Introduction

The Novel will focus primarily on works originally written in English but will also consider novels in translation. This subject guide focuses on novels from the eighteenth century to the present day, but you are allowed to study and write on earlier material where relevant.

Course description

This is designed to help you to gain an understanding of a form central to English literature and literary studies more generally. The term ‘novel’ has been loosely applied by writers and critics to a broad range of texts but, for the purposes of this subject, the term will be restricted to fictional works, written in prose, of sufficient length to be deemed ‘novels’. Some of this course’s main objectives will be to help you to:

It will be useful to keep these points in mind when you set about planning your own course of study and when assessing your progress (self-assessment procedures are discussed in the Student handbook).

Course content

You can organise your course of study around particular authors and/or particular topics of your choice but you should try to read a representative selection of novels including eighteenth- and nineteenth-century realist novels, early twentieth-century modernist novels and some post-modern fiction. You are also recommended to study authors from across the British, American, European and non-Western traditions. The following list is by no means exhaustive; it is a selection of important and influential novels you may care to study. You may want to think about what this list, a ‘canon’ of sorts, includes and what it leaves out. You should try to read at least some of the novels from this list, but you should not feel limited by this selection. Bear in mind that you will want to explore the novel both synchronically (i.e. as it exists at a given moment without reference to its past) and diachronically (i.e. as it passed through time). When studying the earlier history of the genre, the selection of texts will inevitably be more limited to European novels.

Suggested primary reading

(Dates in parentheses, unless otherwise stated, indicate year of publication.)

* The two Austen, and the two Balzac, novels are listed as essential reading in Chapters 1 and 2.

†Proust’s and Dorothy Richardson’s novels unfold over several volumes. Although you may want to read them in their entirety, you will gain a worthwhile sense of what these writers are doing by reading the first volumes in the sequences (Proust’s Swann’s Way and Richardson’s Pointed Roofs).

Suggested topics

Some topics which you may like to investigate are listed below. All of these are relevant to the study of the novel – though, of course, you need not restrict yourself to them.

Other topics, which are not listed here, might occur to you as you study.

Advice on reading

Because of the wide range of this course, there is no one book or grouping of books that can adequately cover the whole content. The books recommended below and elsewhere in this subject guide address most of the central concerns of the course, but when you focus on particular authors and topics you may want to supplement this reading with more specialised studies. Although you will be studying individual novelists as well as topics, the primary concern of this course is not with particular novelists but with the novel as a genre. Thus the reading recommended below and in the suggested reading organised by topic in Chapter 4 covers broad issues rather than a core syllabus of novels or novelists. Furthermore, in order to allow you the freedom to make your own selection of novels for close study, it is not practical to provide booklists for each of the authors listed above. This means that, for your study of authors and topics not listed above or discussed in this subject guide, you will need to compile your own reading lists, with the help of the handbook and bearing the following points in mind.

Most libraries have computerised indexing which will cross-reference. So the entry ‘Cervantes’, for example, should produce lists of Cervantes’ writing, but also biographies, critical readings, etc. The constraints of time make it impossible for you to read very widely on particular authors, so if you want to find out more about, say, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary you should look for a collection of essays or a single book which aims to provide an introductory overview. Although they are not available for all the novels that you might study, the kind of short, authoritative, critical discussions of individual novels offered by a series like the Cambridge ‘Landmarks of World Literature’ will generally provide sufficient information on given texts. If you want to pursue your reading further, the bibliographies in such books are a good starting place.

You will know from your work on other courses that the nature of English studies has changed radically over the last 20 years. Bear this in mind. If all the criticism that you read on, say, George Eliot was written in the 1950s you may have a limited idea of the range of critical responses to this writer. At the same time, do not assume that criticism from an earlier date is necessarily redundant.

Particularly recommended books are marked with an asterisk (*).

Secondary reading

Essential texts

Booth, Wayne C. (1983) The Rhetoric of Fiction. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991) second edition [ISBN 9780140137361]. A highly influential and admirably clear study of the ‘rhetoric’ of a wide range of American and European novels.

Hawthorn, Jeremy Studying the Novel, an Introduction. (London and New York: Arnold, 2010) sixth edition [ISBN 9780340985137]. A clear, if basic, introduction to many of the key issues and topics.

Hoffman, Michael J. and Patrick D. Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. (London: Leicester University Press, 1996) second edition
[ISBN 9780718501198 (hbk); 9780718501204]. A very useful collection of essays by some of the major commentators on questions of narrative theory.

