A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book.[1] The English word to describe such a work derives from the Italian: novella for "new", "news", or "short story (of something new)", itself from the Latin: novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning "new".[2] According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella.[3] The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel.[4]
Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne,[5] Herman Melville,[6] Ann Radcliffe,[7] and John Cowper Powys,[8] preferred the term "romance". M. H. Abrams and Walter Scott have argued that a novel is a fiction narrative that displays a realistic depiction of the state of a society, while the romance encompasses any fictitious narrative that emphasizes marvellous or uncommon incidents.[9][10][11] Works of fiction that include marvellous or uncommon incidents are also novels, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,[12] J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings,[13] and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.[14] Such "romances" should not be confused with the genre fiction romance novel, which focuses on romantic love.
Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, an early 11th-century Japanese text, has sometimes been described as the world's first novel, because of its early use of the experience of intimacy in a narrative form. There is considerable debate over this, however, as there were certainly long fictional prose works that preceded it. The spread of printed books in China led to the appearance of classical Chinese novels during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and Qing dynasty (1616–1911). An early example from Europe was Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by the Sufi writer Ibn Tufayl in Muslim Spain.[15] Later developments occurred after the invention of the printing press. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (the first part of which was published in 1605), is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era.[16] Literary historian Ian Watt, in The Rise of the Novel (1957), argued that the modern novel was born in the early 18th century.
Recent technological developments have led to many novels also being published in non-print media: this includes audio books, web novels, and ebooks. Another non-traditional fiction format can be found in graphic novels. While these comic book versions of works of fiction have their origins in the 19th century, they have only become popular recently.
^"Novel", A Glossary of Literary Terms (9th Edition), M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Gall Harpham, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston, 2009, p. 226.
^Britannica Online Encyclopedia [1] accessed 2 August 2009
^Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
^J. A. Cuddon, Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory, ed., 4th edition, revised C. E. Preston. London: Penguin, 1999, pp. 76o-2.
^The Scarlet Letter: A Romance
^Melville described Moby Dick to his English publisher as "a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries," and promised it would be done by the fall. Herman Melville in Horth, Lynn, ed. (1993). Correspondence. The Writings of Herman Melville. Vol. Fourteen. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University Press and The Newberry Library. ISBN 0-8101-0995-6.
^William Harmon & C, Hugh Holmam, A Handbook to Literature (7th edition), p. 237.
^See A Glastonbury Romance.
^M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (7th edition), p. 192.
^"Essay on Romance", Prose Works volume vi, p. 129, quoted in "Introduction" to Walter Scott's Quentin Durward, ed. Susan Maning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p. xxv.
^See also, Nathaniel Hawthorne's, "Preface" to The House of Seven Gables: A Romance, 1851. External link to the "Preface" below)
^"The 100 best novels: No 8 – Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)". The Guardian. 11 November 2013.
^Grossman, Lev (8 January 2010). "All-TIME 100 Novels". TIME.
^"To Kill a Mockingbird voted greatest novel of all time". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2022-01-11.
^"Hayy ibn Yaqzan | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
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