DEMO LECTURE | Novel and its Origins | JRF Scholar | UGC NET Dec 2026

[00:00:00]Hello everyone, welcome to the literary odyssey. This is Danja. I have qualified JRF, NET, GATE, COE, recently the HPSC assistant professor exam. And now with the literary odyssey, I help students ace their understanding of English literature so that they can also qualify these exams as a byproduct of their intellectual growth. What you are about to watch in this lecture is a demo lecture taken from our many recorded lectures available in the JRF scholar program or the recorded lectures program that you can find on our website. In this lecture, I'm going to talk about the origins of the English novel. And what you will notice in this lecture is that I am not simply listing out facts and authors and dates and events and works and books and random dull facts that will bore you to death. Rather, I'm creating a web of understanding, a comparative critical understanding that will help you create a wider framework of the English novel and how it originated. I'm going to talk about works. I'm going to talk about a few dates. I'm going to talk about a few authors. I'm going to talk about the socopolitical situations. But all those things would be woven in an indepth critical understanding of the subject.

[00:01:10]And that is because I have not used Chad GBT to generate random facts and then speak those facts aloud. I rather read actual books to give you a scholarly perspective on the origins of the novel.

[00:01:20]So you will learn information but you will also get knowledge in-depth knowledge. Do you see this review? I also compare the origin of the novel with the origin of let's say poetry or drama. That is how you will become an actual scholar of the subject becoming absolutely unbeatable in any English literature exam let alone UGET JRF. So watch this video till the end. Let me know how you like it. Give me your perspectives. I would love to listen to them. And if you think we can help you with English literature and your UG JRFs journey, you can go to the literary.com, check out our programs. There is currently a discount going on that you can see at the bottom of your screen.

[00:01:53]That being said, let's move on to the lecture. Cheers to deep familiarization.

[00:01:58]When we try to define anything which has a deep and profound cultural significance, which has a long history of evolution and which has discourse and interpretations and evolution in different cultures.

[00:02:21]After a point of time, this quest for definition ends up becoming a futile exercise.

[00:02:29]That is because you might not be able to arrive at a consistent definition that you know subsumes or incorporates all the different variations of what that thing has become. We will come to novel but before that think of poetry.

[00:02:49]How do you define a poem?

[00:02:52]Does it have to be rhyme? Rhyming that is not necessarily the truth. Does it have to be in verse? Now what is a verse?

[00:03:04]Right? And especially in the 20th century, 21st century, we have seen how free became a predom predominant form.

[00:03:17]And if free words does not involve any meter, it does not involve any rhyming, then how is it different from general speech, general pros?

[00:03:32]So because poetry has had such a long history, it becomes difficult to call for a definition or to come up with a consistent rigid definition that creates the category of poetry.

[00:03:53]So in that case what you do is that you try to trace the evolution of it. You try to look at different points in time and how poetry was understood and that is sort of kind of what we are trying to do with novel also today. We will try to define novel to the point that it becomes a futile exercise because we would realize that there are several variations that have taken place till date.

[00:04:24]And then we will try to look at the historical and cultural significance and evolution of the form of novel.

[00:04:34]And the latter is important. The historical cultural evolution of novel is important so so much because unlike the other two major genres poetry and uh drama, novel is fairly recent. And since it is fairly recent, we have enough data or events that we can talk about and discuss and critically engage with to understand the evolution of this as opposed to let's say poetry.

[00:05:09]Where did poetry originate? What was the evolution of poetry? Right? A lot of people claim poetry even precedes writing. Right? So what was the origins of poetry? We do not know. With theater, we have some idea. We talk about thespis in the Greek tradition and how he came out of the chorus and started uh speaking as a character u and that led to the evolution of drama. We have in the Indian tradition the nati shastra and so on and it argues that it came from Brahma all those things with novel we do see a clear trajectory of evolution how it evolved from the genre of chivalic romance for example and how pros fiction used to be a thing but it was not really manifested into a novel uh until the 17th century.

[00:06:03]We see all those things and that will also help us identify the distinguishing factors aspects of a novel at least at the time that it originated.

[00:06:17]Right? Because today you might find a novel in worse.

[00:06:23]Today you might find a novel that breaks the widely accepted chronology of the character development and uh the plot structure. Right? We have meta novels today.

[00:06:38]Right? So we will try to understand novel try to define it try to find the difficulties of the definition and then look at the historical and cultural reence relevance and evolution.

