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13 - The Essay and the Rise of the Novel

from Part II - The Great Age of the British Essay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2024

By
Jenny Davidson
Edited by
Denise Gigante  and
Jason Childs
Denise Gigante
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
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Summary

What does the periodical essay of the early eighteenth century contribute to the novel as it was developed by Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, and others? This chapter focuses on how the periodical essay showed novelists new possibilities both about how to build a relationship with readers over time and on the use of an authorial persona to narrate and organise incidents. The distinctive intimacy the essay creates between author and reader, cultivated in the case of the periodical essay in instalments published over time and with attention to special features of the protracted duration of production and consumption, provides both rhetorical and material inspiration for novelists experimenting with new ways to reach readers and intensify their relationships with them.

Keywords

politenesscommercevoicefictiontemporalitydurationexperiencenarrationsubjectivityhistory
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the British Essay , pp. 183 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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