Theories of the novel
put down your own definition
Romance and Novel
chivalric romance: Sir Thomas Malory: The Legends of King Arthur
At that time King Arthur had a marvellous dream, which gave him great disquietness of heart. He dreamed that the whole land was full of many fiery griffins and serpents, which burnt and slew the people everywhere; and then that he himself fought with them, and that they did him mighty injuries, and wounded him nigh to death, but that at last he overcame and slew them all. When he woke, he sat in great heaviness of spirit and pensiveness, thinking what this dream might signify, but by-and-by, when he could by no means satisfy himself what it might mean, to rid himself of all his thoughts of it, he made ready with a great company to ride out hunting.
As soon as he was in the forest, the king saw a great hart before him, and spurred his horse, and rode long eagerly after it, and chased until his horse lost breath and fell down dead from under him. Then, seeing the hart escaped and his horse dead, he sat down by a fountain, and fell into deep thought again. And as he sat there alone, he thought he heard the noise of hounds, as it were some thirty couple in number, and looking up he saw coming towards him the strangest beast that ever he had seen or heard tell of, which ran towards the fountain and drank of the water. Its head was like a serpent’s, with a leopard’s body and a lion’s tail, and it was footed like a stag; and the noise was in its belly, as it were the baying or questing of thirty couple of hounds. While it drank there was no noise within it; but presently, having finished, it departed with a greater sound than ever.
Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
I searched for the cassava root, which the Indians, in all that climate, make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of aloes, but did not then understand them. I saw several sugar-canes, but wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I contented myself with these discoveries for this time, and came back musing with myself what course I might take to know the virtue and goodness of any of the fruits or plants which I should discover; but could bring it to no conclusion; for, in short, I had made so little observation while I was in the Brazils, that I knew little of the plants in the field, at least very little that might serve me to any purpose now in my distress.
The next day, the 16th, I went up the same way again; and after going something farther than I had gone the day before, I found the brook and the savannas began to cease, and the country became more woody than before. In this part I found different fruits, and particularly I found melons upon the ground in great abundance, and grapes upon the trees. The vines had spread indeed over the trees, and the clusters of grapes were just now in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was a surprising discovery, and I was exceeding glad of them; but I was warned by my experience to eat sparingly of them, remembering that when I was ashore in Barbary the eating of grapes killed several of our Englishmen, who were slaves there, by throwing them into fluxes and fevers. But I found an excellent use of these grapes; and that was, to cure or dry them in the sun, and keep them as dried grapes or raisins are kept, which I thought would be, as indeed they were, as wholesome as agreeable to eat, when no grapes; might be to be had.
(He considered this poor girl as one whose happiness or misery he had caused to be dependent on himself. Her beauty was still the object of desire, though greater beauty, or a fresher object, might have been more so; but the little abatement which fruition had occasioned to this was highly overbalanced by the considerations of the affection which she visibly bore him, and of the situation into which he had brought her. The former of these created gratitude, the latter compassion; and both, together with his desire for her person, raised in him a passion which might, without any great violence to the word, be called love; though, perhaps, it was at first not very judiciously placed. Fielding: Tom Jones)
1. Compare the protagonists: social class, main concerns, names etc.
2. Compare the narration and the style: its scope, its focus/interest, use of figures of speech, syntax etc. (How is the world described and characterized? What aspects are the authors focussing on? What aspects avoid their attention altogether?)
I. Ian Watt: The Rise of the Novel
If the novel were realistic merely because it saw life from the seamy side, it would only be an inverted romance; but in fact it surely attempts to portray all the varieties of human experience, and not merely those suited to one particular literary perspective: the novel's realism does not reside in the kind of life it presents, but in the way it presents it. (Ian Watt, introductory chapter)
excerpts from Robinson Crusoe
I have already described my habitation, which was a tent under the side of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables: but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall up against it of turfs, about two feet thick on the outside; and after some time (I think it was a year and a half) I raised rafters from it, leaning to the rock, and thatched or covered it with boughs of trees, and such things as I could get, to keep out the rain; which I found at some times of the year very violent.
excerpts from ?????
I had settled my little economy to my own heart's content. My master had ordered a room to be made for me, after their manner, about six yards from the house: the sides and floors of which I plastered with clay, and covered with rush-mats of my own contriving. I had beaten hemp, which there grows wild, and made of it a sort of ticking; this I filled with the feathers of several birds I had taken with springes made of _Yahoos’ hairs, and were excellent food. I had worked two chairs with my knife, the sorrel nag helping me in the grosser and more laborious part
I was pressed to do more than one thing which another could not do for me, and therefore endeavoured to make my mistress understand, that I desired to be set down on the floor; which after she had done, my bashfulness would not suffer me to express myself farther, than by pointing to the door, and bowing several times. The good woman, with much difficulty, at last perceived what I would be at, and taking me up again in her hand, walked into the garden, where she set me down. I went on one side about two hundred yards, and beckoning to her not to look or to follow me, I hid myself between two leaves of sorrel, and there discharged the necessities of nature.
