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The English Novel

Part I

Professor Timothy Spurgin

T HE T EACHING C OMPANY ®

Timothy Spurgin, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of English,

Bonnie Glidden Buchanan Professor of English Literature, Lawrence University

Tim Spurgin grew up in Mankato, Minnesota. He graduated magna cum laude from Carleton College, where he

wrote his senior thesis on the role of Realism in the English and American novel. During his senior year, he was

also elected to Phi Beta Kappa and chosen as the student commencement speaker. On the encouragement of his

teachers at Carleton, he applied for and received a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities. He went on to do his

graduate work at the University of Virginia, earning an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English literature. Dr. Spurgin’s

doctoral dissertation focused on the novels of Charles Dickens. Since 1990, he has taught at Lawrence University in

Appleton, Wisconsin. His teaching includes courses on Romanticism and contemporary critical theory, as well as a

course on the English novel. While at Lawrence, Dr. Spurgin has received two awards for teaching: the Outstanding

Young Teacher Award and the Freshman Studies Teaching Prize. He has twice served as director of Lawrence’s

freshman program, recognized as one of the best in the nation, and has three times received the Babcock Award,

voted by Lawrence students to the person who “through involvement and interaction with students has made a

positive impact on the campus community.” Dr. Spurgin’s writing has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher

Education , Dickens Studies Annual , and Dickens Quarterly . He lives in Appleton with his wife, Gretchen Revie,

and their wheaten terrier, Penny.

Table of Contents

The English Novel

Part I

Professor Biography ............................................................................................i

Course Scope .......................................................................................................1

Lecture One Definitions and Distinctions ......................................3

Lecture Two The “Englishness” of the English Novel ...................6

Lecture Three Historical Context of Early English Fiction ..............9

Lecture Four The Rise of the Novel—Richardson and

Fielding....................................................................12

Lecture Five After 1750—Sterne, Burney, and Radcliffe ............15

Lecture Six Scott and the Historical Novel .................................18

Lecture Seven Austen and the Comedic Tradition ..........................21

Lecture Eight Austen and the History of Consciousness ...............24

Lecture Nine Dickens—Early Works............................................26

Lecture Ten Novelists of the 1840s—Thackeray.........................29

Lecture Eleven Novelists of the 1840s—The Brontës......................31

Lecture Twelve Dickens—Later Works ............................................33

Timeline .............................................................................................................35

Biographical Notes ............................................................................................38

Glossary .......................................................................................................Part II

Bibliography ................................................................................................Part II

The English Novel

Scope:

The novel is the most popular literary form of the last 250 years. Novels are indeed ubiquitous. They are sold not

only in bookshops but also in airports, supermarkets, and drug stores. We read them in school and on vacation,

turning to them for both intellectual stimulation and emotional satisfaction.

The novel is also an especially important and influential form. To the extent, for example, that we see society as

complex and interconnected or view human personality as the product of early childhood experience, we are—

whether we realize it or not—registering the impact of such writers as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, Henry

James and Virginia Woolf.

This course is an introduction to the form of the novel and, in particular, to the English novel tradition. No prior

knowledge of the texts or authors is assumed. The course has an unusually wide sweep, beginning in the 1740s and

closing in the 1920s. As a result, we’ll be able to trace the history of the form from its beginnings to what can fairly

be described as its culmination in the work of the early-20 th -century Modernists. The course will survey a number of

important writers, but it will also give special consideration to a few who made major contributions to the

development of the form.

Though our approach is largely historical and chronological, we will return to a few enduring questions: What

distinguishes the novel from other kinds of writing? How has the novel form been shaped by larger social and

cultural forces? And what distinguishes the English novel tradition from the French, Russian, or American

traditions?

In distinguishing the novel from other forms, we might note two of its most striking features. The first is the novel’s

preoccupation with social values and social distinctions. A great novel often seems to describe an entire society,

creating a vivid image of the relationships among whole classes of people. It’s no wonder that novels are frequently

described as the forerunners of modern ethnographies and social histories.

Equally important to our ongoing definition of the novel form is its interest in human psychology. Whereas plays

and films are often forced to concentrate on externals—how a character moves or speaks—novels are free to probe

the inner recesses of both mind and heart. By the end of a novel, we may have developed a deep sympathy and,

perhaps, some kind of identification with the characters. In addition to examining human communities, then, the

novel explores the nature of consciousness itself.

To define the novel in these ways is to recognize its relationship to larger social forces. The rise of the novel

through the 18 th and 19 th centuries coincides with major historical developments—urbanization and

democratization, industrialization and globalization, to name a few. These developments heighten conflicts between

established elites and the growing middle class. They also raise urgent questions of personal identity, social

responsibility, and moral virtue—the very sorts of questions that turn up in so many of the greatest English novels.

That the novel provided compelling responses to such questions is evidenced by its enormous and enduring

popularity. No form could have established itself so quickly and so powerfully without addressing the deepest needs

of its audience.

The English novel tradition is not the only one to concern itself with the relationship between society and the self.

Such concerns can also be seen to dominate the French, Russian, and American traditions. Yet if the English

tradition shares much with its Continental and American counterparts, it also possesses a number of distinguishing

features. Perhaps the most obvious aspect of the English tradition is its virtual obsession with courtship, love, and

marriage. Almost all of the greatest English novels of the 18 th and 19 th centuries are love stories, and some of the

great Modernist novels of the early 20 th century are dominated by issues of love and marriage.

Another distinguishing feature of the English tradition, especially as it unfolds in the 18 th and 19 th centuries, is its

striking preference for comedic plots. Unlike the works of Flaubert, Tolstoy, or Melville, the overwhelming

majority of English novels from this period end happily. By the close of a novel by Fielding or Austen or the early

Dickens, each of the characters has found his or her proper place in society. These characters not only end up where

they belong but also get what they deserve. Virtue is rewarded, and vice is punished—which is to say that a larger

sense of poetic justice prevails.

As the 19 th century moved on, English novelists began to experiment with other sorts of endings. By the time

Thomas Hardy published Tess of the d’Urbervilles in 1891, the old conventions and forms had become increasingly

untenable. For about a century, it had been possible for English writers to imagine a satisfying resolution to social

conflicts. By the time we get to Hardy, after decades of industrialization and the reorganization of English society

along modern lines, that possibility had vanished.

In tracing the emergence and consolidation of various approaches to stories and storytelling, we will, of course,

fashion a story of our own. The last large movement in that story will focus on the great modern novelists of the

1910s and 1920s. Like their 18 th - and 19 th -century predecessors, these writers were responding to larger social

forces, including those associated with the horrors of the First World War. Yet even as modern novelists create

disturbing images of social fragmentation, they deepen our understanding of the individual personality, fashioning

character studies of unsurpassed emotional complexity.

The course ends by bringing the story up to date. The final lecture is largely devoted to living novelists, such as

Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Zadie Smith. In the works of these writers, as well as those of Austen, Dickens,

and Woolf, we can see why the novel remains a form of unrivalled popularity and undeniable importance.

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