A review by meganmilks
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding by Ian Watt

3.0

finally finished this. main claim: lowest common denominator of the novel is its formal realism. this is what separates the novel from other literature (tragedy, comedy, poetry) : its emphasis on the ordinary. defoe, richardson, and fielding, as early progenitors of the novel, all have very different methods of reflecting the world, but they are not necessarily opposing methods, as all are realist approaches. as such, they can be seen as early exemplars/models of the variants of realism that have since appeared throughout the history of the novel (despite the word "realism" being so loose, multivalent and even in some ways controversial). in this way "experimentalism" and "realism" in the novel are not necessarily opposed, as the history of the novel is essentially a history of experiments in realism. seminal, interesting, and so, so dry.