*Lodge, David The Art of Fiction: Illustrated from Classic and Modern Texts. (London: Vintage, 2011) second edition [ISBN 9780099554240]. Offers clear and succinct essays on the major formal issues. Originated as a journalistic enterprise, but contains surprisingly useful thumbnail definitions of fictional topoi with illustrative examples.

McKeon, Michael Theory of the Novel: An Historical Approach. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) [ISBN 9780801863967 (hbk); 9780801863974 (pbk)]. An excellent anthology of essays on novel ‘theory’.

Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith (1983) Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. (London and New York: Routledge, 2005) second edition [ISBN 9780415280211 (hbk); 9780415280228]. An excellent introduction to the theory of narratology using a wide range of international texts.

Other recommended books

Allott, Miriam (ed.) Novelists on the Novel. (London: Routledge, 1959)
[ISBN 9780710046482].

Alter, Robert Partial Magic: The Novel as Self-Conscious Genre. (Berkeley, London: University of California Press, 1975) [ISBN 9780520027558 (hbk); 9780520037328]. A fluent study of the ‘tradition’ of self-conscious novelists who question and parody dominant novel-types.

*Auerbach, Erich Mimesis: the Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated by W. Trask. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003) fiftieth anniversary edition [ISBN 9780691113364]. The author traces the gradual raising of low-life mimesis to the level of high art and offers a close analysis of passages.

*Bakhtin, Mikhail M. The Dialogic Imagination, Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Edited by M. Holquist. (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1982)
[ISBN 9780292715349].

Barthes, Roland (1967) Writing Degree Zero. Translated by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. (London: Cape, 1984) [ISBN 9780224022675]. A brief but elegant statement of a post-modernist rejection of realism in France.

Barthes, Roland (1973) S/Z. Translated by Richard Miller. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990) [ISBN 9780631176077].

Bradbury, Malcolm (ed.) The Novel Today. (Glasgow: Fontana, 1990) revised edition [ISBN 9780006861836].

*Brink, André The Novel: Language and Narrative from Cervantes to Calvino. (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1998) [ISBN 9780333684085 (hbk); 9780333684092 (pbk)]

Brooks, Peter Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984) [ISBN 9780674748927 (pbk)].

Brooks, Peter Realist Vision. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005)
[ISBN 9780300106800].

Chatman, Seymour Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990) [ISBN 9780801497360].

Couturier, Maurice Textual Communication: A Print-based Theory of the Novel. (London and New York: Routledge, 1991) [ISBN 9780415039208]. A sophisticated and informative text which explores the impact of the environment, the market and the law on fiction from a materialist viewpoint.

Doody, Margaret Anne The True Story of the Novel. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers, 1996) [ISBN 9780813521688].

Eco, Umberto The Role of the Reader. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979). [ISBN 9780253203182]. Reader response theory which argues that some texts are ‘open’ and others are ‘closed’.

Furst, Lilian All is True: The Claims and Strategies of Realist Fiction. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995) [ISBN 9780822316329 (hbk); 9780822316466 (pbk)].

Forster, E.M. (1927) Aspects of the Novel. Edited by Oliver Stallybrass (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000) [ISBN 9780141184135]. Of historical interest for its influential and much debated account of ‘rounded’ and ‘flat’ characters.

Genette, Gérard Narrative Discourse, an Essay in Method. Translated by J. E. Lewin. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980) [ISBN 9780801492594 (pbk)].

Gibson, Andrew Reading Narrative Discourse: Studies in the Novel from Cervantes to Beckett. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, Macmillan, 1990)
[ISBN 9780333447444 (hbk)].

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar The Madwoman in the Attic, the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979) [ISBN 9780300084580].

Head Dominic The Cambridge Introduction to J.M. Coetzee. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) [ISBN 9780521867474 (hbk); 9780521687096 (pbk)].

Herman, David (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) [ISBN 9780521673662].

*Hunter, J. Paul Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century Fiction. (New York and London: Norton and Co., 1992)
[ISBN 9780393308617 (pbk)].

*Iser, Wolfgang The Implied Reader, Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978) [ISBN 9780801821509]. Argues that the reader’s experience of reading is at the centre of the reading process.

James, Henry The Critical Muse: Selected Literary Criticism. Edited by Roger Gard (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987) [ISBN 9780140432701].

