The History of the Novel

For over 3,000 years, the novel has grown from its humble beginnings from two types of genres, to an explosion of multiple writings for every reader. As readers, we tend to see the modern novel as a leisure form of reading.

According to Microsoft Encarta's Online Encyclopedia, the precursors to this written art form began in ancient Greece. These precursors were epics and romances. Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey, give us a jolt of heroism and the accomplishment of navigating overwhelming odds; while the romance of Daphnis and Chloe appeal to our sensitive and passionate emotions.

As these genres grew and moved beyond Greece, the 8th century Anglo-Saxon tale Beowulf and 11th century Japan's, The Tale of Genji, are notable examples of cultural epics. One romance that defines the genre prior to the 16th and 17th centuries is Sir Thomas Mallory's The Death of an Author, written in 1469 to 1470. This romance details life in Camelot with King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot. By the time the novel reached the Renaissance era, the art split into more genres: picaresque, epistolary, gothic, and historical. Other novel forms came later as time marched on.

The picaresque novel gained popularity during the 16th and 17th centuries with such works as The Unfortunate Traveler, or the Life of Jack Wilton by English author Thomas Nashe. The most noted work of this time was Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote: Parts I and II. These works focused on the roguish activities of its protagonists who lived by their wits and sought the adventures of life. By the 18th century, another shift of writing took place.

From the Webster's Encyclopedia, Epistolary novels used an exchange of letter writing between characters to tell the story. Often these stories held interesting possibilities and complications due to the shift in viewpoint as well as the absence of an omniscient narrator. Examples of these works include Richardson's Clarissa and Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons.

Even though the epistolary novel sharply contrasted the picaresque, a more terrifying form of novel began to circulate, especially in Great Britain. The Gothic novel developed with the horror aspect in the form of ghosts, rattling chains, dungeons, and tombs to draw their readers into the pure spine-tingling suspense of the character's experiences. Three novels that best express this form of novel are: The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, The Monk by Matthew Gregory and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Incidentally, women who wrote novels during the previous time periods were thought of as racy or inappropriate. Writing was one of the few careers women engaged to demonstrate their equality among their male counterparts. This trend continued into the next century.

The 19th century brought to the forefront novels which explored other subject matter. Jane Austen's Emma or Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary were examples of manner novels. They observed society, set in a provincial countryside, focusing on the details of the lives of a few individuals. Social and political issues stemmed from these works as well. Chronicle novels told more of the actual accounts of the historical information as well as dealing with politics, social issues. Works such as Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace or Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray dealt with these ever changing climates of humanity. Even Charles Dickens with Oliver Twist and The Tale of Two Cities showed these particular elements in narration. Even Emily and Charlotte Bronte with Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre pictured how women would help shape the Victorian era.

American writers cut a different pattern of novel by writing of adventures in a new frontier in the 19th century. The Leather-Stocking Tales or even Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, traipse through the Western United States while it was still a young country. Even novels dealing with man's own conscience or the lack there of, made their way into the library of the day with works such as The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne or Moby Dick by Herman Melville. And let's not forget the pre-Civil war era novels such as Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

With the dawn of the 20th century, new authors delved into the depths of the human condition such as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, James T. Farrell's Stud's Lonigan Trilogy or John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. After World War II, books wrapping up this event in history such as Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead or From Here to Eternity by James Jones. By mid century, the Civil Rights movement experienced novels of social relevance as in The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. An explosion of history, even as a new millennium, experiences its own dawn, more novels will no doubt be written in new genres by inspired and innovative authors.