The novel is one of the relatively new and developing modern genres of fiction. In world literature, it appeared long after genres such as drama and epic. Uzbek novels also have a century-long history of development

The Novel in Spain: 1550-1630

• Most historians see the Spain of the mid-sixteenth century as the birthplace of the novel, or at least of a form of fiction that they see leading clearly toward the eighteenth century novel of sensibility. The feature that sets these Spanish novels apart from their predecessors is their use of a first-person narrator who relates with unembarrassed candor the degradations of his life. Moreover, this character is a believably real Spaniard of the current time, who vividly depicts the sights, sounds, and, particularly, smells of the actual environment. One way to see this development of the novel is as a combining of the realistic/satiric mode with the confessional mode in Christian devotion, as exemplified by Augustine’s Confessions. However this form is defined, the anonymous author of Lazarillo de Tormes (1554; English translation, 1576), which began this trend, hit upon a formula that changed European fiction and set it on a road it has followed ever since.

• Why this phenomenon first occurred in Spain rather than elsewhere in Europe has been much debated. One reason frequently cited involves Spain’s position in the sixteenth century as the most religiously and philosophically conservative nation in Europe, the country under the strongest domination by the Catholic Church and with the most rigid socioeconomic stratification. Whereas in England, for example, the satiric impulse produced visions of reform, such as Utopia and countless manuals for improvement in education and manners, in Spain the satiric eye looked inward and beneath the skins of other humans, to dwell on corruptions of the soul. In this climate, Renaissance Humanism merely deepened the cynicism, because it kept the observer focused on the imperfections of the here and now by denying the medieval choice of seeing this “vale of tears” as a mere steppingstone to eternal glory. Whereas Augustine’s Confessions become a prayer of hope and thanksgiving, Lazarillo de Tormes and the works to follow—including the greatest,  (1605, 1615)—end with the hero facing death or in a temporary lull before the next, and certain, disaster. What makes this literature comic and compelling is that the narrators are so resigned to the status quo that they can view the grotesque happenings they relate without anxiety; by contrast, the greedy and ambitious in these novels appear funny fools indeed, because they lack the hero’s peace of mind.