Jameson, Fredric The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. (London: Routledge, 2002, originally published in 1981) second edition [ISBN 9780415287517]. Argues for the centrality and inevitability of political interpretations of literary texts. Especially good on Conrad.

Jefferson, Ann The Nouveau Roman and the Poetics of Fiction. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) [ISBN 9780521222396].

Kermode, Frank The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979) [ISBN 9780674345355].

Kettle, Arnold (ed.) The Nineteenth Century Novel: Critical Essays and Documents. (London: Heinemann in association with Open University Press, 1982) revised edition [ISBN 9780335101818].

Kundera, Milan The Art of the Novel. (London: Faber, 2005) revised edition [ISBN 9780571227495].

Kundera, Milan Testaments Betrayed. (London: Faber, 2004) new edition [ISBN 9780571173372].

Levin, Harry The Gates of Horn, a Study of Five French Realists: Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola and Proust. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963) [ISBN 9780195007275]. A survey of nineteenth-century realist novelists in France.

Levine, George The Realistic Imagination: English Fiction from ‘Frankenstein’ to Lady Chatterley. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2010 originally published in 1981) new edition [ISBN 9780226475516].

Lodge, David The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature. (London: Edward Arnold, 1977)
[ISBN 9780713162585].

Lodge, David After Bakhtin: Essays on fiction and criticism. (London and New York: Routledge, 1990) [ISBN 9780415050371 (hbk); 9780415050388 (pbk)].

Lukács, Georg (1955) The Historical Novel. Translated by Hannah and Stanley Mitchell. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976) [ISBN 9780140550818].

Lukács, Georg (1920) The Theory of the Novel, a Historico–Philosophic Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature. Translated by Anna Bostock. (London: Merlin, 1978) [ISBN 9780850362367].

McHale, Brian Postmodernist Fiction. (London: Routledge, 1989)
[ISBN 9780415045131].

McKeon, Michael The Origins of the English Novel 1660–1740. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988) [ISBN 9780801837463].

Moretti, Franco (ed.) The Novel, Vol. 1: History, Geography, and Culture. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780691049472].

Moretti, Franco (ed.) The Novel, Vol 2: Forms and Themes. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780691049489].

Nel, Brian (ed.) Naturalism in the European Novel. (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1992) [ISBN 9780854966271].

Phelps, Gilbert A Short Guide to the World Novel, the Myth to Modernism. (London: Routledge, 1988) [ISBN 9780415007658]. An extensively researched, non-Eurocentric study of the development of the novel in world culture.

Ray, William Story and History: Narrative Authority and Social Identity in the Eighteenth-Century French and English Novel. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 1990) [ISBN 9780631175124]. Includes interesting chapters on both Moll Flanders and Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Scholes, Robert, James Phelan and Robert Kellogg The Nature of Narrative. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, originally published in 1966) fortieth anniversary edition [ISBN 9780195151756 (hbk); 9780195151763 (pbk)]. A revised and expanded version of a seminal text, offering a history of the genre narrative from antiquity to the present. Includes an overview of the narrative’s main elements: meaning, character, plot, point of view, and (in this new edition) structuralist, cognitive, feminist and rhetorical approaches to narrative.

Showalter, Elaine (1977) A Literature of Their Own, British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing. (London: Virago, 1984) [ISBN 9780860682851].

Spencer, Jane The Rise of the Woman Novelist: From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) [ISBN 9780631139157 (hbk); 9780631139164 (pbk)].

Stern, Joseph Peter On Realism. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973) [ISBN 9780710073792].

Stevenson, Randall Modernist Fiction: An Introduction. (London: Prentice Hall, 1997) revised edition [ISBN 9780138376598].

Thirlwell, Adam Miss Herbert: An Essay in Five Parts. (London: Vintage, 2009) [ISBN 9780099513223]. Part-novelistic/part-critical study of style in fiction, as revealed principally through the medium of translation.

Toolan, Michael Narrative: A Critical Linguistic Introduction. (London: Routledge, 2001) [ISBN 9780415231749].

Walder, Dennis (ed.) The Realist Novel. (London: Routledge, 1996)
[ISBN 9780415135719 (hbk); 9780415135726 (pbk)].

*Watt, Ian (1957) The Rise of The Novel, Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. (London: Pimlico, 2000) [ISBN 9780712664271]. A highly influential study of the generic and sociological influences which gave rise to the novel.

