English Fiction and Its Classification

Published by Chanpa Pal on October 5, 2024

What is Fiction?

 Fiction

Any story that deals with imaginary characters rather than real characters is called Fiction.

•    In a narrower sense, the term generally refers to only narratives written in prose(the Novel and Short story).

•   Sometimes, it is used as a synonym for the Novel.

NOVEL

The term derived from the Italian: ‘Novella‘ for ‘new‘ or ‘short story of something new‘, itself from the Latin ‘novella‘ meaning ‘new’, it is meant for any lengthy piece of prose fiction.

A novel is a piece of fictional prose that is longer than a short story but shorter than an Epic.

A novel that is too large to be published in a single volume is often called as Roman-fleuve or river-novel. 

The length of the novel gives authors the scope to develop their characters and plot to any level in shorten works.

HISTORY

• The novel has flourished in English Literature since the Eighteenth Century.
•  Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding can be considered to establish this genre in England.
• “Robinson Crusoe“(1709), and “Moll Flanders“(1722) are famous novels written by Daniel Defoe.
• The development of the printing press, growth in literacy and suitability of leisure greatly facilitated the quick growth of the form.
• The nineteenth century was the age of the Realistic novel. The form flourished in the hands of George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Henry James etc.
• In the 20th century, novels flourished in different and diverse ways : e.g. Stream of Conscious technique in English Literature.
• Novels have flourished in a wide variety of forms.

Primary Forms of NOVELS.

1. Prose Romances
2. Gothic Novel
3. Picaresque Novel
4. Epistolary Novel
5. Domestic Novel
6. Historical Novel
7. Regional Novel
8. Bildungsroman Novel 
9. Psychological Novel
10. Short Story 

1. Romans/ Prose Romans

• Romans is a fictional work of high adventure.
• It is generally portrayed the chivalric deeds or ideals.
• It is thought to have originated in the 12th-century farce.
• A knight undertaking perilous journeys inspired by love was a common theme of Romances.
• Romances that had Gothic features were called Gothic Novels.
• Now the term is used in a prose work in which fantastic quest, intense love and impossible situations are greatly present.
• The medieval “Sir Gawain and Green Knight” is a popular Romance in English Literature.

2. Gothic Novel

The term ‘gothic‘ has come from ‘Goths ‘, a German tribe but now the term refers to a kind of architecture that originated in France and flourished in Europe around the 12th and 16th centuries.

In Fiction

In fiction, the term refers to a type characterized by romantic/fanciful adventure in fearsome surroundings, a mood of decay, disturbing actions, gorgeous but bleak settings and seemingly supernatural interventions.

• The Gothic Novel is a kind of prose romance mingled with a sense of fright and gloom.
• The common settings of these novels were the Medieval castles haunted by supernatural forces.
•  Horace Walpole was the finest practitioner of this form with his novel “The Castle of Otranto”.
• The non-realistic and melodramatic events are claimed to project in symbolic form.
• Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” is also a brilliant example of a Gothic Novel.

3. Picaresque Novel

• The word ‘picaro‘ in Spanish refers to a ‘rogue‘ or ‘knave‘.
• A genre of Literature that pictures the underworld and focuses on the dark and seamy underbelly of human society, is called Rogue Literature.
• Novels in which the authors cast a satirical glance at society through the activities of a rogue are called  Picaresque Novel.
• Picaresque fiction is realistic in manner episodic in structure and often satiric in aim.
• The first and very lively English instance was Thomas Nash’s “The Unfortunate Traveler”(1594).
• Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe“(1719), and “Moll Flanders“(1722) are still picaresque in type, in the sense that their structure is episodic rather than in the organized form of a plot.
• Cervantes’ Quasi-Picaresque narrative “Don Quixote” (1605) was the single most important progenitor of the modern novel.

4. Epistolary Novel

• A type of novel whose plot is developed through letters. The narrative is conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters.
• The form has a sense of openness as the characters appear to disclose their private thoughts through letters.
• The form has seen a decline in the 20th century as the art of letter writing itself diminished.
• Samuel Richardson’s “Pamela“(1740) and “Clarissa“(1748) were extremely successful Epistolary Novels.