[00:06:53]So what is a novel? If you try try to think about it you can arrive at certain characteristics of it. But there is also a problem in defining the novel. And let's look at what Terry Eaggleton says about this particular problem. He argues that novel is not a genre. It's an anti- genre. And we will understand this as we move forward in this lecture. But he says novel is it is less a genre than an antre. It cannibalizes other literary modes and mixes the bits and pieces promiscuously together. You can find poetry and dramatic dialogue in the novel along with epic pastoral satire, history, elegy, tragedy, and any number of other literary modes. Virginia Wolf described it as the most pliable. Pliable meaning flexible. The most pliable of all forms.

[00:07:46]The novel quotes, parodies, and transforms other genres, converting its literary ancestors into mere component of itself in a kind of an edible vengeance on them. It is the queen of literary genres in a rather less elevated sense of the word than one might hear around Buckingham Palace.

[00:08:08]Quite a witty way to put it, [snorts] but think about it this way. novel. When you read a novel, it is very close to human how humans communicate, how humans speak in general, how humans form discourse in general, right? As opposed to let's say a poem. A a poem uh is farther than general human speech as opposed to a novel. Novel is closer, right? So when I am speaking to you, I may quote a poem. I may be satirical.

[00:08:45]I may talk in nostalgic terms. I might get into a stream of consciousness mode.

[00:08:50]I might get dramatic. I might get poetic. I might get satirical.

[00:08:57]Right? So novel then includes a lot of possibilities in it.

[00:09:05]And in including all these possibilities, it takes in several precursors, several genres, several styles, several literary modes that existed before it and still continue to exist such as epic, pastoral, satire, history, elegy, tragedy and whatnot.

[00:09:25]Right? So that is kind of the problem of definition. It is difficult to define because it is an anti- genres unlike genre unlike older rigid forms. It cannibalizes other modes like mixing poetry, history, drama and satire.

[00:09:42]Right? So it is taking from all these genres.

[00:09:46]It's a pliable form. It's a it's a uh flexible form and while you know uh we have novels in words as well. So while it is using a certain method which is pros of a reasonable length uh there is a blurring of this distinction as well. But ethmological ethmologically speaking the word comes from the Italian world word nolla which means a little new thing right. uh for example when you think of Bukachio the famous figure in uh the period of Italian Renaissance who wrote damaron right so those stories would be uh the nolla form uh the novella form right it it's something new a new story uh and that can be seen as a precursor to the novel form but there are certain core characteristic core characteristics of a novel that critics uh scholars usually agree on. Firstly, realism, at least at the time that it started, there was a tinge, not a tinge, but a clear color of realism in novels. It presents highly wrought illusions of the reality.

[00:11:04]Realities reader knew best, right? So, a drama would not do it. A drama perhaps would talk about these elite people, aristocrats, wars, princes.

[00:11:18]That is the world that uh drama would usually deal with. Today it's a different case. We we have u forms such as kitchens drama and whatnot. But at that time that was the case. Drama was not talking about the real not real but the ordinary life experience.

[00:11:40]So that is clearly there in the novel.

[00:11:46]Then there is a clear focus on the individual. It shifts away from knights and quests towards the emotion emotions, thoughts and choices of ordinary people.

[00:11:59]Now one of the precursors of the novel is the Shivalri romances, right? And these romances, these stories would have these out of the world, outwardly knights who would be chivalry, who would go into the these expeditions, who would uh raise armies, who would have uh squires with them, u who would have um experienced a lot of things that an ordinary person cannot imagine to experience. Now there is a pleasure in reading these fantastical narratives. We are not denying that. But again we need to understand that there becomes a clear void where you also want stories that are grounded in reality that are grounded in contemporary everyday experience in the world that you live in.

[00:12:57]Imagine watching a movie that takes you to a different world that has all these fantastical characters, a superhero, a superhero in and it tells you a story which helps you escape the real world. It has its own significance and you would enjoy watching it. But then going imagine going to watch a movie that has characters which you see around you which you see in real life.

[00:13:31]You have an uncle who has a certain peculiar habit of talking over each other talking over everybody else and um articulating his uh opinions every time and not listening to the other person.

[00:13:45]Imagine you see a very similar character on screen and you find that so relatable you enjoy it.

[00:13:52]There is space for that kind of uh literary expression as well. And that is the void that uh novel seems to fill.

