The rise of the novel

Materie:	Appunti
Categoria:	Inglese
Download:	552
Data:	08.06.2007
Numero di pagine:	2
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

THE RISE OF THE NOVEL. The world novel meant a prose fiction which was new not only because it was original but also because it reported recent events of news. The novel portrays characters of the novel exist within the parameters of ordinary life, and their actions remain within the range of our everyday experience. The rise of the modern novel in this century was due to the following factors: 1) the influence of the philosophical realism which focused attention on the individual, who could discover truth through his own senses and personal experience. 2) the influence of Methodism which taught the individual, the values of everyday routine life, the importance of work, daily activity and the possibility of saving oneself through faith and personal effort. 3) the growth of the reading public and particularly women readers. This growth was due partly to the diffusion of newspapers, and partly to the increasing affluence of the middle class, which could wow afford many and more expensive books. 4) the growing demand for novel after the creation of circulating libraries. 5) the influence of earlier picaresque narrative. THE REALISTIC NOVEL: the growth of the novel-reading public brought about a series of changes both in the reader-writer relationship and the purpose and structure of the novel itself. The writer began to write to please his publisher, but, even more, to please a public of largely middle-class readers. Many of the latters wanted to read about things close to their own individual experience. Novelist began to reject conventional plots and the ancient, classical models, and look to reality for inspiration. Therefore, the novel became a picture of life, realistic, not only because of what it represented. But above all for how it presented it. The elements that characterized the 18th century realistic novel are the following: 1) “clock time” and “physical setting” began to be used. Time and place were made tangible through the use of precise details. 2) certain “communicating qualities” such as colour, size, solidity, extension and number, became of primary importance. 3) attention was focused not only on outdoor settings, but above all on interiors. 4) characters had actual names and surnames. 5) greater importance was given to money as a status symbol. 6) the conflict between “bourgeois” values, “chivalric” values and the “traditional gentleman’s” values was stressed. 7) a new type of protagonist developed, practical, self-made, self reliant who had a common sense and prudence.
FICTION: The world fiction comes from the Latin fictio, which means composition, pretence of invention. The main feature of novels and short stories is that they present people, facts and situations which are invented. In other words, they tell a story. People like stories.
THE NOVEL: A novel is a long narrative in prose in which fiction characters and events are represented as if they were true. The main language functions present in the novel form are narrative, description and dialogue. Narrative tells us what happened in the past. Description can relate to people, places, objects and states of mind. The most common ways of presenting characters talking are direct speech and indirect speech. But there are several variants of speech presentation. One is free direct speech, in which the reporting clause is omitted. And there is free indirect speech. It combines features of direct speech, like the use of informal language and interrogative structure, and features of indirect speech like the third person pronouns and the past tense.