A Social History of Fact und Fiction: Auchorial Disavowal in the Early English Novel {Bs of ssh oe of he cee and ey iC qt ny eh a tk hn he co INE te aber wer pel he Se ‘ana ltt, Atenely ate deo ‘itn comer homily tein ey sow 20 1 Soca Motor of Fit nd Fietion wa nan poet nigh have been in finding i dase to opsiy {Sinks pine for ts work tn bork thee enlnaton ators fee sen hoowngl ing p minor decent {Hewes in advance pint mel condensation, The we of thoi donvowa thn ten ceca fr coring is {found monly shin the ene manner ns sbced poe Sen lca Jo egy whan ey sual repeat such hero rothebe ny sity” ora fro etn eee See Soe hens “A's pera obvious, sch atempts 10 atcoune fr autora inva te nui or incomplete such were ing ‘o mothe pun sneion ae wring fon, ible tte wae the bent of yng aor the ke of work Wouls hove been, Eoenilyselgous men, like Doe and Echadon, would by lying only sompoond che sis hadiy foking anyone, lent ofall God. Defoe spctiely condos yma af a sors in Serious Roflcion ef Robison Crsoe 2 pormudy cass sthrs wn makeup sos bt "vouch thee ory wich are toc thaw her and vouch lo ha they new thepsons ho were conered nf" Hon the itis had to baie nt a0 many svt cull fave been orale Doe for example oe known fo is umn xhereses fev wel 1 hve gen forth knd of lace OF Rscdon, fll pie ad pono cannar be gid fave shite hil onde te eps oer merely to re seve te appa sa he scm te awe soured so sen anys “Rothe way of acouning fr shor dsvowal has been to sce the deve aan of ng noes appear oe reds According ro sho vew, wir oe oles Sibel nee thetic” town Wayne Booths em? betwen hence, fod thar novel by npljng sate arate bat» legate tstonomy of + om, ie suchor being metly te edie of ‘cher band, authors were being conventionally hubre esta | ave manuscript tru, This technique ix chen seen a simply another levies the eatly novi’ ropertote to aevieve what lan Was, hs ealled "formal ream." So writers wo wane to achiee chi fovmal reaiom need ony maiesin that thee work tue lk in reat deta about the vaney of objets chat ae part of dy fe 1nd inroduce Inlfe characters into theie work, Although this tempt to explain author distal sperbapr the mest peruss: ‘ve by ete of otfession on the grounds of formal talsm, ie salon explanation cae i nearyplete instar asi atempt 0 explain only the spltie effect of diesowal-not the ong, righficance, of ven necsity of sucha dence. The more presing concent is why » wrge should have eared to make his rate ‘move realistic the fist place. Geen the or of he words realistic tr reolor bags #3e uestinn by implying cha there wae sealable te particular aiers ring he severeaenth century the eoneept of reslum that they might fely choose to adopt, In fat, aceordng tothe Oxfod English Dictionary, the ward realiam fel was not sein English unt the mi-ningreesh centary, and ere wat no parallel word to desetbe the concep of eal before that time Felling’ ose of the tem “cone opiepoer im prose” hardly scans sandy subsite Te poule chat a concept of teal Nerkiniitudinous narrative existed. without the specie noir Clare, However at 1 hope to detmonsrate daring the seventeenth sod eighteenth cemaras there seems ro have baen mich conforion Above the nate ofthat narrative dicouse that we have comet fall “sea.” The importante ive for English culare at that tine seers t2ave been not simaly how ro he move rit, oF ten how to achiove formal reali, but whether it was posible tonite fetions at al without minting tha they weve fact (One further paint about the nocion that sutkoral duavowal rmerely serves to heighten eeasm can be made: since the ute of this technique was so widespread the beginning of che eighteenth fentury, it should be clear tat ie effect om the ceading public furely would have become lessened by overate The wonder fchat A Soc Hoy of Fata ton na Samuel Richardson, in his original preface to Pamela nthe mid tiphtcenthcentry, should have wie once again, the device shat had been wed by Apliea Behn some seventy years before. 1 he zim of distancing an author From bis work create heightened fealism, the techraque could only have worked if mos readers had 2 dalled if not retatded sense of obseration afer sexing the sme ‘device for so many years. Mote likly, i seems that readers would have attained a kind of perceptual fatigue over some three poner tons and could no longer be expected to Beiove that varrtver begining wit suthoral dimvowal were augomatiily more redltie Indeed, as Hatry Levin has nated, “Picton approizmates, twuth, nr by concealing ae but by exposing aratice™ That i resi is based not on te extended and comtinned use of # Particular canvention a nthe ease of author dishvowa, but the continual rejeeion of earlerarcepted conventions Indo by the year 1727, Maty Davys noted inher book The Accomplished Rake or Moder Fine Gevtlemarthae probably egned stories thar is novee that "pretend to write ese stories but that “se themzles che vmast bert of feigning,” Rave been “for some time out of use and faion."