The Rise of the Novel: A Social and Literary perspective (Neo-classical Period)

The 18th century is generally considered to be the first literary age during which we can speak of the novel as a well-established genre in British literature. The period is difficult to name; it was called by its contemporaries the Augustan or Neoclassical Age (as writers strove to identify themselves with the classical Roman model), or by other names such as Enlightenment, the Age of Reason. 18th century philosophers, such as Locke, Berkeley, D. Hume, Diderot or Voltaire stated the significance of the rational, positive spirit. In their opinion, human knowledge is empirical, based on the perception of the senses, hence its subjectivity and limits. Order was another first-rate value in the Augustan hierarchy. It was associated with thoughtful conduct, efficiency instead of complexity, scientific discoveries, acquiring connotations such as unity, harmony, precision, and clarity.

On the literary scene, the most influential genre that developed during the period was the novel. It was influenced by similar developments on the continent, among which Cervantes's Don Quixote, which was translated in 1700, the writings of Rabelais, or of Lesage, particularly Gil Blas. The ordinary man became the norm, consisting of a variety of individuals, such as the energetic merchant, the country gentleman directing his farms or estates, the lady in her social calls, the doctor, the lawyer, soldier, servant, labourer, in their occupations, the traveller observing life at home and abroad, and the writer including all these as his public and characters. Economic specialization provided a particular kind of audience - the lower and middle classes saw their lives and interests represented with a sympathy and seriousness that had hitherto been accorded only to their betters on the social scale. As A. Sanders has shown in his Short Oxford History of English Literature, the new style emphasized for the most part the everyday experience of men and women in society.

Enlightenment philosophy required a simple, unequivocal instrument of expression, making use of a plain, native language to record experiments and conclusions. No rhetoric, exuberant prose was permitted to obscure common sense, as writers (such as D. Defoe) wanted to communicate their ideas without aiming at a literary distinction. As Ian Watt also shows in his study The Rise of the Novel, the appearance of writers such as D. Defoe, S. Richardson, H. Fielding within a single generation was probably due to the favourable conditions of the time. 18th century literary historians have seen realism as the defining characteristic which differentiates their work from previous fiction (the term was apparently used as an aesthetic description in 1835 to denote the "vérité humaine" of Rembrandt as opposed to "idéalité poétique"). Primarily used as the antonym of "idealism", the term would trace down all possible continuity to earlier works that portrayed low life and where the economic and social motives were given a lot of space in the presentation of human behaviour. Fiction is not a new invention; there are a great number of Middle Age prose stories, of Renaissance romances, allegories, character-studies or picaresque tales. Yet, fiction's relation to life was peripheral, a mere idealization or satire.

Defoe and Richardson are the first great writers in English literature who did not take their plots from mythology, history, legend or previous literature. In this respect, they differ from Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare who used traditional plots. However, besides the plot, much else had to be changed in the tradition of fiction: the actors in the plot and the scene of their actions had to be placed in a new literary perspective. The plot had to be acted in particular circumstances, rather than as had been common in the past - by general human types against a background determined by the appropriate literary convention. The novel is distinguished from other genres by the amount of attention it generally allots both to the individualisation of its characters and to the presentation of their environment. It is also related to the epistemological status of proper names as the expression of a particular identity (medieval or Renaissance writers preferred either historical or type names).

The principle of individuation accepted by Locke was that of existence in space and time; Northrop Frye has seen "time and Western man" as the defining characteristic of the novel compared with other genres. Philosophical and literary innovations must be seen as resulting in "a circumstantial view of life", a feature of the new prose. The narrative method that embodies this view is called formal realism, the premise that it is an authentic report of human experience, giving its readers details concerning the individuality of actors, particulars of their actions, through a more referential use of language than is common in other literary forms. The difference to earlier fiction consists in the fact that such passages were relatively rare, while the plot was traditional and highly improbable.