Theatre and the Novel, from Behn to Fielding

Ever since Ian Watts The Rise of the novel (1957), many critics have argued that a constitutive element of the early novel is its embrace of realism. Anne F. Widmayer contends, however, that Restoration and early eighteenth-century prose narratives employ techniques that distance the reading audience from an illusion of reality; irony, hypocrisy, and characters who are knowingly acting for an audience are privileged, highlighting the artificial and false in fictional works. Focusing on the works of four celebrated playwright-novelists, Widmayer explores how the increased interiority of their prose characters is ridiculed by the use of techniques drawn from the theatre to throw into doubt the novels ability to portray an unmediated reality. Aphra Behns dramatic techniques question the reliability of female narrators, while Delarivier Manley undermines the impact of womens passionate anger by suggesting the self-consciousness of their performances. In his later drama, William Congreve subverts the character of the apparently objective critic that is recurrent in his prose work, whilst Henry Fielding uses the figure of the satirical writer in his rehearsal plays to mock the novelists aspiration to control the way a reader reads the text. Through analysing how these writers satirize the reading publics desire for clear distinctions between truth and illusion, Anne F. Widmayer also highlights the equally fluid boundaries between prose fiction and drama.