Study notes for BEGC-133 Block 2 Unit 1. Covers the definition of a novel and how it differs from popular fiction, comparison table of literary vs popular fiction, reasons for the rise of the English novel in the 18th century with mind-map diagram (rise of the middle class, prose development, Royal Society 1660, Augustan Age, parliamentary debates, periodical essays by Addison and Steele), a brief history of the English novel from Defoe to postmodernism with timeline diagram (18th century — Defoe Robinson Crusoe, Richardson Pamela epistolary novel, Fielding Tom Jones picaresque, Swift Gulliver's Travels; 19th century Victorian realism — Austen, Dickens, Brontës, Hardy; 20th century Modernism — Joyce, Woolf, stream of consciousness; Postmodern — magic realism Marquez, Rushdie), all major forms of the novel (epistolary, picaresque, Gothic, novel of manners, historical, dystopian, magic realism, stream of consciousness) in a reference table, key terms glossary, and all 7 unit-end questions with full answers. Free PDF download.
Before we study Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd, we need to understand the literary world it belongs to: the novel. This unit traces the novel from its humble beginnings in the 1700s all the way to the postmodern fiction of today — in clear, simple language you can actually use in your exam.
A novel is an extended prose narrative — longer than a short story or novella — that deals with characters, plot, and a development of those characters shaped by real-life experience. Most novels are 40,000 words or more.
Think of two broad categories: literary novels and popular fiction.
| Literary Novel | Popular Fiction |
|---|---|
| Complex characters and content; aims to express truth about human nature | Plot-driven; aims to entertain and excite |
| Character is at the centre; you re-read it with fresh insight | Cast aside once read — the "airport novel" |
| Examples: Austen, Hardy, Dickens, Tolstoy | Examples: thriller paperbacks, light romance |
A novel = a long prose story with a believable plot, characters we can identify with, and events that show the growth of those characters through experience.
The novel as a serious genre only became popular in 18th century England. Before that, poetry and drama dominated. Several forces came together to make prose — and the novel — possible.
The Augustan Age (named after Rome's Golden Age) valued reason, order and clarity. Writers looked to ancient Rome for models of good writing. The Royal Society (founded 1660) needed plain, clear prose to explain science. Meanwhile a growing middle class wanted light, readable material — and weekly periodical essays (Addison and Steele's The Spectator) gave them characters and social observation in short, digestible pieces, laying the groundwork for the novel.
Daniel Defoe is often called the father of the English novel. His works (Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders) used the form of fictional autobiographies centred on a single character. Samuel Richardson pioneered the epistolary novel — a novel told entirely through letters — in Pamela. Henry Fielding introduced the picaresque novel (Tom Jones). Jonathan Swift wrote the great satirical novel Gulliver's Travels, and Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy was a wildly experimental, multi-story masterpiece.
The Victorian Age (Queen Victoria's reign, 1837–1901) was the golden era of the novel. Britain was changing fast — the Industrial Revolution was shifting people from farms to factories. The great realist novelists of this era responded: Charles Dickens portrayed characters caught in the machinery of industrialisation; the Brontë sisters brought Romanticism and Gothic atmosphere; Jane Austen (slightly earlier) mastered the "Novel of Manners"; and Thomas Hardy wrote about the rural communities being destroyed by these changes. Key features: realism, social criticism, complex characters, moral dilemmas.
Modernism was a radical break. The "catch phrase" was "make it new." Victorian confidence in reason and religion collapsed after the wars, and writers responded with:
Postmodern fiction includes magic realism (weaving fantasy into everyday life), metafiction (the author commenting on the artificiality of the story itself), and the graphic novel. Famous examples: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's A Hundred Years of Solitude; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; Alice Walker's The Color Purple.
There are many sub-genres of the novel. Here are the most important ones for your exam:
| Form | What it is and a key example |
|---|---|
| Epistolary | Told entirely through letters or diary entries. Pamela (Richardson), Frankenstein (Shelley). |
| Picaresque | Adventures of a roguish hero of low class who lives by his wits. Tom Jones (Fielding). |
| Gothic | Fear, horror, gloom, and strong emotion. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights. |
| Novel of Manners | Examines customs and behaviour of a specific class. Pride and Prejudice (Austen). |
| Historical | Plot in the past, using real events. Ivanhoe (Walter Scott). |
| Dystopian | An imaginary, dehumanising, unpleasant society. 1984, Brave New World. |
| Magic Realism | Fantasy woven into everyday life. A Hundred Years of Solitude. |
| Stream of Consciousness | Narrator's unbroken flow of thoughts. Joyce, Woolf, Proust. |
| Term | Simple meaning |
|---|---|
| Novella | Shorter than a novel, longer than a short story. Example: Heart of Darkness. |
| Realism | Faithful representation of everyday, believable life — not fantasy. |
| Romanticism | Movement valuing emotion, imagination, individual feeling over reason. |
| Classicism | Following ancient Greek/Roman models — reason, order, harmony, restraint. |
| Augustan Age | 18th-century English literature modelled on ancient Rome's Golden Age. |
| Stream of Consciousness | A character's unbroken flow of thoughts, feelings and reactions. |
| Magic Realism | Everyday life with fantasy and myth woven in. |
| Metafiction | Fiction where the author draws attention to the artificiality of the story itself. |
| Relativism | The idea that truth and morality depend on culture and context — not absolute. |
| Dystopian novel | An imaginary, nightmarish, dehumanising society. |
All the unit-end questions, answered in clear and simple language for your exam.
