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The Rise of the Novel in the Augustan Age

The rise of the novel saw the genre develop out of the growing middle class and increasing literacy in the 18th century. Certain novelists like Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding helped establish the realistic, sentimental, and mock-epic styles of the English novel. These early novelists aimed to widely communicate moral lessons to middle-class readers in a simple yet realistic style that portrayed everyday life, characters, and settings of the time.

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Eric Sebastian Bonett
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605 views8 pages

The Rise of the Novel in the Augustan Age

The rise of the novel saw the genre develop out of the growing middle class and increasing literacy in the 18th century. Certain novelists like Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding helped establish the realistic, sentimental, and mock-epic styles of the English novel. These early novelists aimed to widely communicate moral lessons to middle-class readers in a simple yet realistic style that portrayed everyday life, characters, and settings of the time.

Uploaded by

Eric Sebastian Bonett
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The rise of

the novel
Bartholomew Dandridge, A Lady reading
Belinda beside a fountain, 1745. Yale
Center for British Art, New Haven
The novel

1. The rise of the novel


The increase of the reading public in the Augustan Age was due to

the growing the individual’s the practice of


importance trust in his own reason and self-
of the middle class abilities analysis

Most readers were They used to borrow books


middle-class women from circulating libraries

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The novel

2. The novelist

• The spokesman of the middle class.

• The fathers of the English novel:

• Daniel Defoe  the realistic novel


• Samuel Richardson  the sentimental novel
• Henry Fielding  the mock-epic novel
• Jonathan Swift  the satirical novel

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The novel

3. The novelist’s aim

• To be understood widely  he wrote in a simple way.

• Realism  not only linked to the life presented, but to the


way it was shown.

• Speed and copiousness  his most important economic


virtues since it was the bookseller and not the patron who
rewarded him.

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The novel

4. The characters
A bourgeois, self-made,
The Hero self-reliant man

The mouthpiece The reader is expected


of the author to sympathise with him

had contemporary struggled for


All the names and survival or social
characters surnames  success
Robinson Crusoe

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The novel

5. The setting
• Chronological sequence of events

• References to particular times of the year or of the day

“I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York”


(Robinson Crusoe)

• Specific names of towns and streets

• Detailed descriptions of interiors  to make the narrative


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more realistic
The novel

6. The narrative technique


1ST-PERSON 3RD-PERSON PATTERN
NARRATOR NARRATOR

Daniel Defoe Fictional


Jonathan Swift autobiographies

Samuel Letters
Richardson exchanged
between the main
characters
Henry Fielding The mock-epic
style

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The novel

7. Themes

1. Real life

2. Everything that could affect social status

3. The sense of reward and punishment  linked to the Puritan


ethics of the middle class

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