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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NOVEL. DANIEL DEFOE: THE USE OF DETAIL TO ENSURE CREDIBILITY.

The epoch of Enlightenment = the Age of Reason (1648-1789) was a rational age that saw a remarkable rise of literature. The central problem of paramount importance to the writers of the 18th c. was the study of Man and the origin of his good and evil qualities. They started a public movement for enlightening people – to improve the world by teaching. They rejected Church dogmas and cast distinctions and insisted upon a systematic education for all, upon self-government and liberty.

This period saw the transition from poetry and the heroic age of Shakespeare to the prosaic age (Kolker: but we shouldn’t underestimate the influence of Shakespeare and his contemporaries upon the novel). The factor that pushed forward the development of prose was the translation of Scripture into national languages that brought about the necessity of a simple but inspired style. The style of prose became clear and polished. Satire became popular. This period also saw the rise of the political pamphlet, but the leading form of lit-re became the novel.

The main difference between the writers of the Renaissance period and the novelists of the 18th c. was their attitude to history. For the first history hardly existed, they didn’t treat the past as smth different from the present. Time for them was an element of philosophy, some substance, though which the success of generations moved, but which couldn’t change Man and make one generation unlike the other. For novelists it was very important to locate their characters within a specific place and at a specific time. They tried to show the qualities of time and the difference of some period from others. A novelist is a maker who creates an imitation of life on the earth. He provides for the reader a model of life as he sees and feels it; he expresses his conclusions about life placing his characters in the situations, which show the mechanisms of social life.

Every age has its favorite genre: for Renaissance it’s drama & the 18th century was represented by Novel. The novel as a genre belongs to fiction. The novel appeared at the turn of the 18th century it manifested the change in man’s interest. Nothing that preceded it could explain it. There are no classical models of it. The only book that may be considered as a novel is Servantes’s “Don Quixote”, but still there is no evidence that it influenced English authors.

The novel is a genre that deals with the past, present & future. The novelist must deal with men in a specific place & time. The novelist is very much conscious of time. A talented novelist can distinguish its difference from other times. Still the Shakespearian drama had a great influence upon the novel, as Shakespeare & his contemporaries were able to create life-like characters.

Every novel should be populated with characters, who serve as pivots. The novel & the plot evolve around a character. The novel imitates life & at the same time it may be regarded as a model of life.

If in the theatre the public takes part in the performance, in the novel the character is the bridge between the invented episodes & the experience of the reader (We have the author’s ability to sum up the experience & we have reader, who compares his own experience with the experience of the characters).



The novelist is able to depict any relationships of life: man-man, man-society, man-nature, man-sign etc. Only novel can afford it, because of its unlimited size. The novel may be regarded as a unity consisting of every word in it (every word on its right place) – this makes fiction credible. The novel imposes its own moral code.

Features of novel:

ü The novel is fiction

ü It evolves around a character

ü The character is a pivot

ü The action is presented against a background

ü The novel presents all sorts of relationships

ü The novel possesses an aesthetic function: it relates not facts as such, it expresses the attitude of a writer & has some emotional impact on the reader

ü The plot is a model of life

ü The character is a bridge between the writer & the reader

 

Daniel Defoe (1661 – 1731)

He was born in a family of a butcher 7 naturally had a surname Foe. At the age of 60 he added De to his name. Born in London he tried his hands on all sorts of things until he became a journalist. He engaged himself in pamphlet writing. He was a man of extraordinary industry 7 wrote a lot of books (≈375).

Defoe relies upon facts. It’s not the situation that’s life-like, but the facts that make it so. When Defoe wrote the 1st part of “Robinson Crusoe” – “The life & surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe”, he was 59. There was hardly any device for creating illusion of reality that Defoe did not employ. His characters themselves narrate their story & Defoe gets under the skin of his fictitious narrators. He keeps himself out of sight & this is apparent artlessness which becomes in the long run artfulness. He makes reader believe our imagination is captured by the constant nibbling.

In “Robinson Crusoe’ Defoe has an excellent subject, which may have come out as a box of tools. Defoe is curiously multileveled. It may be treated as a historical-philosophical level.

Crusoe is naked humanity grappling with its daily needs. All the problems he is confronted by are urgent & at the same time Crusoe is mostly a prototype of Englishman increasingly prominent, during the 18th a man from lower classes whose tunes was connected with strong sense of personal responsibility. Man of this kind made the industrial revolution possible. He’s self-reliant, energetic, a person who is in direct relation with God made ion his own image.

A symbol of humanity

This is a type of an Englishman from lower classes who had his own vision of life & sense of responsibility.

When Crusoe comes to an inhabited island those things like these would happen to a man like this. Defoe’s little lies has conditioned us to accept his bigger lie. We believe it because it’s a prose.

28 years 2 months & 19 days – Defoe captures time in the net of calendar.

The stress is not on the island, but on the man himself. It’s the 1st time we have a fictitious character. It’s Crusoe who fills the picture, he, who’s complete, a man dominating the nature. Crusoe relied upon his own ability to change the circumstances.

Crusoe was a very religious man. He can be described as God’s Englishman, as he believes, that God helps those who help themselves. The sense of partnership of God & man never leaves Crusoe. By describing his adventures Defoe did more. Now Crusoe’s island symbolizes the earth & Crusoe symbolizes humanity. Defoe had limitations. Being a stiry of adventures “Crusoe” is utterly automatic. These limitations turn into advantages, because any picturesque situation can make the story incredible. It remains one of the great romantic stories in the world.

“Robinson Crusoe” does not possess features of a novel. It’s the first sample of fiction in English literature. Defoe wrote some more books that were more like novels (Moll Flenders).

It’s “Robinson Crusoe” that is considered to be the book that influenced the works of many writers not only of the epoch, but of the century to come. It influenced a great deal the works of Jonathan Swift.


Date: 2016-01-05; view: 1879


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