Literary Devices and Concepts notes, Unit 1, Background to English Literature-III, 2nd Year, 3rd Semester, B.A English Literature

 University of Madras

Syllabus with effect from 2020-2021

B.A English Literature

[2^nd Year, 3^rd Semester]

Background to English Literature-III

UNIT 1:

II. Literary Devices/Concepts.

1.    1.6. POETRY

Onomatopoeia, Pathetic fallacy, Poetic license, Apostrophe, Personification, oxymoron, zeugma

Onomatopoeia

        Onomatopoeia (also known as, “nominatio,” “nominis,” “confictio,” “the new namer”; etymologically from the Greek, literally “name making”) is a tuneful technique which involves the use of a word, or phraseOpens in new window, the sound of which resembles or naturally imitates the sound of the thing signified.

In Onomatopoeia, the sounds are often produced by human beings, animals and objects. Sounds produced by human beings include but not limited to: “hey,” “clap,” “patter,” “giggle,” “ouch,” “mm,” “oh,” etc. Likewise, the sounds from animals include: “hum,” “tweet,” “cackle,” “bark,” “croak,” “squeak,” “quack,” etc. And those from objects include: “ding-dong,” “beep,” “tick-tock,” “vroom,” “click-click,” “crackle,” “rattle,” etc. Some object sounds can be associated with some action or movement.

Onomatopoetic sounds usually produce a resounding effect of the sense it signifies, thus making the signification efficiently expressive. For example: the name of the bird “cuckoo” reproduces the resounding effect of its song; the word “bang” reproduces resounding effect of an explosive sound or a gun-shot.

Onomatopoeia is used by writers and poets as figurative language to create a heightened experience for the reader. Onomatopoetic words are descriptive and provide a sensory effect and vivid imagery in terms of sight and sound. This literary device is prevalent in poetry, as onomatopoetic words are also conducive to rhymes.

Common Examples of Onomatopoeia:

The buzzing bee flew away.

The sack fell into the river with a splash.

The books fell on the table with a loud thump.

He looked at the roaring

The rustling leaves kept me awake.

 

Pathetic fallacy:      

        The term "pathetic fallacy" was coined by a British writer named John Ruskin, who defined it as "emotional falseness." Ruskin originally used the term to criticize what he saw as the sentimental attitude of 18th century Romantic poets toward nature. The meaning of the term has shifted over time, and now is often used to simply describe, rather than criticize, the attribution of emotions to non-human things.

Pathetic fallacy is a specific type of personification, or the attribution of human qualities to non-human things.

        Generally, pathetic fallacy is confused with personification. The fact is that they differ in their function. Pathetic fallacy gives human emotions to inanimate objects of nature; for example, referring to weather features reflecting a mood. Personification, on the other hand, is a broader term. It gives human attributes to abstract ideas, animate objects of nature, or inanimate non-natural objects.

        For example, the following descriptions refer to weather and how it affects the mood, which can add atmosphere to a story: smiling skies, somber clouds, angry storm, or bitter winter.

 

Poetic license:

        The literary term poetic license is a thing of many names that comes in many forms. Also known as artistic license, literary license, dramatic license, historical license, narrative licence, licentia poetica, or just simply license, poetic license is a conversational term (or sometimes a euphemism).

The term comes from Latin. Poetic derives from the Latin poeta, which means "poet" or "maker." License comes from the Latin licentia, which means "to be permitted." Basically, poetic license involves the departure of facts or even rules for language in order to create a different effect, usually dramatic, for a piece of work or speech.

This term is more commonly used in reference to a poet's work when they have ignored some of the rules for grammar for its effect. Shakespeare does this a lot in his works. The infamous line from Julius Caesar: "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears" is one example as he has omitted the use of the word "and" after "Romans" in order to keep the line in iambic pentameter.

 

Apostrophe:

       Apostrophe (etymologically derived from the Greek word apostrophein, literally meaning “to turn away”), is a rhetorical device which consists when an orator interrupts the flow of the discourse; turning his attention from his immediate audience, to address some person or other objects different from that to which the discourse was at first directed.