* Dave's opinion, while se ‘hae premature én its announcement of the rerement oF he novel all indistes that at lene some readers daring the fist ester of che eighteen eonvaty Found the reckngoe of ara lweowal rather bie ted and pled ove he was the exe then the ples of formal realo cannot be made forthe novels halt of claiming that their works wore not Besos T would sagen here that to understand the pllonoownon oF suthoral diswowal we need eo go beyond the iden that it use ‘nly conventional. if auchrial disavow! is convention, we need to ask forher what the signifianee of tha eonsenion is. Wht rmyths dots it uphold? And what myths are upheld by In eis Sense we need to creat literary conventions withthe care that Roland Barthes has studied papular conventions with in Myth {Hes oF the way Michel Foucault as explored the manner i whichwes Lear J. Dai political domination manifests elf in even che minor conventions and tual of isetutional fe and though. In effec, we nee so look ar authori dsevowal as something more than + neue abst ‘or personal ic of novelists, and to consider this phenomenon a8. sigficane and historically particle sgn of a tansformation ia the dteourse of racrative, In ling shi, the fst face thar mast tik ws as crucial ita cxely noel, by denying the feitous quainy oftheir work are openly chiming to be pare of one dicowne (eo use Foveslr’s ‘exm)=that of history of journalsen—rather han that of ano fevion, The fc is that novelists ofthe sevens and ighecnth entries were, for the most part, mote closely elated in eit work co the journalistic discourse than to any ter. Elica Hay. wood was s journalist; Defoe and Fielding both wrote for and ‘ited vatious newspapess: Richardson printed newspapers: Apa Behn was, too, a writer of political sr well x Iterary pecs, and Bunyan was a pamphleter: Swift was deeply involved wih pli cal writing and journalism. What ie iking ha all hese authors ‘moved betwesn fact and Betton with a freedom not afforded to most novels of the swenteth century, We may expeet our novelists to write eecasond pers forthe New York Ties Su hay Mapesine, or, asin he ease of Norman Males, to wt our tam of a sort, bur these novelists serve the Function of irkouse Ttrary backbenchers and seldom if ever seport or investigate news, We do nor expect to see the byline ofa novelist ara nes writer in every ise of a newspaper the way 1 reader of she eipieanth eenrury might well have expected to cead Defoe in very issue of the Beview oF Mr, Haywood inthe Female Spect, for. These wiers of the eightesoth cenery seem to have been Journals fst and novelists second, as was Defoe, whe didnot {Embark om hs fas novel une he was snes, This connection between fetion and journalism has, it urn out, 4 considerable prehistory. Even the fice that novelists equcnly claimed their works were tae can be seen asa patil cary-ovet A Sec itary of ac ad iton Bs ‘rom jor: News balds and emly nembooks ofthese teem anderen cete could ston alway be expec to contain somewhere the mecion thatthe eve they rented twas tue and ots Beton One comoorly red henlnes Beha “ira and en new ing of blood and bimsone which Gd bch cased corn fiom Heaven” oy “Tae ye Destin ts Monsters Child Born in"The He of Wighe Frequently, too, new wosd be rogatred wih the Sato Company a5 Iaving been sworn to bere by ajc This overncees 3 0 the thee of now sear to have bona fes aging te ccrmonlyaccepeed notion daring he sxeenth and seencenth lire thas och pws ws snply fibre. Juste were fren depicted an “iyi sos” fing nabolsneyfoe ftewe by publching "eiopering mutes. and Sore ppt ‘onc Reus ul en the seventh cong anys Carve wth the apifton html so cons Son ofthe lover case, Hens, nspoper eqpeniy bore sh Skfonive sbi oth one sich vo Morenita whch prodhied tlt “Londo Iteligencer or rah partly ve Tec fom thence tte mie Ringo to prevent informe fon"! Thr oun sero tha newsppers wos ot in les but were peeing the ach sere vo ave continued on nt teen aoe TE both the novel andthe jaurnalt (who, as we hve sen, were frequently th se) were ipeled to nt on oh asa $y of ther wring during the seventeenth eeuy spoils {> pone toa etn enolgeal inert nthe eregonee thet andevonn Engl arate thi psiod The ey Heres oni precy been one i contonted po snp sith 3 Journ ora bopephersstng these ae af hi o er ‘ory ave er Racor what sus usual th te etence, cn veracity in thas Cte i ade dung a tne when thre was te wanda waco dacouse nthe rein of tari, Tit {S ny. nema form ad become the osm of hat we mig