What is it about?
The essay examines the way novels, particularly in England, Germany and France, sought to elevate their status by claiming to be true histories. Over the course of these decades, novelists gradually emancipated themselves from this requirement, and even began to parody it.
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Why is it important?
Novels by Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Diderot and Hippel illustrate the transformation of narrative techniques such that novels begin by imitating histories, then parodying them, before returning to a historical style, this time on a new level.
Perspectives
Hippel's contribution to the evolution of the novel consists in the new ends to which he employed traditional means rather than in any technical innovations.
Hamilton Beck
Moscow University of Information Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Novel between 1740 and 1780: Parody and Historiography, Journal of the History of Ideas, July 1985, JSTOR,
DOI: 10.2307/2709475.
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