      This figure is seldom used; but when it is used, it is usually in a fashion of violent commotion, which the speaker turns himself on all sides, and appeals to the living and the dead, to angels and to men, to rocks, groves, and rivers, for the justice of his cause, or calls upon them to sympathize with his joy, grief, or resentment.

       For example, when Juliet talks to dead Romeo in Romeo and Juliet.

Apostrophe may also be used in calling upon an abstract idea as in "O Death....".

 

Personification:

        Personification is a figure of speech in which an idea or thing is given human attributes and/or feelings or is spoken of as if it were human. Personification is a common form of metaphor in that human characteristics are attributed to nonhuman things. This allows writers to create life and motion within inanimate objects, animals, and even abstract ideas by assigning them recognizable human behaviors and emotions.

        Personification exists in three degrees. In the first degree of personification, the object is presented as having some qualities that properly belong only to living creatures. It is often exhibited by simply using the masculine or feminine pronoun instead of the neuter. Thus, a boat is represented as a female, war as a male, in these expressions: “Pull a stroke or two — away with her into deep water;” “War then showed his devastations.”

        The second degree of personification involves the representation of an object as acting, or manifesting emotion, like a thing of life. Personifications of this kind, which are employed not as expressions of excited feeling, but as convenient condensations, to avoid circumlocutions, and the frequent repetitions of long descriptions. Thus, the word “nature” is used as though it were the name of a person, when evidently the author does not intend to personify any fancied being or power, but it is more convenient to use that appellation than some such expression as “the plan according to which material things act,” or “the properties which this subject has;” and it is more convenient to represent it as a person than to speak of the phenomena described as simple effects.

The third degree of Personification is seen when an object is addressed as if alive, and listening to the speaker. When the mind is sufficiently aroused, this boldest kind of Personification is pre-eminently forcible and beautiful. Personification of this kind need not be confined to the sublimest subjects or to oratorical writing.

 

Oxymoron:

  An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two seemingly contradictory or opposite ideas to create a certain rhetorical or poetic effect and reveal a deeper truth. Generally, the ideas will come as two separate words placed side by side.

    An oxymoron (AHX-ee-MORE-ahn), from the Greek for “pointedly foolish” or “dully sharp,” is a contradiction in terms. It seems illogical on its face, as the basic construction is word + antonymic (the opposite of that word) modifier; for example, minor crisis, as the former means “little or insignificant” while the latter can mean “emergency.” As its etymology suggests, oxymorons are often used for humor, especially satire.

     This excerpt from Irish poet William Butler Yeats’ famous poem "Easter 1916" has the prominent oxymoron "terrible beauty," which is repeated again at the end of the poem. Despite the "terrible" things that happened and the many lives lost, Yeats uses the term "beauty" to bring attention to the positive ideals of independence that gained ground as a result of this event: this desire for self-government is what spurred the Irish War of Independence just a few years later.

In this sense, the uprising was simultaneously terrible (in that it led to death) and beautiful (in its romantic aspirations for independence).

 

Zeugma:

     Zeugma (derives from Greek, meaning 'yoking' or 'bonding'), is a figure concerned with syntactical construction by which a word stands in the same relation to two other words, but conveying two different meanings at the same time. Zeugma can be humorous or interesting.

In Zeugma, thus, one verb is connected with two nouns, to each of which a separate verb should properly be supplied.

The essential features of this figure are :

(i) There are two nouns.

(ii) One verb is connected with these two nouns.

(iii) Each of these nouns requires a separate verb.

Zeugma can be used to create drama, add emotion, or produce a level of shock value. While there can still be an underlying sense of confusion, generally, a zeugma is used purposely.

For example, "He hid his feelings and the ball." In the following sentence 'hid' is used to describe about the feelings as well as the ball.

1.2.    1.7. DRAMA

Poetic justice [Nemesis], Alienation effect, Defamiliarization, Fourth Wall, breaking the Fourth Wall, Disguise, Foreshadowing, Suspension of disbelief

Poetic justice [Nemesis]:

        Poetic justice deals with the idea that good deeds are rewarded while evil ones are punished.

