A Case for Terseness

Watt's chapter on Fielding's epic theory of the novel raised some curious questions for me. Particularly his mention of the aversion Richardson and Defoe seemed to have for following the epic tradition spurred me to reconsider Watt's tracing of the development of the novel (Richardson's abohorrance of the violence was an interesting footnote). In following his reasoning, it occurred to me that the novel form could have been theoretically suited to the short form of the novellas of Haywood et al.
Watt focuses fully in his book on the social concerns that prompted the novel's "birth" (if, indeed, it could even be said to have an exact gestation and emergence), but in his chapter on Fielding and the epic turns his attention to the literary tradition the novel followed. In the beginning of the chapter, Watt quotes Defoe on Homer, and something Defoe said struck a chord with me, "the Poet never did much himself, only published and sold his Ballads still, in his own Name, as if they had been his own; and by that, got great Subscriptions, and a high Price for them" (241). It seems obvious to me he is referencing contemporary problems, rather than Homer's socioeconomic conditions. This quote reminded me of the ever-present influence of commercialism in the rise of the novel.

Watt explains the disinclination of two of the major formulators of the novel as a direct reaction to the (ironic) moral ambiguity of the traditional epic, and its faithlessness to fact. This led me to wonder at why the shorter novellas of the day were not popular with these writers, as they could be a direct formal refutation to the epic (which they seemed fixated on) that could match their content. Even Fielding, the heir apparent to the epic form, distanced himself in later years to patterning novels after epics (even in comic form). As Watt notes, "To call Fielding...'the founder of the English Prose epic' is surely to award him a somewhat sterile paternity" (259). It is interesting, then, that the novel has become identified largely by its sheer size. Why such importance given to length? The eighteenth century reading public wanted entertainment; the writers were paid by length (due to serials); the novel was destined commercially, not literarily, for length. If anything, the precise realism and moral instruction the early novels purported to extol would have better lent themselves to shorter works wherein such themes could be handled with acumen.

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