novel
Sign in to saveA novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the h
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A novel is a long work of fictional storytelling written in prose and published as a book, with a history stretching back about two thousand years to ancient Greek and Roman literature. It matters as a major literary form that has evolved through various traditions—from ancient romances to medieval chivalric tales to Italian Renaissance novellas—and continues to be a primary way people explore imaginative narratives and human experience.
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Article
33 sectionsContents
- Defining the genre
- East Asian definition
- Early novels
- In China
- Medieval period: 1100–1500
- Chivalric romances
- The novella
- Renaissance period: 1500–1700
- In Japan
- Chapbooks
- Heroic romances
- Satirical romances
- Histories
- Cervantes and the modern novel
- 18th-century novels
- Philosophical novel
- The romance genre in the 18th century
- The sentimental novel
- The social context of the 18th-century novel
- Changing cultural status
- The acceptance of novels as literature
- 19th-century novels
- Romanticism
- The Victorian period: 1837–1901
- 20th century
- Modernism and post-modernism
- Genre fiction
- 21st century
- Non-traditional formats
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term romance. Such romances should not be confused with the genre fiction romance novel, which focuses on romantic love. M. H. Abrams and Walter Scott have argued that a novel is a fiction narrative that displays a realistic depiction of the state of a society, like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The romance, on the other hand, encompasses any fictitious narrative that emphasizes marvellous or uncommon incidents. In reality, such works are nevertheless also commonly called novels, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
The spread of printed books in China led to the appearance of the vernacular classic Chinese novels during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and Qing dynasty (1616–1911). An early example from Europe was Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by the Sufi writer Ibn Tufayl in Muslim Spain. Later developments occurred after the invention of the printing press. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (the first part of which was published in 1605), is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era. Literary historian Ian Watt, in The Rise of the Novel (1957), argued that the modern novel was born in the early 18th century with Robinson Crusoe.