Reader's Log 3A

Beginnings of the English Novel:

This Reader's Log is concerned chiefly with the foremost female author of the Restoration period, Aphra Behn. Although she wrote much poetry and drama, she is now remembered for one of her long prose narratives, which may be seen as an early precursor to the modern novel.

The term novel as we now understand it has been in use for little more than two hundred years. In fact, it was the 18th century saw the full blossoming of this important genre as we will see in a later assignment block. In this block, we will examine the forbears of the modern novel as they appeared the 17th century, with some mention of even earlier antecedents.

What is said here of the novel will also be true of shorter works of fiction. Fiction is usually divided into three kinds based on length: the short story or, as it was called in earlier centuries than our own, the tale, from 1 to 50 pages; the novella, 50 to 100 pages; and the novel proper, 100 pages and over. Fiction may be defined as imaginative prose narrative. Narrative is an account of human activity, usually told as incidents progressing sequentially through time. It can be factual, as in a history book, or it can be imaginative, as in a novel or tale.

In the past, much imaginative narrative was written in verse. The ancient epics (The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer and The Aeneid of Virgil) are examples of verse narrative, as is Milton's Paradise Lost. By our modern definition, fiction, whether long or short, is written in prose. Though written in verse, the epic must be seen as an ancestor to the prose novel because it made readers familiar with plot, character, setting, figurative language, introspection, discursive commentary, and theme and led them to expect such qualities in prose narrative. (The foregoing traits are among the more important aspects of fiction. They are useful concepts for English majors and minors to know.)

Another important ancestor to the novel was the medieval romance. These narratives about Christian knights, beautiful ladies, and horrific monsters were often brief and written in verse. The very earliest examples were written in Old French; this being a language known to derive from Latin, the language of the Romans, these narratives took on a name derived from the word Roman. (The modern French word for novel is still roman.) By the late Renaissance period the term romance had come to be consistently applied to long prose narratives, some of them multi-volume works. These tended to feature socially elevated, even aristocratic characters, a display of formal manners, bold and heroic action on the part of male protagonists, and ideal beauty on the part of female protagonists. Sometimes they retained qualities of the fantastic and unreal that had characterized many of the medieval romances. A less dignified and much shorter version of the prose romance featured the lives of rascals and rogues, written ostensibly to warn the reader against their vices and evils while gratifying the reader's curiosity about the sensational and sordid.

Today, of course, we think of a romance as a kind of novel distinguished from other kinds by its preoccupation with a love plot that turns out well. How did the word novel come to be the general term for long imaginative prose narratives? The word novel derives from the Latin term for new. We still use this meaning when we speak of something new as being novel, for example, a novel idea. By the time of the Renaissance a few authors had begun to write short realistic narratives about people in many walks of life. Aware that these tales did not fit the conventional patterns for narrative established by the epic and the romance, people began to call them novellas, implying that they were something new or original. In English the term novella was soon shortened into the word novel. (Novella is still used for a fictional work of a length between the short story and novel.) Until the middle of the 18th century, novel meant a short tale with themes other than those encountered in epic or romance. During the later 18th century the term was applied to long narratives of a sort other than epic or romance. The term became so dominant that now we apply it even to a romance if it is written in prose and we no longer use it at all in reference to a short fiction.

Before we examine Aphra Behn's contribution to the development of the English novel, we will mention her contemporary, John Bunyan, a zealous Puritan who, while imprisoned for his faith, wrote a Christian allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come (1678). Although it had a particular appeal to Non-conformist or Dissenting members of the Anglican church, as Puritans were generally called following the Restoration, the religious intensity of The Pilgrim's Progress has appealed to great numbers of readers beyond the British Isles; it has been translated into over a hundred languages and dialects. Read especially by people of humble station, it could be found beside the Bible in tens of thousands of homes. Its prose style, composed of ordinary words and emulating the rhythms of common speech, predicted the liberation of the novel from the sententious style of the conventional romance. Furthermore, the convincing detail with which its protagonist's adventures were developed gave readers a taste for the realism upon which the novel would be founded.

Aphra Behn:

Read the editors' introduction, pp. 916-918. Read Oroonoko, or, The Royal Slave (1688) closely, pp. 918-962.

