The document provides an introduction to novellas, novels, and romances, defining each term and discussing their origins and key elements. It examines the historical development of the novel and identifies some of the first novels written in different languages. The document also compares the typical lengths of short stories, novellas, novels, and romances.

1. Ministry of Higher Education
Kandahar University
Faculty of Languages and Literature
Department of English
INTRODUCTION TO NOVELLA, NOVEL, AND
ROMANCE
Instructor: Teaching Assistant Rahmatullah Katawazai

2. Pre-evaluative Questions
 How do you differentiate the biography and autobiography? (Your
Reasons!)
 Have you ever tried to write your autobiography or other’s biography?
 Who are the ones impress you to write their life events?
 Are they fictional or non-fictional?
 Have you even studied a novel?
(If yes, name it! If no, you will study one during this semester!)

3. What does Novella/Novelette mean?
 A work of fiction shorter than a novel but longer than a short
story.
 A fictional tale in prose, intermediate in length and between
a short story and a novel.
 Originally a Novella was a kind of short story, a narrative in
prose genre developed by Boccaccio. His Decameron (1349)
was a collection of such stories.
 Later there appeared Tommaso Guardati’s Novellino (1467).
 In the 16th C. Bandello published a collection of 214 novella.

4. How do you think about a novel then?
Prose/Verse
[Your point of views]

5. Novel and its historical background
 A novel is a piece of prose fiction of a reasonable length.
 Not all novels are written in prose.
 There are novels in verse, like Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin or
Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate.
 There is a bit confusion between the length of a novel and short
story.
 Because of that the Andre Gide’s The Immoralist is usually
described as a novel, and Anton Ckeckov’s The Duel as a short
story, but they are both about the same length.

6.  It is a very particular genre in the field of literature; you can
find out poetry, and dramatic dialogue in the novel, along with
epic, satire, history, elegy, tragedy, comedy and any number of
other literary modes.
 It has been called the queen of literary genres.
 Most commentators agree that the novel has its roots in the
literary form we know as romance.
Cont…

7. Do you remember something about the first writers of
modern short stories?
(Who are known as first writers of this genre?)
Then…
How do you think about the first writers of novel?

8. The First Novels
 The Tale of Genji ( Japan, 11th c. ) by Lady Murasaki Shikibu
 Monkey, Water Margin, and Romance of Three Kingdoms (China, 16th c.)
 Don Quixote ( Spain, 1605-15) by Miguel de Cervantes
 The Princess of Cleves (France, 1678) by Madame de Lafayette
 Robinson Crusoe (England, 1719) , Moll Flanders (1722) and A Journal of the
Plague Year (1722) by Daniel Defoe.
 Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (England, 1740-1742) by Samuel Richardson.

9. Have you found the first novel of English?
Name that!

10. Types of Novels
 Sentimental
 Gothic
 Historical
 Psychological
 Social
 Adventure (Journey)
 Mystery
 Science Fiction
 Love

11. Which kind of novel have you studied yet?
(Historical/Love/Social)

12. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
 First European novel: part I - 1605; part II - 1615
 A psychological picture of a mid-life (Middle class)
crisis.

13. Daniel Defoe
 Master of plain prose and powerful narrative,
highly realistic
 Travel adventure: Robinson Crusoe,1719
 Contemporary chronicle: Journal of the Plague Year,1722

14. Fathers of the English Novel
Samuel Richardson
1689-1761
Henry Fielding
1707-1754

15. Gothic Novels
 Novels characterized by magic and horror.
 Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764)
 William Beckford: Vathek, An Arabian Tale (1786)
 Anne Radcliffe: 5 novels (1789-97) including The Mysteries of
Udolpho
 Widely popular genre throughout Europe and America: Charles
Brockden Brown’s Wieland (1798)
 Contemporary Gothic novelists include Anne Rice and Stephen
King.

16. Novels of Sentiment
 Novels in which the characters, and thus the readers, have a
heightened emotional response to events.
 Connected to developing Romantic movement
 Laurence Sterne (1713-1768): Tristam Shandy
 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832):The Sorrows of Young
Werther (1774)

17. Historical Novels
 Novels that reconstruct a past age, often when two
cultures are in conflict.
 Fictional characters interact with historical figures
in actual events.
 Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) is considered a well-
known historical novelist: The Waverly Novels
(1814) and Ivanhoe (1819)

18. Elements of A Novel

19. How do you think about its elements,
comparing it with a short story?

20. Suspense
 The excited anticipation of an approaching climax.
 It is particularly vital in novels, because novels are longer than
short stories, it depends to the art of the novelist that how he/she
will be able to bring the reader to the end of the novel, that is only
possible to use suspense well.

21. The Setting
 Where the story takes place is of great importance to
understanding a novel.
 The setting is where the novel takes place.
It may include historical background, and time.
 The author doesn’t always state the setting of a novel, instead
they provide details describing the location and/or time period.
 This allows a reader to paint a picture in their mind. (The use of
imagery or sensory details.)

22. Point of view
 Anyone between the events and the reader.
 1st person (I, We)
 2nd Person (You, You)
 3rd Person (He, She, They, It)

23. Symbols
 A sign that represent something.

24. Characters
 Main (Protagonist)
 Round (Antagonist)

25. Plot (definition)
 Plot is the organized pattern or sequence
of events that make up a story.
 Every plot is made up of a series of
events that are related to one another.

26. Plot Diagram
2
1
3
4
5

27. 1. Exposition
 This usually occurs at the beginning of a novel.
 Here the characters are introduced.
 We also learn about the setting of the story.
 Most importantly, we are introduced to the main conflict (main
problem), but sometimes, it may occur in the middle as well.

28. Conflict
 The dramatic struggle between two forces in a story.

29. Types of Conflict
Internal External
 A struggle that take’s place
in a character’s mind.
 Character vs. Self
 A struggle between a character
and an outside force.
Character vs. Character
Character vs. Society
Character vs. Nature

30. 2. Rising Action
 This part of the novel begins to develop the actions or
sometimes conflict(s).
 A building of interest or suspense occurs.

31. 3. Climax
 This is the turning point of the novel.
 Usually the main character and the round come face to face with a
conflict.
 The main character will change in some way.

32. 4. Falling Action
 All moveable ends of the plot are tied up.
 The conflict(s) and climax are taken care of.
 The actions are going to an end/resolution.

33. 5. Resolution
 The story comes to a reasonable ending/resolution.

34. Theme
 A theme is a main idea, moral, or message described throughout a novel.
 Themes often explore social, and universal ideas.
 There will be many themes in a novel, as novels are not only on one
single events, many events have been explored in a novel and each event
may include a theme.
 But it is vital that all the themes of any event should picture the main
them, and the title of the novel.

35. Romance
 A fictional story in verse or prose that is most of the times
romantic.
 In the 13th C. a romance was almost any sort of adventure story,
and gradually more and more romances were being written in
prose and in verse as well.
 The historical examples are; Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso
(1532), Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590), and Sir
Philip Sidney’s prose romance Arcadia (1590), Nathaniel
Hawthrone’s The Blithedale Romance (1852).

36. The length of Novella, Novel or Romance with Short story
 Short story (1000-1600-2000)
 Novella (2500-4000)
 Novels (from 20,000, as Daphnis and Chloe to 40,000 of
Chretien, 100,000 of Austen, 400,000 of Don Quixote, and over
800,000 of The Story of the Stone (2000 pages)
 Romance (Covers a very long usage of words than novels)