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13
ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE
The Birth of the Novel
It’s strange to think that the ubiquitous
novel form once didn’t exist. Before the
early 18th century, though, there were
only smatterings of writings in English that
could be considered to fit our modern
definition: prose of substantial length,
containing one clear narrative and sustained
characterisation. Previous writing was largely
in verse, often episodic, and rarely coherent
in story. The
novella storia
– the ‘new story’
– grew into the most popular
form of writing right at the
heart of the Enlightenment
period: usually defined as
1715, when Louis XIV died, to
1789, the start of the French
Revolution. Before exploring
why, though, let’s address that
burning question: What was
the first ever novel in English?
Like every question that
demands a single answer, it
depends who you ask. Malory’s
Le Morte d’Arthur
(c.1470) is
often lauded, but is perhaps
too episodic – and besides, it is
a translation from French, so is
far from a ‘new story’. Sidney’s
Arcadia
(1581) is certainly
long enough, but strange
digressions into pastoral sketches rob it of
its singular thread. It is not until 1719 that a
text appears that seems to fulfil everything
we would expect from our modern novel:
Daniel Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe
. We meet
a central figure, striving for survival in a
vast landscape of hardship, a trope that the
modern novel clings to at every turn:
Harry
Potter
,
The Hunger Games
,
Bridget Jones
, this
year’s Man Booker Prize-winner,
The Sellout
.
These latter two, though, share something
else that typified the early novels: a speaker
who seems all too aware that they are writing
something – a conscious narrator.
The title character in Samuel Richardson’s
Pamela
(1740) tells her readers “My story
would furnish out a surprising kind of novel.”
The narrator of Henry Fielding’s
Joseph Andrews
(1742) suggests that “The little spaces between
our Chapters may be looked upon as an Inn
or Resting-Place, where he [the
Reader] may stop and take a
Glass.” In
Tristram Shandy
(filmed
as
A Cock and Bull Story
, starring
Steve Coogan), Laurence
Sterne’s protagonist tells his
readers to “have a little patience”
while he narrates the details of
his own birth. Indeed, these are
all
bildungsromans
– coming-of-
age stories – and, of course,
that is what the Enlightenment
is all about: growing into a state
of consciousness as an individual,
writing our own stories rather
than relying on those passed
down to us by the established
authority.
Oxbridge
Offers 2017
From left to right, Carolina Rimoldi, French and Russian, Christ Church, Oxford, (
Liceo Crespi
); Konstantinos
Doxiadis, Philosophy, Trinity, Cambridge (
St Catherine’s British Embassy School
); Eva Cottingham-Mayall,
Classics, Churchill, Cambridge (
Cheam
); Robert Asatryan, Biochemistry, Somerville, Oxford (
Gosford Hill
);
and Grace Allen OSE, Archaeology and Anthropology, St Hugh’s, Oxford. Tom Lloyd OSE, English, Trinity,
Oxford; and Matthew Adams OSE, Maths, Downing, Cambridge were unavailable for the photo.
By Jonathan Muir
From the Walter Havighurst Special Collections, Miami University Libraries, Oxford, Ohio