Aphra Behn was undoubtedly the most important woman author of the Restoration period and must be counted among the top women authors of our entire course. In our time, when we recognize that it was social disapproval rather than lack of native ability that kept women from competing in the literary market place of our period, we may well marvel at how Behn ignored and neutralized that social disapproval and achieved highly not only in poetry but in drama and fiction as well. Her marriage to an unidentified Mr. Behn was apparently short. It is known that she carried on a number of affairs with prominent men. It seems clear that she had to earn her own living and was, in fact, the first Englishwoman to do so entirely by writing. Besides being a considerable poet, she was a major contributor to the Restoration stage, writing at least 17 plays. Finally, she wrote a considerable number of prose narratives of moderate length which modern critics call novels but which her own time called romances. Here are a couple of titles that will suggest the sensational nature of most of her fiction: The Unfortunate Bride, or, The Blind Lady a Beauty (1687) and The Dumb Virgin, or, The Force of Imagination (1687). Behn's most famous and enduring work was Oroonoko, or, The Royal Slave (1688), which is included in our text.

This best known of Behn's works is often called a novel. By today's definitions it should more properly be called a novella because of its length. In content it seems a mixture of the realistic detail that its earliest readers associated with the brief genre then called the novel and the formal language, refined sentiments, and exaggerated motivations of the aristocratic romance.

It is important to understand plot as a trait of fiction. In its most general sense, plot is the sequence of incidents providing the backbone of narrative. A rambling plot gives incidents having little or no cause-and-effect relationship; they occur almost randomly, often related only by the fact that they feature the same protagonist. An organic plot gives incidents which are related by cause and effect; one incident causes or leads to the next. An organic plot may be defined as a sequence of incidents developing a conflict and leading toward a climax, which is the resolution of the conflict. Conflict can be opposition between characters, between a character and Nature, or between attitudes and motivations within a single character. In an organic plot, each incident adds to the reader's understanding of the conflict, and the circumstances of each incident lead to the next incidents. This is what most modern readers understand plot to be because most modern novels feature an organic plot.

With either kind of plot, a fiction writer may introduce digressive commentary. With such commentary writers philosophize and editorialize, expanding on almost any topic they may be interested in. Very much like an essay or treatise, such commentary is factual writing of a casual sort interpolated among the incidents of a plot.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 918-920. Having told you that her narrative is a true one, Behn quickly digresses from her story to describe the flora, fauna, and native inhabitants of Surinam, where most of her story is set. From p. 919 quote a sentence that characterizes the Indians as innocent. Be aware that this anticipates the Noble Savage theory of Romantic writers of a hundred years later.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 920-922. Behn's narrative proper begins in Africa, where Oroonoko is a prince and heroic warrior. Quote a sentence from this passage that characterizes him as cultivated as if he lived in the court of a European king.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 922-924. Oroonoko falls in love with the "beautiful black Venus" Imoinda. At this point the plot begins to develop a conflict between Oroonoko's love for Imoinda and the forces that oppose that love. From page p. 924 summarize Oroonoko's vows of love for Imoinda.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 924-936. Oroonoko marries Imoinda against the will of his grandfather, the king, who takes Imoinda into his harem and attempts to make love to her. When Oroonoko is caught in Imoinda's bed, the king sells her into slavery but instructs his servants to tell Oroonoko she is dead. In a sentence or two summarize Oroonoko's response to this supposed news as narrated on pp. 934-935.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 936-941. Lured aboard an English vessel, Oroonoko is tricked and sold into slavery in Surinam. Now a second conflict enters the plot, a conflict between Oroonoko's natural desire for freedom and the forces that keep him enslaved. From pp. 940-941 summarize the kind of treatment that Oroonoko's new master accords him.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 942-945. Oroonoko, renamed Caesar, is reunited with his beloved Imoinda, who has been renamed Clemene. The reunited couple live together, and Imoinda becomes pregnant. The conflict generated by their enslavement continues, with Oroonoko trying in vain to bargain for their freedom. Oroonoko chafes and says he will not endure slavery much longer even though he is allowed a considerable local liberty and does not have to toil as the other slaves do. Referring to the top paragraph on p. 945, tell in a sentence or two what it is that makes slavery especially difficult for him to bear.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 945-949. At the bottom of p. 949 the narrative digresses again. The narrator travels about Surinam in the protective company of Oroonoko, who is allowed a considerable local liberty. Summarize in a couple of sentences some of the adventures of the narrator and Oroonoko in the Surinam countryside.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 949-952. In these pages Oroonoko is instrumental in pacifying the belligerent Indians of the interior of Surinam. Quote the brief paragraph on p. 952 in which the narrator defends this digression from her plot.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 952-956. The narrator now returns to her major conflict. Out of patience, Oroonoko foments an insurrection among his fellow slaves by appealing to their pride. Soon, however, he is persuaded to surrender. In a sentence or two give his reasons for surrendering.