Wheeler Kathleen A Guide to Twentieth-Century Women Novelists. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998) [ISBN 9780631212119].

Woloch, Alex The One vs the Many: Minor Characters and the Space of the Protagonist in the Novel. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003) [ISBN 9780691113135 (hbk); 9780691113142 (pbk)].

Waugh, Patricia Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. (London: Routledge, 1984) [ISBN 9780415030069].

Zimmerman, Everett Defoe and the Novel. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992) [ISBN 9780520026889].

Suggested study syllabus

Here is a sample 22-week syllabus to give you an idea of how you could structure your own syllabus for this course.

Weeks 1–2

Background reading on theories of the novel and debates about its origins (i.e. books like Mikhail Bakhtin’s The Dialogic Imagination and Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel).

Weeks 3–4

Author study: Cervantes’ Don Quixote and some secondary material.

Week 5

Topic study: the genesis of the novel as a form (suggested text: Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe).

Week 6

Topic study: the epistolary novel (suggested text: Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Burney’s Evelina).

Weeks 7–8

Author study: Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Persuasion.

Weeks 9–10

Author study: Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet and Old Goriot.

Week 11

Topic study: varieties of realism (secondary reading on realism and the novel).

Week 12

Topic study: narrative voice and perspective (suggested text: James’
The Spoils of Poynton and some secondary material).

Weeks 13–14

Topic study: modernism and the novel (suggested text: Woolf’s
Mrs Dalloway).

Week 15

Author study: Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and some secondary material.

Weeks 16–17

Topic study: modern Gothic (suggested texts: Fowles’ The Collector and Murdoch’s The Unicorn).

Week 18

Topic study: magic realism (suggested text: Màrquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude).

Weeks 19–20

Topic study: Post-modernism and the novel (suggested text: Delillo’s White Noise).

Weeks 21–22

Revise and practise examination papers.

You will notice that some of the novels in this course are very long, so you may need more than one week just to read them. Adjust your schedule accordingly.

Study questions and recommended secondary reading for suggested study topics

Because the focus of this course is on broad questions about the novel as a genre and in order to allow you the freedom to select which novels to study, the essay/study questions and recommended reading below relate to topics rather than individual texts. These topics are not the only ones that you might wish to investigate further, but they will help you to gain a fuller sense of the concerns of this course. Although the questions below are framed as essay questions of the kind you are likely to encounter in the examination, you can use them as a focus for your studies on a given topic even if you are not intending to write on it. As a guide, we have generally specified whether your responses should cover one or more writers, but you are free to ignore this advice and adapt questions to suit the novelists and novels you have chosen to work on. Bear in mind, however, that broad questions about the genre are often most successfully addressed with reference to two or three novels by different writers.

If you are working on a topic not covered in this subject guide, you may want to devise your own questions in order to give focus to your studies. One way of doing this is to choose a brief statement of a particular commentator’s thesis and use this as a means of structuring your response. Remember that a bold or contentious claim is more likely to provoke you into thought and a productive counter argument than a bland one.

Unless given below, the full bibliographical details for books can be found in the recommended secondary reading in the Introduction to this subject guide.

The origins and rise of the novel

Questions

  1. 1. ‘[In epic] it is memory, and not knowledge, that serves as the source and power for the creative impulse. That is how it was, it is impossible to change it: the tradition of the past is sacred. [...] The novel, by contrast, is determined by experience, knowledge and practice (the future)’. (BAKHTIN) In the light of this quotation, compare the presuppositions of epic with those of the early novel.1

    1 The Iliad or The Odyssey are probably the most easily accessible examples of epic narrative.

  2. 2. ‘Romances are generally composed of the constant Loves and invincible Courages of Hero’s, Heroins, King’s and Queens [....] where lofty Language, miraculous Contingencies and impossible performances, elevate and surprize the Reader [....] Novels are of a more familiar nature; Come near us [... and] delight us with Accidents and odd Events, but not such as are wholly unusual or unpresidented’. (CONGREVE, Preface to Incognita, 1692) To what extent is Congreve’s distinction between romances and novels persuasive?2

    2 This question would offer a productive way into a discussion of Don Quixote and/or a comparison between a ‘romance’ like Sidney’s Arcadia and an early ‘novel’ such as Defoe’s Moll Flanders or Haywood’s Love in Excess.