I hope the gentle reader will excuse me for dwelling on these and the like particulars, which, however insignificant they may appear to groveling vulgar minds
Summary of the differences between classical and modern outlooks
Literary / Philosophical / SocialCLASSICAL / Ideal / Universal / Corporate
MODERN / Discrete/particular / Directly apprehended data / Autonomous individual
summary: part of a larger change -- that vast transformation of Western civilisation since the Renaissance which has replaced the unified world picture of the Middle Ages with another very different one- one which presents us, essentially, with a developing but unplanned aggregate of particular individuals having particular experiences at particular times and at particular places. (Ian Watt)
the novel is a full and authentic report of human experience, and is therefore
under an obligation to satisfy its reader with such details of the story as the individuality of the actors concerned, the particulars of the times and places of their actions, details which are
presented through a more largely referential use of language than is common in other literary forms.
II. Eric Auerbach: Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
(Odüsszeia: XIX. könyv, ford. Devecseri Gábor)
az anyó meg a fényes edényt odavitte azonnal,
melyben a lábát mosni akarta; hideg vizet öntött
jó sokat, és meleget vegyitett bele. Ámde Odüsszeusz
oldalt ült le a tűz mellé, s a homály fele fordult:
mert az eszébe jutott, hogy az agg asszony kitapintva
lába sebét, majd ráismer, s minden kiderülhet.
Gazdájához ment az anyó és mosta: azonnal
ráismert a sebére, melyet vadkan foga vágott,
míg Odüszeusz Parnasszoszon át járt Autolükosznál;
apja ez anyjának, ki felülmúlt bárkit a földön
tolvajlásban is és hamis eskütevésben: az isten,
Hermész adta e képességet, mert neki kecskék
s bárányok combját égette, s az őt segitette.
Autolükosz hajdan maga jött el a dús Ithakába,
és akkor született lányának kisfia éppen:
Eurükleia a kis csecsemőt térdére helyezte
néki, ebédjük után, s a nevén szólítva kimondta:
"Autolükosz, magad adj te nevet lányod gyerekének,
ennek a kedvesnek, kire régen vágyakozol már."
Erre meg Autolükosz szólalt és adta a választ:
"Vőm s lányom, neki íly nevet adjatok: erre-utamban
oly sok szívből vette körül lobogó düh személyem,
férfiak- és nőktől, kik a termő földeken élnek:
éppenezért Odüszeusz légyen neve. Én pedig akkor,
hogyha legény lesz és ellátogat anyja lakába,
Parnasszoszra, ahol sok kincsem fekszik a házban,
abbol adok neki, és hazaküldöm a kedvrederültet."
Elment hát Odüszeusz, átvenni a nagyszerü kincset
…..
És az anyó, amikor tenyerével megtapogatta,
ráismert, s Odüszeusz lábát ejtette le nyomban:
visszaesett az edénybe a láb, kongott a nagy érc-üst:
félreborult megdőlve, s a víz zúdult ki a földre.
És az anyó szívét az öröm s kín elszoritotta,
két szeme könnyel telt, elakadt torkában a hangja.
Majd, Odüszeusz állát kitapintva kezével, ekép szólt:
"Lám, hisz Odüsszeusz vagy, kedves fiam. Én meg a gazdám
meg sem is ismertem, míg végig nem tapogattam."
1. (Style) Compare the attention to detail in the two stories. Which of them is more sensual (visual)? Which is more emotional?
2. In what ways is the reader’s curiosity roused and how is it satisfied in the two stories?
3. How are characters introduced in the two texts? Characterize the characters’ direct discourse in both.
4. How many time levels are present in the texts under comparison? How do the two stories handle the past? Which creates more suspense?
„Homer's personages vent their inmost hearts in speech; what they do not say to others, they speak in their own minds, so that the reader is informed of it”
„a continuous rhythmic procession of phenomena passes by, and never is there a form left fragmentary or half-illuminated, never a lacuna, never a gap, never a glimpse of unplumbed depths.”
„Homeric style knows only a foreground, only a uniformly illuminated, uniformly objective present.”
(Genesis 22, the sacrifice of Isaac)
And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. 2And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
3And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. 4Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. 5And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. 6And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. 7And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 8And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. 9And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. 10And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. 11And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. 12And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. 13And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. 14And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.
15And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, 16and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: 17that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; 18and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. 19So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba.
(Auerbach)
„The personages speak in the Bible story too; but their speech does not serve, as does speech in Homer, to manifest, to externalize thoughts-on the contrary, it serves to indicate thoughts which remain unexpressed. God gives his command in direct discourse, but he leaves his motives and his purpose unexpressed; Abraham, receiving the command, says nothing and does what he has been told to do. … Everything remains unexpressed.”