Portal:Novels

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Introduction

'

A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, normally in prose, which is typically published as a book.

The entire genre has been seen as having "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in classical Greece and Rome, in medieval and early modern romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella. (Since the 18th century, the term "novella", or "novelle" in German, has been used in English and other European languages to describe a long short story or a short novel.)

Selected article

The 1759 frontispiece of Candide
Candide is a 1759 French satire by the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. The novella begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his tutor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this existence, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not outright rejecting optimism, advocating an enigmatic precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". Candide is known for its sarcastic tone and its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. With a story similar to that of a more serious bildungsroman or picaresque novel, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. Today, Candide is recognised as Voltaire's magnum opus.

Selected novel quote

PeterPan Statue Londres.jpg
  • ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
    ‘Wendy Moira Angela Darling,’ she replied with some satisfaction. ‘What is your name?’
    ‘Peter Pan.’
    She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a comparatively short name.
    ‘Is that all?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a shortish name.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Wendy Moira Angela.
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Peter gulped.
    She asked where he lived.
    ‘Second to the right,’ said Peter, ‘and then straight on till morning.’
    ‘What a funny address!’
    Peter had a sinking feeling. For the first time he felt that perhaps it was a funny address.
    “A moment after the fairy’s entrance the window was blow open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in.”

Peter Pan


WikiProjects

Main projects
WikiProjects
ArtsBooksLiteratureNovelsEntertainmentVisual arts
Related Projects
AnimationAnime and mangaBiographyComicsFilmFictional charactersMedia franchisesMusicTelevisionVideo games

What are WikiProjects?

Featured content

Featured article star.png

Featured articles

Featured lists

Featured portals


Things you can do

Related portals

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Wikibooks
Books

Commons
Media

Wikinews 
News

Wikiquote 
Quotations

Wikisource 
Texts

Wikiversity
Learning resources

Wiktionary 
Definitions

Wikidata 
Database

Purge server cache