The Development of Novel

Until the publication of Richardson’s Pamela(1740), no true novel had appeared in any literature. A true novel is a work of fiction which relates the story of a plain human life, under stress of emotion, which depends for its interest not on incident or adventure, but on its truth to nature. A number of English novelists like Oliver Goldsmith, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne seemed to have seized upon the idea of reflecting life as it was, in the form of a story, and to have developed it simultaneously. The result was an extraordinary awakening of interest, especially among people who had never before been greatly concerned with literature.

In the previous periods, the number of readers was comparatively small and that with th exception of a few writers like Langland and Bunyan, authors wrote largely for the upper classes. In the eighteenth century, the spread of education and the appearance of newspapers and magazines led to an immense increase in the number of readers. At the same time, the middle class people occupied a foremost place in English life and history. These new readers and this new, powerful middle class had no classic tradition to hamper them. They cared little for the opinions of Dr. Johnson and the famous Literary Club. They read fiction and clearly took little interest in the exaggerated romances of impossible heroes and the picaresque stories of intrigue and villainy which had interested the upper classes.

Some new type of literature was demanded, and this new type must express the new ideal of the eighteenth century, namely, the value and the importance of the individual life. So the novel was born, expressing, though in a different way, exactly the same ideals of personality and of dignity of common life which were later proclaimed in the American and in the French Revolution, and were welcomed with rejoicing by the poets of the romantic revival.

The purpose of the first novelists was to tell people not about knights or kings or types of heroes, but about themselves in the guise of plain men and women, about their own thoughts and motives and struggles, and the results of actions upon their own characters.

Pioneers of Novel:

Daniel Defoe(1661-1731): Robinson Crusoe(1719-20) is largely an adventure story, rather than the study of human character which Defoe probably intended it to be. The story is based upon the experiences of Alexander Selkirk, or Selcraig, who had been marooned in the island of Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chile, and who had lived there in solitude for five years. His other works Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders and Roxana, little better than picaresque stories with a deal of unnatural moralizing and repentance added for puritanical effect.

Sanuel Richardson(1689-1761): Pamela or Virtue Rewarded is an endless series of letters telling of the trials, tribulations and the final happy marriage of a too sweet young girl, published in four volumes (1740-1741) It is the first novel in the modern sense. Clarissa or The History of a Young Lady was published in eight volumes in 1747-1748). It is another series of letters and a better sentimental novel.

Henry Fielding(1707-1754): Fielding’s first novel, Joseph Andrews(1742), was inspired by the success of Pamela and began as a burlesque of the false sentimentality and the conventional virtues of Richardson’s heroines. He took for his hero the alleged brother of Pamela, who was exposed to the same kind of temptations but who, instead of being rewarded for his virtue, was unceremoniously turned out of doors by his mistress. There the burlesque ended. The hero took to the open road and Fielding forgot all about Pamela in telling the adventures of Joseph and his companion, Parson Adams. Unlike Richardson, who had no humour, who minced words and moralized and doted on the sentimental woes of his heroines, Fielding was direct, energetic, hilarious and coarse to the point of vulgarity. He was full of animal spirits, and he told the story of a vagabond life, not for the sake of moralizing, like Richardson, or for emphasizing a forced repentance, like Defoe, but simply because it interested him and his only concern was “to laugh men out of their follies.” Fielding’s later novels were Jonathan Wild,  the story of a rogue, which suggested Defoe’s narrative; The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) is his best work; and Amelia (1751), the story is a good wife in contrast with an unworthy husband.

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) apparently tried to carry on Fielding’s work but he lacked Fielding’s genius, his humour and inherent kindness and so filled his pages with the horrors and brutalities which are sometimes mistaken for realism. His three best known works are Roderick Random(1748), a series of adventures related by the hero; Peregrine Pickle(1751) in which he reflected with brutal directness the worst of his experiences at sea; and Humphrey Clinker(1771) his last work, recounting the mild adventures of a Welsh family in a journey through England and Scotland.

Lawrence Sterne (1713-1768) is known for two novels Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy.

The First Novelists and their Work:  With the publication of Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield (1766) the first series of English novels came to a suitable close. This novel is filled with homely sentiment clustering about the family life as the most sacred. In the short space of twenty-five years there suddenly appeared and flourished a new form of literature—novel, which influenced all Europe for nearly a century and which still furnishes the largest part of the literary enjoyment. Each successive novelist brought some new element to the work, as when Fielding supplied animal vigour and humour to Richardson’s analysis of a human heart and Sterne added brilliancy, and Goldsmith emphasized purity and the honest domestic sentiments which are still the greatest ruling force among people.