  3. 3. Write a critical account of Ian Watt’s thesis about the rise of the novel. You should pay particular attention to Watt’s hypothesis about the relationship between the rise of the middle class and the rise of the novel, and the assumption that ‘formal realism’ is the defining feature of the new genre.
  4. 4. ‘[No] single word or phrase distinguishes the novel from romance or anything else, and to settle for “realism” or “individualism” or “character” as the defining characteristic diminishes the very idea of the novel and trivializes the conception of a literary species.’ (HUNTER) Discuss with reference to critical debates about the origins of the genre and at least two early novels.

Suggested reading

(See the main booklist at the start of this introduction for publication details.)

Bakhtin, Mikhail M. ‘Epic and Novel’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 3.

Hunter, J. Paul Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century Fiction.

McKeon, Michael The Origins of the English Novel 1660–1740.

Scholes, Robert, James Phelan and Robert Kellogg The Nature of Narrative. Chapters 1–3.

Watt, Ian The Rise of the Novel, Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding.

Genre and sub-genre

Questions

  1. 1. ‘[The novel] is plasticity itself. It is a genre that is ever questing, ever examining itself and subjecting its established forms to review.’ (BAKHTIN) Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  2. 2. ‘We do the novel [...] a disservice if we fail to notice, once we have defined the different world from romance that novels represent, how fully it engages the unusual, the uncertain, and the unexplainable.’ (HUNTER) Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  3. 3. ‘From the novel’s beginnings, intertextuality has been one of the few defining characteristics of the genre.’ Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  4. 4. ‘One question the novel repeatedly asks is: How do you know? – answering basic and simple human needs to know about the world, and to pursue that need in the reading of novels.’ (HUNTER) Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  5. 5. ‘“Realism” is only one element in the novel’s history, other traditions such as romance, gothic, fantasy and science fiction are equally important.’ Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  6. 6. ‘Satire depends on simplification and is thus antithetical to the novel, which excels in presenting complexity.’ Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  7. 7. ‘The history of the novel is a history of anti-novels.’ (FRANK KERMODE) Discuss with reference to one or more novelists.
  8. 8. ‘The novel is the only developing genre and therefore it reflects more deeply, more essentially, more sensitively and rapidly, reality itself in the process of its unfolding.’ (M. BAKHTIN) Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  9. 9. ‘Because the novel is such a flexible genre and because novels are written across periods and cultures, it is meaningless to speak of a coherent “novel tradition”.’ Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  10. 10. With reference to at least two novelists you have studied, consider the view that the concept of individualism underpins the novel form.

Suggested reading

Bakhtin, Mikhail M. The Dialogic Imagination, Four Essays.

Brink, André The Novel: Language and Narrative from Cervantes to Calvino.

Narrative technique and theory: character

Questions

  1. 1. ‘I believe that all novels [...] deal with character, and that it is to express character—not to preach doctrines [...] that the form of the novel [...] has been evolved.’ (VIRGINIA WOOLF) Discuss with reference to at least two novelists.
  2. 2. ‘We may divide characters into flat and round.’ (E.M. FORSTER) Consider the validity of Forster’s distinction with reference to at least two novelists.
  3. 3. ‘Personality is what living beings have. “Character” on the other hand is what people in novels have. The biggest ideological presupposition that novel readers are encouraged to make is to think that characters in novel have personalities.’ Consider the means by which any one novelist encourages and/or discourages such a view.
  4. 4. How valid is the distinction between novels of character and novels of action? You should refer to at least two novelists.

Suggested reading

Forster E.M. ‘Flat and Round Characters’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 3.

Gass, William H. ‘The Concept of Character in Fiction’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 13.

Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics.
Chapter 5.

Woolf, Virginia ‘Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 2.

Narrative voice and perspective

Questions

  1. 1. ‘The choice of point(s) of view from which the story is told is arguably the most important single decision that the novelist has to make, for it fundamentally affects the way readers will respond [...] to the fictional characters and their actions.’ (DAVID LODGE) In the light of this claim, consider the handling of point of view in the work of one or more novelists.
  2. 2. ‘No lyricism, no comments, the author’s personality absent.’ (FLAUBERT) With what success does any one novelist achieve Flaubert’s dream of impersonality?
  3. 3. Consider the importance of narrators and/or narrative perspective in the work of one or more novelists.
  4. 4. ‘The art of fiction does not begin until the novelist thinks of his story as a matter to be shown, to be so exhibited that it will tell itself.’ (PERCY LUBBOCK) Discuss with reference to the work of one or more novelists.
  5. 5. With reference to one or more novelists, consider how adequately the term ‘stream of consciousness’ describes their techniques of representing thought processes.

