The 19th Century Novel Essay -- English Literature

The 19th Century Novel A Novel is defined as a long story about fictitious characters, written in prose as opposed to poetry. Novels were first written in the 18th Century so by the 19th Century, the novel, often in serialised form was an established form of entertainment which was also helped by the increased adult literacy rate over the whole of the 1800s. The idea of the novel had changed from being purely for the amusement of women to being available to a wider audience, covering a wider variety of issues. It was also over this century that it began to be increasingly acceptable, if not usual to write novels with an underlying moral tone, particularly towards social standards among the lower classes. Another theme of many 19th Century novels was the creation and depiction of strong and great female characters, many through the new generation of female writers. Walter Scott, born in Scotland in 1771 was famous for his escapist literature such as ‘Waverley’ (1814) and ‘Ivanhoe’ (1819), both of these escapist in their setting further back in the past (1745 and Norman Times respectively). Scott had been a poet until he turned to novel writing having been outsold by Lord Byron's poetry. ‘Ivanhoe’, a historical romance is credited as being meticulously researched and seemed to make the novel genre acceptable for men. He attracted a wide range of people through setting it in Scotland and delving into the past, capturing early Victorian’s imaginations with his eight hundred year old characters, seeking refuge in the past and firing their imaginations. ‘Ivanhoe’ famously sold ten thousand copies within its first two weeks and led to a gothic revival, most famously Sir Charles Barry’s Houses of Parliament i... ...long struggle. Both ‘Jude the Obscure’ and ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ were highly criticised at his time of writing, the brutality of his stories shocking the Victorian Public. However, he remains popular due to the strength of his stories and characters. Beyond the six authors that I have touched upon, the 19th Century literature collection is vast, many surviving and others falling into obscurity. Although the early 20th Century writers felt revolutionary in their casting off of the old Victorian novel style, I feel that the 19th Century Novelists were equally revolutionary in what they did for the novel. They created similar novel genres to what exists today and entertained and often shocked an uptight century. They introduced the art of observance and intricacy to the novel form and have formed the basis for the inspiration of novelists ever since.