Romaanilajin historiaa ja teoriaa II luento Romaanilajia koskeva teoreettinen keskustelu 1700-luvun Englannissa

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Romaanilajin historiaa ja teoriaaII luento
Romaanilajia koskeva teoreettinen keskustelu
1700-luvun Englannissa

• Aino Mäkikalli
• 19.1.2009

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Oheislukemisto

• Watt, Ian 1977, Jakso I Realism and the Novel
  Form. In The Rise of the Novel, Studies in
  Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (1957).
  Harmondsworth Penguin Books, pp. 937.
• Mäkikalli, Aino 2007,Jaksot Theories of the
  Modern Novel JA A Brief Overview of the
  Reception. In From Eternity to Time.
  Conceptions of Time in Daniel Defoes Novels.
  Oxford, Bern et al. Peter Lang, pp. 3161.

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Genremäärittelyssä huomioon otettavia käsitteitä
1600-1700-lukujen vaihteessa

• Romance
• The World is so taken up of late with Novels
  and Romances, that it will be hard for a private
  History to be taken for Genuine
• (Defoe Moll Flanders 1722, esipuhe)
• Novel
• ital. novella, novelli, uutinen, tarina, huhu,
  juoru.
• Vrt. Cervantesin Novelas Ejamplares (1613)

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• Fiction
• The Editor believes the thing to be a just
  History of Fact neither is there any Appearance
  of Fiction in it.
• (Defoe Robinson Crusoe 1719, esipuhe)
• History
• Aphra Behn Oroonoko, or, The Royal Slave A
  True History (1688)
• This Story differs from most of the Modern
  Performances of this Kind, Namely, That the
  Foundation of This is laid in Truth of Fact and
  so the Work is not a Story but a History
• (Defoe Roxana 1724, esipuhe)

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Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel (1957)

• formaali realismi kerrontatapana
  partikulaarisuus, ajan ja paikan tarkentuminen
• individualismi henkilöiden partikulaariset
  kokemukset, lukijat samastuivat henkilöhahmoihin
• taustalla sosiokulttuuriset ja aatehistorialliset
  muutokset

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Romaanin muotoutumisen nykykeskustelu

• Lennard J. Davis, Factual Fictions. The Origins
  of the English Novel (1983)
• Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fictions. A
  Political History of the Novel (1987)
• Vrt. Azim, Firdous 1993, The Colonial Rise of
  the Novel
• J. Paul Hunter, Before Novels. The Cultural
  Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction
  (1990)
• William B. Warner, Licensing Entertainment. The
  Elevation of Novel Reading in Britain, 16841750
  (1998)

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Mistä 1700-luvun alun Lontoon kirjallisuuspiirit
oikein keskustelivat?

• (Neo)klassismi
• Ancients vs. Moderns
• Alexander Pope (16881744), runoelma An Essay on
  Criticism (1711)
• Joseph Addison, The Spectator 171112
• Samuel Johnson (170984), The Rambler No. 4, 1750

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• In poets as true genius is but rare,
• True taste as seldom is the critics share
• Both must alike from heaven derive their light,
• These born to judge, as well as those to write.
• --
• First follow Nature, and your judgement frame
• By her just standard, which is still the same
• Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
• One clear, unchanged, and universal light,
• Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,
• At once the source, and end, and test of art.
• --
• Be Homers works your study and delight,
• Read them by day, and meditate by night
• Thence form your judgement, thence your maxims
  bring,
• And trace the Muses upward to their spring.
• --
• Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem
• To copy Nature is to copy them.

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• I may define it to be that faculty of the soul
  which discerns the beauties of an author with
  pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike. If
  a man would know whether he is possessed of this
  faculty, I would have him read over the
  celebrated works of antiquity which have stood
  the test of so many different ages and countries,
  or those works among the moderns which have the
  sanction of the politer part of our
  contemporaries.
• The Spectator 409, June 19, 1712

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• How few books are there of which one ever can
  possibly arrive at the last page! Was there ever
  yet any thing written by mere man that was wished
  longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote,
  Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrims Progress?
• Samuel Johnson (170984)

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Miten romaania määriteltiin aikalaisten
keskuudessa?

• Romances are generally composed of the constant
  loves and invincible courages of heros, heroins,
  kings and queens, mortals of the first rank, and
  so forth where lofty language, miraculous
  contingencies and impossible performances,
  elevate and surprize the reader into giddy
  delight, which leaves him flat upon the ground
  -- and he is forced to be very well convinced
  that tis all a lye. Novels are of a more
  familiar nature come near us, and represents to
  us intrigues in practice, delight us with
  accidents and odd events, but not such as are
  wholly unusual or unpresidented, such which not
  being so distant from our belief bring also the
  pleasure nearer us. Romances give more of wonder,
  novels more delight.
• William Congreve, Incognita or, Love and Duty
  Reconcild. A Novel, The Preface to the Reader
  (1713)

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• Since all traditions must indisputably give
  place to the drama, and since there is no
  possibility of giving that life to the writing or
  repetition of a story which it has in the action,
  I resolved in another beauty to imitate dramatick
  writing, namely, in the design, contexture and
  result of the plot. I have not observed it before
  in a novel.
• William Congreve, Incognita or, Love and Duty
  Reconcild. A Novel (1713)

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• Samuel Johnsonin määritelmiä uudesta
  proosafiktiosta,
• The Rambler No. 4, 1750
• works of fiction, with which the present
  generation seems more particularly delighted,
  comedy of romance, familiar histories, these
  fictions, these writings, romances
• exhibit life in its true state and bring about
  natural events by easy means
• Kirjailija löytää aiheensa from general
  converse ja observation of the living world
• Uusi proosa engaged in portraits of which
  every one knows the original, and can detect any
  deviation from exactness of resemblance
• to increase prudence without impairing virtue

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• The novel is a picture of real life and
  manners, and of the times in which it is written.
  () The novel gives a familiar relation of such
  things, as pass every day before our eyes, such
  as may happen to our friend, or to ourselves and
  the perfection of it, is to represent every
  scene, in so easy and natural a manner, and to
  make them appear so probable, as to deceive us
  into a persuasion (at least while we are reading)
  that all is real.
• Clara Reeve, The Progresse of Romance (1785)

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Aikalaiset kommentoivat Defoeta (RC)

• The Life And Strange Surprizing Adventures of
  Mr. D.. De F, of London, Hosier, (1719)
• Charles Gildon
• The first part of Robinson Crusoe is very
  good. De Foe wrote a vast many things and none
  bad, though none excellent, except this. There is
  something good in all he has written.
• Alexander Pope
• A man, who bred a tradesman, had written so
  variously and so well. Indeed, his Robinson
  Crusoe is enough to establish his reputation.
  Samuel Johnson

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Terry Eagleton,The English Novel. An
Introduction, 2005

• Romance
• full of marvels
• mythical, metaphysical world
• focus on nature, or supernatural
• idealistic
• static history
• product of premodernity

• Novel
• mundane
• a secular, empirical world
• focus on culture
• believes in what it can touch, taste and handle
• changing, concrete, open-ended history
• narrative and time of its essence
• product of modernity