When bad or evil characters have some type of calamity or misfortune befall them in a literary work. While the "bad guys" are not always punished in real life, it is typical for the "good guys" to win in a work of literature.

        The term was coined by the critic Thomas Rymer in his The Tragedies of the Last Age Consider'd (1678) with reference to Elizabethan poetic drama: such justice is ‘poetic’, then, in the sense that it occurs more often in the fictional plots of plays than in real life. As Miss Prism explains in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, ‘The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily.’

 

Alienation effect:

        Defamiliarization is a Russian Formalist concept adapted in by Bertolt Brecht and he called it an alienation effect.  This is used by dramatists mainly to make familiar aspects of the social reality seem strange to prevent an emotional connection with the audience. Many dramas use this effect to constantly remind the audience that this is a work of art and needs no emotional connection. The technique involves breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience.

 

Defamiliarization:

Defamiliarization, as the word implies, is a process where something familiar is no longer perceived as such. Specifically in writing, defamiliarization in literature refers to a technique (a literary device, in a sense) where the writer offers familiar, common things in an odd, unorthodox way.

The purpose of defamiliarization is to cause the readers to question their perception of reality (the known and familiar), through this process it actually facilitates a much deeper and more comprehensive understanding of reality.

       

Fourth Wall:

        In theater, the fourth wall is that invisible forcefield around the stage that keeps actors in their own little world, and separate from the audience. Actors on stage—and even on screen (we're looking at you, Jim Halpert)—sometimes break the fourth wall for dramatic (or comedic) effect, and directly address the audience. The fourth wall didn't really develop in the theater until the late 18th and 19th centuries.

 

Breaking the fourth:

Breaking the fourth wall is not only reserved for comedy shows; for us book nerds, you may have come across it as metafiction in literature. The term originated from theatre and works from the perception of the stage as three solid walls. The fourth being invisible. The characters talk to the space inhabited by the audience. It plays a wider role in the genre of metafiction in literature.

The narrator allows us to understand characters more through the eyes of other people. It can be difficult to truly know how a character behaves until they are positioned through the lens of another. How others perceive them without them knowing and how their actions come across are easier to describe this way than through a first-person narrative.

 

Disguise:

A disguise can be anything which conceals or changes a person's physical appearance, including a wig, glasses, makeup, fake moustache, costume or other items. Camouflage is a type of disguise for people, animals and objects. Hats, glasses, changes in hair style or wigs, plastic surgery, and make-up are also used.

 

Foreshadowing:

        Foreshadowing is a literary device that writers utilize as a means to indicate or hint to readers something that is to follow or appear later in a story. Foreshadowing, when done properly, is an excellent device in terms of creating suspense and dramatic tension for readers. It can set up emotional expectations of character behaviors and/or plot outcomes. This can heighten a reader’s enjoyment of a literary work, enhance the work’s meaning, and help the reader make connections with other literature and literary themes.

 

Suspension of disbelief:

        To 'suspend disbelief' is to temporarily accept as believable of events or characters that would ordinarily be seen as incredible. This is usually to allow an audience to appreciate works of literature or drama that are exploring unusual ideas.

Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the idea of a "willing suspension of disbelief" in his 1815 Biographia Literaria, where he referred to it as "poetic faith."

Suspension of disbelief is especially important when reading in genres like Magical Realism, Gothic Literature, Science Fiction, or Fantasy, where some weird stuff is bound to go down.

 

1.3.   1.8. NOVEL

Satire, Epiphany, Paradox, Symbolic, Flat and Round Characters

 Satire:

        Satire is broadly defined as a literary genre that uses ridicule, irony, wit, sarcasm, etc. to expose folly or vice or to lampoon an individual or group of individuals. Thus a work of satire is crafted to mock and blame culprits with the primary goal of imparting positive change in them.

        It brings about the picturesque scene of a ridiculous world created by the satirist meant to excites laugher or merriment; and it is the introduction of the real world meant to invite reflection on how society might correct ridiculous habits or people simultaneously.

 

Epiphany:

        An epiphany is a sudden realization or discovery that illuminates a new perception or awareness. Epiphany is often used to describe a rapid feeling of clarity or insight in terms of finding an essential meaning or solution–what many describe as an “aha!” moment. Epiphanies often take place at the climax of the story arc.

