Leslie Stephen, Defoe, and Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel

• Published in: The Eighteenth century (Lubbock) 2022-03, Vol.63 (1), p.63-78
• Main Author: Novak, Maximillian E
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0193-5380; 1935-0201; 1935-0201
• DOI: 10.1353/ecy.2022.a926993

Although Ian Watt's treatment of "the rise of the novel" has been ascribed to aspects of World War II and the Cold War, many of his critical attitudes are borrowed from the Victorian critic Leslie Stephen. This is especially true of his handling of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders and the notion of Defoe as an inadequate, at best "unconscious," artist. Stephen's contempt for Defoe's background as a tradesman went into his arguments that the realism of his fiction was of an inferior kind. Without accepting Stephen's contempt for trade, Watt seemed to accept many of Stephen's conclusions. Watt's admiration for Samuel Richardson's psychological depth over Henry Fielding's reality of "assessment" may seem contrary to Stephen's admiration for Fielding's "manliness," but Watt borrowed much from Stephen's approach to fiction.