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 957-959. How does Imoinda meet her end?

READER'S LOG: Oroonoko, pp. 959-962. Summarize the means by which Oroonoko is put to death.

Olaudah Equiano:

READER'S LOG: The Life of Olaudah Equiano, pp. 1291-1201. Read this autobiographical narrative closely. Read the editors' introduction, pp. 1291-1292. Note that Equiano lived during the last half of the 18^th century. An entire hundred years separates Equiano from the fictional heroic slave of Behn's narrative. Note that already, during the last half of the 18^th century, an abolitionist movement (aimed at ending black slavery) had begun in Europe and America. Though small and ineffectual at this moment, it would result in the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in England and, decades later, in a cataclysm civil war in the United States, which would end in the emancipation of slaves there. Quote the final sentence of the editors' introduction, p. 1292, which asserts the literary significance of the two documents we have read which relate to black slavery.

READER'S LOG: The Life of Olaudah Equiano, pp. 1292-1296. Quote a sentence or two that illustrate the brutality of the slave trade.

READER'S LOG: The Life of Olaudah Equiano, pp. 1296-1300. How did Equiano come by the means to purchase his own freedom?

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea

Read the editors' introduction on p. 963. Read the poems The Introduction and A Nocturnal Reverie, pp. 963-965.

You will have noticed an absence of women among the authors featured in our text book. This is due, not to the absence of ability among women–as the achievements of women writers in the 20^th century have amply shown–but to the absence of encouragement and opportunity. Despite the expectation on the part of most men that women didn't need an education and couldn't profit from it if it were given them, numerous intelligent, self educated women led something of an underground literary life by engaging in what is called coterie writing.

Coterie writers were poets of either gender who rarely or never published their manuscripts but rather circulated them among a circle of friends. This practice especially appealed to women as means of avoiding the disapproval with which many men regarded a female writer. Often they addressed their poems to specific friends, sometimes addressed by invented pastoral names. Behn herself may be considered as a coterie poet. Similarly, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea, was a coterie poet of much talent. She published a volume of verse in 1713 and achieved some fame. But she wrote also and circulated among friends many poems that would not be published until rediscovered in the 20^th century.

For your information, it was only when her husband became Earl of Winchelsea, probably upon the death of his father, that Anne Finch became Countess of Winchelsea. As an earl, her husband had an automatic right to a seat in the House of Lords of the English Parliament, and his wife had the right to be called Lady Winchelsea. For centuries, the term lady was reserved for women whose husbands were titled lords. That tradition persists in England today. In present day America, however, the word lady is a simple synonym for the word woman. In England, the word commanded--and still commands--enormous respect simply by its association with titled nobility.

READER'S LOG: The Introduction, lines 1-12, p. 963. State in your own words the result Winchelsea expects should she be so bold as to publish her poetry.

READER'S LOG: The Introduction, lines 51-64, p. 664. Having alluded to a recognized public leader of ancient Israel, the prophetess Deborah, Winchelsea comments sadly on the paucity of public achievement among women of her own time. Quote the couplet on lines 51-52, beginning with "How we are fallen!" and state in your own words what Winchelsea attributes that lack of achievement to.

READER'S LOG: A Nocturnal Reverie, pp. 964-965. You will notice that, although this poem is written in standard heroic couplets, it has an admirable concreteness and vividness to it. It conveys a mood of tranquility, which the poet feels while out of doors in a beautiful night. It is this concrete response to nature that attracted William Wordworth to the poem almost a hundred years after it was written, as your editors tell you. Quote three or four lines that demonstrate a vivid description of natural objects.