Theory of the novel

Abstract

Like genre theory in general, Romantic novel theory in particular takes radically different guises in different countries. My chapter, like Tilottama Rajan's, highlights German contributions, which are systematic and abstract in ways that are rare in other countries. However, the theory of the novel is by nature more oriented toward practice, which makes the more empirical and pragmatic English and French expressions more worthy of extended notice than is the case for genre theory. A central question is whether it makes sense to speak of Romantic novel theory as a whole, given the radical national differences becoming manifest. I begin with a survey of the situation of the novel and of novel theory confronting the first generation of Romantic writers; a common tradition guaranteed a certain commonality of approach, while growing divergences foreground the question of unity. I proceed with a synopsis of leading themes of novel criticism, mostly linked to two famous, synthesizing utterances of Friedrich Schlegel. Having defined some common ground, I then present the four most distinctive Romantic contributions: Goethe's comments on the novel in Wilhelm Meister , Friedrich Schlegel's essay on Wilhelm Meister , the novelist Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Aesthetic primer , and the writings of Walter Scott. Scott's work sums up the tendencies formalized in the German writers and forecasts leading concerns of subsequent novel theory; a brief closing consideration of Balzac's preface to the Comédie humaine characterizes the later destiny of Romantic thinking about the novel.

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