Skip to main content Skip to Search Box

Definition: novel from Philip's Encyclopedia

Narrative fiction, usually in prose form, that is longer and more detailed than a short story. The word derives from the Latin word novus (new) and the Italian novella (a short tale with an element of surprise). The roots of the modern novel are generally traced to Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605-15). Its development as a major literary form can be seen in 18th-century Britain in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740). The 20th century has seen considerable formal experimentation, notably the stream of consciousness technique and the nouveau roman.


novel

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
in modern literary usage, a sustained work of prose fiction a volume or more in length. It is distinguished from the short story and the fictional sketch, which are necessarily brief. Although the novel has a place in the literatures of all nations, this article concentrates on the evolution of the novel in England, France, Russia and the Soviet Union, and the United States. Nonetheless, changes in technology in the 20th cent. have made the literature of different cultures widely available. The international readership claimed by such authors as Africa's Chinua Achebe, India's R. K. Narayan, Japan's Yukio Mishima, and Latin America's Jorge Luis Borges indicates the variety of novels available to an ever-widening audience. See also mystery ; science fiction . The term novel is derived from novella , Italian for a compact, realistic, often ribald prose tale popular in the Renaissance and best exemplified by the stories in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (1348–53). The novel can, …
31,600 results

Full text Article novel

From Word Origins
English has acquired the word novel in several distinct instalments. First to arrive was the adjective, ‘new’ [15], which came via Old French from Latin novellus , a derivative of novus ‘new’ (to which English new is distantly related). (The Old French derived noun novelte had already reached…
| 169 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article novel

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
in modern literary usage, a sustained work of prose fiction a volume or more in length. It is distinguished from the short story and the fictional sketch, which are necessarily brief. Although the novel has a place in the literatures of all nations, this article concentrates on the evolution of the…
| 3,438 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Novel, The

From The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory Full text Article Cultural Theory
The novel as a genre has a special historical relationship with the field of cultural studies. One might, for example, see cultural studies as an offshoot of what is sometimes called novel studies. Following this approach, one might view scholarship on the emergence and development of the novel as…
| 2,144 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Novel

From The Classical Tradition
The literature of the classical world included significant genres of prose fiction, including the Heliodorian romance and the Menippean satire, but it is generally considered that the novel, which arose in the 18th century with Richardson and Fielding in England, with Prévost and Rousseau in France, …
| 2,117 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article novel

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell for the...
Fictional prose narrative of considerable length and some complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. The genre encompasses a wide range of types and styles, including picaresque , epistolary , …
| 180 words , 1 image
Key concepts:

Full text Article novel

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Extended fictional prose narrative, usually between 30,000 and 100,000 words in length, that deals imaginatively with human experience through the psychological development of the central characters and their relationship with a broader world. The modern novel took its name and inspiration from the…
| 2,329 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Novel

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), the scenes of whose novels are set in this area. Hardy deliberately revived the historic name in his writings. See also literary place-names . It was in the chapters of Far From the Madding Crowd , as they appeared month by month in a popular magazine, that I first ventured…
| 161 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article novel

From The Chambers Dictionary
new and strange; of a new kind; felt to be new; new ( obs ). n a fictitious prose narrative or tale presenting a picture of real life, esp of the emotional crises in the life history of the people portrayed; (with the ) such writing as a literary genre; a new constitution or decree of Justinian or…
| 291 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article novel, the

From Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature
The American novel, in all its variety, does not reflect American life so much as it refracts it, concentrating the diffuse light of daily existence into the concentrated radiance of art. Rather than simply mirror what surrounds them, American writers present what they see as though the light rays…
| 3,182 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article novels

From Environmental History and Global Change: A Dictionary of Environmental History
The main literary form in W literature from the early C19, novels have often been set in specific places or regions at particular times and their characters have frequently been depicted as being influenced by, as well as interacting with, the landscape. Sometimes this has gone further with detailed…
| 417 words
Key concepts:
Mind Map

Stack overflow
More Library Resources