 

Paradox:

        A paradox is a statement that contradicts itself, or that must be both true and untrue at the same time. Paradoxes are quirks in logic that demonstrate how our thinking sometimes goes haywire, even when we use perfectly logical reasoning to get there.

But a key part of paradoxes is that they at least sound reasonable. They’re not obvious nonsense, and it’s only upon consideration that we realize their self-defeating logic.

 

Symbolic:

        Symbolism is a literary device that refers to the use of symbols in a literary work. A symbol is something that stands for or suggests something else; it represents something beyond literal meaning. In literature, a symbol can be a word, object, action, character, or concept that embodies and evokes a range of additional meaning and significance.

        Symbolism began as an artistic movement in French poetry in the 19th century to combat realism in favor of romanticism. It comes from the Latin word symbolus, which means “a sign of recognition.”

 

Flat and Round Characters:

        E. M. Forster, in his 1927 Aspects of the Novel, applied the terms “flat” and “round” to describe fictional characters. Those true to life he considered to be “round,” while “flat” characters served only one purpose in the story.

        Authors create flat characters to represent a specific idea or quality. Flat characters are “immediately recognizable and can usually be represented by a single sentence,” or characteristic. A flat character wants one thing. For example, Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’s novel Great Expectations, is a flat character who seeks only revenge for being abandoned on her wedding day.

Flat characters:

• lack depth or development.
• support the main character, or other characters. Many stories and novels in fact feature flat characters as main characters, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson for example, as well as the characters in various stories such as the “Twilight” series.
• maintain the characteristics or familiar traits of a stereotype, e.g., Miss Havisham as the jilted bride.
• maintain one perspective or viewpoint.
• help create atmosphere, mood, or comedy.
• are vivid but simple.
• predictable in terms of their behavior.
• are easily recognizable by readers and remembered for these very characteristics.       

     When a flat character takes on multiple aspects and a realistic character defects, the flat persona curves towards the rounded character. 

The term “round” refers to characters sufficiently complex “to be able to surprise the reader without losing credibility,” as William Harmon and Hugh Holman state in their classic work, A Handbook to Literature. As readers, we invest more emotion in round characters and may well feel disappointed when we no longer have them in our lives, once we finish reading their stories. 

Round characters: 

• appear human, with multiple aspects to their personalities.
• let us know what they are thinking.
• can surprise us.
• are convincing and rich in character with flaws and qualities.
• have potential to change and develop throughout the story.
• desire something.
• experience conflict and therefore character development.
• are either likable or despicable.

***************************************************************************

Follow and support our YouTube channel to get English Literature summaries and Communicative English Lesson explanations and Task Answers. 
Click this link to Subscribe : 👉 Saipedia 

Psychological Novel, Stream of Consciousness, Sci-Fi Novel, Anti-Novel, Novel notes, Background to English Literature-III, B.A English Literature 2nd Year 3rd Semester

University of Madras

Syllabus with effect from 2020-2021

B.A English Literature

[2^nd Year, 3^rd Semester]

Background to English Literature-III

UNIT 1.5 : NOVEL

 Psychological, Stream of Consciousness, Sci-Fi, Anti-Novel

PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL:

        The psychological novel is traditionally understood as a genre of prose fiction that focuses intensively on the interior life of characters, representing their subjective thoughts, feelings, memories, and desires. While in its broadest usage the term psychological novel can refer to any work of narrative fiction with a strong emphasis on complex characterization, it has been associated specifically with literary movements such as nineteenth-century psychological realism, twentieth-century literary modernism, and the “stream-of-consciousness” novel, and with narrative techniques such as free indirect discourse and the interior monologue.

        The Tale of Genji, written in 11th-century Japan, was considered a psychological novel by Jorge Luis Borges. In the west, the origins of the psychological novel can be traced as far back as Giovanni Boccaccio's 1344 Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta; that is before the term psychology was coined.

The first rise of the psychological novel as a genre is said to have started with the sentimental novel of which Samuel Richardson's Pamela is a prime example.