[00:14:02]And then a related point is its contemporary nature. A novel is contemporary in the sense that when you are watching that outworldly movie that that that um movie which has nothing to do with your reality right for example the movie animal uh yeah guilty I watched it but that movie somebody goes that that protagonist is going killing so many people there is no police no real world consequences are there or watching a superhuman movie superhero movie watching a Marvel movie right humans flying uh extraordinary things that we can't even imagine doing in real life being achieved that is that is different but when you see the story which is grounded in reality which has your uncle in it or a character similar to your uncle in it and you find it so relatable it is natural that that story is more conduced exclusive to having contemporary socopolitical realities in it.

[00:15:13]To show the class differences, to show the differences in terms of how different genders are treated, different sexual identities are treated. It is more likely to have events which reflect the socopolitical state of your country or your society.

[00:15:32]It is more likely to help you reflect about the society that you live in about the problems of the society and the good things of that society and in that sense novel has a contemporary nature. it is more likely to talk about the contemporary situations of uh your society and that is what we see in a lot of novels that come for uh come come ahead uh after the novel form became mainstream right Charles Dickens being uh the quintessential example of this right hard times has a clear outright contemporary nature it clearly addresses the problems of the times and that's why it's called hard times.

[00:16:27]Right? So we have looked at the definition uh the the problem with defining the novel and we have looked at the key characteristics of uh a novel. Now to help us understand uh this form better, we need to include in this quest of defining the social, cultural and historical evolution of uh the novel form as well. Right? So when we try to do that, when we contemplate on those lines, we realize that uh the evolution is found in romance, right? Romance being the chivalri uh romances of the medieval times right the arthuran legends the legends of the holy grail all these were there a lot of them were worse form but sir Thomas Melerie right very famously uh had all these stories uh in pros form in his famous work uh Lamour DAur or Lamort Darthur whatever however you pronounce that work right you would not call it a novel because again it is talking about these outworldly things these knights and u their experiences and uh them raising armies and the holy grail and all those things right uh it's not as we've discussed it is not does not have a contemporary nature so romance An was about heroes, about villains in a world that was unrealistic, that was enchanting, uh that was uh super.

[00:18:25]But romance is about individual characters. Again, romances were about individual characters. They were about heroes, individual heroes and their exploits.

[00:18:40]Novel is also similar in the sense that it is about individual u characters but not their exploits in this uh extraordinary world but in the real mundane secular world. And that's why you can call the novel a disenchanted romance.

[00:19:02]Right? And that is why uh these these tales of marvels, aristocratic idols uh ideals and improbable adventures were replaced by real world uh situations, mundane situations with mundane consequences. But that mundanity uh that mundainess sorry contained in itself uh contemplations about the contemporary society, right?

[00:19:33]We have Bukachio's dameon. We have talked about this. And we also have Cvantes's u doniote.

[00:19:41]Now cervantes is doniote is a very interesting and very important uh milestone in this whole evolution because it clearly subverts the romance tradition and that's why it's called novel about the origin of the novel.

[00:20:00]Right? So, Servantes's uh Don Kiote has this character who has read so many such romances that he is enchanted by it and he is an ordinary man. He lives in a mundane world but then because he has read so many of such stories uh he is so impacted by them that he is uh sort of not in his reality. He has lost his reality and he um aspires to become a knight himself and he gets a squire. He wears this uh metal suit that uh knights would wear wear and he goes on uh on his supposed so-called exploits and then he sees mundane things but he has been so much brainwashed by the romance stories that he has read. He sees those mundane events and thinks of them as some great romantic adventures and that u uh that dissonance creates a lot of comic uh events and in the end he is disillusioned and he returns to his mundane life. Right? That is how uh the story goes. So it's parodying shivalic romance and introducing realistic social observation.

[00:21:25]Right? that this fantasy world is not the world that we live in. The world that we live in is mundane. It's ordinary.

[00:21:34]And you may be entertained by these stories. But if you try if you try to uh embibe them in your life, you might uh become uh disillusioned.

[00:21:50]There may be dissonance, right?

[00:21:55]And it follows one character again. It follows one character but shows a clear duality, a clear dialectic between the romance worldview, the chivalic romance worldview and the realistic worldview.

[00:22:13]Right? And this conflict, this duel uh culminates into the creation of a novel.

[00:22:23]this particular novel and also the novels to come.

[00:22:27]Now we have Cvantes uh but in in in the English language the rise of the English language uh English uh novel uh seems to be in the 17th century in the 17th century we have certain precursors which tried uh to do so now John Bernian's uh the pilgrims proh progress is one such uh spiritual allegory right and it has a literal realistic narrative so that can be seen as one precursor or one experiment into the novel tradition and for a very long time critics believed that the first English novel was uh Daniel Defo's Robinson Cruso but in the late 20th century we realized that there was this uh woman writer Ephra Ben and her famous work Urunoko uh has all the characteristics of a novel.

