Back Again to the History of Novels

The history of the novel, part two

As I’ve been researching I’ve found that the history of novels is still more complicated than I had previously supposed.  Here is a summary of what I’ve found.

As we discussed in class, biographies are an important and ancient part of literature.  The first Western biography happened to be an autobiography, as we discussed in class, Confessions by Saint Augustine takes the reader through the early part of the Bishop’s life, from his childhood until his conversion to Christianity and subsequent baptism at the age of 33. 

While technically a biography, these ‘confessions’ have certain things in common with the summa contra Gentiles of Thomas Aquinas some 800 years later; though not specifically stated, Augustine’s purpose seems to be convincing nonbelievers to follow the same path that he did; however, rather than focusing on the logic of the doctrine, he rather records the spiritual ramifications of what he did during his life.

Charlemagne-to whom I'm
related, incidentally.

Following his example, the biography became an important part of early and middle Christian literature.  Biographies were kept of important persons, both secular and religious.  Saints, bishops, priests; a courtier at the time of Charlemagne even wrote a biography of the king’s life and zealous defense of the faith.  The primary purpose of most of these biographies was to inspire faith in believers and nonbelievers alike. 

The first books that resembled modern-day novels were Romances, or romantic poetry, discussed in some depth last week.  These were written in verse rather than prose, and may have been transcriptions of poetry or oral tradition that the ‘authors’ had heard and recorded.  Because of the oral nature of poetry, there was a tendency towards exaggeration.  The earliest romantic poetry was of a very Arthurian nature; by the 12^th century, tales of King Arthur seem to have been rather popular.  Frequently, these would relate the tale of a knight who would defeat almost insurmountable odds and mythical enemies for his honor, or for the love of his lady, or defending some other noble, chivalrous virtue.

Sometime in the 13^th century, written styles began to shift, and verse was slowly replaced by poetry.  There were several reasons for this shift; first of all, prose was much less likely to exaggerate details, so the stories were much more believable.  Also important is the ease with which books could be translated; when translating verse, the translator has to be skilled in poetry in both languages, but when translating prose, one can simply translate meanings without worrying about rhyme schemes or meter.

The last development in commercial literature before the Renaissance was the tradition of the novella.  Some of the earliest novellas would be collected into single volumes (much like the Canterbury Tales).    Later novellas were very similar to our novels of today, written in prose and widely read very much like our novels, but were much shorter than classical romances or modern-day novels.  It was typical for a novella to be written about a single event; several novellas together would tell a story somewhat like what we expect in a novel of today.

The next great changes in our history of “novels” don’t happen until printing begins; maybe there will be time for one more post later?