Introduction to English Novel

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The NovelA Short Course for English 1302

Students

Central Texas CollegeDr. Brenda Cornell

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Definition

A novel is loosely defined as a long work offictional prose (Roberts and Jacobs 1622).Kennedy and Gioia add the desire of the novelistto create a sense of reality (298).

In other words, a novel encompassesplot,theme, character, setting, point of viewall of

the fictional elements of a short story.

The major difference is its length.

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Beginnings

The novels beginning dates from 16th and 17thcentury Spain, Italy, and France.

These romances were largely concerned with

adventure (Roman is the French word meaningnovel.)

In England, writers borrowed the term novelfrom the French and Italian writers, in order to

describe these works and to distinguish themfrom the medieval and classical works;something that was new (novel), in otherwords.

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Beginnings (continued)

In America, Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his

preface to The House of the Seven Gables

(1851), limited the scope of the novel not

merely to the possible, but to the probable

and ordinary course of [mans]

experience. Yet Hawthorne named his

own early novels as romances for theirother-wordly qualities (an example is The

Scarlet Letter).

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Verisimilitude

Many novelists have been concerned with the aura ofpossibility they have tried to createto the extent ofinvention of various devices designed to persuade thereader that the work is based on truth. References to

real people and real events are used.

Max Apples 1987 novel, The Propheteers, includes asmajor characters Walt Disney, Howard Johnson, C. W.Post, and Clarence Birdseye. Apple mixes historical factwith creative invention; the result is strange enough toseem actually true.

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Epistolary Novels

Many early novels were written in the form of letters. An

early English novel, Pamela (1740), was written by

Samuel Richardson, who wanted to portray a story that

emerged from real documents.

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A modern epistolary novel

The Color Purple (1982), by Alice Walker,

narrates the struggles of Celie through

letters to her sister and letters to God.

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Nonfiction Novel

Popular in the 1960s

Author presents actual people and events

in story form

Examples:

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood Norman Mailer, The Executioners Song

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Historical Novel

A detailed retelling of life in another time

period and perhaps another place

History is often an exciting background for

stories of love and heroic adventure

Reflects a striving for historical truth

f

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Examples of Historical Novels

(American)

Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Melville, Moby Dick

Crane, The Red Badge of CourageMitchell, Gone With the Wind

Hemingway,A Farewell to Arms and For

Whom the Bell Tolls Faulkner,A Fable

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Apprenticeship Novel

(Bildungsroman)

Novel of growth and

development; portrays

the adventures of a

young person struggling

toward maturity

Example: James Joyce,

A Portrait of the Artist as

a Young Man

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Picaresque Novel

A loose, rambling

succession of adventures

that happen to a likeable

scoundrel, who lives by

his wits and loves to foolthe ordinary people.

Example: Mark Twains

The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn

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Roman a clef

From the French, meaning novel with a key,this type of story presents real people andevents thinly disguised. Hemingway scholarscontend that all of Hemingways novels have thistrait, to some extent.

Examples include:

Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Fitzgerald, Tender is the NIght

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Conclusion

As the newest genre of written literature,

the novel has an excellent future. Each

year, new novels continue to appear by

the thousandsindeed, something forevery readers taste. In turn, many are

adapted into film, to reach a still more

numerous and varied audience.

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Works Cited

Kennedy, X. J. and Dana Gioia. Literature: anIntroduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 8thedition. NY: Longman, 2002.

Roberts, Edgar V. and Henry E. Jacobs.Literature: an Introduction to Reading andWriting. 6th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 2001.

Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel. Berkeley:Univ. of California Press, 1974.