Aphra Behn and the Changing Perspectives on Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel
Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel (1957) remains one of the most influential texts in the study of the English novel. However, an increasingly strong case for a revision of both the work itself and the discourse it personifies has been gradually building over the past twenty years. While the initial stages of, first, feminist and, later, post colonial perspectives may have sought only to insert marginalised texts into the existing literary discourse, their long term ramifications are obliging a wider analysis of how we approach the English novel and the manner in which we link it to its surrounding culture. Its exploration reveals the methods with which we trace
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In clarifying this Watt shaped the manner in which literary studies examined the relations between the novel and the shifting face of English culture from the eighteenth century onwards. He provided the primary map from which to survey it as the mouthpiece of a nation undergoing the huge social, technological and economic changes which altered a largely agricultural society ruled by a landed aristocracy into a democratic, industrial empire, supported by a vast network of trade and production.
In particular The Rise of the Novel placed considerable importance on the way the genre “altered the centre of gravity sufficiently to place the middle class as a whole in a dominating position for the first time” (Watt, p.48). In the exploration of this Watt championed the Defoe/Richardson/Fielding lineage that continues to permeate literary historicism. This was not necessarily ground breaking, and Watt never claimed it to be so. As Margaret Reeves argues, he willingly “locates his work within an existing tradition of literary-historical knowledge” (p.26). Watt’s success, as Paul Hunter argues, was the manner in which he annunciated such a history in a manner plausible, workable and accessible. Hunter writes;
What most students of English literature liked best about Watt was its simple formation of the early history of the novel; it offered a
Thomas C. Foster in ‘How to Read Literature like a Professor’, references the different literary devices that authors use in literature, in order to enhance the reader’s ability to critically analyze literature from any time period. Foster expands the reader’s understanding of literature by exploring the profound impact of symbols and common themes on literature.
Kathryn Hume’s article depicts her analysis the Time Machine portrays, by structuring the ideologies within the novel with different connections with symbols and relationships between Wells’s future prediction of the Victorian Era. She begins to with “public ideologies of power, size, and gender.” Focusing on power, body size, and gender, she explains why the Time Traveller considers himself superior towards the new civilization. She suggests this stems from the strength, of “technological know-how,” that the “so-called inferior races had no choice” but to comply. “His strength, technological know-how, and culture elevate him in his mind.” (Hume 203) Comparing the Time Traveller to the “other nineteenth-century Britons” it give more insight
The value of literature delineates an opportunity for humanity to achieve collective growth. The intellectual capability of both individuals and communities are affected by the importance assigned to literary works. Lack of such regard results in a limited capacity for sociological cohesion consequently shaping the discourse of an era. Austen inadvertently expresses the minimal regard for written material in her society through Pride and Prejudice. The exclamation “there is no enjoyment like reading!” highlights the passion felt for such an activity. However, this desire can be attributed to discourse. Austen exhibits this through the cultural expectation that a woman “must have thorough knowledge”, furthered by the dialogue of gaining cognizance
The beginning part of a novel is one of the most important parts, as it sets the stage for what’s to come for the remainder of the novel. Thus, it is imperative for authors to address significant aspects in the beginning of their novels, which is an idea that is exemplified by both works by Hurston and Austen. In the two novels, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston and Pride and Prejudice by Austen, the opening sentences shape meaning to the novels by foreshadowing the eminent events of the novels and using figurative language to emphasize the importance of the polarized views and ideas of men and women that enflame the conflict throughout the novels.
“Historical Fiction.” Facts On File Companion to the British Novel: 20th Century, vol. 2. 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online.
JAMES HURST Adapted from: Elements of Literature: Third Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 2003.
To most, Pride and Prejudice is a work of romance and social satire; an apex in wit and dialogue. There are no spectres at Pemberley nor is there an insatiable tyrant or haunted castle at Derbyshire. However, there is a sense of fear amongst many of the characters. The houses are often large and hiding a painful secret. And love, at least between a few, transcends the boundary into the supernatural; or at least has elements thereof. Contrary to its popular, and overly common, definition and perception, I will argue that Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (hereon referred to as P&P) is an established piece of Gothic fiction, as it
From start to finish, English this year had been unlike any other I had. From start to finish, each and every book had a deeper meaning than I, before, could possibly resolve from the text. The exposure I had to this deeper level of thinking forever changed the way I see literature. Less about “what” than “why”, Literature distinguishes a meaningful story from another. While what makes a book “good” is different for everyone, what makes a story meaningful is what it teaches. Each book I read this year had a story and logic behind it. Every story was real enough to have actually happened because the plot points are supported with real speculation backed up by the nature of humanity. I, personally, have never gone as deep into literature as I have this year, giving me a new appreciation for the genius behind the speculation these books present.
Austen has set out to save the rising art form of the novel. In this address to the reader she glorifies what a novel should be: the unrestrained expression of words conveying the wide range of raw human emotion. This veneration of the novel is necessary to the development of Catherine's fiction-loving character as it justifies the narrator's right to remain fond of this flawed heroine.
The first way to ascertain that Austen is commenting on the social debate around novels is the fact that Austen explicitly mentions it through the use of the intrusive narrator, defined in Baldick’s The Oxford Dictionary of
1.It is significant that Woolf’s essay is partly fictional, for it shows her greater knowledge of her writing, as she was a woman herself writing fiction. She does not write completely in non-fictional mode, as to not stay biased to her views and experiences, yet to allow the readers to have an open imagination on where the events that had happened at “Oxbridge” could also take place.
Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular novels written by Jane Austen. This romantic novel, the story of which revolves around relationships and the difficulties of being in love, was not much of a success in Austen's own time. However, it has grown in its importance to literary critics and readerships over the last hundred years. There are many facets to the story that make reading it not only amusing but also highly interesting. The reader can learn much about the upper-class society of this age, and also gets an insight to the author's opinion about this society. Austen presents the high-society of her time from an observational point of view, ironically describing human behavior. She describes what she sees and adds her own
As Austen's narrative strategies are analysed, one is closer to revealing the reasoning behind her immense success as a novelist.
The novel is distinguished from the long narratives in verse of Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton which, beginning with eighteenth century, the novel has increasingly supplanted. Within these limits the novel includes such diverse works as Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy; Jane Austen’s Emma
The sun of the Eighteenth century shines brilliantly on the era of British wealth and power, filling every part of great British life with pride and confidence. British literature, no longer stoic and medieval is revitalized and reclassified. As in the early Renaissance days Restoration authors think highly of Classical literature. Unlike their predecessors however, they are freer with classical style and prose. In one such restoration work, patterned after early Greek and Roman Cynics, author Jonathan Swift Calls the British Isles to action with an unprecedented solution to the problem of poverty; and exemplifies neoclassical literature in satirical style, sordid subject, and solid structure.