The Realist Novel (approaching Literature)

Approaching Literature The Realist Novel edited by Dennis Walder in association with The Open University Copyright © 1995 The Open University First published 1995 by Routledge in association with The Open University 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data applied for ISBN 0-203-99306-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0 415 13571 0 hardback ISBN 0 415 13572 9 paperback A210vol1i1.1 1.1 Contents Preface v CHAPTER ONE The genre approach DENNIS WALDER 3 CHAPTER TWO Reading Pride and Prejudice PAM MORRIS 33 Reading Frankenstein RICHARD ALLEN 63 Part One CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN The novel and society DENNIS WALDERSTEPHEN REGANPAM MORRISRICHARD ALLEN 101 Reading Great Expectations DENNIS WALDER 139 Reading Fathers and Sons DENNIS WALDERGLYN TURTONPAM MORRIS 171 Can realist novels survive? RICHARD ALLENDENNIS WALDER 195 Realism and romance ARNOLD KETTLE 211 Realism and the novel form IAN WATT 219 Jane Austen and the war of ideas MARILYN BUTLER 231 The English novel RAYMOND WILLIAMS 241 Part Two iv The realistic imagination GEORGE LEVINE 249 On Great Expectations DOROTHY VAN GHENT 255 Culture and imperialism EDWARD SAID 263 The reality effect ROLAND BARTHES 269 Towards a methodology for the study of the novel MIKHAIL BAKHTIN 273 Bibliography 279 Acknowledgements 283 Index 285 Preface This book is the first of a four-volume series, which has been designed to offer a range of different but current approaches to the study of literature. The emphasis throughout is upon practice, not theory. The idea is that the reader will learn about a specific approach by seeing it applied to a selection of texts. Of course, it is important to say something about the origins and assumptions of an approach, but the main focus will be on how helpful it is to study texts in a particular way. By this we mean how much it will enable us to add to our understanding and pleasure in reading. You may—and we hope you will— come to question the usefulness and value of the different approaches, but to find out what each has to offer, you need to adopt it for yourself. The approach we use in this book is both ancient and familiar. It involves asking the question: what kind of work is this? In other words, to what literary type or genre does a particular text or piece of writing belong? Literary genres are classes of literature, grouped according to method or subject. For example, a piece of writing may be a