In French literature, Stendhal's The Red and the Black and Madame de La Fayette's The Princess of Cleves are considered early precursors of the psychological novel. The modern psychological novel originated, according to The Encyclopedia of the Novel, primarily in the works of Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun – in particular, Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894) and Victoria (1898).

One of the greatest writers of the genre was Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His novels deal strongly with ideas, and characters who embody these ideas, how they play out in real world circumstances, and the value of them, most notably The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.

In the literature of the United States, Henry James, Patrick McGrath, Arthur Miller, and Edith Wharton are considered "major contributor[s] to the practice of psychological realism."

    Some of the famous psychological novelist are Marcel Proust, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner. Leo Tolstoy was also crucial in the development of the psychological novel.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS:

    The term “stream of consciousness” is coined by William James in Principles of Psychology (1890) to denote the flow of inner experiences. It refers to the technique which seeks to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind. It is also known as Interior monologue. Lines in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1760-67) resemble this technique. Lengthy self-communing passages have been found in some nineteenth century novels are also close to interior monologue.

    The interior monologue has been highly developed in Leutnant Gustl, a satire on the official code of military honour by Arthur Schnitzler, a German playwright and novelist. However, it was Edouard Dujardin in Les Laurierssont coupés (1888) used the technique in a way that proved influential. James Joyce exploited the possibilities and took the technique almost to a point ne plus ultra in Ulysses (1922), which presents an account of the experiences (the actions, thoughts, feelings) of two men, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Daedalus, during the twenty-four hours of 16 June 1904, in Dublin. The beginning of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man (1916) is an early indication of his interest in this technique. Meantime, Dorothy Richardson had begun to compile her twelve-volume Pilgrimage (1915-67) and Marcel Proust was at work on the equally ambitious A la recherchu du temps perdu (1913-27). Henry James and Dostoievski had already indicated, through long passages of introspective writing, that they were aware of something like the stream of consciousness technique.

    Since the 1920s many writers have learned from Joyce and emulated him. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1931) are two of the most distinguished developers of the stream of consciousness method.

SCIENCE FICTION:

The term “science fiction” was first used, it seems, in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, in William Wilson’s A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject. A science fiction story is a narrative of short story, novella or novel length. Attempting to define it, M.H.Abrams says, “is applied to those narratives in which—unlike in pure fantasy—an explicit attempt is made to render plausible the fictional world by reference to known or imagined scientific principles, or to a projected advance in technology, or to a drastic change in the organization of society” (279). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is often considered a precursor of science fiction. But, basing a work of fiction on a concrete scientific principle did not occur until later in the nineteenth century through the writings of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and H.G.Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

The term was eventually put into circulation in the late 1920s by Hugo Gernsback (1894-67) who had originally coined the word “scientifiction.” Gradually, Science fiction replaced the term ‘scientific romance’, and science fiction is quite often categorized as speculative fiction. A few important authors of science fiction are Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Ray Bradbury, J. G. Ballard, and Doris Lessing. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle form a few examples of science fiction.

ANTI-NOVEL:

        A type of experimental novel that attempts to present the reader with experience itself, unfiltered by metaphor or other vehicles of authorial interpretation.

    The term was taken from the French, “anti-roman,” and rose to prominence after it was coined by twentieth-century existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre in an introduction he wrote for Portrait d’un inconnu, in English Portrait of a Man Unknown, by Nathalie Sarraute in 1948. But, the term had been used to some extent dating back to 1633 and Charles Sorel’s Le Berger extravagant. Interestingly, some have suggested that the first novels, like Don Quixote, were themselves antinovels because they were pioneering a new format for literature.

Antinovelists attempt to depict reality without recourse to a moral frame of reference; they avoid the kind of subjective narrative evaluation that tends to creep into more traditional fiction, including so-called realistic and naturalistic narratives. Their novels are characterized by the avoidance or minimization of standard narrative elements, including characterization, dialogue, and plot, as well as by the creation of ambiguity and confusion through elements such as dislocations of time and space and inconsistency in point of view.

