The Chronicle no. 672

13 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

The Birth of the Novel It’s strange to think that the ubiquitous novel form once didn’t exist. Before the early 18th century, though, there were only smatterings of writings in English that could be considered to fit our modern definition: prose of substantial length, digressions into pastoral sketches rob it of its singular thread. It is not until 1719 that a text appears that seems to fulfil everything we would expect from our modern novel: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe . We meet a central figure, striving for survival in a By Jonathan Muir

These latter two, though, share something else that typified the early novels: a speaker who seems all too aware that they are writing something – a conscious narrator. The title character in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) tells her readers “My story would furnish out a surprising kind of novel.” The narrator of Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) suggests that “The little spaces between our Chapters may be looked upon as an Inn

containing one clear narrative and sustained characterisation. Previous writing was largely in verse, often episodic, and rarely coherent in story. The novella storia – the ‘new story’

vast landscape of hardship, a trope that the modern novel clings to at every turn: Harry Potter , The Hunger Games , Bridget Jones , this year’s Man Booker Prize-winner, The Sellout .

– grew into the most popular form of writing right at the heart of the Enlightenment period: usually defined as 1715, when Louis XIV died, to 1789, the start of the French Revolution. Before exploring why, though, let’s address that burning question: What was the first ever novel in English? Like every question that demands a single answer, it depends who you ask. Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (c.1470) is often lauded, but is perhaps too episodic – and besides, it is a translation from French, so is far from a ‘new story’. Sidney’s

or Resting-Place, where he [the Reader] may stop and take a Glass.” In Tristram Shandy (filmed as A Cock and Bull Story , starring

Steve Coogan), Laurence Sterne’s protagonist tells his

readers to “have a little patience” while he narrates the details of his own birth. Indeed, these are all bildungsromans – coming-of- age stories – and, of course, that is what the Enlightenment is all about: growing into a state of consciousness as an individual, writing our own stories rather than relying on those passed down to us by the established authority.

Arcadia (1581) is certainly long enough, but strange

From the Walter Havighurst Special Collections, Miami University Libraries, Oxford, Ohio

Oxbridge Offers 2017

From left to right, Carolina Rimoldi, French and Russian, Christ Church, Oxford, ( Liceo Crespi ); Konstantinos Doxiadis, Philosophy, Trinity, Cambridge ( St Catherine’s British Embassy School ); Eva Cottingham-Mayall, Classics, Churchill, Cambridge ( Cheam ); Robert Asatryan, Biochemistry, Somerville, Oxford ( Gosford Hill ); and Grace Allen OSE, Archaeology and Anthropology, St Hugh’s, Oxford. Tom Lloyd OSE, English, Trinity, Oxford; and Matthew Adams OSE, Maths, Downing, Cambridge were unavailable for the photo.