Novel

A novel is an invented prose narrative that is both lengthy and rather complicated, usually involving a connected series of events involving a group of people in a particular environment and dealing imaginatively with human experience. The novel's genre has included a wide variety of forms and styles within its expansive parameters, some of the most significant of which include picaresque, epistolary, Gothic, romantic, realist, and historical.

The novel is a genre of fiction, which is defined as the art or craft of creating human life representations through written word that are either instructive or entertaining, or both.

Novel, an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel has encompassed an extensive range of types and styles: picaresque, epistolary, Gothic, romantic, realist, historical—to name only some of the more important ones. Fiction can take many different forms, but it's better to think of them as a continuum or, more precisely, a cline, with the shortest possible form—the anecdote—at one end of the scale and the longest possible novel at the other. Any work of fiction is considered to have reached novelhood when it is long enough to stand alone as an entire book rather than just a section of one.

"Novel" stems from the Italian "novella," meaning "new thing." Originally, it referred to short, often humorous stories. Yet, over time, these grew in length and complexity, taking on themes and subjects once reserved for grand poems and historical accounts. This evolution opened a wider space for exploring the inner lives of characters and capturing the nuances of everyday life. While plot and character play crucial roles, a novel can offer much more. It can be a canvas for intricate settings, immersing us in specific environments and historical periods. The narrative voice itself can become a character, weaving its own perspective into the tapestry of the story. A novel can encompass a single episode or span generations, offering intimate portraits or sweeping historical panoramas. Its length becomes a tool, allowing the author to delve into the depths of experience or create vast canvases of society and time. Beyond the surface narrative, novels often resonate with deeper meanings. Characters can evolve into symbolic representations of universal human traits or struggles. Stories may draw inspiration from ancient myths, adding layers of meaning and enriching the reader's experience.Ultimately, the novel stands as a bridge between the fictional and the real. It allows us to explore different perspectives, confront diverse realities, and ultimately gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

Such early ancient Roman fiction as Petronius’ Satyricon of the 1st century AD and Lucius Apuleius’ Golden Ass of the 2nd century contain many of the popular elements that distinguish the novel from its nobler born relative the epic poem. Margaret Doody states that the book has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years" and that the Italian Renaissance novella tradition, medieval chivalric romance, and Ancient Greek and Roman novels are its main sources of inspiration. Romanticism brought back the classic romance genre, as evidenced by Walter Scott's historical romances and the Gothic novel.The term "romance" was preferred by several novelists, such as John Cowper Powys, Ann Radcliffe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville. According to M. H. Abrams and Walter Scott, a romance is any made-up story that highlights amazing or unusual events, but a novel is a fictional story that presents a realistic portrayal of the situation of a society.

A fictional character's composition and actions depend to a large extent on his or her environment as well as on the personal dynamics given to him or her by the author.

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In fact, for Emile Zola, the environment is of paramount importance.

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The entire plot of a character-specific novel is often determined by the setting in which the novel takes place.

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Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857) could not have been set in Paris.

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This is because the tragic life and death of the heroine has a lot to do with the limitations of the local environment.

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But it sometimes happens that the main setting of a novel assumes a meaning in the reader's mind that is equivalent to, but somehow separable from, the meaning of the characters.

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Wessex is a huge, brooding presence in Thomas Hardy's novels, and its human characters  probably wouldn't act much different if they were set in another rural  England.

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The popularity of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novels is due in part to their evocation of a romanticized Scotland.

For some readers, the setting may be the main concern, as they are drawn to Conrad for his depiction of life at sea and in the East Indies.

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They may not be so interested in the complexities of human relationships that he depicts.

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Regional fiction is a recognized genre.

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His series of four novels, which Hugh Walpole began with Rogue Herries (1930), was the result of a desire to pay homage to the area of ​​Cumberland, England, where he wanted to live.

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William Faulkner's great Yoknapatawpha cycle, his classic of 20th century American literature set in the fictional state of Mississippi, falls into this category.

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Similarly, the once popular Sussex stories written  by British author Sheila Kay.

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Smith.

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However, many novelists increase their creativity by avoiding the same settings one after another and consciously searching for new ones.

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British author Graham Greene had to visit new places to write a new novel.

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The reader notices the author's cleverness even though they should only be concerned about the characters and their actions.

The author is most discreet when using the device of stream of consciousness, presenting the characters' unfinished thoughts and feelings in an internal monologue.

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They appear unedited at first glance and are  sometimes intentionally almost unintelligible.

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But since this technique seems to bring fiction into the psychoanalyst's office (and presents the  material to either art or science, but  not to art itself, of course), Joyce I felt that I had no choice but to take some measures.

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More than any other novelist, Joyce sought complete objectivity in his stories.

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As for the novelist, he must, in the words of the contemporary British-American W.H. Auden,

Become the whole of boredom, subject to
Vulgar complaints like love, among the Just
Be just, among the Filthy filthy too,
And in his own weak person, if he can,
Must suffer dully all the wrongs of Man.
The novel attempts to assume those burdens of life that have no place in the epic poem and to see man as unheroic, unredeemed, imperfect, even absurd. This is why there is room among its practitioners for writers of hardboiled detective thrillers such as the contemporary American Mickey Spillane or of sentimental melodramas such as the prolific 19th-century English novelist Mrs. Henry Wood, but not for one of the unremitting elevation of outlook of a John Milton.