THE AGE OF REASON (1648 – 1728).

“…a unique fusion of ingenuity with traditionalism, of decamp with realism, of stoic coolness with sentimentalism, of simplicity with rococo ornamentation. It preserves the restoration love of simplification in life, thought & love. It endorses the Restoration confidence in common sense as contrasted to logic-chopping; it trusts empirical thinking rather than “high prior” road to metaphysical something, it sustains the Restoration skepticism, as far as the application of finite reason to problems of the infinite is concerned. The ideas of the later 17^th century confine in the 18^th”.

Every age has its favorite genre: for Renaissance it’s drama & the 18^th century was represented by Novel. The novel as a genre belongs to fiction. The novel appeared at the turn of the 18^th century it manifested the change in man’s interest. Nothing that preceded it could explain it. There are no classical models of it. The only book that may be considered as a novel is Servantes’s “Don Quixote”, but still there is no evidence that it influenced English authors.

The novel is a genre that deals with the past, present & future. The novelist must deal with men in a specific place & time. The novelist is very much conscious of time. A talented novelist can distinguish its difference from other times. Still the Shakespearian drama had a great influence upon the novel, as Shakespeare & his contemporaries were able to create life-like characters.

Every novel should be populated with characters, who serve as pivots. The novel & the plot evolve around a character. The novel imitates life & at the same time it may be regarded as a model of life.

If in the theatre the public takes part in the performance, in the novel the character is the bridge between the invented episodes & the experience of the reader (We have the author’s ability to sum up the experience & we have reader, who compares his own experience with the experience of the characters).

The novelist is able to depict any relationships of life: man-man, man-society, man-nature, man-sign etc. Only novel can afford it, because of its unlimited size. The novel may be regarded as a unity consisting of every word in it (every word on its right place) – this makes fiction credible. The novel imposes its own moral code.

Features of novel:

ü The novel is fiction

ü It evolves around a character

ü The character is a pivot

ü The action is presented against a background

ü The novel presents all sorts of relationships

ü The novel possesses an aesthetic function: it relates not facts as such, it expresses the attitude of a writer & has some emotional impact on the reader

ü The plot is a model of life

ü The character is a bridge between the writer & the reader