velis a long narrative, normally inprose, which describesfictionalcharacters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story.WhileIan WattinThe Rise of the Novel(1957) suggests that the novel came into being in the early 18th century, thegenrehas also been described as "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years",[1]with historical roots inClassical GreeceandRome,medieval, earlymodernromance, and in the tradition of thenovella. The latter, an Italian word used to describeshort stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century.Miguel de Cervantes, author ofDon Quixote, is frequently cited as the first significant Europeannovelistof themodern era; the first part ofDon Quixotewas published in 1605.[2]While a more precise definition of the genre is difficult, the main elements that critics discuss are: how the narrative, and especially the plot, is constructed; the themes, settings, andcharacterization; how language is used; and the way that plot, character, and setting relate toreality.The romance is a related long prose narrative.Walter Scottdefined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society".[3]However, many romances, including thehistorical romancesof Scott,[4]Emily Bront'sWuthering Heights[5]andHerman Melville'sMoby-Dick,[6]are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a "kindred term". Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with thegenre fictionlove romance orromance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel isle roman,der Roman,il romanzo."[7]Contents[hide] 1Defining the genre 1.1A fictional narrative 1.2Literary prose 1.3Media: paper and print 1.4Content: intimate experience 1.5Length 2Early forerunners 3Medieval period 11001500 3.1Romances 3.2The novella 4Renaissance period: 1500-1700 4.1Chapbooks 4.2Romances 4.2.1Heroic romances 4.2.2Satirical romances 4.3Dubious and scandalous histories 4.4Cervantes and the rise of the novel in the 17th century 5The rise of the novel in England: 1700-1770 5.1Changing cultural status 5.2Realism and art 5.3Novel and romance 5.4The acceptance of the novel as literature 5.5The reformation of manners 5.6Philosophical novels 6Romanticism: 17701837 7The Victorian period: 1837-1901 7.1Literary realism 7.2The creation of national literatures 7.3The modern individual 8The 20th century and later 8.1Global market place 8.2Modernism and post-modernism 8.3Writing world history 8.4Popular fiction 9See also 9.1Genres of the novel 9.2Literature 9.3Novels-related articles 10Notes 11References 12Further reading 12.117th- and 18th-century views 12.2Secondary literatureDefining the genre[edit]

Madame de Pompadourspending her afternoon with a book, 1756 religious and scientific reading has a differenticonography.A novel is a long, fictional narrative which describes intimate human experiences. The novel in themodern erausually makes use of a literary prose style, and the development of the prose novel at this time was encouraged by innovations inprinting, and the introduction of cheappaper, in the 15th century.The present English (and Spanish) word for a long work of prose fiction derives from theItaliannovellafor "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from theLatinnovella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural ofnovellus, diminutive ofnovus, meaning "new".[note 1]Most European languages have preserved the term "romance" (as in French, Dutch, Russian,Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian "roman"; German "Roman"; Portuguese "romance" and Italian "romanzo") for extended narratives.A fictional narrative[edit]Fictionalityis most commonly cited as distinguishing novels fromhistoriography. However this can be a problematic criterion. Throughout theearly modern periodauthors of historical narratives would often include inventions rooted in traditional beliefs in order to embellish a passage of text or add credibility to an opinion. Historians would also invent and compose speeches for didactic purposes. Novels can, on the other hand, depict the social, political and personal realities of a place and period with clarity and detail not found in works of history.However, up until the 1750s historians were the main critics of the novel and they emphasised its lack of veracity and therefore serious worth, and criticised it for being merely entertainment. Then in the second half of the 18th-century criticism evolved and withRomanticismcame the idea that works of fiction could be art.Literary prose[edit]While prose rather than verse became the standard of the modern novel, the ancestors of the modern European novel include verse epics in theRomance languageof southern France, especially those byChrtien de Troyes(late 12th century), and inMiddle English(Geoffrey Chaucer's (c. 1343 1400)The Canterbury Tales).[8]Even in the 19th century, fictional narratives in verse, such asLord Byron'sDon Juan(1824),Alexander Pushkin'sYevgeniy Onegin(1833), andElizabeth Barrett Browning'sAurora Leigh(1856), competed with prose novels.Vikram Seth'sThe Golden Gate(1986), composed of 590Onegin stanzas, is a more recent example of the verse novel.[9]However, in the 15th century, following the invention ofprinting, prose began to dominate European fiction. This immediately led to the development of a special elevated prose style modelled on Greek and Roman histories, and the traditions of verse narrative. The development of a distinct fictional language was crucial for the genre that aimed at creating works that readers would actually identify, and appreciate, as fiction rather than history.At the beginning of the 16th century, printing had created a special demand for books that were neither simply published for the nonacademic audience nor explicitly scientificliterature, butbelles-lettres. This included modern history and science in the vernacular, personal memoirs, contemporary political scandal, fiction and poetry. However, prose fiction was soon far more popular than verse,rhetoricand science. Fictional prose, though aiming for stylistic elegance, was closer to everyday language, to personal letters, to the art of "gallant" conversation, and to the personal memoir and travelogue.Pierre Daniel Huetsummarised the stylistic ambition of fictional prose accordingly in 1670: "It must be compos'd with Art and Elegance, lest it should appear to be a rude undigested Mass, without Order or Beauty."[10]By the 18th century, however, English authors began to criticize the French ideals ofbelles lettreselegance, and a less aristocratic prose style became the ideal for them in the 1740s. When, in the 1760s, it became the norm for the author to open his or her novel with a statement of the work's fictionality, the prose became even more informal.Media: paper and print[edit]The development of printing technology, along with the availability of paper, changed the situation for prose fiction. Paper allowed the production of cheap books that would not necessarily be read twice, and which could be bought exclusively for private diversion. The new medium produced the modern novel in Europe in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries. The formatsduodecimoandoctavo, or