The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740 Review

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The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740 ReviewBefore attempting to read Michael McKeon's Origin of the Novel I would suggest reading Ian Watt's Rise of the Novel. The respective theses in these two books do not so much counter each other as complement each other.
Watt wrote Rise of the Novel in the 1950's and his study is particularly notable for the unique way he grounds his insights on the origin & evolution of the novel in economics, social history & philosophy (namely Locke & Hobbes). Watt argues that the rise of the novel coincides with the rise of the middle class & that what makes the novel unique among literary forms is its valorization of individualism & realism. What is attractive about the study is that it offers a nice definition of the novel and an assessment of its historical impact, but what is not so satisfying is that the defintion doesn't really work with two of the three authors that Watt has selected for study. Still, it's such a neat formulation that it retained its status as the canonical account of the novels origin for some thirty years (or until McKeon published Origin of the Novel in 1987).
Watt argues that the novel came about as a result of a confluence of social, economic, & philosophic factors that resulted in a devaluing of classical idealism and a valuing of a new more realistic, pragmatic understanding of life and human behavior; McKeon argues that the novel came about as a result of epistemological & social uncertainty (or what McKeon aptly calls "status instability"). One can see that these two theses do not necessarily work against each other.
Both Watt & McKeon recognize and legitimize Max Weber's work on the adaptability of protestantism to capitalist (& secular) modes of discourse, production, and value. And both see the novel as a mode of discourse that renders the contradictions between these two discourses visible. But McKeon parts ways with Watt when it comes to seeing the novel as an inherently "realistic" mode of discourse engaged in an empirically observable and representable "history" (McKeon calls this "naive empiricism"). And he parts ways with Watt when it comes to seeing the ascendant epistemologies & ideologies & modes of discourse (that Watt associates with the middle class) as any less problematic than the descendant ones (that Watt associates with the aristocracy). In fact he doesn't see them as ascendant or descendant at all, rather he sees the two competing discourses as existing in a dialectical realtionship.
In its attention to historical detail & individual personality, Watt sees the novel as a powerful tool for demystifying & destabilizing aristocratic rhetorical modes (ie the romance) which he suggests were not about specific times, places, & individuals located in and responsive to historical contingencies but about ahistorical times, places, & types.
McKeon is not so quick to see the emergent novel as signaling middle class ascendancy. Rather, McKeon sees the novel as a response to an epistemological crisis that destabilizes all identities, knowledge practices, & representational strategies. The novel is born, according to McKeon, not so much to resolve a crisis but to articulate & mediate a crisis that exists between conservative & progressive ideologies.
So, while Watt sees the novel as evidence of a newly empowered class coming into its own; McKeon sees the novel as categorically unstable and evidence of an ongoing & unresolved, epistemological & social, insecurity & instabilty.
Watt's argument and his readings of Defoe, Richardson, & Fielding are very easy to follow and therefore have been embraced by a large number of academics & students; while McKeon's argument and readings of Defoe, Swift, Richardson, & Fielding, although equally compelling, are mired in what some might find to be excessive dialectical verbiage (as well as extensive discussions of dialectical methodology) which lends itself quite readily to readerly impatience & confusion (hence the deduction of one star).
I recommend Watt to the beginner (or undergraduate), and McKeon to the more advanced reader (or graduate student). Or, another way of deciding which book is best for you, is to recognize that Watt is clear & concise and historically engaged, while McKeon is deeply enmeshed in Hegelian dialectics & their marxist applications (even if you have no background in this kind of thing you will still be able to follow McKeon's readings). In sum: Watt is a classic old school scholar (who happens to be a marxist), and McKeon is a dyed-in-the-wool poststructuralist (who also happens to be a marxist).
Neither are considered to be the last word, but both are considered to be indispensable interventions in the ongoing argument over the origin & evolution of the novel.The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740 Overview

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