I was a bit surprised to read that Robinson Crusoe is often considered to be the first English novel. So, what is the definition of a novel? Were there novels in other languages before then, Don Quixote, for example? What about the Canterbury Tales or Morte 'Arthur? Was Morte d'Arthur written in French btw? Mebbe the Normans still wrote French back then. What about the Aeneid? Could that be considered a novel?
According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
Charles Dickens, by George Orwell
It all depends on your definition of a novel. It is certainly a prose narrative (so that rules out Chaucer) and it typically has "realistic" material (which rules out Malory). I believe there were narratives prior to Defoe in English (Thomas Nashe?). As a genre it was developing in other European languages, Cervantes being the obvious example (and that is not totally realistic, based as it is on previous romances, albeit parodying and criticizing them.)
I haven't read La Princesse de Cleves in French, but I seem to remember it is the French precursor of the novel.
Last edited by Jackson Richardson; 08-17-2015 at 06:56 AM.
Previously JonathanB
The more I read, the more I shall covet to read. Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy Partion3, Section 1, Member 1, Subsection 1
I've just looked up Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Pri...de_Cl%C3%A8ves
Defoe is probably the earliest example of what we now think of as a novel who has been read continuously.
Then there is Aphra Behn's Oronooko which predates Crusoe. Maybe I'm just hopelessly sexist but having read it I can't help but feel that if it was proved to have been written by a man, nobody would bother with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra_Behn
Previously JonathanB
The more I read, the more I shall covet to read. Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy Partion3, Section 1, Member 1, Subsection 1
I'd say the novel has undergone beaucoup des réveils over the course of the past 400-500 years. Some notable landmarks just in the last 200:
- Madame Bovary
- Pan Tadeusz (well, verse novel)
- Don Juan ( " " )
- Moby-Dick
- The Confidence Man
- A Recherche du Temps Perdu
- Ulysses
- The Recognitions
- The Sotweed Factor
- Ada or Ardor
To name a few.
Something for people who don't read poetry.Originally Posted by kev67
“But though I loved not holy things,
To hear them scorned brought pain,—
They were my childhood; and these dames
Were merely perjured in saints' names
And fixed upon saints' days for games."
kev wasn't talking about notable landmarks. He was talking about the first. Defoe didn't write out of the blue - there were journalistic narratives earlier - but a good case could be made that he made of his works something that we regard now as the novel.
There's an interesting passage in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey about the nature of the novel "I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel." Such is the common cant. "And what are you reading, Miss—?" "Oh! It is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. "It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.
The readers and authors of novels here are typically female, which despite his feminine personae (Roxannna, Moll Flanders) Defoe wasn't.
Previously JonathanB
The more I read, the more I shall covet to read. Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy Partion3, Section 1, Member 1, Subsection 1
I was talking about various points along the way where one could say the "first" of a form of novel sprung out of a dead form. Notable landmarks are important because each of those novels redefined entirely the idea of what a novel could amount to. And by form I don't mean genre, I mean form. Besides, the original question doesn't really merit its own thread anyways.
“But though I loved not holy things,
To hear them scorned brought pain,—
They were my childhood; and these dames
Were merely perjured in saints' names
And fixed upon saints' days for games."
There are a lot worse threads than this, and since this is in the Daniel Defoe sub-forum, who is 'widely held to be the first true novelist,' according to the preface of my copy, it is a fair question as to why this is so.
According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
Charles Dickens, by George Orwell
Kev, did you try the Wikipedia page for First Novel in English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_novel_in_English? It is quite interesting. Those who chose Robinson Crusoe exclude the other likely candidates on various grounds - Morte D'Arthur - Contains fantasy elements, and is an anthology of stories with different protagonists. Oronooko - too short, a novella rather than a novel. Pilgrim's Progress - An allegory rather than a novel, and so on.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
It seems like the term 'novel' had a precise meaning had one time. The term 'romance' used to mean a story that was rather more fantastic and longer in length, but has fallen out of use. I know the French use the word 'roman' to mean novel, and I think the Italians use 'romanzo'.
Wikipedia says the first accepted novel was The Tale of Genji written in Japan in 1010 by Murasaki Shikibu. The first novel in Europe was Don Quixote by Cervantes in 1605. However, there were books like novels written by the Romans, such as The Satyricon by Petronius in AD 50. Don Quixote was written as a satire on Mediaeval romances, which had fallen out of fashion, yet is considered itself a novel.
According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
Charles Dickens, by George Orwell
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