Antinovel is sometimes used interchangeably with the nouveau roman, which arose in France in the mid-twentieth century and reached its height in the 1950s and 1960s. The term may, however, be used more broadly; indeed, works ranging from Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (9 vols.; 1759—67) to Uwe Johnson’s Mutmassungen über Jakob (Speculations about Jakob) (1959) to Margaret Drabble’s The Middle Ground (1980) have been called antinovels. Antinovel is sometimes also used interchangeably with new novel.

***************************************************************************

Follow and support our YouTube channel to get English Literature summaries and Communicative English Lesson explanations and Task Answers. 
Click this link to Subscribe : 👉 Saipedia 

Detective novel, Regional novel, Social novel, Bildungsroman novel, Novel, B.A English Literature [2nd Year, 3rd Semester], Background to English Literature-III

 University of Madras

Syllabus with effect from 2020-2021

B.A English Literature

[2^nd Year, 3^rd Semester]

Background to English Literature-III

UNIT 1.4 : NOVEL

Detective, Regional, Social, Bildungsroman

DETECTIVE NOVEL:

The Detective novel is one in which the story and plot are woven around an initial crime or murder the secret of which is solved by an investigator or detective. He does it by logical assembling and evidence as known as clues.

The commission and detection of crime with the motives, actions, arraignment, judgement, and punishment of a criminal is one of the great paradigms of narrative in detective fiction. The investigator functions as the protagonist and studies such as Julian Symon’s Bloody Murder (1972) have dealt elaborately on the nineteenth and early to mid-20th century development of fictional detection.

William Godwin’s Caleb Wiliams (1894),Eugéne Vidocq’s Mémoires, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House(1853), Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone (1868)and The Woman in White(1859), Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment(1866) have been precursors of detective fiction.

It is agreed that detective fiction came of age in the creation of Sherlock Holmes’ A Study in Scarlet (1887). However, it was with the writings of Dashiell Hammett, James M.Cain, Raymond Chandler that detective fiction began to emerge as a genre in the nineteenth century. Detective fiction has become one of the significant forms of prose in the U.K. and the U.S ever since 1945.

Among the modern authors who deserve mention are Linda Barnes, Lawrence Block, Lilian Jackson Braun, Robert Campbell, Patricia Cornwall, John Dunning, James Ellroy. Manuel Väzquez Montalbán in Spain, Maria-Antonia Oliver in Denmark, Peter Hөeg in South Africa, James McClure in Australia, Umberto Eco and Leonardo Sciascia in Italy.

The Major themes of the Detective novels are:

·        The plot will always begin with a murder or a mysterious case.

·        The case will be superior and unfamiliar to the police.

·     So that, they seek the knowledge of detectives to solve the mystery behind the case.

·  The detective will be curious and different from the rest of the characters portrayed in the novel.

·        The wrongly accused suspect at whom circumstantial evidence points.

·        The villain will be the mysterious element of the novel.

·        The startling and unexpected denouement.

 

It was Edgar Allen Poe who launched this literary form with his story “The Murder in the Rue Morgue” in 1841. In the later 19th century, in England, Wilkie Collins preferred the art of the Detective novel with the publication of his “Moonstone” the first full-length detective novel in English. The first full-length detective novel in America was Anna Katherine Green’s “The Leavenworth Case” published in 1878.

In 1887 Sherlock Holmes series by Conan Doyle began to appear and continued up to 1927. His creation of Sherlock Holmes was, however, is the greatest achievement.

The exploits of this sharp sleuth and his companion in adventure and chronicler, Dr. Watson, soon catapulted Doyle to international status. A prolific writer, he has written 4 novels and 56 short stories. Sherlock Holmes series ruled detective novels from all over the world. And which is still cherished by the readers, movie lovers. Many authors adapted the Sherlock Holmes series and created some different versions taken this as a root base.

REGIONAL NOVEL:

The origin of the regional novel can be traced in the writing of the Irish and Scottish writers in the nineteenth century.

The regional novel deals with the life of people of some specific region outside a metropolitan city, depicting the customs, tradition, dialect, and natural scenery of the area. Plots and characters are all based in a specific location or setting.

Sometimes, it may focus a clash between two different ideologies, cultures, and beliefs. The regional novel does not merely describe the landscape, and manners of people but it also highlights some social and economic issues of the period. Some novelists created their own fictional world in order to express their views or set their novels in a small town and city.

