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Novel of manners

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The French novelist Honoré de Balzac was a founder of literary realism, of which the novel of manners is a subgenre.

A novel of manners is a work of fiction that re-creates a social world, conveying with detailed observation the customs, values, and mores of a highly developed and complex society. The conventions of the society dominate the action of the story, and characters are differentiated by the degree to which they meet or fail to meet the uniform standard, or ideal of behaviour, established by societal conventions.

The scope of a novel of manners can be particular, as in the works of Jane Austen, which deal with the domestic affairs of the English landed gentry of the 19th century; or general, as in the novels of Balzac, which portray the social conventions of 19th-century France with stories about the public sphere and the private sphere of life in Paris, the provinces, and the military. Notable English-language novelist of manners are Henry James, Evelyn Waugh, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and John Marquand.[1]

Background

The illustrated title-pages of volume II, Fourth Edition of the novel Evelina: Or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World (1779), by Frances Burney.

To realise upward social mobility in their societies, men and women learned etiquette in order to know how to get along with the people from whom they sought favour; an example of such instructions is the book Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774), by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. In consideration of being liked by the people with whom he keeps company, Chesterfield instructs his bastard son to engage with society by being a man of pleasing manner and demeanour and by avoiding controversial subjects, by speaking in a measured tone and by having a poised personal posture.

Sociologically, from the societal concern about knowing the proper social conduct arose the novel of manners, such as Evelina: Or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World (1779), by Frances Burney, with an innovative story, plot, and narrative treatment of contemporary manners.[2] The plot of Evelina deals with the particulars of social hierarchy and social behaviour in the public sphere and in the private sphere and private settings. As such, the novels of Jane Austen are among the most recognisable English-language novel of manners from the early 19th century.

Relation to Gothic fiction

The rise in the importance of social behaviour had not gone unnoticed by one Horace Walpole, the widely credited inventor of Gothic fiction. Walpole's knowledge of Chesterfield and the importance of manners perhaps influenced not only his work but carried over into other authors' novels dubbed "Gothic" as well. Walpole wrote what is generally accepted to be the first Gothic novel during Chesterfield's lifetime, The Castle of Otranto in 1764. It is theorised[by whom?] that the emergence of the novel of manners as a full genre was in retaliation to the rise in the popularity of the Gothic novel.

This near-simultaneous emergence of the novel of manners and the Gothic novel led to a crossover of characteristics between the genres. The main link between the novel of manners and the Gothic novel is the language of manners. In both cases, social and moral manners are dominating factors in the structure of the novel. In the Gothic novel, the starkest difference is the supernatural or the indication of supernatural events. However, many of the characters are often so far below the accepted level of social behaviour that it is considered horrific. Another feature that differs from the novel of manners is the outcome of the novel. In Gothic fiction, the outcome is not always the positive reinforcement of morals that the novel of manners offers. An example of this morally anticlimactic ending would be Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya.

Another theory for the emergence and growth of the novel of manners is that the changes taking place in English society were eroding the class boundaries. Changes in the social hierarchy were taking place due to leaps in technology and the novel of manners was a way to comment upon challenges to the traditional class order. The different classes represented in the novels served to represent how the different classes in society were supposed to behave in different settings. This includes public versus private, rural versus urban, and settings where there were men versus women. This contrast between the genders highlights the fact that there were many more women that were authors of novels of manners than there were men. This brought the focus of many of these novels to the social issues and conventions that plagued women of the time.

Notable works

Novels of manners in English include:

18th century
19th century
20th century

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Novel of manners | literature".
  2. ^ Britannica Educational Publishing (2010). English Literature from the Restoration through the Romantic Period, pp. 108-09.

References

  • Andrzej Diniejko (2004). Introduction to the Study of Literature. Kielce: Wydawnictwo Akademii Swietokrzyskiej.
  • Novel Beginnings: Experiments in 18th century English Fiction

Patricia Meyer Spacks Yale Guides to English Literature U.S. 2006

  • Lord Chesterfield's Letters

Lord Chesterfield, Introduction and Notes by David Roberts Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 1992

  • The Castle of Otranto

Horace Walpole Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 1996

  • Zofloya

Charlotte Dacre Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 1997

  • Evelina

Frances Burney Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 2006

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