The Novel

The Novel and other forms The germ of the novel lay in medieval romance, a fantastic tale of love and adventure, itself derived from the ballads and the fragments of epic poems sung by the wandering minstrel The term gradually came to signify a story in prose as distinguished from a story in verse. It is a very effective medium for the portrayal of human thought and action. Its Structure A novel has a plot, and to a great extent its characters reveal themselves and their intentions in dialogue. Story need not be symmetrical in exposition, crisis and denouncement. The novel has, no rigid framework, and authors have taken full advantage of the freedom this affords them. The modern novel has the tendency to subordinate action to psychology, to find the central theme in the mental and spiritual development of the characters rather than their physical adventures. As regards the local or regional setting, certain authors have almost marked out a territory of their own. It might also be possible to classify them to a certain extent by social setting.

Purpose and Teaching Every serious novel is sure to reveal the authors own view of life and its problems .In modern fiction we do not expect the author to interrupt his story from time to time and appear in his own person too point out the moral of the situation and justify or deplore the conduct of his characters. Any lesson the novelist wishes to teach is all the more impressive if it emerges from the story itself and the fortunes of its characters. In the hands of a writer of any skill, the effect may be tremendous. The Novel has firmly established itself as the most effective medium for social criticism and diagnosis.

Brief History : Beginnings

Several of the Elizabethans wrote prose works of fiction in a form related to that of the Novel.

Eighteenth Century Several literary development reached their climax in the first half of the eighteenth century and it was then that Novel acquired its modern form. The eighteenth- century novel, though firmly established by Richardson, was further developed by Henry Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, who all helped to popularize it as a form. Among the later novelists, Oliver Goldsmith deserves special mention for his brilliant studies in character and also for the easy intimate style which became a model for domestic fiction.

Nineteenth Century The nineteenth century saw the process of refinement carried a step further. Jane Austen affected the character of the novel by discarding a sensationalism which had come in the last half of the eighteenth century. Sir Walter Scott inaugurated the historical novel. His primary aim was to tell the story with all the picturesque details. With Charles Dickens, the Novel enters a new phase in its history. He was almost the first to evolve a more complex plot. He often incorporates the painful experiences of his youth his novels. He was supreme, as a painter of individual portraits. Humour and pathos and a deep sympathy for human nature colour his work. He used fiction as a platform for social reform by means of an absorbing story. Thackeray excelled in the novel of ideas, in which the plot is subordinated to the philosophy of life. His chief weapon was irony, and like other authors of his day he was not afraid to drive home a lesson even if he had to interrupt the action of the story. George Elliot widened the scope of the Novel to include the philosophical dissertations on current topics, particularly those dealing with religion, politics, and the social conventions. George Meredith is a satirist with a reformers purpose. Thomas Hardy has little in common with Meredith in either outlook or method. His characters are from the farmers and peasantry, and some of the gentlefolk. He had the art of revealing the innermost soul of his characters without doing violence in his narrative. The Novel took many new directions during the century. The political and social novel was practised by Charles Kingsley, Benjamin Disraeli and Anthony Trollope.

The novel of adventure and exploration was popularised by Sir Henry Rider Haggard and Sir Robert Louis Stevenson. The most important of the late Victorian Novelists, is Henry James, and with him, the emphasis is upon the manners and conventions of a narrow section of society. The Present Time The rapid changes caused by the two World Wars in social conditions have accelerated the development of the Novel. The leading Edwardians used traditional methods. But with the Georgians- It was a time of deliberate and conscious innovations, changed both the style and content of the Novel. The Edwardians were interested in portraying the external world as being revolutionised by the new discoveries of Science and the social changes .Georgians are , on the whole, more interested in exploring the subconscious recesses of the human mind. During the Last fifty years the scope of the Novel has widened to include every subject. It has to become a world influence through films and translations, and has become the most popular medium through which an author can reach an increasingly literate public.

The Novel in the Twentieth Century The anti-Romantic, anti-Victorian attitudes that provided an impetus to the modern movement in poetry had an equally energising effect on fiction. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Novel has been a public instrument focussing on what was significant to society as whole. The disappearance of all coherence in the early decades of the century due to social and political movements and upheavals was further compounded by the impact of the First World War. Other factors that influenced the redefinition of the novel relate to the contemporary vision of life and reality. The psychological theories of Freud and Jung also affected the technique of the Novel. Their theories showed that objective science can describe the irrational depths of man. These theories also affected point of view- an aspect of practical concern to the novelist. Point of view relates to the narrative mode established by the author to present characters and events. The most telling effect of the emphasis on consciousness was to shift the location of reality from external, social circumstances to the individual consciousness. The novels of Henry James (1843-1916) and Joseph Conrad (1857-1854) although worlds apart in terms of theme and content serve as the earliest indicators of change in fiction writing. Joseph Conrad turns his back on London drawing rooms and upper middleclass

society to bring us a whiff of the salt sea and distant lands through his novels. Books like Lord Jim (1900) In contrast to the interest in the hidden realities of the deep hearts core evinced by James and Conrad, a concern with the world of external realities, distinguishes the writings of Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) and H.G. Wells. The tradition of the realistic novel was continued by John Galsworthy in The Forsyte Saga, a series of four novels that appeared in the 1920s and that chronicles the fortunes of the Forsyte dynasty from Victorian times to modern years and the impact of political changes and advancement in technology on the life-style of the family. A variety of influences shaped James Joyces development as an artist, as perhaps the most authoritative and complex writer among the modernists. Dubliners is a collection of short stories providing the vignettes of Irish life. Ulysses is a more complete embodiment of the art for arts sake ideal that Joyce encountered earlier and elaborated in A Portrait. Joyces linguistic experiments are carried to the furthest limit in Finnegans Wake. Certainly the literary experiments of the writers of the Twenties make increasing demands on the reader. Virginia Woolfs novels are also meant for a diminishing audience of refined sensibilities, the select few who can understand what newness in fiction is all about. The stylistic boldness of Joyce and Woolf is matched by the daring of another sort by D.H. Lawrence. Lawrence rejected the cerebral experimentation of the times and emphasised instead the importance of an instinctual approach to the business of the novel writing The experimental tendencies of 1920s and 1930s seemed to have exhausted themselves by the end of the Second World War. Graham Greenes writing career, almost exactly contemporaneous with Waughs, yielded a different kind of novelistic fare. The swing towards realism is further confirmed by the works of L.P.Hartley, C.P.Snow and Anthony Powell. The contribution of Joyce Cary to realistic trend is no less important. The anti-intellectual stance was proclaimed more aggressively by writers of The Movement who also belong to the 1950s. The experimental tendency, however reasserts itself in the works of Lawrence Durrell and William Golding to provide a more substantial contribution to fiction. Goldings novels The Lord of the Flies, 1954; Pincher Martin , 1956 restore fable to a place in English fiction. The post-war years also saw a number of publications by women writers. The examples of Muriel Spark, Iris Murdoch and Margaret Drabble will go to show the futility of attempting to attach a single descriptive label to women writers. Sparks is a highly original talent, that has affiliations with both the wit of Waugh and the vision of Greene.

Iris Murdochs also has the recourse of the improbable and fantastic in her novels. This makes the reader unsure of the level of reality in her novels. In contrast to Murdochs intellectual interests, Doris Lessing brings to the fore a preoccupation rooted in earthy social realities. The feminist theme is central to Margaret Drabble. Other Feminist writers who command interest are Edna OBrien, Elizabeth Bown, A.S. Byatt and Penelpe Mortimer- to name only a few. They have written about the real grievances of women with lucidity.