CHAPTER IX. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
(1700-1800)old romance tends inevitably towards realism, especially in
England, where the excessive imagination is curbed and the
heroes become more human. In Malory, in the unknown
author ofSir Gawain and the Green Knight, and especially in
Chaucer, we see the effect of the practical English mind in
giving these old romances a more natural setting, and in mak-
ing the heroes suggest, though faintly, the men and women of
their own day. TheCanterbury Tales, with their story interest
and their characters delightfully true to nature, have in them
the suggestion, at least, of a connected story whose chief aim
is to reflect life as it is.
In the Elizabethan Age the idea of the novel grows more
definite. In Sidney’sArcadia(1580), a romance of chivalry,
the pastoral setting at least is generally true to nature; our
credulity is not taxed, as in the old romances, by the continual
appearance of magic or miracles; and the characters, though
idealized till they become tiresome, occasionally give the im-
pression of being real men and women. In Bacon’sThe New
Atlantis(1627) we have the story of the discovery by mariners
of an unknown country, inhabited by a superior race of men,
more civilized than ourselves,–an idea which had been used
by More in hisUtopiain 1516. These two books are neither ro-
mances nor novels, in the strict sense, but studies of social in-
stitutions. They use the connected story as a means of teach-
ing moral lessons, and of bringing about needed reforms; and
this valuable suggestion has been adopted by many of our
modern writers in the so-called problem novels and novels
of purpose.
Nearer to the true novel is Lodge’s romantic story ofRos-
alynde, which was used by Shakespeare inAs You Like It. This
was modeled upon the Italian novella, or short story, which
became very popular in England during the Elizabethan Age.
In the same age we have introduced into England the Span-
ish picaresque novel (frompicaro, a knave or rascal), which
at first was a kind of burlesque on the mediæval romance,
and which took for its hero some low scoundrel or outcast,