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Perceptions of the 18th Century Novel in Ian Watt’s Book, The Rise of The Novel

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Perceptions of the 18th Century Novel in Ian Watt’s Book, The Rise of The Novel

The eighteenth century novel was one that changed the way novels were written in many different ways. In reading Ian Watt's book, "The Rise of The Novel," quite a few things were brought to my attention concerning the eighteenth century novel; not only in how it was written and what went into it, but how readers perceived it. This essay will look into Ian Watt's perceptions on the eighteenth century novel and how it changed from previous literature.

Coming out of the Renaissance and Jacobean ages, the novel was characterized by "realism", with the term "novel" not really being used until the end of the eighteenth century. This realism was not defined …show more content…

With the novel, the characters were named using both given and surname so as to suggest them as particular individuals, breaking traditional form but adding to the reality of the character. Personal identity, where "the individual was in touch with his own continuing identity through memory of his past actions." (21 ) was also important in that it individualized characters using the background of a particular time and place. The novel, unlike past literature, now used past experience as the cause of present action, insisting on time whereas in mediaeval and renaissance literature the action was usually restricted to a 24-hour period in a general and vague place. Lastly, but still significant, the adoption of prose style was used oftentimes to give a feeling of authenticity to a work, trying to make it seem to be "an authentic account of the actual experiences of individuals." (27) Whereas previous literature concerned itself with the extrinsic, the novel concerns itself with the intrinsic, becoming greatly detailed in words but lacking somewhat in formal conventions.

Not only for the differences in plot (for what little plot there was), character and writing style, but because of the reading audience of the eighteenth century was the novel a great success.

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