Suggested reading

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction.

Booth, Wayne C. ‘Distance and Point of View: An Essay in Clarification’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 9.

Leaska, Mitchell A. ‘The Concept of Point of View’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 12.

Lodge, David The Art of Fiction. Chapters 6, 9, 26, 27 and 33.

Lodge, David ‘Mimesis and Diegesis in Modern Fiction’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 24.

Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. Chapters 6–8.

Narrative structure and chronology

Questions

  1. 1. ‘The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth? –Because one did survive the wreck.’ (MELVILLE, from the epilogue to Moby-Dick) Consider the significance of beginnings and endings in the work of one novelist you have read.
  2. 2. ‘What puts our mind at rest is the simple sequence, the overwhelming variegation of life now represented in [...] a unidimensional order.’ (ROBERT MUSIL) In the light of this quotation, consider the significance of narrative structure in the work of one or more novelists.
  3. 3. Consider the novelistic handling of time by at least two novelists.

Suggested reading

Brooks, Peter Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative.

Brooks, Peter, ‘Reading for the Plot’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 23.

Genette, Gérard ‘Time and Narrative in A la recherche du temps perdue’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 14.

Kermode, Frank The Sense of an Ending. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, originally published in 1966) second edition [ISBN 9780195136128].

Narrative theory

Questions

  1. 1. ‘Narrative theory helps us understand the mechanics of fiction, but is less helpful when it comes to particular questions of interpretation.’ Discuss with reference to one or more novelists.
  2. 2. With reference to one or more novelists, show how aspects of narrative theory have enhanced your understanding of the genre.

Suggested reading

Gennette, Gérard Narrative Discourse, an Essay in Method.

Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics.

Realism and mimesis

Questions

  1. 1. ‘The realist novel purports to offer a neutral and transparent representation of the world, but is actually informed by particular assumptions about the “real” and mediated by highly conventional rhetorical strategies.’ Discuss with reference to one or more novelists.
  2. 2. ‘Recipe for the “realist” novel: invent a plot based on cause-and-effect; add well-defined characters; assume throughout the world is susceptible to rational enquiry and therefore knowable.’ Discuss with reference to one or more novelists.
  3. 3. ‘New problems appear and demand new methods. Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.’ (BERTOLT BRECHT) Discuss with reference to one or more novelists.
  4. 4. ‘Although realist fiction is often condemned for its bad faith and conventionality, it is better understood as a pragmatic effort to render a complex world humanly comprehensible.’ Discuss with reference to one novelist.
  5. 5. ‘The realism/experimentalism dichotomy is formalist. It construes realism as a set of narrative techniques, and experimentalism as their subversion. This is inadequate. Realism needs to be seen as a heterogeneous phenomenon.’ Discuss with reference to one or more novelists.

Suggested reading

Auerbach, Erich Mimesis: the Representation of Reality in Western Literature.

Barthes, Roland S/Z.

Barthes, Roland Writing Degree Zero.

Gasiorek, Andrzej Post-War British Fiction: Realism and After. (London and New York: Edward Arnold, 1995) [ISBN 9780340572153]. Especially Chapters 1 and 8.

Levine, George ‘Realism Reconsidered’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 17.

Lodge, David The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Writing.

Lodge, David ‘Middlemarch and the idea of the classic realist text’ in After Bakhtin: Essays on Fiction and Criticism. Chapter 3.

Lukács, Georg ‘Marxist Aesthetics and Literary Realism’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 10.

Self-conscious fiction

Questions

  1. 1. ‘Self-conscious fiction explicitly lays bare the conventions of realism; it does not ignore or abandon them.’ In the light of this claim, consider the relationship between ‘realism’ and ‘self-consciousness’ in the work of one or more novelists.
  2. 2. ‘We’ll not stop two moments, my dear Sir,—only, as we have got thro’ these five volumes, (do, Sir, sit down upon a set – they are better than nothing) let us look back upon the country we have pass’d through.’ (LAURENCE STERNE) Consider the significance of self-conscious narration in the work of one or more novelists.

Suggested reading

Alter, Robert Partial Magic: The Novel as Self-Conscious Genre.

Waugh, Patricia Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction.

