Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/776

* NOVA ZEMBLA. 660 NOVEL. include bears, volves and foxes, reindeer, ermines, and other fur-bearing animals, and large numbers of aquatic birds, while whales and seals are found in the surrounding seas. The islands are practically uninhabited, but are visited in sum- u)er by fishermen and hunters. NOVEL (OF. iiovelle, nouvcUe, Fr. nouvcUc, from Lat. iwidla. fcm. of novcllus, new, diminu- tive of noius, new), TuE. To designate modern prose fictions there are current two terms: ro- maitcc and novel. The term romance (from the Latin adverb romanice), originally employed in Italy, Spain, and France (in other words, in the Romanic lands) to distinguish the common speech, i.e. the li)igua romaiui, from the Latin of the learned, came in time to denote a composi- tion in the vernacular— and finally any verse-tale of intrigue and adventure. The word 'romance' was established in English usage by the time of Chaucer. At first the word -novel' was probably the name given to some new story. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was common among the Proven(.al jioets for a verse-tale of intrigue realistic in treatment. It was popu- larized in Italy by Uoccaecio as the title of a short narrative in prose. When these Italian tales came into English, the word came with them. It first occurs (so far as has been dis- covered) in Painter's Palace of I'lcasiiir (15GG). In the hands of several English writers the Italian noiclla was by degrees expanded, until by the eighteenth century it filled a duodecimo volume. Tlien came Richardson and Fielding with their larger delineations of contemporary life, which with some hesitancy they and their public called novels. Somewhat after this fashion the word novel became in English the generic term for prose fiction. Up to March, 17(i6, the Moiilhli/ Ucvieic placed works of fiction under the head of "^Miscellaneous Publications." In that month it made the subdivision "Novels." From the Renaissance down to the eighteenth century the word 'romance' was not much used in English. Then it began to appear as the explanatoiv title of the wild Gothic stories of. n Kadciitle and her school. Since that time it has denoted a novel which represents men and women in strange, improbable, or impossible situations. Owing to very dilVerent literary con- ditions on the Continent, romance (French and German, roman; Italian, romanzo) is there the generic term, and novel still means a short tale. As its name bv chance signifies, the novel as an casilv recognizable literary species is a new thing. It'hardlv has a date before Pefoe. And yet, "in its genesis, the novel is as old as either the' epic or the drama. Common to all peoples is the bea.st-tale, in which animals are made to speak and conduct them-selves as men and women. Popular stories of this kind were taken uj) by scholars of a later period, trimmed, moralized, and preserved in writing. Fairy talcs and anecdotes of everyday life undergo a similar process until transformed into the verse or the prose story possessing an art of its own. In Egypt story-telling belongs to the oldest times. Indeed. Egypt was the source of many a tale that long afterwards charmed Europe. (See Egypt, section I.itrrnlnrr and firicncr.) The Sanskrit collection of tales known as the Panrha- tnntra or The Fables of Hirlpni (composed about 300 A.D.), and the fables attributed to /Esop, likewise Eastern in origin, found their way into Western Europe, and, blending with native in- cidents, became the basis of many a luediieval fiction in verse and prose. Very interesting is the Oriental device for stringing together a long series of tales, as in the iievcn ll'i'se Masters, widely difl'used in the Middle Ages, and the better known Arahian XiijUls. This manner was adopted by Boccaccio in the Decameron and by C'liauccr in "the Canterbury Talcs. ' In India the novel, in the technical sense of the word, began probably ith the Adrcniures of the Ten Princes { DasuLunHtraciirita) by Dan- din (q.v.) in the latter part of the sixtli century A.D. This is a romance of roguery. The three remaining novels are in a totally different vein. They are the Vasaradattu of Subandhu (q.v.), and' two romances by Bana (q.v.), the Kfidam- ban and the Adrcntiires of Ilarsha tllarsha- carita). an historical novel. Bana's works were infiueneed and in great part modeled on Su- bandhu. These three novels all belong probably to the seventh century ..n. In |)lot they show little action, but they abound in detailed descrip- tion. The impression of both style and content, although monotonous to Occidentals, is sweet and smooth. Tlie Pahlavi or Middle Persian literature has an interesting romance on the j early Sassanian hero Ardashir Papakan. See. 1 SASSANlniE. In China the novel did not develop until the ilongol dvnastv (c.l2i;0-13ii8). The Chinese clas- sify their novels under four heads: iisiir|)ation anil plot; intrigue and love; superstition: and ro'niery. These romances abound in action, but characterization is less developed. As examples of Chinese fiction, which is of vast extent, there may be mentioned the Han kuo chih yen i of Lo Kuan-chung. which is historical; the Shui JJu Chuan of Shih Xai-an( ?), a picaresciue novel; and the Hsi yii Chi, which is based on the travels of Iliouen-fhsang (q.v.) in In.lia. The Min" dynastv, which followed the Mongol, produced niaiiy romances, most of which are by unknown authors. Fiction developed in Japan earlier than m China. The first iiovel of imi)0itancc is the (Icnji Monoyatari. a long romance of love, con- taining much valuable information regarding so- cietv about A.i). 1000. Before this there had been a number of Monoyatari. or narratives, many of them novelistic in character, such as the Tnh-rtori. /.5e. Vtsubo, and Yamnto. In the seventeenth century .Ia])anese fiction revived after a long period of decline, and though pornographic in the writings of Saikaku. was purified in the romantic novels of Kioden. Bakin. and Tanehiko. The masterpiece of Kioden is the Inadziima nioshi. a romance of roguery. Greatest of all was Bakin, who achieved his best in his Tumi- baritsuki. published in ISO:",, although his work is disfigured bv extravagancies and impossibili- ties—a'" statemi^nt which holds good of another work of his. perhaps the most famous of all .Tapanes.. novels, the llalchenden. which recounts the adventures of eight heroes of semi-canino birth, who tvpifv the eight cardinal virtues. The ancient Greeks had their popular tales, about which little is known. After the glor.V of their art had departed, there arose in the first centuries of the Christian Era a class of rhetoricians who composed long romances in prose. They belonged not to Greece proper, but