Rise of English Novel

Introduction: In the eighteenth century the years after the forties witnessed a wonderful efflorescence of a new literary genre which was soon to establish itself for all times to come as the dominant literary form. Of course, we are referring here to the Englishnovel which was born with Richardson's Pamela and has been thriving since then. When Matthew Arnold used the epithets "excellent" and "indispensable" for theeighteenth century which had little of good poetry or drama to boast of, he was probably paying it due homage for its gift of the novel. The eighteenth century was the age in which the novel was established as the most outstanding and enduring form ofliterature. The periodical essay, which was another gift of this century to Englishliterature, was born and died in the century, but the novel was to enjoy an enduring career. It is to the credit of the major eighteenth-century novelists that they freed the novel from the influence and elements of high flown romance and fantasy, and used it to interpret the everyday social and psychological problems of the common man. Thus they introduced realism, democratic spirit, and psychological interest into the novel the qualities which have since then been recognized as the essential prerequisites of-every good novel and which distinguish it from the romance and other impossible stories. Reasons for the Rise and Popularity: Various reasons can be adduced for the rise and popularity of the novel in theeighteenth century. The most important of them is that this new literary form suited the genius and temper of the times. The eighteenth century is known in English social history for the rise of the middle classes consequent upon an unprecedented increase in the volume of trade and commerce. Many people emerged from the limbo of society to occupy a respectable status as wealthy burgesses. The novel, with its realism, its democratic spirit, and its concern with the everyday psychological problems of the common people especially appealed to these nouveaia riches and provided them with respectable reading material. The novel thus appears to have been specially designed both to voice the aspirations of the middle and low classes and to meet their taste. Moreover, it gave the writer much scope for what Cazamian calls "morality and sentiment"-the two elements which make literature "popular." The decline of drama in the eighteenth century was also partly responsible for the rise and -ascendency of the novel. After the Licensing Act of 1737, the drama lay moribund. The poetry of the age too-except for the brilliant example of Pope's work was in a stage of decadence. It was then natural that from the ashes of the drama (and, to some extent, of poetry, too) should rise the phoenix-like shape of a new literary genre. This new genre was, of course, the novel. Before the Masters: Before Richardson and Fielding gave shape to the new form some work had already been done by numerous other writers, which helped the pioneers to some extent. Mention must here be made of Swift, Defoe, Addison, and Steele. Swift inGulliver's Travels gave an interesting narrative, and, in spite of the obvious impossibility of the "action" and incidents, created an effect of verisimilitude which was to be an important characteristic of the novel. The Coverley papers of Addison and Steele were in themselves a kind of rudimentary novel, and some of them actually read like so many pages from a social and domestic novel. Their good-humoured social satire, their eye for the oddities of individuals, their basic human sympathy, their lucid style, and their sense of episode-all were to be aspired after by the future novelists. Defoe with his numerous stories like Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and Roxanashowed his uncanny gift of the circumstantial detail and racy, gripping narrative combined with an unflinching realism generally concerned with the seamy and sordid aspects of life (commonly, low life). His lead was to be followed by ' numerous novelists. Defoe's limitation lies in the fact that his protagonists are psychologically too simple and that he makes nobody laugh and nobody weep. But his didacticism was to find favour with all the novelists of the eighteenth, and even many of the nineteenth, century. Some call

Defoe the first English novelist. But as David Daiches puts it in A Critical History ofEnglish Literature, Vol. II, whether Defoe was "properly" a novelist "is a matter of definition of terms." The Masters: Between 1740 and 1800 hundreds of novels of all kinds were written. However, the real "masters" of the novel in the eighteenth century were four-Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. The rest of them are extremely inferior to them. Oliver Elton maintains: "The work of the four masters stands high, but the foothills are low." The case was different in, say, the mid-nineteenth century when so many equally great novelists were at work. Fielding was the greatest of the foursome. Sir Edmund Gosse calls Richardson "the first great English novelist" and Fielding, "the greatest of Englishnovelists." Fielding may not be the greatest of all, but he was certainly one of the greatest English novelists and the greatest novelist of the eighteenth century.

Elizabethan Prose
Introduction: The Elizabethan age has well been called a "young" age. It was full of boundless vigour, reawakened intellectual earnestness, and unfettered, soaring imagination. The best fruits of the age are enshrined in poetry in which all these elements can be befittingly contained. In poetry there are restrictions of versification which exerted some check on the youthful imagination and vigour of the Elizabethans. Consequently,Elizabethan poetry is very great. But prose does not admit of any restrictions, and the result is that Elizabethan prose is as one run amuck. Too much of liberty has taken away much of its merit. During the fifteenth century, Latin was the medium of expression, and almost all the important prose works were written in that language. It was in the sixteenth century, particularly in its later half, that the English language came to its own. With the arrival of cheap mass printing English prose became the popular medium for works aiming both at amusement and instruction. The books which date from this period cover many departments of learning. We have the Chronicles of such writers as Stowe and Holinshed recapturing the history of England, though mixed with legends and myths. Writers like Harrison and Stubbs took upon themselves the task of describing the England not of the past but of their own age. Many writers, most of them anonymous, wrote accounts of their voyages which had carried them to many hitherto unknown lands in and across the Western Seas. Then, there are so many "novelists" who translated Italian stories and wrote stories of their own after the Italian models. There are also quite a few writers who wrote on religion. And last of all there is a host of pamphleteers who dealt with issues of temporary interest. Though the prose used by these numerous writers is not exactly similar, yet we come across a basic characteristic common to the works of all: that is, the nearness of their prose to poetry. "The age," says G. H. Mair, "was intoxicated with language. It went mad of a mere delight in words. Its writers were using a new tongue, for English was enriched beyond all recognition with borrowings from the ancient authors, and like all artists who become possessed of a new medium, they used it to excess. The early Elizabethans' use of the new prose was very like the use some educated Indians make of English. It was rich, gaudy and overflowing, though, in the main, correct." A. C. Ward observes in Illustrated History of English Literature, Vol. I: "Our modern view of prose is strictly and perhaps-too narrowly practical and utilitarian or functional. Prose, we hold, has ajob to do and should do it without fuss, nonsense, or aesthetic capers. It should say what it has to say in the shortest and most time-saving manner, and there finish." But we find Elizabethan prose far from this commonly accepted principle. It is colourful, blazing, rhythmic, indirect, prolix, and convoluted. Rarely does an Elizabethan prose writer call a spade a spade. The-prose works of the Elizabethan age fall into two categories: (i) (ii) Fiction Non-Fiction.

Let us consider them one by one. FICTION The fiction of the age of Elizabeth is generally "romantic" in nature in the sense that it is of the kind of romance. Many forms of fiction were practised in the age. Some important forms and their practitioners are as follows : (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) The romances of Lyly-, Greene, and Lodge The pastoral romance of Sir Philip Sidney The picaresque novel of Nashe The realistic novel of Delony.