Essay - The Rise of the Novel Introduction the Purpose of This...

THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

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The purpose of this paper is to introduce and discuss "The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding," written by Ian Watt.

THE ***** OF THE NOVEL

The novel is in nothing so characteristic of our culture as in ***** way that it reflects ***** characteristic orientation ***** modern thought" (Watt 22). This is how Watt def*****es the novel that he discusses and picks apart in his book. Watt wrote t***** book in 1957, after studying the 18th century ***** for many years. He feels ***** wr*****ing of the three authors he discusses, Daniel *****, Samuel Richardson, ***** Henry Fielding, was influenced by broad changes in their society. To make his point, he says, "Defoe, ***** and Fielding were no doubt affected by the changes in the reading public of ***** time; but their works are surely more profoundly conditioned by the new climate of social and moral experience which they ***** their eighteenth-***** readers shared" (***** 7).

***** is an interesting thought, but it makes the reader wonder why later and even more significant "social and moral *****s" did not influence ***** novel even more. What about the period ***** the industrial revolution, which changed the world forever? Were ***** novels grittier ***** ***** more realistic than the novels ***** ***** 18th century? On the other hand, did we revert to romanticism during the Victorian era? Watt does ***** discuss these issues, but the book made me want to do more research, and discover what o*****r writers thought about later influences in novel writ*****g.

As one critic points out about Watt's rather rigid definition, "When he has finis*****d, we know that there were no novels written in seventeenth-century France. By definition. If you look at the ***** definition in detail, you will discover that ***** were never any novels written in Russia, ei*****r, and ***** there have been very few written ********** since the end of the Nineteenth Century" (Just).

He also believes that these three auth*****s in effect created the novel as a "new lit*****ry form." He says the term "novel" ***** not come into use until ***** end ***** the eighteenth century, and that before these three authors wrote this new fiction form, most fiction ***** romantic in nature. These new *****ists however, steeped their stories in realism, and ***** more representative of the current state of English society.

***** ***** novel were ***** merely because it saw life from the seamy side, it would only be an inverted rom*****ce; but in fact ***** surely attempts to portray all the varieties of human experience, and ***** merely those suited to one particular literary perspective: ***** novel's ***** ***** not reside in the kind ***** life it presents, but in ***** way ***** presents it" (Watt 11).

Therefore, Watt thinks one of the main tenants of ***** modern novel is realism, and how the authors ***** it. Cr*****ics often call "Don Quixote" a romance, ***** I found it more