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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Tour de Force, August 15, 2005
This review is from: The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (Paperback)
Published in 1957, "The Rise of the Novel" was immediately recognized as a landmark of literary criticism. It has, justifiably, retained this status up to the present.
Recognizing that life does not present itself in neat separate packages of literature, history, and sociology, "The Rise of the Novel" integrates Watt's considerable knowledge in each of these areas to assess the impact of three authors, Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, upon the development of the English novel in the eighteenth century. In the final chapter, he shows how their contributions were integrated and further developed in the works of Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen and others.
Along the way, he makes numerous fascinating observations that I personally had not run across before. For example:
* With the rise of the city (in this case, London) in the eighteenth century, and the resulting development of a more transient population, the model for the Family shifted from the patriarchal family (with a paterfamilias) to a conjugal model (i.e., a new family is born upon each new marriage).
* During the century, there was considerable disapproval of the heroic epic (as exemplified by Homer) as a result of the manners and morals it exhibited, i.e., violence and cruelty. "Tom Jones," a comic epic, was critized at the time for glorifying these and other negative values.
* The large number of "spinsters" during the century led to formal proposals for the passage of laws allowing bigamy.
The book is remarkably fair and balanced in its assessment of Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, with Richardson coming off better than I had expected. It's not enough to make me want to read "Pamela" and "Clarissa," but I did come away with a heightened appreciation of Richardson's abilities as an observer of life and society.
Watt's own life (1917 -1999) is interesting. He joined the British Army at the age of 22 and served with distinction in World War II as an army lieutenant in the infantry from 1939 to 1946. He was wounded in the battle for Singapore in January 1942 and listed as "missing, presumed killed in action." In fact, he was taken prisoner by the Japanese and remained a prisoner of war until 1945, working on the construction of a railway that crossed Thailand a feat that inspired the Pierre Boulle novel "Bridge Over the River Kwai" and the film version by David Lean. More than 12,000 prisoners died during the building of the railroad, most of them from disease, and Watt was critically ill from malnutrition for several years.
He joined the faculty of Stanford University in 1964., and was chair of the English department from 1968 to 1971. In addition to "The Rise of the Novel," he is best known for his body of criticism of the works of Joseph Conrad.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A well-research scholarly work on the novel., March 11, 2009
Ian Watt's exhaustive scholarly work on the emergence of the novel has proven invaluable in identifying what were the factors that allowed the novel to take its place in the history of English literature. With particular reference to Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, Watt gives an in-depth exploration of the growth of the middle class, the increase of literary habits of the general population through the rise of the city, the availability of the printing press and an interest in the woes and triumphs of the plight of the woman in the late eighteenth century. Well worth the read for those in college literature classes.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Tour de Force, August 15, 2005
Published in 1957, "The Rise of the Novel" was immediately recognized as a landmark of literary criticism. It has, justifiably, retained this status up to the present.
Recognizing that life does not present itself in neat separate packages of literature, history, and sociology, "The Rise of the Novel" integrates Watt's considerable knowledge in each of these areas to assess the impact of three authors, Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, upon the development of the English novel in the eighteenth century. In the final chapter, he shows how their contributions were integrated and further developed in the works of Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen and others.
Along the way, he makes numerous fascinating observations that I personally had not run across before. For example:
* With the rise of the city (in this case, London) in the eighteenth century, and the resulting development of a more transient population, the model for the Family shifted from the patriarchal family (with a paterfamilias) to a conjugal model (i.e., a new family is born upon each new marriage).
* During the century, there was considerable disapproval of the heroic epic (as exemplified by Homer) as a result of the manners and morals it exhibited, i.e., violence and cruelty. "Tom Jones," a comic epic, was critized at the time for glorifying these and other negative values.
* The large number of "spinsters" during the century led to formal proposals for the passage of laws allowing bigamy.
The book is remarkably fair and balanced in its assessment of Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, with Richardson coming off better than I had expected. It's not enough to make me want to read "Pamela" and "Clarissa," but I did come away with a heightened appreciation of Richardson's abilities as an observer of life and society.
Watt's own life (1917 -1999) is interesting. He joined the British Army at the age of 22 and served with distinction in World War II as an army lieutenant in the infantry from 1939 to 1946. He was wounded in the battle for Singapore in January 1942 and listed as "missing, presumed killed in action." In fact, he was taken prisoner by the Japanese and remained a prisoner of war until 1945, working on the construction of a railway that crossed Thailand a feat that inspired the Pierre Boulle novel "Bridge Over the River Kwai" and the film version by David Lean. More than 12,000 prisoners died during the building of the railroad, most of them from disease, and Watt was critically ill from malnutrition for several years.
He joined the faculty of Stanford University in 1964., and was chair of the English department from 1968 to 1971. In addition to "The Rise of the Novel," he is best known for his body of criticism of the works of Joseph Conrad.
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