5. Domestic Novel

• A form of novel opposite to a grand novel.
• A fiction that focuses on the middle and lower-middle-class existence and the domestic activities occurrences of the common people.

6. Historical Novel

• A novel in which historical characters or events are employed to create a fictional narrative.
• It is usually special that the historical novel form began in the 19th century with Walter Scott.
• The novel may deal with actual historical personages as does John Williams’ Augustan(1972), and Robert Grave’s I Claudius (1974).
• It may contain a mixture of historical and fictional characters.
• It may centre around a single historical event.
• Most often, the historical novel attempts to portray a panoramic view of a post-society in which the great events are reflected by their impact on the private life of fictional individuals.
• Some of the greatest historical novels also use the protagonist and events to reveal what the author regards as the deep forces that impel the historical process.
• Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” are of the highest artistic quality.

7.  The Regional Novel 

A form of a novel that focuses on the setting, speech, social structure and customs of a particular locality, not merely as local colour but as important conditions affecting the temperament of the characters and their ways of thinking, feeling and interacting.

Instances of such localities are — “Wessex“, in Thomas Hardy’s novels. “Mississippi” in Mark Twain, “India” in Rudyard Kipling’s novel.

8. Bildungsroman Novel / Erziehungsroman 

• Bildungsroman is a German term signifying ‘novel of formation‘.
• It refers to the development of a protagonist’s mind passage from childhood to maturity through varied experiences.
• It is often autobiographical but need not necessarily be so.
• A special form of Bildungsroman is the Kunstler Roman, a novel that pens the development of an artist from childhood to artistic maturity.
• It depicts the protagonist’s struggle to overcome bourgeois mediocrity and realize his or her creative potential.
• The term Bildungsroman is largely synonymous with Erziehungsroman, a German term signifying ‘novel of education‘ that focuses on training and formal schooling.
• A sub-genre is Entwicklungsroman, a strong general growth than self-culture.
• “David Copperfield” and “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens, “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte etc.

9. Psychological Novel

• In Literature, Psychological Novel is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of the characters.
• The more narration examines the reasons for the behaviours of the character, which force the plot and explain the story.
• Psychological realism is achieved with deep explorations and explanations of the mental states of the character’s inner person, usually through narrative modes such as Stream of Consciousness and flashback.
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a brilliant practitioner of this form. His most notable novels in this form are, “The Brothers Karamazov“, and “Crime and Punishment“.
• In the Literature of the United States, Henry James, Patrick McGrath, Arthur Miller and Edith Wharton are considered ‘major contributors to the practice of Psychological Realism’.

10. Short Story  

• Short Story is really a popular and famous genre in English Literature.
• Though stories are short but sometimes very difficult to understand. It uses many symbols to express a sense in a brief narrative.
• A Short Story is a fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novella or novel.  It generally has few characters and events, and the plot concentrates on producing a special effect in the mind of the reader.
• Edgar Allan Poe is sometimes called the originator of the Short story as an established genre.

He has mentioned some features that a short story contains ;

1. A short prose narrative,
2. A prose tale that can be read in one setting from half an hour to two hours.
3. It is limited to a certain unique or single effect’.

Good short stories make excellent use of Symbols to achieve the depth in which the story is written in a short narrative.

History 

• The genre was developed and established in England because of the popularity of Gothic Literature. With the higher demand for the ‘literature of honour’ a large number of Gothic Short stories were published.
• The 19th century marked a new stage of development for short stories.
• Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Haw throne, D.H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Mansfield, Jean-Paul Sartre.
• James Joyce’s “DUBLINERS” is a collection of short stories, and was one of the most important works produced in the early 20th century.

References

“Anthem Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory” by Piyas Chakrabarti.”, A Glossary of Literary Terms” by M.H. Abrams and G.G. Harpham.” History of English Literature” by Edward Albert, “A History of English Literature” by Rabindranath Chakraborty. en.wikipedia.org