The Growth of the Novel and its Important Facts

A Brief Introduction

The development of the English Novel began in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, after the appearance of Defoe’s works. The story of his ‘Robinson Crusoe’ is a microcosm of the 18th Century. ‘Moll Flanders’ is picaresque in form. Roxana’ is the fictitious autobiographical story. ‘Colonel Jack’ presents a vivid picture of London life in the 18th Century. Swift was another gifted prose writer of this period. His Gulliver’s Travels’ is a remarkable work. Richardson’s Pamela’ is universally acknowledged as the first modern novel in the English language.

Important Facts to Remember

1. Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne are called the four wheels of the English novel.

2. A novel has a plot, and to a greatest extent its characters reveal themselves and their intentions in dialogues.

3. The Picaresque Novel arose in the eighteenth century as a product of revolution. Picaro which means a ‘rogue’ or a ‘knave’ a tale of adventures or misadvantures character of the novel.

4. The growth of the Gothic romances contributed a great deal in preparing the ground for the revival of Romanticism in Eng poetry.

5. Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones’ is a picaresque novel. Smollett, another novelist of the group of the Four Wheels of the English Novel’ wrote picaresque novels.