Ian Watt

The Rise of the Novel is Ian Watt''s classic description of the interworkings of social conditions, changing attitudes, and literary practices during the period when the novel emerged as the dominant literary form of the individualist era.In a new foreword, W. B. Carnochan accounts for the increasing interest in the English novel, including the contributions that Ian Watt''s study made to literary studies: his introduction of sociology and philosophy to traditional criticism.

This is the story of a most ingenious invention: the novel. Desribed for the first time in The Rise of The Novel, Ian Watts landmark classic reveals the origins and explains the success of the most popular literary form of all time.In the space of a single generation, three eighteenth-century writers -- Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding -- invented an entirely new genre of writing: the novel. With penetrating and original readings of their works, as well as those of Jane Austen, who further developed and popularised it, he explains why these authors wrote in the way that they did, and how the complex changes in society the emergence of the middle-class and the new social position of women gave rise to its success. Heralded as a revelation when it first appeared, The Rise of The Novel remains one of the most widely read and enjoyable books of literary criticism ever written, capturing precisely and satisfyingly what it is about the form that so enthrals us.

Estudo clássico sobre as origens do mais popular dos gêneros literários. Watt encontra as razões dessa popularidade na ascensão da classe média, no individualismo econômico, na secularização da socie

En sus versiones originales, Fausto, Don Quijote y Don Juan reflejan el anti-individualismo de su tiempo. Fausto y Don Juan son castigados con el infierno y Don Quijote es objeto de mofa. Un siglo despues, el Robinson Crusoe de Defoe nos ofrece una consideracion mas favorable del individualismo. Ian Watt examina estos cuatro mitos del mundo moderno, creados entre los siglos XVI y XVIII, como productos distintos de una misma sociedad.