Eighteenth Century Novel
1.
The chief contribution of the 18th century to literature was the modern novel.
The novel is more widely read till date.
The novel in elementary form was first established by Bunyan and Defoe.
Bunyan’s works were more autobiographical.
He was more interested in himself and his times.
The Pilgrim's progress makes Bunyan the pioneer of English novels.
Defoe was another whose contribution to the novel is significant.
He was the real creator of autobiographical fiction as a work of art.
He was the first to create psychological interest in the character.
Defoe is also considered to be the creator of modern novels.
2.
But the real novel comes with Richardson’s Pamela in 1740.
it tries to say that a work of fiction which relates the story of human life.
The story is under the stress of emotions and interest which doesn't depend on incident or adventure but on the truth of nature.
Several novelists came up in the 18th century.
They all tried to present the picture of life.
The new middle class was rising. They were now coming into power.
These demanded a new type of literature where the value and the importance of individual life were portrayed.
Due to the spread of education, now the writers had a direct appeal to readers.
Now no more help was needed from the aristocratic class.
The novel now gave the ideas of personality and dignity of common life, this become the chief theme for the writers.
The novelist no more wrote about the lives of knights, princesses etc.
But on common life, living, pleasure and pain, thought and feelings.
Thus the novel become a popular form, as it reflected their lives.
3. Daniel Defoe (1661-1731)
Robinson Crusoe is one of the best works of Defoe.
Here he describes Alexander Selkirk who spends 5 years of his life in isolation.
Though a fiction Defoe has described with minute realism as an eyewitness.
His other works were Moll Flanders, Roxana etc.
These were picaresque novels. (at that time it was considered to be stories of rogues).
But it was also of unnatural moralising and repentance.
4. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)
Richardson was credited with the writing of the first modern novel Pamela; or, virtue rewarded.
It tells the story of a young girl her trials and her happy married life.
The life of the young girl is given in a very realistic manner.
Its psychological approach gave it as the first modern novel.
The novel gave a clear picture of contemporary life.
In almost all his works, he was didactic.
He probed into the inner working of the human heart.
Of his work Clarissa, Dr Johnson remarked, “It was the first book in the world for the knowledge it displays of the human heart”.
5. Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
Fielding was also one of the greatest novelists of the 18th century.
He wrote the great novel, Joseph Andrews.
There he satirizes the false sentimentality and conventional virtues of Richardson’s heroine.
Fielding's approach to life was not very healthy.
It was a picture of outer life and manner, not an inner life.
His other novels are Tom Jones, Jonathan Wild etc.
Fielding greatest contribution to English novels was that he put the novel on a stable footing.
He established it as an independent literary form.
He is called the ‘Father of English novel’.
He gave a genuine picture of his age without moralising the vices and virtues.
6. Tobias Smollet (1721-1771)
Smollet was also fond of writing picaresque novels.
His novels are full of intrigue and adventure.
His best-known novel is Roderick Ramdon (1748) etc.
Smollet is considered to be the originator of a funny novel.
This ‘funny novel’ was brought to climax by Dickens in his satirical hearty caricatures.
7. Lawrence Sterne (1713-1768)
In the novel of Sterne, we find whims, vagaries and sentimental tears.
His best-known novel is Triston Shandy.
The main achievement of this book lies in the brilliance of its style and the creation of eccentric characters like ‘Uncle Toby’ and ‘Trim’.
The novel is written in first person but then the novelist moves to a digression that has no coordination.
The method is very much like the ‘Stream of consciousness method’.
One of his main contributions to the novel was the discovery of the delights of sensibility.
8. Oliver Goldsmith (1738-1714)
Goldsmith wrote only one novel and that was ‘Vicar of Wakefield’.
This is the best novel in English literature where domestic life is given a romantic interest.
It was free from the coarseness that we find in Sterne and Smollett.
Domestic virtues and purity of character are elevated.
9. Summering up the 18th-century novel, we can say that the novel from the humble beginning came to be fully developed in the hands of these writers the novel came to be an important literary form.
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