Thinking Genre Dialectically We had an interesting discussion today about the potential anachronism of thinking about the novel as a genre in the 18th century. It’s certainly a valid question, and one that scholarship has overlooked to a frightening extent until recently. Whatever one chooses as the first novel – Don Quixote, Oroonoko, Robinson Crusoe, Pamela, or something else – odds are it wasn’t sold as such. In fact, we’ve learned from this project that to the extent... [Read more]
