Meg c-103 English Novel: Defoe to Dickens

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 Central University of Kashmir 
Nowgam, Srinagar, J&K- 190015 
www.cukashmir.ac.in
 
 
 
 
MEG C-103 
English Novel: Defoe to Dickens 
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Introduction 

Novel in England 
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The rise of the Novel 
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Culture and Novel 

Daniel Defoe 

The Strange and Surprising Adventure of Robinson Crusoe 

Important aspects & themes in Robinson Crusoe 
Conclusion 
Suggested Readings 
 
 
Course Title: English Novel: Defoe to Dickens 
Course Code: MEG-103 
Unit: I 
Department: English 
Year: 2016 
 
Contributor’s Name: Mr. Mohd Ali Shabbir 
Email: [e-mail] 
Contact: 9469287717 
Designation: Assistant Professor 
 
Unit I 

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ENGLISH NOVEL: DEFOE TO DICKENS 
Introduction 
What do you understand by the word novel? 
Derived from Italian Novella, which means a tale, a piece of news and now applied to a 
wide variety of writings whose only common attribute is that they are extended pieces 
of prose fiction ( writings that is not poetry). But the word extended begs a number of 
questions. 
Question on length of the novel?? 
- The length of novel varies greatly and there has been much debate on how long a novel 
is or should be, but it would probably be agreed that, in contemporary practice a novel 
will be b/w 60-70 thousand words and say 200,000. 
The actual term Novel has had a variety of meanings and implications at different 
stages. From roughly the 16th to the 18th century its meaning tended to derive from the 
Italian novella and the Spanish novella and the term often used in a plural sense 
denoted short stories or tales of the kind one finds in G.Boccaccio’s ( Italian author, 
poet) Decameron (1349-51)- characters, incidents and plot. 
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Henry James- an American born writer: regarded as one of the key figures of the 
19th century literary realism says: What is character but the determination of incident? 
What is incident but the illustration of character? 
No other literary form has proved so pliable and adaptable to a seemingly endless 
variety of topics and themes. Examples 
- Epistolary novel: expressed or written in the form of letters. 
-The sentimental novel, the novel of sensation, the campus novel, the Gothic novel ( both 
horror and romance) e.g. Bram Stoker's Dracula. 
Until the 14th century most of the literature of entertainment (novel is usually intended 
as an entertainment) was confined to narrative verse, particularly the epic and the 
romance. Verse narrative has been supplanted by the prose narrative by the end of the 
17th century. Spain was ahead of the rest of Europe in the development of the novel 
form. The greatest of all Spanish novels is Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605-1615), which