[00:23:29]It talks about a prince, a prince in Ghana uh who is the grandson of a major king emperor there and how he gets tricked into becoming a slave and is bought by an Englishman and um he has a love interest uh they are married but they are separated and in that whole process how do they uh meet again so it's a story which clearly follows this prince Urunoko right and the problems he faces pieces uh in this time and his uh how how he gets separated from uh his beloved and how he meets her again and how he gets tricked into becoming a slave. It has all the characters of a novel. It talks about the socopolitical situations of the time, the slave trade of that particular time and the conditions of racism during that time.

[00:24:26]It follows a certain individual. it is grounded in reality. It does not have any out of this world uh context.

[00:24:37]So Afraans Uruoko and even uh before Uruko she wrote an epistolary novel um I think it is titled love letters from a gentleman to her sister something like that you should go and check it which was uh the epistolary novel by Afraen that is also an epistol novel meaning written in letters right so now there is this consensus although there is a clear debate that whether Aphraen was the first novelist or Daniel Defo but you can consider easily consider Ephra Benin also as the first novelist.

[00:25:16]Now this these are the literary precursors or this is the literary initiation of novel but historically and culturally speaking the first thing that we see is a rise of the middle class.

[00:25:29]the economic situations is uh getting are getting better uh in England and colonialism uh all these things are uh getting in wealth in England and what is happening is that this growing middle class now wants a literary genre that caters to them right uh the people in power the aristocrats had a genre that catered to them which was drama in general right it had all the characters. But what would the middle class uh read? Would it again read and watch uh the plays which had these elite people or would they also appreciate a story which has characters like them which uh have characters which go through the struggles that they go through which have experiences that that uh they have and that is why they wanted a literary medium of their own right which had um aspirations goals similar ilar to what they had and this was facilitated by print culture and literacy at that particular time.

[00:26:42]Printing press had been introduced and mass printing had begun.

[00:26:47]And since mass printing had begun, this uh this demand for a literary medium of their own could be fulfilled because firstly there were literate people. Now there were people who could read, there were women who could read, there were men who could read and they needed things to read and there were printers, there were printing presses and uh because there there were printing press um novels were being proliferated, right?

[00:27:19]So improved printing technology and circulating libraries created a mass reading public. The novel became a disposable commodity. read once like a newspaper and also Protestant individualism.

[00:27:36]Religiously speaking, the the times of uh the the times of Renaissance, the times of u enlightenment, what we see is that spiritually we are moving from Catholicism to Protestantism, right? that that that earlier school of scholasticism had now shifted to humanism.

[00:28:00]You did not need to need a church spiritually speaking to deal with God.

[00:28:07]Right? You could have your own personal connection directly with God. So that individual individualism uh grew up uh study and academics focused on the individual. It focused on the human experience.

[00:28:26]It focused on wit, logic, uh empiricism, experience, human rationality.

[00:28:33]Things were uh sort of humanity or human individualism was being prioritized by different domains.

[00:28:42]And when that was happening, you would again in lit in in literature also that manifested as novels which had individual characters and their individual growth.

[00:28:55]Right? So that private moral examination also encouraged that psychological introspective writing that was not there in uh drama.

[00:29:08]Right? So these are the historical and cultural aspects which can be seen uh as events which led to the growth of novel in England the English novel right and then in the 18th century we have people like Daniel Defo uh we have Samuel Richardson his Pamela uh Clarisa right and then we have Henry Fielding Tom Jones right we'll talk about these in coming lectures so to conclude what we can say is that novel is came out as a democratic art.

[00:29:44]It is a vernacular art speaking the languages of ordinary people talking about their experiences uh treating their lives with unwavering seriousness right something that was not seen before the tradition of the novels and that's how it is different from chivalic romances as I as I mentioned the dialectical horde the novel is a mighty melting pot that mediates between truth how we know things how things exist in the society and how should we live right? So uh whatever novel you would read basically a conventional novel that you will read it would it will have realist realism it will have psychological realism uh it will have things that existed in the society and there would be a description of those things but at the same time it would also be suggesting that what should happen right it will have an ethical uh claim so to speak. So that dialectics that um conversation is also there.

[00:30:48]So the English novel is not just a book.

[00:30:50]It is a mirror held up to society evolving alongside science, industry and democracy to define the modern human experience. So that was an introduction to novel. U [snorts] I hope uh you got something new to learn out of this. Uh we'll meet in the next lecture. Thank you.