The Duel Novel Analysis

Chapter-I
INTRODUCTION: AMERICAN NOVEL
INTRODUCTION
The precise definition of the novel is difficult and to define it as a long narrative of prose fiction will not be satisfactory. Terry Eagleton asserts that there is no exact definition of the novel as a genre as he contends, “Not all novels are written in prose. There are novels in verse like Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin or Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate.” Meanwhile the novel cannot be recognized by the number of its pages that according to some views may grant it a reasonable length to differentiate it from the short story or any other prose writings in which Eagleton adds that “Andre Gide’s The Immoralist described as a novel and Anton Chekhov’s The Duel as a short story, but they are both about the same length” (Eagleton, 2005, p.1). Thus, the novel is a genre that resists exact definition and It should be noted also that the deep investigation of the roots of the novel will be confused as it will

Before 1800, there were discussion for the relative merits of Fielding and Smollett as well as Dickens and Thackeray and the influence of Richardson with something from Strene led to the first regular American novel The Power of Sympathy by Sarah Wentworth Morton at Boston in 1789. The eighteenth century didn’t bring only sentimental romance but there was political allegory which prepared the way for invented narratives. Humour and satire found the way to have been established. A Pretty Story (1774) by Frances Hopkinson was an allegory and it was followed by The Forestery (1792) by Jeremy Belknap who followed in his allegory a mild comic history. Both Hopkinson and Belknap couldn’t be compared to Hugh Henry Brackenridge who had much comic force with satirical point as well as the great observation .Brackenridge’s satirical novel was Modern Chivalry and it was published in various parts between 1792 and