The Weird History of the Novel (Part 1): Robinson Crusoe and Reality

Introduction: So, I decided to try and "thread together" my professional life (teaching, literary scholarship) with my hobby/obsession (creative writing, weird fiction). And so, I'm starting a new post series, "The Weird History of the Novel." This will basically be a running commentary on the class I'm teaching this semester at Case Western Reserve University, "The History of the Novel." Though the class is an introduction to the history of the novel, this post series will have a thematic "slant" to it.  

Meta-comment/Blogging comment: Sorry for the crappy banner. Doing hand-drawn ones is taking up more time these days than I have. ::sigh:: I did, however, want to highlight this series as something I'm returning to. And, I've been told banners "brand" series and kind of make a commitment to your blog readers that this is an issue/line of thought you aim to return to.

Anyhow...

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I started re-reading Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe this morning. I'm starting my history of the novel class with it. This novel (along with a press of coffee) made me start thinking about "realism" and how "realism" is just as important for the weird genres as "deviations" from realism. Let me explain.

Robinson Crusoe is often cited as being an example of realism because, unlike the literary works that preceded it, it cites no mythology or legends nor does it overtly cite any previous literature; it's completely new, completely novel. Thus, it's considered one of the first true novels.

I like this way of defining the novel. Very often people define the novel in terms of what it is: a long narrative; lots of description; characters who come from the middle class. It's useful, though, to consider what novels aren't. In the case of Robinson Crusoe, the suggestion is that novels are realistic; that is, they represent the world as it is, devoid of mythology or the obfuscations of legend.

Hmm. It's true that some literary historians describe the first novels as a reaction against non-realistic literary genres like the romance. And yet, to say that the novel is necessarily preoccupied with the "realistic" is to set oneself up to argue that science fiction novels, fantasy novels, supernatural horror novels, aren't novels at all. I'm not sure what's at stake in this claim. For now, I'll table it.

But it's interesting. If we accept Robinson Crusoe as an example of one of the earliest novels, then we can use it to frame the novel not just as another media vehicle (e.g. the play, the song), and not just as another literary genre (e.g. the epic poem, the sonnet). In other words, we can begin to define the novel in terms of a discrete theme.

What is that theme? Reality.

Is it useful to think of the novel, the earliest novels, like Robinson Crusoe, as being thematically preoccupied with the real? Is the novel, by its very nature, preoccupied with a kind of reality principle?