scholarly journals Editorial

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. v-viii
Author(s):  
Graham Holderness
Keyword(s):  
Jane Austen ◽  
Daniel Defoe ◽  
Samuel Richardson ◽  
Henry Fielding ◽  
Literary Realism ◽  
Conduct Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Novel

When I first studied the novel, the form was believed to have originated in the eighteenth century with the fiction of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson, and was synonymous with literary realism. The novel emerged from the Age of Reason, was closely associated with journalism, satire and conduct literature, and marked a profound break with the supernatural, fantastic and romance narratives of the past. Its perfect embodiment was to be found in the work of Jane Austen, even today an immensely popular writer, and widely regarded as a defining practitioner of the novel form. This kind of novel was/is in every respect different from Shakespeare: new, ‘novel’, not old; prose, not poetry; narrative, not dramatic; realist, not magical; fictional, not metafictional; and could deal with Shakespeare only as an objective feature of the society and culture being represented.

David Mitchell’s Inefficiency

2021 ◽  
pp. 149-183
Author(s):  
Thom Dancer
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Literary Realism ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
The Future ◽  
Massive Scale ◽  
And Function ◽  
Prior State ◽  
Cultural Force

David Mitchell’s fiction provides an opportunity to reconsider the claims of modesty in the context of globalization. This chapter draws upon the arguments of the previous ones to put critical modesty to its most difficult test. Are minor achievements enough given the massive scale of planetary life and of urgent global problems facing humanity, not the least of which is environmental ruin? I argue that Mitchell’s novels directly face the problems of scaling that cast into doubt the place and function of the novel as a relevant cultural force in the twenty-first century and beyond. Mitchell’s work helps us to reconcile realism as a kind of modest speculation. Where the novel has long been understood as a form that easily scales from the local to the global, Mitchell emphasizes the discontinuity afforded by novelistic thinking. The efficient causality that has subtended literary realism aims to retroactively recreate the events that lead inevitably from the past to the future. Mitchell’s formal investment in discontinuity resists the tyranny of the inevitable by narrating moments of bifurcation in which a new possibility for action suddenly and unexpectedly emerges. Thus, his novels adopt an inefficient causality that give expression to the feeling that things might be different than they are, that inevitability (optimistic or pessimistic) is a dangerous trap. The challenge that Mitchell poses for himself and other novelists is to imagine a disposition modest enough to nurture and shepherd into being these moments of bifurcation when, by definition, there is nothing in the prior state that predicts them.

scholarly journals The products of intertextuality: The value of student adaptations in a literature course

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misty Krueger
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
William Shakespeare ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Jane Austen ◽  
Samuel Richardson ◽  
Henry Fielding ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Textual Production ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Student Projects

The essay explores a pedagogy of adaptation that focuses on examining intertextuality and engaging students in textual production through the creation of an adaptation. The paper discusses the success of assigning an adaptation project in an upper-level, third-year literature course taught at a small university. It examines student adaptations of writings by William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Mary Shelley, and Ben H. Winters and of existing film adaptations of Sense and Sensibility and Frankenstein. I link student projects to critical concepts such as re-vision and multimodality, and disciplines such as literary studies and the digital humanities. I also analyze how the projects reflect students' interests in popular culture and fandom.

The Pamela Debate

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Samuel Richardson ◽  
Henry Fielding ◽  
Usual Sense ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
To Come ◽  
As If

This chapter examines a decisive period in English literary history during the 1740s. This decade saw Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding falling into an unplanned but extraordinary artistic competition that would open two vital channels of production in the novel-writing to come: in Richardson's case toward the representation of inward experience as if mediated by no external authority, in Fielding's toward worldly experience as if mediated wholly by an authoritative storyteller. They did not compete in the usual sense, but such was their entangled proximity it nevertheless seemed a contest. The decade began with Richardson's Pamela (1740), followed by Fielding's Joseph Andrews (1742), and ended with Richardson's Clarissa (1747–8) and Fielding's Tom Jones (1749). This second pair of novels has long since established itself as the more powerful of the two, rightly enough, but against any other novels of the period the first would easily command superiority.

scholarly journals SOCIAL PROTEST AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-114
Author(s):  
Dohal Gassim-H.
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Daniel Defoe ◽  
Samuel Richardson ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Robinson Crusoe ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
History Of

The early eighteenth century witnessed the early development of the dominant literary form of modern times, the novel. The novel emerged as a form with structure and interplay between individuals and their relationships to society. As a new form, the novel tends to make some significant, critical, and social statements about the society. Hence, the novel is used to create a new environment that is related to life and people. Indeed, this is what makes the novel appeal to readers as a new genre. Novelists either try to deal with daily social problems that happen in the lives of people or pretend that they are telling real stories. It is not surprising to find that Daniel Defoe molds his Robinson Crusoe (1719)on a real story while Samuel Richardson in Pamela (1740) turns out to be didactic to meet the needs of the growing numbers of female readers. On his part, Henry Fielding tries to expose his society to the readers in his masterpiece The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749); from now on Tom Jones. Accordingly, the novel becomes popular at this time because it has something relevant to the mob; it deals with their social life, and they can identify themselves with its characters in the actual daily life. Through Tom Jones, Fielding presented “a true and realistic picture of human nature” (Kettle, 71). As long as its main concern is the existing society, novelists feel so involved that their criticism becomes direct, frank, and effective. My paper deals with these concerns as depicted in the novels mentioned above.

scholarly journals The Single Source

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kerridge
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Literary Realism ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Literary Response ◽  
New Novel ◽  
Ian Mcewan ◽  
Nueva Novela

