Novel of circulation
The novel of circulation, otherwise known as the it-narrative, or object narrative,[1] is a genre of novel common at one time in British literature, and follows the fortunes of an object, for example a coin, that is passed around between different owners. Sometimes, instead, it involves a pet or other domestic animal, as for example in Francis Coventry's The History of Pompey the Little (1751).[2] This and other such works blended satire with the interest for contemporary readers of a roman à clef.[3] They also use objects such as hackney-carriages and bank-notes to interrogate what it meant to live in an increasingly mobile society, and to consider the effect of circulation on human relations.[4]
Examples
- 1709 Charles Gildon, The Golden Spy has been regarded by modern scholars as "the first, fully-fledged it-narrative in English".[5] But for his contemporaries, it tends to be read as "a Menippean satire, a re-adaptation of Apuleius's The Golden Ass and a sequel to The New Metamorphosis [i.e. Gildon's adaptation of The Golden Ass in 1708]".[6] Later, an episodic structure in which objects "spied" on people became established.[7] Other generic terms used are "object tales" or "spy novels".[8]
- 1734 Anonymous, The Secret History of an Old Shoe[9]
- 1742 Claude Crébillon, The Sopha, a Moral Tale[10]
- 1751 Francis Coventry The History of Pompey the Little [2]
- 1753 Susan Smythies, The Stage-coach: containing the character of Mr. Manly, and the history of his fellow-travellers[10]
- 1754 Anonymous, History and Adventures of a Lady's Slippers and Shoes[11]
- 1760 Edward Phillips, The Adventures of a Black Coat[12]
- 1760–5 Charles Johnstone, Chrysal; or, The Adventures of a Golden Guinea[2]
- 1767 Charles Perronet, Dialogue between the Pulpit and Reading-Desk[10]
- 1769 Tobias Smollett, The History and Adventures of an Atom[10]
- 1771 Thomas Bridges, The Adventures of a Bank-Note[13]
- 1783 Theophilus Johnson, Phantoms: or, The Adventures of a Gold-Headed Cane[14]
- 1790 Helenus Scott, The Adventures of a Rupee[15]
- 1799 Edward Augustus Kendall, The Crested Wren[10]
- 1813 Mary Pilkington, The Sorrows of Caesar, or, The Adventures of a Foundling Dog[10]
- 1816 Mary Mister, The Adventures of a Doll[10]
- 1880 Nellie Hellis, The Story He was told; or, The Adventures of a Teacup[16]
- 1897, John William Fortescue, The Story of a Red Deer[17]
Twentieth-century examples include Ilya Ehrenburg's The Life of the Automobile (1929)[18] and E. Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes (1996).[19]
Relationship to other genres
With works of Mary Ann Kilner of the 1780s, Adventures of a Pincushion and Memoirs of a Peg-Top, it-novels became part of children's literature.[20] One offshoot was a style of satirical children's verse made popular by Catherine Ann Dorset, based on a poem by William Roscoe, The Butterfly's Ball and The Grasshopper's Feast.[21] Quite generally, it-narrative in the 19th century is typified by an animal narrator.[22]
It has been remarked that the slave narrative genre of the 18th century avoided being confused with the it-narrative, being thought of as a type of biography.[23]
The plot of Middlemarch has been seen to be structured, initially, by a circulation; but to end in a contrasting "subject narrative".[24]
Alberto Toscano and Jeff Kinkle have argued that one popular form of hyperlink cinema, a genre of film characterized by intersecting and multilinear plots, constitutes a contemporary form of it-narrative.[25] In these films, they argue, "the narrative link is the characters' relation to the film's product of choice, whether it be guns, cocaine, oil, or Nile perch."[25]
Notes
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- ↑ Jonathan Lamb (2001), ‘Modern Metamorphoses and Disgraceful Tales’, Critical Inquiry 28:1 (2001), p.133-66, reprinted in Bill Brown (ed.), Things (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp.193-226 (p.213).
- ↑ Jingyue Wu (2017), ‘ “Nobilitas sola est atq; unica Virtus”: Spying and the Politics of Virtue in The Golden Spy; or, A Political Journal of the British Nights Entertainments (1709)’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 40:2 (2017), p.237-253 doi: 10.1111/1754-0208.12412
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- ↑ Nicholas Hudson (2005) "Social Rank, 'The Rise of the Novel,' and Whig Histories of Eighteenth-Century Fiction", Eighteenth-Century Fiction: Vol. 17: Iss. 4 (2005), at p. 587
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