English Literature / Unit 11 ENL 1017 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Rise of the Novel
Captions available
The idea
The critic Ian Watt, in The Rise of the Novel, of nineteen fifty-seven, argued that the modern novel was born in the early eighteenth century with Robinson Crusoe, marked by a new fictional realism. Defoe, Richardson, Fielding and Sterne show four early approaches.
In practice
Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne.
Where people slip
Watt's thesis here rests on one reference source.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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