The regional novel sometimes gives the reader information about the culture and historical importance of the place. The earliest example of the regional novel is Maria Edgeworth’s novel “Castle Rackrent”.

Examples for Regional Novels:

Maria Edgeworth’s novel, “Castle Rackrent” can be deemed as the first fully developed regional novel in English. She has skillfully painted the life of Irish people and their manners through her novels. Maria Edgeworth’s novel “Castle Rackrent” influenced Sir Walter Scott to great extent. The novel was published in 1800.

Maria Edgeworth’s novel “Castle Rackrent” depicts the Irish life of the country-side and its dialect. The narrator of the novel is Thady Quirk. Maria Edgeworth's novel 'Castle Rackrent" is also a fully developed historical novel in English.

Sir Walter Scott’s famous regional novel “Waverley” appeared in 1814. Sir Walter Scott has explored the regions of romance and reality in this novel. The novel depicts the life of the 18th century Highlands and Highlanders of Scotland. The “Waverley” is a pen-picture of the life of common people and manners of the period.

The novel “Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life” of George Eliot describes social and political upheavals of the period. It was published in 1871. The novel is set in English Midlands and it comments on the life of peasants, small landowners and clergy of Warwickshire.

Thomas Hardy’s novel “Far from the Madding Crowd” appeared in 1874 and it is set in Dorsetshire. Thomas Hardy has dexterously painted the life of the rural rustics with both dull and bright colours. Thomas Hardy has borrowed this title: “Far from the Madding Crowd” from Thomas Gray’s famous poem “The Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard”. The major characters of the novel are Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak.

Thomas Hardy’s contribution to the English novel is really noteworthy. He has artistically given a pen-picture of the life of people. In Thomas Hardy’s regional novels, the readers have been acquainted with the surroundings of Wessex, its woods, it barrows and heaths, byres and barns which cast their spell on the readers. 

SOCIAL NOVEL:

      The social novel, is also known as the social problem (or social protest) novel, the sociological novel and is a work of fiction, which dramatizes a prevailing social problem through the effect they have on the novel’s characters. Topics covered can be as diverse as gender, race, or class prejudice although the narrative can also address poverty, conditions in factories or mines, violence against women, rising criminality and epidemics caused by poor sanitation or overcrowding in urban areas.

Other terms used to define this genre are thesis novel, propaganda novel, industrial novel, working-class novel and problem novel. A more recent development in this genre is the young adult problem novel. The inner life of the characters find the place in such novels, greater importance is given to their conflicts and collisions with classes and believes. The essence of a social novel is the conflict between the individual and the society that surrounds him based on different concepts of values.

     The origins of the social novel in Britain can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution (1733-1913). Early examples can be found in 18th century England, as well as throughout Europe and the United States. Henry Fielding’s Amelia (1751) and William Godwin’s ‘Things as The Are or The Adventures of Caleb Williams’ (1794) are thought precursors of the genre. During the social and political upheavals following the Reform Act of 1833 in England social novels began, such as Charles Dickens’ novels highlighting poverty and unhealthy living conditions. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (1862) was a significant protest novel. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) dealt with anti-slavery and The Grapes of Wrath is probably the best known social protest novel.

Charles Dickens is considered to be the 'father' of the English social novel. Dickens used his novels to examine the lives of the working class and to expose their struggles in Victorian England. These novels would sometimes depict characters overcoming the difficult circumstances they were born and raised in as a result of them being working class and poor. The novels also, however, sometimes showed how people could very easily remain trapped in such abysmal circumstances. Through his novels, Dickens encouraged readers to consider what the working class in Victorian England was going through and the injustices in society related to this.

        Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist (1837) is an example of a social novel that explores social determinism. The protagonist, Oliver Twist, is a young, poor orphan in Victorian England who initially lives in a workhouse, where he must work to earn his keep.

Two Groups of Social Novel:

Social novels can be divided into two groups.

• The novel of Manners.
•  The novel of Civilization.