A novel has several defining characteristics. First and most importantly, it is written in prose — natural speech, not the rhythmic structure of poetry. Second, it is long — typically 40,000 words or more (longer than a novella or short story). Third, it has believable characters — people we can identify with, not supernatural heroes. Fourth, it contains a plot — a set of events involving those characters, with problems arising, developments, and some form of resolution. Fifth, the characters grow and change through their life experiences; the best novels trace the inner development of their characters, not just events. Sixth, the novel presents a realistic world — settings and situations that could plausibly exist. Finally, literary novels aim to express the author's vision of the human condition, making readers think about life more deeply.
The novel has many forms, each with its own structure and purpose. The epistolary novel tells its story through letters, diary entries or documents (Richardson's Pamela, Shelley's Frankenstein). The picaresque novel follows a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society (Fielding's Tom Jones). The Gothic novel uses fear, gloom, mystery and the supernatural (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights). The novel of manners examines the customs and social codes of a specific class (Austen's Pride and Prejudice). The historical novel sets its plot in the past using real historical events (Scott's Ivanhoe). The dystopian novel portrays an imaginary nightmarish society (Orwell's 1984). Magic realism weaves fantasy and myth into everyday life (Marquez's A Hundred Years of Solitude). The stream-of-consciousness novel presents a character's unbroken flow of thoughts (Joyce, Woolf). The allegorical novel uses characters and events to stand for abstract ideas (Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress). Each form offers a different kind of storytelling and reading experience.
Several forces came together to make the novel popular in 18th-century England.
The first and most fundamental reason was the development of prose. The Augustan Age valued reason, clarity and correctness — qualities best expressed in prose, not poetry. Writers looked to ancient Rome for models of elegant writing.
The founding of the Royal Society of London in 1660 promoted science, and scientific ideas needed clear, unambiguous prose to be explained. This gave prose enormous respectability.
The rise of the middle class created a large new readership. These educated but not elite readers wanted something light, interesting and educational to read. They did not want the heavy classical learning of the upper class.
The growth of periodical essays (Addison and Steele's The Spectator) introduced the habit of reading entertaining prose regularly, and brought characters and everyday social observation into print — a stepping stone directly to the novel.
Finally, the parliamentary system after the Glorious Revolution (1688) demanded clear, persuasive political prose for pamphlets, speeches and debate, further pushing prose into the mainstream of English writing.
The 18th century novel had several distinctive characteristics. It was centred on a single main character whose life and adventures drove the narrative — often in the form of a fictional autobiography or a series of connected episodes (as in Defoe's work). It used simple, direct prose accessible to middle-class readers. It placed strong emphasis on moral conduct — characters were judged against a code of virtue (as in Richardson's Pamela, where the heroine resists seduction). It was often episodic — a sequence of adventures or experiences rather than a tightly woven single plot. Some novels like Gulliver's Travels used fiction for sharp social and political satire. The epistolary form (letter-novel) was popular because it felt realistic and personal. Overall, the 18th century novel was realistic, prose-based, character-centred, and morally instructive.
The 19th century novel, especially in its Victorian phase, is dominated by realism — a faithful representation of ordinary, middle-class and working-class life. The key characteristics are as follows. First, it presents complex, rounded characters from all classes of society — not idealized heroes but real people with flaws. Second, it has a strong social conscience: it criticises the injustices of industrialisation, the condition of the poor, and strict moral codes that harmed ordinary people (especially women). Third, it uses a detailed, realistic setting — actual or believable towns, countryside, factories. Fourth, it typically follows a linear plot with a clear structure — a problem is set up, it develops, and it reaches a resolution. Fifth, it explores social mobility — characters from the lower classes trying to rise, with all the tension that brings. Notable writers: Dickens, Hardy, Thackeray, the Brontës, George Eliot, and Elizabeth Gaskell.
Modernism (roughly 1900–1945) was a radical break from what came before. The previous ages — 18th century classicism and 19th century Victorianism — believed in reason, order, progress and the stable, meaningful world. Modernism shattered all of this.
Where the 18th century valued reason and objectivity, modernism replaced them with subjectivity and inward consciousness. Where the 19th century gave readers a linear, ordered plot with a clear moral, modernism offered fragmented, non-linear narratives with no single meaning. Where Victorian writers had confidence in progress, modernist writers had pessimism and cultural despair — a world torn apart by war and industrialisation. Victorian bourgeois morality was replaced by moral relativism (no absolute right or wrong). And instead of dialogue between characters, modernist novels turned inward — the stream of consciousness technique (Joyce's Ulysses, Woolf's Mrs Dalloway) captured the messy, unedited flow of a character's thoughts. In short, the "catch phrase" of modernism was "make it new" — and it truly was new.
The 20th century novel (modernist and beyond) broke from Victorian tradition in several clear ways. There is no linear flow of narrative — no neat beginning-middle-end on a straight line. There is no unity of plot or character, so cause and effect are often unclear. There is no single moral or philosophical meaning; instead, irony and multiple viewpoints create ambiguity. The novels talk not about progress but decline — civilisation is not improving, it is crumbling. Characters experience loneliness, the idea that "people herd together, but the crowd is no company." The stream of consciousness technique — the "internal monologue" — was widely used, letting the reader inside a character's mind without filtering or editing. There is self-mockery and exposure of hypocrisy. Subjective, inward consciousness replaces the objective, rational discourse of earlier fiction. George Lukacs identified three strands: the experimental (Joyce, Woolf), the social realist (Communist Eastern Europe), and the critical realist (Thomas Mann, Bernard Shaw, Conrad) — a return to realism but with modernist awareness.
End of Unit 1 · Continue with Unit 2: Thomas Hardy's Life and Writings
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