THE ASCENT OF THE NOVEL
The novel was first defined as any long narrative prose that portrayed aspects of everyday life through fictional characters and events. The novel appeared during the time that romance was popular. The invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1429 significantly increased the literacy rate and the production and distribution of written texts. Both the romance and the novel flourished during this time, though they were very different in content and style.
The novel included different types of characters than those found in romance stories. The latter described entertaining adventures about heroes with the purpose of relating moral teachings. Often, knights were the main heroes of romances, as in the 14th-century tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The main theme of the story was the glories of knighthood. The novel, on the other hand, featured daily events and ordinary people. The novel often parodied romance’s typical style of impossible, glorified characters. The romance genre was favored by the nobility, who enjoyed the formal language and found it perfectly appropriate for describing the deeds of heroes. In contrast, the prose used in novels was considered “low,” and thus more appropriate for satire.
Yet another difference was that the novel represented human existence in a way that was closer to real life and included few exaggerations. It portrayed the human experience through events with which the average reader could identify. This allowed an opportunity to engage in a study of human character. In contrast, romance stories presented a colorful distortion of the characteristics and lives of people through idealism. Through the novel, one could learn about the real motives and temperaments of people in a generally realistic way. With a romance, the point of emphasis is plot, while a novel's main focal point is character. For example, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, considered to be one of the first “modern” novels, was told in first-person narrative, through which the reader becomes intimately familiar with the main character.