Key words: Solar, global warming, ecocriticism, mock-heroic, literary realism.In this article I read Ian McEwan's new novel Solar and reflect on what its inclusions and omissions tell us about present concerns and developing projects in ecocriticism. I assess the novel as a literary response to global warming, placing it in a tradition of mock-heroic representations of bodily desire and vulnerability that is ambivalent for ecocriticism. In this connection, I look also at Joseph Meeker's The Comedy of Survival. I contrast the ecocritical mock-heroic with literary realism, and make some suggestions as to what the latter can contribute - criticising a reductiveness in what McEwan has done.Palabras clave: Solar, calentamiento global, ecocrítica, tradición del héroe cómico, realismo literario. Este ensayo es una lectura de la nueva novela de Ian McEwan, Solar, y una reflexión sobre lo que implican sus inclusiones y omisiones para el desarrollo de teorías ecocríticas. La novela constituye una respuesta literaria al calentamiento global, dentro de la tradición literaria del héroe cómico, en el sentido que le da la obra clásica de Joseph Meeker, The Comedy of Survival, y que presenta unas actitudes que resultan muy ambivalentes para la ecocrítica. Asimismo, se contrasta esta tradición literaria con el realismo, abogando por la validez de la última y criticando la tendencia reduccionista de la novela de McEwan. 

scholarly journals Tarnished Virtues: From Richardson to Beardsley

2021 ◽  
pp. 98-120
Author(s):  
Tatiana A. Boborykina
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Samuel Richardson ◽  
Henry Fielding ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
Word Combination ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Common Vision ◽  
Made In

The starting point of the article is a statement about “tarnished virtues” by one of the characters of Poor Folk, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s first novel. The word combination evokes various associations, allusions, and numerous variants of interpretation. A remark on virtues made in the frame of an epistolary novel immediately recalls the novels of a coryphaeus of the genre, 18th-Century English writer Samuel Richardson, especially his first one, in which the word “virtue” appears in the title – Pamela Or, Virtue Rewarded. However, Richardson’s comprehension of virtue seems to be quite narrow, a fact that had been already noticed by his contemporary writer Henry Fielding, who wrote a parody on Pamela. A brief analysis of the parody discovers a common vision on the nature of virtue by both Fielding and Dostoevsky, which becomes even clearer when one finds out their mutual reference point – Cervantes’ Don Quixote. The article explores other novels by Richardson, his influence upon European literature as well as his inner correlation with such writers as Karamzin and Pushkin. Besides, the article investigates the question – raised by its author some years ago – of a certain similarity between the plotlines of Clarissa and Poor Folk, the appearance of “Lovelace” in Dostoevsky’s first book, and the sudden turn of the plot from Richardson’s glorification of virtue to Dostoevsky’s dramatic realism. A few interpretations of Poor Folk are briefly analyzed, including that of Aubrey Beardsley, who illustrated the novel. Several explanations of the sentence on “tarnished virtues” are explored, and finally, the author offers a new one.

scholarly journals Interpretation of symbols of female destiny in the novel “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes” by G. Yakhina

Litera ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 147-157
Author(s):  
Elena Iakovleva
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Literary Realism ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Feminine Principle ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
New Foundations

Many aspects of the life of Tatar women of the past remain obscure for others, which is substantiated by the tradition. This prompts the study of the topic in the genre of literary realism. Analysis is conducted on the fate of Tatar woman in the novel “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes” by G. Yakhina. The hermeneutical method reveals the key symbols of life of the woman, which reveal what is hidden. Such symbols as coffer, kiln, baby cradle, bird, son, honey embody the feminine principle and have national roots. The symbol of train resembles the progress and new foundations of existence, which partially disclose the hidden aspects of the life of Tatar women. Social changes affected the fate of Tatar women, giving an opportunity for self-realization and attainment of happiness. The novelty of this research lies in the analysis of the hidden in the life of Tatar women, dynamics of its evolution in the context of shift in sociocultural dominants caused by historical development. The acquired conclusions can be valuable in reconstruction of the fate of Tatar women of the XIX – XX centuries, determination of the finest nuances and details unknown to others, as well as restoration of the cultural-historical picture of their everyday practices. The interpretation of fate of the heroine of the novel through symbols allows applying a similar method to the analysis of other literary works dedicates to the female theme in culture.

scholarly journals Tarnished Virtues: From Richardson to Beardsley

2021 ◽  
pp. 98-120
Author(s):  
Tatiana A. Boborykina
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Samuel Richardson ◽  
Henry Fielding ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
Word Combination ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Common Vision ◽  
Made In

The starting point of the article is a statement about “tarnished virtues” by one of the characters of Poor Folk, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s first novel. The word combination evokes various associations, allusions, and numerous variants of interpretation. A remark on virtues made in the frame of an epistolary novel immediately recalls the novels of a coryphaeus of the genre, 18th-Century English writer Samuel Richardson, especially his first one, in which the word “virtue” appears in the title – Pamela Or, Virtue Rewarded. However, Richardson’s comprehension of virtue seems to be quite narrow, a fact that had been already noticed by his contemporary writer Henry Fielding, who wrote a parody on Pamela. A brief analysis of the parody discovers a common vision on the nature of virtue by both Fielding and Dostoevsky, which becomes even clearer when one finds out their mutual reference point – Cervantes’ Don Quixote. The article explores other novels by Richardson, his influence upon European literature as well as his inner correlation with such writers as Karamzin and Pushkin. Besides, the article investigates the question – raised by its author some years ago – of a certain similarity between the plotlines of Clarissa and Poor Folk, the appearance of “Lovelace” in Dostoevsky’s first book, and the sudden turn of the plot from Richardson’s glorification of virtue to Dostoevsky’s dramatic realism. A few interpretations of Poor Folk are briefly analyzed, including that of Aubrey Beardsley, who illustrated the novel. Several explanations of the sentence on “tarnished virtues” are explored, and finally, the author offers a new one.

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