economic sector based on printing, to fill a demand by a growing upper middle class coupled with a growing literacy rate.
While intended for important works like religious texts, political pamphlets and historical accounts, most of the newly literate population turned towards entertainment in the form of reading. Out of this thirst, fables, romance novels, folk tales, and a number of other short stories came out in
chapbooks, made popular in the sixteenth century.
In retort to the continuing entertainment industry in England, new novels began being published to review morality in current literature. Morality novels became a dominant (and highly monopolized) commodity to combat an immoral, French romance novel from entering English society. Most notably in 1740 was the novel
Virtue Rewarded otherwise known as
Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson. This book marked the beginning of the shift toward the modern novel, although initially it caused much controversy. "Virtue Rewarded" is also a subtitle used for a collection of plays, novels and short stories from the 18th and 19th centuries that summarizes or points to a particular moral lesson that is supposed to be drawn from the said literary work. This push and pull of economic and moral forces for the novel continued on, and can still be seen in some parts of the literary world today.
Nearing the 1900s genres other than realism, romance, gothic romance and sensibility novels came about, with the French still focusing on soft eroticism, Spanish clinging to the
roman a clef novel, the Germans creating novels of crime and punishment, and the English readers looking towards a wider range, including newly fantasized science fiction novels and adventure novels.
Separation of high and low production
The market for novels in the nineteenth century was clearly separated into "high" and "low" production. The new high production can best be viewed in terms of national traditions. The low production was organized rather by genres in a pattern deriving from the spectrum of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century genres.
1. The novel as a literary production, promoted by critical discourse
| Spanish Literature |
French Literature |
German Literature |
English Literature |
...by language and nation |
2. Popular Fiction, not promoted by criticism
1
The modern roman à clef (a recent example is Primary Colors) |
2
Sex, including soft "romantic" pornography for the female audience |
3
Historical settings (the tradition of heroic romances), crime (the tradition of the seventeenth century novel) |
4
Adventure, science fiction |
5
Espionage, conspiracy |
The position of authors attained its modern form with the establishment of this pattern. The modern author can either aim at a broad market or write with an eye to serious critical discussion. The borders between the realms have developed differently in different nations. While this modern market divide came relatively late to the English-speaking world, Germany and France had an earlier and much stronger interest in creating national literatures — France in the wake of the French Revolution, Germany during its mid-19th century unification. Both of these nations experienced a division between high literature — that is, the literature of rulingsocial group,[3] discussed in schools and newspapers, and celebrated in public life — and a low production — not worthy to be mentioned in such circles — while the vast commercial market of the English-speaking world still resisted this artificial divide.
The novel proved to be a medium for a communication both intimate (novels can be read privately whereas plays are always a public event) and public (novels are published and thus become a matter touching the public, if not the nation, and its vital interests), a medium of a personal point of view which can get the world into its view. New modes of interaction between authors and the public reflected these developments: authors giving public readings, receiving prestigious prizes, giving interviews in the media and acting as their nations' consciences. This concept of the novelist as public figure arose in the course of the nineteenth century.
Genres of the novel
References
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