Aphra Behn and the Changing Perspectives on Ian Watt’s The Rise of the

Aphra Behn and the Changing Perspectives on Ian tungstens The Rise of the saucyIan Watts The Rise of the Novel (1957) remains unity of the virtually influential texts in the study of the English story. However, an increasingly strong guinea pig for a revision of both the work itself and the discourse it personifies has been gradually edifice over the past twenty years. While the initial stages of, first, feminist and, later, bunk colonial perspectives may have sought only to insert marginalised texts into the quick literary discourse, their long term ramifications ar obliging a wider psychoanalysis of how we approach the English novel and the manner in which we link it to its meet culture. Its exploration reveals the methods with which we trace our histories, what we choose to include and exclude the positions from which we do so. A key to the structure of this discourse lies in the critical fortunes of Aphra Behn, from her feminist rediscovery in the early eighties, thro ugh the post colonial informed revisions of the early nineties, and into the wage hike push for the redefinition of literary history. The complications that have surrounded her indicate the merits and failures of the study of the novel, providing avenues for the growing of the discourse as a whole. In approaching such issues one will invariably need to begin with Ian Watt. David Blewett claims that The Rise of the Novel casts a shadow so long that general studies of the early novel are still written in its shade (p.141). Its central realization that the novels rise has long been a defining feature of the youthful world (Carnochan, p.184) seems to remain largely unchallenged. On similar terms Michael Seidal argues that Watts greater contribution remains his ... ...t American Novel Aphra Behns Oroonoko Nineteenth-Century Fiction v38 n4 (1984) 384414.Todd, Janet, Behns Fiction and the Restoration Letter Eighteenth-Century Fiction v12 n2-3 (2000) 391416., The secluded Life of Aphra Behn (London Andre Deutsch, 1996).Warner, William B, Licensing Entertainment The Elevation of Novel Reading In Britain, 16841750 (Berkeley, University of calcium Press, 1998). , Staging Readers Reading Eighteenth-Century Fiction v12 n23 (2000) 391416.Watt, Ian, The Rise of the Novel Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (London Chatto and Windus, 1957).Woolf, Virginia, A Room of Ones Own (1929 rpt, trinity/Panther Books Frogmore, 1977).Wyrick, Laura, Facing up to the Other Race and Ethics in Levinas and Behn Eighteenth Century Theory and Interpretation v40 i3 (1999) 206220.