Rise of the English Novel

What do we learn about life in the 18th century and how successfully does the writer convey this information whilst telling us a good story?

Literature of the Victorian Era was written for the upper class, with their values in mind, because it was the upper class who had the money to buy books and the time to read them.

Our cohort is nearing the end of its secondary education and therefore it is important that we reflect on the ways in which it has shaped our attitudes, values and beliefs. For example, over the past five years, we have read, analysed and evaluated various literary works such as novels, plays, poems and films in our English studies. These texts have expressed various ideologies, explored interesting themes and introduced us to fascinating characters. These elements have left a lasting impression on our attitudes, values and beliefs. In addition to this, English literary texts have provided us with historical knowledge as well as a thorough understanding of the role that aesthetic devices

American literature has evolved greatly from the Native Americans to 1870’s. American literature has changed, it teaches us how we have become more independent ourselves. The World on a Turtle’s Back, a myth, The Scarlet Letter, a book in a puritan setting, and A Rose for Emily is a southern gothic story. American literature would not be the same today without these forms of writing. The teachings from these are passed down generation to generation.

JAMES HURST Adapted from: Elements of Literature: Third Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 2003.

American literature has been evolving since the dawn of the Puritan exploration and colonization in the early 1600s. From John Smith's books and descriptions of Native American life to the revolutionary ideas of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, literature has had many forms and has taken many ideas across time to interpreted by scholars of today. The early Americans were very successful in creating a style of literature that has a complete web of genres to be examined, as well as some genres being sourced more than others. These distinctions only help to prove the diversity of American literature from 1607 to the present day.

In the 1600s, critics saw the increased production of books as a threat to society, because they feared that people would not be able to keep up and process the information at the same rate as it became available. Others feared that new books would outshine the classics, and as a result the society would plunge into a primitive state with masses of uncultured people. Ann Blair offers quite the opposite perspective in her article titled “Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload ca. 1550–1700,” where she demonstrates that the plethora of books, rather than numbing the minds, in reality cultivated new learning methods while making reading a more personal and intellectually stimulating experience.

What do we learn about life in the 18th century and how successfully does the writer convey this information whilst telling us a good story?

American literature at first was perceptibly a colonial writing by authors who were Englishmen. American writing began with the work of the English adventures and the colonists in the new world principally for the interest of readers in the mother country. The World War II which involved a vast majority of the world’s nations began in 1939 and lasted in 1949 (Meredith, pg. 67). This conflict led to a severe worldwide economic depression also referred to as The Great Depression in the decade preceding World War II. This condition caused many people to search for jobs in America. These concepts had a compelling force

The changes in social structures and classes meant that more people could be educated, thus, the audience for literature expanded. Realism often expressed the concerns of the middle class.

The gothic novel emerged during the late eighteenth century and the ‘Age of Enlightenment’, which emphasised rationality

Through the late 1700s and early 1800s, the period of Romanticism blossomed. “Romanticism” very loosely describes the era in which modern culture began to take shape. During the Romantic era, many advancements were made in all aspects of people’s lives and cultures. One aspect in particular has held great value even to this day. That aspect being the expansive amount of literature created during the era. The era of Romanticism had its name for a reason. It can be greatly attributed to the romantic style or genre of literature that defined the period. Romantic writers wove many tales of admiration, longing, and aspirations. They were fantastical, in a sense, and almost the antithesis of realism, even. Amidst the great breadth of literature

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.

Every country has its story and literature reflects the most important events that happened during a determinate period, and also, how people, politics, religion and the society in general developed during those periods. As I see it, literature, just as all forms of art, is a giant chronological picture that shows all the shades of a society in all its aspects. In this case, English literature, from 1660 to 1830 specifically, shows a great transformation from the beginning of the Restoration to the end of the Romanticism.