I begin with a literature review.
Many critics tend to view the ancient novels as degenerate or decadent forms of other verse genres.
This denigration of the novels with respect to their verse predecessors is repeated in discussions of the opposition between verse and prose themselves. Actually reversing their historical relationship, critics generally speak of prose as the unelaborated stuff out of which verse is created by the addition of form. This definition, however, is just as inadequate as the definition of the novel as degenerate epic or prosified drama. Prose thus presumes new protocols and conventions between author and audience analogous to the new demands made on users of the technology of writing, to which prose is historically related. Traditional insights of critics of the novel can be rethought in a more positive light once the novel is placed in its proper relationship to the verse genres.