The Rise of the Novel: Watt on Defoe, Richardson & Fielding

Introduction: Watt's Central Claim

"The novel is in nothing so characteristic of our culture as in the way that it reflects this characteristic orientation of modern thought" (Watt 22). This is how Ian Watt defines the novel he discusses and analyzes in his landmark study. Watt wrote this book in 1957, after years of studying the 18th-century novel. He argues that the writing of the three authors he examines — Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding — was shaped by broad changes in their society. To make his point, he writes: "Defoe, Richardson and Fielding were no doubt affected by the changes in the reading public of their time; but their works are surely more profoundly conditioned by the new climate of social and moral experience which they and their eighteenth-century readers shared" (Watt 7).

This is an interesting claim, but it prompts the reader to wonder why later and arguably more dramatic "social and moral experiences" did not influence the novel even more. What about the period after the Industrial Revolution, which changed the world forever? Were later novels grittier and even more realistic than those of the 18th century? Or did fiction revert to romanticism during the Victorian era? Watt does not address these questions, but the book invites further research into what other critics have said about later influences on novel writing.

Realism and the Definition of the Novel

Watt also argues that these three authors effectively created the novel as a "new literary form." He notes that the term "novel" did not come into common use until the end of the 18th century, and that before these three writers, most fiction was romantic in nature. These new novelists, however, steeped their stories in realism and were more representative of the contemporary state of English society. As one critic points out about Watt's rather rigid definition: "When he has finished, we know that there were no novels written in seventeenth-century France. By definition. If you look at the new definition in detail, you will discover that there were never any novels written in Russia, either, and that there have been very few written anywhere since the end of the Nineteenth Century" (Just).

Watt writes: "If the novel were realistic merely because it saw life from the seamy side, it would only be an inverted romance; but in fact it surely attempts to portray all the varieties of human experience, and not merely those suited to one particular literary perspective: the novel's realism does not reside in the kind of life it presents, but in the way it presents it" (Watt 11).

Therefore, Watt holds that one of the main tenets of the modern novel is realism, and the manner in which authors portray it. Critics often classify Don Quixote as a romance, but it reads more as a comedy, rich with satire and irony throughout. While Don Quixote's tilting at windmills may not be realistic, the reality of Sancho Panza's devotion and the scorn of the other villagers toward Don Quixote is entirely believable and representative of human nature, both good and bad. The protagonist's madness is sometimes ridiculous, yet his devotion to his cause, however pathetic, ultimately wins over his critics. The novel portrays people as they really are — slightly mad, critical, and some overly devoted to a cause.

Another critic supports this reading: "Some of the earliest prose narratives that can be called novels were picaresque novels, episodic tales like Cervantes' Don Quixote. Realistic in manner, episodic in structure and satiric in aim, it deflates the idea of chivalric romance through satire" (Johnson).

Social Conditions and the Reading Public

Another of Watt's arguments about the rise of the novel is that 18th-century society had more leisure time than ever before, and that the novel's popularity grew accordingly. He observes that many women no longer performed the traditional household tasks that had previously consumed their days: "The old household duties of spinning and weaving, making bread, beer, candles and soap, and many others, were no longer necessary, since most necessities were now manufactured and could be bought at shops and markets" (Watt 44).

He notes that Defoe was acutely aware of these societal changes and exploited them in Robinson Crusoe. Watt writes: "Defoe was certainly aware of how the increasing economic specialisation which was a feature of the life of his time had made most of the 'mechanic arts' alien to the experience of his readers" (Watt 72). Defoe devotes seven pages to describing the baking of a loaf of bread — something Watt believes would have been unnecessary just a few decades earlier, when most households were intimately familiar with the process.

Conclusion: Evaluating Watt's Legacy

In the end, it is difficult to agree with such a strict definition for the beginnings of the novel. While Watt proves his point exhaustively throughout the book, he still leaves important questions unanswered. Many other critics have both agreed and disagreed with his conclusions, yet his book continues to serve as one of the definitive texts on the modern novel.

There is genuine agreement, however, with his observation that these early 18th-century novelists "constitute a literary movement whose members had a good deal in common" (Watt 299). Their novels were different, exciting, and even perplexing to contemporary readers. They explored themes that had not been fully addressed in earlier literature, developed character and plot more deliberately than their predecessors, and represented the society of their time in ways that allowed readers to identify with them closely. They also influenced the writers who came after them — including Jane Austen, Henry James, and Laurence Sterne — and they continue to shape readers and writers today.

Watt himself seems to have remained open to other perspectives, even as he stated his own with considerable confidence. His own words may offer the most balanced conclusion: "So much for the main analogies between realism in philosophy and literature. They are not proposed as exact; philosophy is one thing and literature is another" (Watt 31).

Works Cited

Johnson, P.A. "The Story of Genre." University. 2001.

Just, D. "Good Books, Bad Books." Personal Web Page. 25 Feb. 1999.

Watt, I.P. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. 1st ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1957.