[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-153731-en":3,"doc-seo-153731-105":31,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":28,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":29,"read_time":30},153731,1099523885074,"Riley West","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc",2,"Literature","Reconsidering Origins: How Novel Are Theories of the Novel?","The text examines how theories about the novel emerged alongside the eighteenth-century rise of long prose fiction and how later scholarship can misread those works through the lens of its own era. It highlights Terry Castle’s argument that essential eighteenth-century novel research has reached saturation, then argues that novel theory has a historical development requiring attention to evolving critical frameworks. It traces theory from introductions and prefaces, emphasizing “practical theory” grounded in craft and attempts to justify narrative morality and realism.","# Reconsidering Origins:How NovelAre Theories of the Novel?\n\nLennard J.Davis  \nOrigins...are,when great work is concerned,questions for the study andthe lecture-room,for the literary historian and the professional critic,rather than for the reader,however intelligent and alert,who wishes toenjoy a masterpiece,and is content simply to enjoy it.  \nGeorge Saintsbury,Introduction to Joseph Andrews(1910)  \nNobody knows just what a novel is,and nobody knows just where thenovel begins.  \nEdward Wagenknecht,Cavalcade of the English Novel(1943)  \nA  \nt a recent conference on the future of the novel,Terry Castle hurleda Jovian lightning bolt at theories of the early novel:  \nI feel we have reached a saturation-point currently in academic studies ofeighteenth-century fiction—at least in those studies that bear on the history ofthe genre qua genre.While vast gains have been made—and I truly think thegenealogical,historical and bibliographic work done on the early English novelover the past twenty years is one of the great triumphs of twentieth-century lit-erary criticism—we also have reached a kind of intellectual dead end,and likeexhausted little Lovelaces with word processors can go no further.  \nCastle's point was that all the really essential work on the genre of theeighteenth-century novel had been done,and she went on to specify whatshe saw as:  \nthe soaring critical trajectory extending from Watt(the great First Cause)throughRichetti,McKeon,Davis,Armstrong,Bender,Hunter,Spacks,Doody,Gallagherand numerous others.I don't think we need further exposition of such matters as  \nEIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION,Volume 12,Number 2-3,January-Apri 2000  \n480 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION  \nthe relationship between the novel and the romance,or the novel and the criminalbiography,or the novel and spiritual autobiography,or indeed the novel and anyother form of early popular literature.I don't think we need further explorationof the economics of novel production,of the early eighteenth-century literarymarketplace,of the role of women in the popularization of prose fiction.I don'tthink we need a further rehashing of the synergy between the early novel andcapitalism,the novel and empire,the novel and domesticity and sexual politics.Nor indeed do we really need more disquisition on the novel and its relation to thelarger English literary canon.My sense is that we have gained all the yardage wehave needed on these points at least for a while—indeed Ihappen to think that withCathy Gallagher's brilliantly multifaceted Nobody's Story—the true successor andnecessary supplement to Watt—I think that the ball of eighteenth-century novelstudies has been definitively kicked through the goal posts.  \nAs the final declamation whizzed by,one could feel a pain that spreadthrough the audience,mainly the pain of graduate students,in the room.Their feeling,expressed later ex camera,was that such a pronouncementwas premature,as each of them imagined contributing more to an analysisof the rise of the novel rather than attending its wake.Castle's assessmentmay or may not be true,but,at the beginning of the twenty-first century,allof us are calendrically obliged to take stock of the work done on the noveland in novel theory,and to decide,in Lenin's favourite phrase,\"what is tobe done?”if there is anything more to be done.  \nBefore we can grapple with the “\"to be done,\"we have to account forthe “done.”Novel theory itself has a history.Too often when we readeighteenth-century novels,we read them with the welter of questions ofour own epoch.To focus on what novels meant to the eighteenth centurywe have to pay attention to novel theory and the way it changed over thepast three hundred years.Just as when we listen to Mozart or Beethoven onoriginal instruments rather than modern ones,things sound rather different,so too when we try to imagine what novels were in the past,without thepalimpsests of each generation's subsequent views,we may get a clearerpicture of fiction's own progres","cbCainmtK5nalh8J","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCainmtK5nalh8J","pdf",411611,3,1,21,"English","en",105,"# Reconsidering Origins: How Novel Are Theories of the Novel?\n## The saturation debate on early-novel theories\n## Novel theory as historical development\n## Practical theory in eighteenth-century introductions and prefaces\n## Craft, morality, character, and realism","[{\"question\":\"What does the text suggest about Terry Castle’s claim of saturation in eighteenth-century novel studies?\",\"answer\":\"It presents Castle’s view that most essential work on the genre and its early history has been done, while also noting that the audience—especially graduate students—felt the pronouncement might be premature.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the text argue that novel theory must be studied historically?\",\"answer\":\"Because reading eighteenth-century novels through the questions of the present can distort what those novels meant at the time. Focusing on how theory changed over centuries clarifies fiction’s own progress.\"},{\"question\":\"Where does the text locate early novel theory in the eighteenth century?\",\"answer\":\"It points to introductions and prefaces to long prose narratives, where writers develop “practical theory” tied to the craft of writing rather than abstract speculation.\"}]","Reconsidering Origins: How Novel Are Theories of the Novel? | PDF",1787881308,32,{"code":4,"msg":32,"data":33},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":34,"title":13,"keywords":35,"description":14,"schema_data":36,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":29},"reconsidering-origins-how-novel-are-theories-of-the-novel","",{"@graph":37,"@context":85},[38,53,68],{"@type":39,"itemListElement":40},"BreadcrumbList",[41,45,48,50],{"item":42,"name":43,"@type":44,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":46,"name":47,"@type":44,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":44,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":44,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/reconsidering-origins-how-novel-are-theories-of-the-novel/153731/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":42,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-07","2026-08-28",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What does the text suggest about Terry Castle’s claim of saturation in eighteenth-century novel studies?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"It presents Castle’s view that most essential work on the genre and its early history has been done, while also noting that the audience—especially graduate students—felt the pronouncement might be premature.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"Why does the text argue that novel theory must be studied historically?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"Because reading eighteenth-century novels through the questions of the present can distort what those novels meant at the time. Focusing on how theory changed over centuries clarifies fiction’s own progress.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"Where does the text locate early novel theory in the eighteenth century?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"It points to introductions and prefaces to long prose narratives, where writers develop “practical theory” tied to the craft of writing rather than abstract speculation.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":25},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,100,104,109,114,119,124,129,132,136],{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":105,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":106,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":108},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":110,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":111,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":120,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":123},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":126,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":128},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":130,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":131},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":133,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":134,"show_sort_weight":133,"slug":135},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":137,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":138,"show_sort_weight":105,"slug":139},19,"General","general"]