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Novel as a Literary Form

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NOVEL AS A LITERARY FORM

The eighteenth century is the century of the prose as well as rise of novel. The novel emerged as a new and significant mode of writing, becoming more than means of providing entertainment, it become a means of radical questioning that would lead a change in entrenched attitudes.

THE NOVEL AS FICTION

As against imaginative fictional, the novel is a realistic form. It presents that segment of life and society in more or less approximate terms, which has been seen and experienced by the actual men and women of a particular period. The concept of mirroring or reflecting an object is more significant in the case of the novel than it would be in the case of poetry or dreams.

While reading a novel, readers are transformed to a different world with its own laws, rules and regulation. Towns and villages, markets, streets and pathways hold out as actual places with their distinct coloring and feel. Not only the characters are shown as speaking with their own mannerisms but ordinary information about their appearances, conditions, opinions and state of mind also imparted by the author in his or her voice. The remarks of the author meant clearly for sharing with the reader, lend authenticity to the description in novel and make the reader accept it as truthful account. This leads to a state in which the reader is strongly drawn into the ethos of the world of the novel.

While poetry and drama are also invented and imagined, they cannot be equated with a lie. In fact, they are "high truth." While poetry and drama talk about the Truth, the universal all-embracing wisdom, the novel as a fiction piece may rest content with presenting and ordinary life situation. In this way, the irony behind the 'fictional piece' cannot be missed.

NOVEL AS HISTORY

Characters in a novel symbolize specific attitudes in a given society and the author

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