Novel of manners  

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"The English prose fiction of the century and a half between the publication of the Euphues and the Arcadia and the appearance of Richardson's Pamela, exclusive of those three masterpieces Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver's Travels, possesses scant literary merit and slight general interest. To the student, however, the narratives from 1600 to 1740 are not devoid of value, since the transition in content, structure, and style from the courtly romances and cynical rogue stories to the idealistic novel of manners was largely effected through the numerous translations and imitations of works of foreign fiction. Together with the conduct-book, the drama, and the periodical, these gradually moulded the taste of that fiction-reading public, which, by its enthusiastic reception of the Richardsonian stories gave such a stimulus to the rapid development of the novel of manners. "--The Rise of the Novel of Manners (1911) by Charlotte Elizabeth Morgan

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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 novelists of manners include Henry James, Evelyn Waugh, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and John Marquand.

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Background

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.

Many novels of manners, including Evelina (1779) by Frances Burney, take a sociological interest in the complex systems of etiquette and social hierarchy employed by the upper classes, especially those of Europe and North America. Others works in the genre, including the novels of Jane Austen, offer critical social commentary through the use of satire.

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Relation to Gothic fiction

The rise in the importance of social behaviour had not gone unnoticed by 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 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.

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Notable works

Novels of manners in English include:

18th century
19th century
20th century


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See also

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Translations

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See also


Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Novel of manners" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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