9. The development of the English novel in the 18th century
The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of which Daniel Defoe's 1719 Robinson Crusoe is probably the best known. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were the epistolary novel, the sentimental novel, histories, the gothic novel and the libertine novel.
A Novel is a fictitious prose narrative or tale presenting a picture of real life.The idea we have of the novel comes from the 18th century; before that time there were plenty of forms of prose fiction that did not present a picture of real life.It was more than a century later that real life became the dominant topic of the novel helped by:• The rise of philosophical rationalism (=the individual could discover the reality of the world around him through his senses and perceptions).• The influence of Puritanism and later Methodism• The expansion of the reading public. This was partly due to the increasing circulation of newspapers, which also brought with it the advent of fact – based journalistic writing on the events of the day.
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