Modernist and postmodernist fiction

Questions

  1. 1. ‘They’ve changed everything now [...] we used to think there was a beginning, middle and an end.’ (THOMAS HARDY) In the light of this quotation, consider how and to what end one or more novelists resist traditional narrative structure.
  2. 2. ‘Reality doesn’t exist, time doesn’t exist, personality doesn’t exist. God was the omniscient author, but he died; now no one knows the plot.’ (RONALD SUKENICK) Discuss with reference to one or more novelists.
  3. 3. ‘Modern fiction does not dispense with the idea of coherence, but rather looks for new kinds of order.’ Discuss with reference to one or more novelists.
  4. 4. ‘My ideal postmodernist author neither merely repudiates nor merely imitates either his twentieth-century modernist parents or his nineteenth-century pre-modernist grandparents.’ (JOHN BARTH) To what extent does any one author you have studied fulfill Barth’s ideal?
  5. 5. With reference to one or more novelist(s), consider the relationship between innovation and tradition in either the ‘modernist’ or the ‘post-colonial’ or the postmodern novel.

Suggested reading

Barth, John ‘The Literature of Replenishment’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 20.

Frank, Joseph ‘Spatial Form in Modern Literature’ in Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapter 5.

Lodge, David, The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Writing.

McHale, Brian Postmodernist Fiction.

Stevenson, Randall Modernist Fiction: An Introduction.

Gender

Questions

  1. 1. ‘The tradition of women novelists from the eighteenth century to the present day offers a significant challenge to traditional accounts of the genre’s forms and functions.’ Consider the view with reference to at least two novelists.
  2. 2. ‘There is no reason to think that the form of the epic or of the poetic play suit a woman any more than the sentence suits her. But all the older forms of literature had hardened and set by the time she became a writer. The novel alone was young enough to be soft in her hands.’ (VIRGINIA WOOLF) In the light of this quotation, consider at least two women novelists of the eighteenth and/or nineteenth centuries.

Suggested reading

Hoffman and Murphy (eds) Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Chapters 27–29.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar The Madwoman in the Attic, the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination.

Showalter, Elaine A Literature of Their Own, British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing.

Spencer, Jane The Rise of the Woman Novelist: From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen.

The role of the reader

Questions

  1. 1. ‘The truest respect which you can pay the reader’s understanding, is to halve matters amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.’ (LAURENCE STERNE) In the light of this quotation, consider how one or more novelists engage the reader in the process of interpretation.
  2. 2. ‘Your attention, as reader, is now completely concentrated on the woman [...] for several pages you have been expecting this female shadow to take shape [...] and is your expectation that drives the author toward her.’ (ITALO CALVINO) In the light of this quotation, consider how one or more novelists exploit and/or subvert the reader’s expectations.

Suggested reading

Eco, Umberto The Role of the Reader.

Iser, Wolfgang The Implied Reader, Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett.

Using this subject guide

This subject guide is not an exhaustive study of, nor a comprehensive guide to, the novel. Instead it is an elaborate series of signposts which suggests directions, topics, themes, questions and critical approaches that could prove useful to you. It is up to you to construct a course of study for yourself, using these pointers. Your schedule should include the study of secondary literature – literary criticism and other material you feel could provide a useful background to your study – as well as primary texts.

This subject guide, then, provides a general model – a guide to helpful critical procedures and relevant material. However, you have to adapt this model to your own needs and interests. Ideally, you should try to read as many of the novels listed above as possible to give yourself a sense of the progression and scope of the novel as an evolving form. More practically, we suggest you study at least two authors and at least two topics in detail. This should be enough to allow you to answer three questions confidently in the examination. Don’t forget that it is perfectly acceptable to investigate issues which are not mentioned in this subject guide as long as they are of relevance to the objectives described above.

This subject guide does not constitute the course itself, but is an example of how you could construct an appropriate course of study and devise appropriate ways of studying the material you choose. It also indicates the range of material that is the minimum amount necessary to face the exam with confidence. Simple regurgitation in the examination of the illustrative material in this subject guide will be regarded as plagiarism and heavily penalised. You must adapt such material in ways appropriate to your own chosen syllabus of study. Examiners will always look unfavourably at examinations composed of answers which draw solely on the illustrative material provided in this subject guide.

