Rise of the Novel

A detailed Summary of Rise of the Novel

William Warner in his essay The Elevation of the Novel in England: Hegemony and Literary Theory from which the above quotation is taken outlines his theory of a dependence on the part of Fielding and Richardson on the novels of earlier writers despite their attempts to devalue their work.

In this essay I will examine this relationship from Warner's standpoint and show that it is a relationship is both complex and paradoxical.

Prior to his first novel in 1749, Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) published, in 1740-41, an advisory work called Letters Written to and for Particular Friends. This publication intended to instil in the reader a correct code of conduct or "how to think and act justly and prudently in the common concerns of life". With the publication of the 1749 novel "Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded, Richardson fully assumed his role as an author expounding the moralistic values of the bourgeois society to which he had ascended from more humble beginnings. This role would become impounded by his two subsequent novels Clarissa: or the History

Warner insists that the elevated state of the "new" novel is founded on distinct factors which together he sites as a "complex cultural event". His rational for doing so is grounded in the belief that the 17C consumer had the power to influence the production of that which is consumed. He suggests that this "force" was discernible to Richardson and Fielding. In short, Warner has it Richardson and Fielding were able to deduce from the market what manner of novel had the strongest cultural foothold and which received best critical response. They were then free to tailor their efforts accordingly, incorporating their own socio-political agenda.

Given the popularity of the works of early novelists like Manley, Haywood and Behn and the production values contained in their work how is it, Warner asks, that it is Richardson and Fielding who are given a distinct niche in literary history as the founders of the novel "proper"? In answering this question Warner asserts that this status as founders of the true novelistic form could not have been granted without a mandate from the reading public and the early critics. It is this "contingent decision" that he sees as instigating a hierarchical relationship between the "real" novelists and those who they supplanted from the popular cultural centre. With the notion of the "contingent decision" formulated, Warner can now look to the mechanics of how this decision was reached by so broad a base as the reading public and how the decision became an accepted fact for over the next two hundred years.

amusement only, tend to inflame the Minds they should

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Approximate Word count = 5600
Approximate Pages = 22 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels