Week Seven:

The Limits of Reading:

In one of the final chapters of The Introduction it discusses the limits of reading, and the evolution of the book—and the lift on the constraints holding “the book” back from popularity. The Introduction to Book History traces the economic value of the book, the rise of industrial printing, and the rise of the novel to describe the change in perception.

Because of the economic value of books weren’t designed for every man in the 16^th century, literacy wasn’t wide spread. They would have been the equivalent to 3/8ths of an average shopkeeper. That same sum would have allowed him to visit the globe theater for about six performances. In other words, at first books were designed for the wealthy (111). It wasn’t until the 19^th century that when industrialization of printing and the collective purchasing for commercial and public libraries allowing access to books.

The popularity of a new genre called the novel grew out of the 18^th century, and is claimed to by Robinson Crusoe. The Introduction mentions the development of long burning oil lamps that lead reading to become a solo activity. Pamela, a novel written by Samul Richardson also lays claim to the emerging genre of the novel. This book mostly caught the attraction of female readership because it was a contemporary soap opera with an eponymous heroine and Sunday sermon moral values.

However, the tricky thing about the genre the novel, there is a lot of criticism debating and explaining what is, and what isn’t considered a part of the genre. Eliza Haywood for example was an anti-pamelist (someone that is skeptical to the moral up that didn’t always write true novels, but she does have a novella. The difference? It is the relative difference in length of a novel and a novella (in modern day). I believe that the Introduction over simplifies what the rise of the novel has done for the book.

According to Ian Watt, he would say:

Novels are prose, fictional narratives that are characterized by “formal realism.”  As a result: They focus on actual experience of individuals, and are individualist, they value the innovative and originality, thereby rejecting traditional plots. They reject universals, emphasizing particularity of descriptions, thereby rejecting character types and tag names. They focus on personal identity in time rather than by values, thereby providing detailed treatments of time & its passing. They focus on the individual in space, actual physical environments, thereby rejecting the vagueness of romance. They focus on actual experiences of individuals using concrete, referential language, thereby rejecting linguistic ornateness and earlier formal rhetorical styles. The rise of the novel is associated in a causative way with the rise of literacy and the rise of the middle class (Marvin Lansverk’s Lecture).

As Ian Watt coins the simplified version of it (triple rise theory):

In the eighteenth century we get:

• The rise of the novel
• The rise of literacy
• & the rise of the middle class.

And they are all interrelated to help create the novel. Robinson Crusoe, Pamula, Joseph Andrews, Fantomina, and countless other novels are responsible for the rise of the novel as a genre that we see today.