18h-century Englishn novels reflect the modern idea of realism. They deal with ordinary people and contemporary objects and situations. The language is plain; factual, similar to that of newspapers and magazines. The main features of novels are: contemporary reality, a chronological sequence of events, abundance of realistic details.
The novel’s detailed realism is present in two elements: time and place.
With the novel a modern awareness of time enters literature. Robinson Crusoe carefully records his hero’s experiences from day to day, and it is for this form of realism that we are led to accept the improbability of the story. Places are described with details and with the names of real seas, ships and harbours.
Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by JonathanSwift continues the utopian tradition of showing imaginary worlds which are presented as a counterpart to actual imperfect societies. Gulliver’s fantastic travels, include ‘real’ geography names of seas, oceans and countries and Gulliver, too, recounts his adventures with precicion and obiective details.
The Epistolary novels included, in their first phase, letters written by one person, but Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, presents an exchange of letters between different people so the points of view are multiplied. The letters are also a means for psycological analysis.
The picaresque novel deals with the adventures of a young, reckless hero on the road. It takes its name from the picaro (a Spanish word for ‘rogue and vagabond’), an outsider who manages to survive thanks to his courage and cunning.
The most famous of picaresque novels was Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1605-15) . It was very influential for English writers.
The best writer in this tradition was Henry Fielding (1707-54) and his Tom Jones (1749)
He divided the story into three parts: Tom's adventures begin in the countryside, continue on the road, and end in London; part of a process of growing up: at the end of the story, Tom has become a responsible and reliable young man.
Sentimental novels present tense emotional reactions. The masterpiece in
this tradition is A Sentimental Journey (1768) by Laurence Sterne which is half travel diary and half autobiography.
Today, Sterne is especially known for Tristram Shandy (1760-67). It is an
unusual novel, with no conventional plot. It is narrated by Tristram Shandy
himself, who describes his family’s everyday life through an endless
sequence of digressions, asides, long quotations, and flashbacks.