Please note that there are other subject guides and introductions that might prove to be of use to you, especially those which have sections on fictional prose writings. For example, the Moderns subject guide contains a useful introduction to Joyce. Look through the other subject guides and see if they cover authors or topics that may be of interest to you. Do bear in mind, though, that this subject guide is unique in two important respects:

  1. 1. It focuses exclusively on one literary form, the novel, whereas other subject guides have invited you to examine a period (e.g. Romanticism), a body of writings in both prose and poetry (e.g. women’s writing or nineteenth-century American literature), a single author (e.g. Shakespeare) or a general topic (e.g. modern literary theory).
  2. 2. It includes novels in translation from other languages. Bear this in mind before waxing lyrical on the language of foreign texts you choose to write on in the examination. You may be celebrating the translator’s verbal dexterity, rather than that of the original author.

Method of assessment

Important: the information and advice given here are based on the examination structure used at the time this guide was written. Please note that subject guides may be used for several years. Because of this we strongly advise you to always check both the current Regulations for relevant information about the examination, and the virtual learning environment (VLE) where you should be advised of any forthcoming changes.

You should also carefully check the rubric/instructions on the paper you actually sit and follow those instructions.You will be assessed by one three-hour examination. The examination paper will be in two parts and you will be asked to answer three different questions, at least one from each section.

Section A will comprise questions inviting you to compare and contrast novels by a single author of your own choice. They will normally invite discussion with reference to at least two novels. Section B will comprise questions on broader topics and themes and invite discussion with reference to at least two novels by different authors. You will be expected to demonstrate on this part of the examination some familiarity with theories of narration and the novel, and a knowledge of the broader contexts of fiction.

This subject guide is organised around the structure of the examination paper. It contains examples of the kind of questions you can expect in the examination, in the relevant chapters. There are two Section A single author studies and two Section B topic studies as models for you to follow. There is also a sample examination paper attached at the end of this guide.

Remember, it is important to check the VLE for:

Preparing for the examination

The sample examination paper included at the end of this subject guide gives you a good idea of the range of questions you can expect. Remember, it is better to go for depth rather than breadth in the examination.

An essay is not only an attempt to understand but also to convey understanding. It is this specialised skill which the examination by essay seeks to test. Unfortunately, some students’ essays fail to adequately convey understanding. This is rarely because a student fails to grasp the concepts involved. Rather it is due to the failure of the essayist to make a complete, well-supported case for whatever they are trying to say.

Preparing for the examination, then, starts with the study of the topic or topics that interest you, followed by close reading and analysis of texts. Then you must begin to organise the evidence that these analyses provide. Writing sample answers and essays will not only prepare you for specific topics in the examination, but will also improve your reading and analytical skills.

As you will have to choose from a limited number of essay titles for a subject with very few constraints on what you can study, you must devote time to your essay techniques. Before you launch into the essay, make sure you are properly prepared. Start by reading through the questions a few times before you begin, thinking about which questions will enable you to display your knowledge and analytical skills to the best extent. In so doing, you should ask yourself which themes/areas, etc. you could appropriately and profitably use to answer these questions. When you have decided on your essay questions, spend some time planning your answers, preferably paragraph by paragraph. This should assist you in writing efficiently and effectively without too many false starts, thus maximising your time.

The answer to a general examination question must be narrowed with ruthless directness. Some questions will be so broad as to take in, conceivably, whole areas and eras of literature. A successful essay must chart a very precise route through such sprawling expanses of territory. You need to clearly define the terms within which you intend to answer the particular questions you have chosen.

Start at the beginning. The introduction is essential. Here, you should tell the reader how you have interpreted the question and what direction the essay will take. Just as television news reports start with an announcement of the headlines, so your introduction should contain a clear concise statement of the main argument the essay will present. Look closely and ask yourself: will this main statement answer the question? The essay, with the thesis statement as its centre, should not simply express your opinion: it should make a considered and well-supported argument.

The main body of the essay should then follow on from what you say in your introduction. Each paragraph must be directly related to developing what is implicit in the main statement.

You should also use the question as a landmark, referring back to it regularly to make sure that you are following the right path and actually answering it.

Remember

The conclusion should be a concise summary of your main thesis, but it must not be simply repetitive. The conclusion might also be an appropriate place to mention information which did not directly follow from your main argument but which is related and of interest to the reader.

Online resources

Please note that additional study resources may be available to you for this course. A particularly important resource is the VLE for the English programme, which you can access via the Student Portal – see the Student handbook for details of how to log in.