The novel of Manners:

The novel of manners is concerned with social behavior and its correctness in a given society. The concept of behavior achieves some grant moral effect as we find in the novels of Jane Austen “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma” are the best examples. The novelist is preoccupied with the niceties of social conduct and often, commerce by the employment of Irony and satire exposes undesirable passions like arrogance, hypocrisy, and snobbery. Henry James’ novel ‘The ambassador’ is a successful social novel of manners. It depicts with great humor and delicacy the reaction of different American types to a European environment. Evelyn Waugh’s “A handful of dust” is a social novel of manners that presents the vision of sin and guilt in the modern world. The social novel of manners has a satiric structure as we find in Jane Austen. Even modern novelists make use of the same formula. For instance, Philip Roth satirizes the self-protective attitude of the modern middle class in his novel ‘Goodbye Columbus’.

The novel of Civilization:

The social novel of Civilization takes a comprehensive view of the whole Civilization. The best examples are Charles Dickens’s “Little Dorrit” and Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” the novel Civilization aims at revealing the meanings, principles, and social styles that govern people’s lives. The action of individuals is examined in the light of the Civilization that surrounds them. In “Little Dorrit” Dickens explores the English society dominated by the corrupt business class. In the novel Civilization characters or viewed as part of the developing environment. The splendor or shame of their past is exploding. The significance of the character’s behavior becomes clear only in the background of the Civilization which he represents. In “War and Peace” Tolstoy presents the different stages in the development of each character. The novel Civilization, sometimes, depicts the different stages in the growth of the writer’s consciousness as in Marcel Proust’s ‘Remembrance of Things Past’. Sometimes it uses our family story as in Faulkner’s ‘Sartoris’ or Galsworthy’s ‘Forsyte Saga’.

Characteristics of the social novel are realism, social determinism, social criticism and a portrayal of social attitudes in the themes of wealth and class.

       

BILDUNGSROMAN- (FORMATION NOVEL):

    The Bildungsroman literary genre originated in Germany. The German word “bildung” means education” and the German word “roman” means “novel.” Thus, “Bildungsroman” translates to “a novel of education” or “a novel of formation.” This fictional autobiography concerned with the development of the protagonist’s mind, spirit, and characters from childhood to adulthood. This is a term more or less synonymous with Erziehungsroman which literally means an “upbringing” or “education” novel.  This describes the processes by which maturity is achieved through the various ups and downs of life.

The actual term “Bildungsroman” was first coined by philologist Karl Morgenstern during his lectures at the University of Dorpat in 1819. It grew in popularity in Britain after it was translated into English in 1824.

A Bildungsroman centers on the main character’s transformation to reach maturity. The Structure of the plot:

1. Loss: The protagonist experiences a profound emotional loss at the beginning of the story, typically during their childhood or adolescent formative years.

2. Journey: Inspired by their loss, the protagonist sets out on a journey, either physical or metaphorical, to find the answer to a big question and gain life experience that will help them better understand the world.

3. Conflict and personal growth: The protagonist’s path toward maturity is not an easy one. They make mistakes and are usually at odds with society. But as the story continues, the protagonist slowly accepts the ideals of society and society accepts them back.

4. Maturity: The protagonist demonstrates immense psychological growth, change, and maturity by the end of the novel. The story sometimes ends with them giving back and helping someone else on the path to maturity. 

The first bildungsroman tales cropped up in the 17th century in German literature and ended on a positive note. Later, in the 19th century, novels chased dreams of the hero’s youth which ended after several foolish mistakes and painful disappointments. But the protagonists ended up living useful lives. It wasn’t until the 20th century that the bildungsroman story ended less happily, such as in resignation or even death. Think of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger or To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Wieland’s Agathon (1765-6) is taken to be the earliest example. The most famous examples are: Goethe’s Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers (1774) and his Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795-6) and became well known in Britain through Thomas Carlyle’s translation.

Novels in English that fall into this category are Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722), Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749), Jane Austen’s Emma (1816), Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847), Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (1849-50) and Great Expectations (1861), James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960).

***************************************************************************

Follow and support our YouTube channel to get English Literature summaries and Communicative English Lesson explanations and Task Answers. 
Click this link to Subscribe : 👉 Saipedia